The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 5: Immersive Fitness Experiences through Technology
This episode showcases how technology has transformed the running experience into an engaging and exciting journey. We explore the role of gadgets, wearables, and community platforms in fostering motivation, improving performance, and making indoor running enjoyable.
• Understanding the impact of gadgets and gamification on fitness
• Tips for creating an enjoyable treadmill experience
• Advantages of platforms like Strava for community engagement
• The importance of wearables in tracking performance and recovery
• Innovations in running shoes and their influence on performance
Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring our stride, and today we are going to kind of focus back on fitness. We're going to talk about gadgets and gamification and wearables and applications and all the different things that we use. Obviously, when you do something every day, which all of us have for this year, things can get stale. Right, we've talked about community being a big part of that, but there's so many other cool things out there that people have developed, and we thought it would be a good idea to share some of the stuff that we're using and how it's impacting us, and TJ is going to be the expert in this area. He is our gadget, our guy that spends a lot of time researching things, and we buy a lot of the stuff that he recommends. So why don't you kick us off and pick a place to start? I don't know which area you'd like to start in, but I'm going to turn it over to you.
Speaker 2:Sure, I think a cool area to start is let's start, because we're in the middle of winter, let's start around running indoors. So one of the things we're surrounded by people. I actually have a couple of really good friends. One of my best friends has a oh my goodness, 10-year no treadmill streak and for a lot of people that's you know, they may be daunted if they're around someone like that who runs outside all the time.
Speaker 2:And we talked a little bit earlier about not being an early person and I've always, you know, I've always looked at it like I need at least one or two things to be at my favor. If I'm going to get up in the morning, it has to like, in the summer, at least it's warm out. If it's pitch black and it's 430 in the morning, at least it's warm out. If it's pitch black and it's 4.30 in the morning, at least it's warm right. In the winter, there has to be something there for me. So normally like, okay, it's freezing cold, but at least you know I'm starting at 7 am when the sun's about to come up, or something like that. But for a lot of people that's just not something they enjoy. So it's important to find your ultimate treadmill setup and I see we mentioned in the first episode the application Strava, and we can jump in and dive into Strava a little bit later in depth. But one thing Strava allows you to do is kind of share your reaction to the activity you just completed.
Speaker 2:And more often than not when somebody has to run on a treadmill you see a throw up sign next to it oh, tread four miles. You know, it got so bad for me that I was going online and I found a guy by the name of Hussain Abdallah. If you don't know who Hussain Abdallah is, he just finished third or fourth in the nation in division one cross country and I was so stressed that I wasn't getting. Everybody had such a negative connotation towards treadmills that I thought me doing my work on a treadmill was hindering my fitness.
Speaker 2:And I went and searched and I found this video on YouTube and it was a video of him training on a treadmill, saying, hey, you can get the same effect running on a treadmill that you can. And then you've started to see that you can running outside and you started to see that most elite athletes in the world Jakob Ingebrigtsen is a name that comes to mind he is probably, without a doubt, the most gifted endurance runner in the world at this point in time, and he spends a ton of his time on a treadmill. But so many people get so bored so quickly they get pulled into just staring at the numbers on the display. Um, people used to get by that by throwing a towel over the top of it. Now there are so many other ways that you can configure your treadmill experience to really, um cater towards what you enjoy doing.
Speaker 1:Does that have a is the type of treadmill or, um, are they using a treadmill because they're trying to to be easier on their bodies? Like, what's the talk about? Both those?
Speaker 2:Sure, so I think there are two pieces to the puzzle with that.
Speaker 1:I think for them.
Speaker 2:The two things are convenience you know he's in Norway so it gets cold and it's super convenient to be on a treadmill. It is easier on your body and, with the training approach that a lot of people have, it's an effort you can control. Now, will the inside pace and effort match the outside pace and effort? Maybe not always Six minutes For some people. I have a good friend on her treadmill. She feels that her efforts on her treadmill are harder than outside. I think not the treadmill that I have now, but the one you had prior to that you felt like the treadmill efforts were harder than they were outside. So then that may not always translate equally, but it is going to be easier on your legs.
Speaker 2:Um, because you're not pounding on and most treadmills nowadays curate their surface in a way that it is a little bit more flexible Some more than others, if you've ever been to again an orange theory, fitness we talked about this at the beginning. You want to talk about a flexible deck. Those are extraordinarily flexible. Most home treadmills aren't that flexible, but they do provide those advantages. So, controlled effort, easier on the joints and convenience those are three big ones.
Speaker 2:But back to curating your experience on your treadmill and what you enjoy doing. If you're somebody who likes to do a lot of their easy mileage on a treadmill, set up a TV. Now, some people can't do that. They feel like watching a TV show. They're too far into whatever zone of endurance they're into to really enjoy what they're watching. It almost seems like you're fighting a battle.
Speaker 2:What I found worked for me was I subscribed to a service back in the day I've since curated this off of YouTube, but back in the day called Quello and it was live concerts. I could watch concerts all day long. It does, it's mindless, you know, but you watch your favorite band up there and you're getting the, the excitement you get while out on a run outdoors listening to that on your headphones. Well, now you're watching it and I, and then over time, um, have added some other components to that on your headphones. Well, now you're watching it, and then, over time, have added some other components to that. We can talk about some of those later, like Zwift and some of the other testing elements. But really spending time being intentional and curating your experience so that it is enjoyable can really help you get through this time of year, that late December, january, february timeframe if you do it the right way.
Speaker 1:So if you have somebody that just doesn't like to run on a treadmill or wants an experience of being outside when you look at treadmills, so asking for advice here I don't know how many you've tried and different things and, todd, maybe you jump in. I know you have the Peloton Tread Plus. Talk to me about the type of treadmill and what type of services or things you should look for in a treadmill.
Speaker 2:I think, to start with me, and then we can pass it to Todd. If you're on a budget, there are treadmills out there that are less than a thousand dollars. Horizon is a company I'm actually on Horizon 7.4 AT, I think, right now, which is a little more expensive, but I also run a hundred K a week and in this time of year, three of those or four of those runs so 30 to 40 miles a week are inside on my treadmill. So I need something that's a little bit more resilient. But I spent gosh, a decade running on a treadmill from like Sears, which doesn't even exist anymore for all intents and purposes. Um, it was a pro form treadmill that I bought for $500 back in the day for Christmas in 2012, I think and that worked for me for yeah, again really close to a decade. So you buy a $400, $500, $600, $800 treadmill.
Speaker 2:Zwift is something I mentioned earlier that absolutely gamifies it. So Zwift is a virtual platform that was originally developed for cycling, but you can use. It works on Apple TV, so you can set a TV up in front of your treadmill and, again, go buy a TV at your local Walmart for $200 for a 55 inch flat screen and whatever. Get an Apple TV, it works on an iPad. If you just want to set an iPad on the display, you can do it on your phone, but essentially what it does is whether it be the treadmill itself and the ones that I just mentioned, the Horizon ones connected directly to Zwift through Bluetooth, or you can get a foot pod or you can use there's a couple other methods we can talk about later but they connect to Zwift and it loads you into a virtual environment and you can watch your avatar running on different courses across the world. There's a course that Zwift has curated called Watopia, which is not a real place, but you can see other runners and you can try to pursue them and you can see all your stats visualized what's my pace, what's my heart rate, what's my cadence if you have a foot pod connected. So it's much more immersive.
Speaker 2:Now it's not um an environment that's photorealistic, but it's definitely more engaging, and especially since they've added things like they have a track now that you can run on and that that's cool, because that is Zwift. Is is again, if you're a runner in Zwift, you're in the minority. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people use it for cycling, for running, not a ton of people, but when you jump on the track, even if there's five people, there's still something to chase. You know, even if somebody's running 10 minute miles, you can make it your goal to lap them a couple of a number of times during an interval. But that's another thing. So a cheap treadmill setup, like you get a TV down there, you implement Zwift or you implement your music videos or you implement watching like that, that right there, figuring that out over a couple of weeks, you know that's a great entry level and then you can talk about, kind of the next step up I would just say, from a treadmill perspective, it does certainly matter what you're looking to do with it.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people might be looking to do walk runs or incline walks or that sort of thing, and I think, as tj said, there are plenty of very affordable treadmills out there now if you're getting into intervals still a lot of very affordable treadmills now, depending on what kind of speed you're running those intervals at and how often you're doing like if you're running those intervals north of 10 miles per hour and or you're going to be putting on some heavier hills, inclines, some treadmills have incline limitations. So I think the first question is what are you looking for it to do? And, um, that is a is a big factor in terms of what you might want to invest in. Certain treadmills have Bluetooth connectivity If you do want to connect it to headphones or certain experiences and things. I would say for me I do have the Peloton, and the Peloton instructors in those classes are super engaging and they mix it up and there's different classes. You can join live classes. I generally do most of mine on demand, like after the fact, just recorded classes. It keeps track of what ranking you are, either at that time or all time that's completed. That class, it's kind of fun. Can you get in the top X percent of all the runners who have done this?
Speaker 1:Again, gamification, admittedly, probably feeding the ego a little bit. Take what you can get, um, I would say yeah, I would say that that's huge for me. Um, even if you don't want to watch TV, I've got a playlist on Amazon music that when I'm doing a workout, a hard workout, it's kind of like a marathon playlist sort of thing, where I've got to dial myself up and need some of that external motivation or or uh, energy, um, motivation or energy, I will put that on, kind of like watching a concert. In a sense, that's a big lever for me. I will say, if I'm doing easy runs, that's where I can do audio books or podcasts or even have a conversation or things. So, depending on what you're doing, I think there's different things that work better than others. Again, easy workouts where I'm not expending a lot of energy or whatever, I have a little more mental capacity to engage in the content. And then I will say we've talked about this in one of the earlier episodes but some of the boutique fitness going into a place like an Orange Theory Fitness and being a part of a community. That in and of itself is motivating, energizing, and they do a great job of gamification.
Speaker 1:So one of the things they do at Orange Theory is they track where your heart rate is. You've got a green zone. Well, you've got a gray and a blue zone, which are kind of your warm-up zones. You've got a green zone, which is your base zone. Then you've got a yellow zone, which is your push zone, and then a red zone which is kind of your all out zone. So they track your, your points in each of these zones and so you're competing with yourself to try and get a number of points.
Speaker 1:And I was looking you know it's fun to look back at the all time statistics, or even you know your statistics for the year things, how many they call them splat points that you've gotten, and even just in the class, kind of seeing how hard you're working.
Speaker 1:It's a as a measure of accountability. There are some days where you feel really good and you can push it, and there are others where you feel like you're exerting a lot of energy but you're still in the green and you push yourself a little bit because you know what your heart rate's capable of. So I would say those are some of the primary levers that I've used. But to go back to the treadmill and I would say for Peloton, you don't have to have a Peloton treadmill to participate in the Peloton classes. You can do that on any treadmill with an iPad. I believe there is a subscription that's associated with that, depending on how many times a week you're doing it, you know, may or may not be worth it, and maybe there's someone else in the household that you can share a subscription with, sometimes just to alleviate cost purposes. But those are some of the ways I get through the winter. I'm one who hates running out in the cold. I absolutely hate it. So I do a lot of my work indoors, for sure.
Speaker 2:I think to wrap up the treadmill discussion I think there's a couple more. You mentioned some really important elements as it relates to the different types of treadmills. So you know, if you're somebody who's looking to explore a lot of incline work, NordicTrack makes some phenomenal, high-end work or high-elevation-capable treadmills where you can get, I think, north of 20, 25, 30% incline. So if you're somebody who likes to hike and likes to climb, nordictrack is a good solution there. And then I think you know from an upper end, wahoo has just released a treadmill that is phenomenal and you want to talk about something that is very akin to an outdoor experience.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that treadmills over the years have not evolved on is the engineering around their motors. So if you wanted a treadmill to go faster, typically your max on most treadmills is going to be 12 miles an hour, but if you wanted it to go faster, you just added a higher horsepower motor. Wahoo went and re-engineered the entire thing. So in their motor I believe they're up to 15 miles an hour thing. So in their motor I believe they're up to 15 miles an hour. And then not only that, if you connect it to something like Zwift, there is the ability for the treadmill itself to adjust based on the terrain. You're running in the virtual environment. So if you're coming around a curve, the treadmill will actually tilt and rise in parallel with that experience on the road. So you can really recreate it. And another good thing about a lot of these applications again with Zwift is you can also program your workouts and intervals. So on screen you can see okay, right here I need to set the treadmill to 10 miles an hour and I'm going to do it for three minutes and it's going to tell you when to set it. When to set it down, it can automatically adjust the incline.
Speaker 2:What they've done with that particular treadmill In that engineering redesign. One of the things that's always a struggle if you're running especially short intervals is how long does it take for the treadmill to get to speed? How long does it take for the treadmill to drop back? With this particular treadmill it's almost instantaneous.
Speaker 2:And they have also implemented something called free run on this particular treadmill where, based on where you are physically on the tread itself front, middle or back it adjusts how fast the treadmill is moving. So if you're staying steady, it's at whatever pace you've set it at. If you want it to go faster, you get up towards the front of it. If you want to slow down, like if you're just finishing an interval, you get towards the back of the treadmill and it automatically slows down. So once you've figured out how to navigate that movement, you're not slamming buttons up and down trying to get your intervals right. And then at the very top end of the treadmill world is woodway. If you're looking to pass something on to your children, I think woodways are expected to have 100,000-mile lifetimes, but they're also $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 treadmills.
Speaker 1:Like a grand piano.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's kind of your soup to nuts of an indoor treadmill experience.
Speaker 1:Well, I can say I'm one of those that doesn't love to run indoors never have been, I'd rather be in the cold and the dark as long as I had a buddy with me, and Zwift was one of the applications that single-handedly got me through one of those winters. I think we even actually ran together. We did. We figured out how to find each other inside the application and then set our treadmills. I think we were on the telephone too, so we could communicate but set our treads at the same speed and we're able to actually run the same terrain together. So do you guys know, is Zwift? Is that a one? I know I bought a little like a reader device, but I can't remember if that's a subscription base or not.
Speaker 2:The device isn't a subscription base. I think Zwift does have some type of subscription. I know the device you're talking about. It goes on the very back of your treadmill. You can buy it actually off of their website.
Speaker 1:I think it's made by north pole okay um, and it just uses infrared sensors but it's probably one of those two, three, four dollar a month things it's oh yeah, it's not like peloton which is probably more in your 30, and that thing you're talking about is less than 100, so you buy a treadmill for 600 bucks.
Speaker 2:You throw that on the back and all of a sudden you're good and that's with no bluetooth capability on your treadmill and, frankly, people are getting rid of treadmills for free all the time. Yeah, you look on any facebook marketplace. Just come pick it up, get it out of my house, I don't care and most, more often than not, unless it's a walking treadmill, those will suffice.
Speaker 2:you may need to learn how to adjust the tension of the belt. You may need to lube the belt, but even if you have to replace a belt there, it's only a couple hundred dollars, so that's another way to go about finding something. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we've talked about the treadmill and some of the things that you would use or the ways to set those up or some of the best ones. Talk to us about some of the those up or some of the best ones. Talk to us about some of the other applications or some of the other gadgets that you swear by and that either one of you use on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:I think the big one we have to talk about. I think we can all talk about this because we've all had experiences Strava I would go as far as to say it's probably the most positive social media platform out there and I think it is absolutely a social media platform. I don't think you can sell it short. I don't think it's half-stepping.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people that I know that that's their only form of engagement over social media is through Strava, obviously, and they know who they are. You can tell who they are because they're extremely active on the platform, commenting and kudos and everything, because all of that social energy goes into Strava. But you know, for anybody out there that's looking for a community, that's looking for motivation, you know, however you find it, that's the perfect platform to start. There's so many features and benefits built into Strava. I mean we could talk for two hours on just its benefits, but instead of me going deep into those elements and it can kind of flow back to me you've both had a lot of engagement with that platform. I'd love to hear from either of you your favorite things about it or even some of the things you don't like about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll jump in. I was on Strava when I first started cycling I think before I did. I got into it from from a running standpoint, but probably one of the most positive platforms there are. I mean you could join groups. Everyone is, you know, really. I think that's one thing I love about the running community. Even at the high school level, it's like everyone wants to just beat their best, right. It's just a very encouraging sport in general. So a lot of the times you're using it for motivation and when you see other people's runs it's even more like there's. You know, one of our good friends had his PR on the marathon and it was just like to see them get out there and get after it. It gets you motivated to get out there and get after it.
Speaker 1:But the ability to like and comment, the ability to add pictures and capture special moments or certain sceneries I normally don't have my phone with me, but occasionally I'll do. I've used that feature. And then I like the ability to join challenges, right. So they have these monthly challenges that are sponsored by generally pretty large brands. It's like join the Brooks 5K, run a 5K in November, right, and you join all these challenges and then sometimes you get discount coupons and other things, but it's just done a really good job and then, from the overall, it does a great recap at the end of the year. It keeps all your stats, mileage, vertical fee and things like that.
Speaker 1:So it's a pretty all-inclusive platform. That um from if you're calling it social media, it doesn't have a lot of the uh negativity that kind of goes on. It's very positive. It's very encouraging and very, very easy to use. Frankly, yeah, and it syncs yeah, it is very easy to use it syncs. You don't have to upload anything, it just automatically works with watches and things which maybe we can hit on next, um, I would say for me uh, yeah, you guys hit on a lot of this. What's cool about it is it's a bunch of like-minded people who have that specific thing, so you don't feel like you're bragging when you post your runs, just like. Again, it's automatically synced and it uploads where. If you were to upload your runs to facebook or something, everyone would be like oh look at you, you think you're better than everybody else, or whatever that happens to be. I think it's a safe space, honestly to kind of share what you're doing from a fitness perspective. So I really appreciated that. I mean you hit on some of the features that I would call out too.
Speaker 1:I think the challenges are fun, keeps it competitive. There's certainly we've talked a lot about the competitiveness and in a sense, you are surrounding yourself with those people in a certain way. You see other people doing things. If you're more competitive, there are things called segments, where it's crowns that you can go out and run this part of the road, try and run it as fast as you possibly can and see how you stack up to others who have run it fast. You could be competing against them. You could be competing against yourself in prior time. So that's a really fun element of the platform. Yeah, I think just overall, it's a. It's a positive place to celebrate fitness, um with, with like-minded individuals yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, and you know for my input to add a little bit more. I do really like the segment aspect of it. I don't do as much of it anymore, but to kind of drill down on exactly how that works, because it is kind of fun. So imagine you have a neighborhood and you run in your neighborhood, you run this circle right, you have a half mile loop around your neighborhood and you just run it over and over and over again. And we have a friend in Marion who does this.
Speaker 1:Shout out.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, and you want to see if anybody has ever run that part of the road faster than you, provided they have the platform. So you go out and you run your half mile loop and then you can go in the app Once that's complete. You go to that run and you create a segment, and you create a start and an end point on that loop and it will go back historically and find anybody who's ever uploaded to Strava, who's run that particular part of the road, and you can see how you stack up, which is really cool. And then, of course, once the segment's established, you can then go in the app and browse different segments and be like, oh, I've run that or I run that area, they've run that fast. Oh, I think I can beat them. And then, of course, like you would, it does segment it by gender and it segments it by age and it segments it by weight. So you have those three different things. And then there's also something called local legends, which is cool because it doesn't take speed into it at all. It's just how much you've run a segment over the last 90 days. So that's something that people can compete with and have fun. But you did talk about syncing and for that to work.
Speaker 2:Of course, with all of these apps Strava, mapmyrun, runna, there's Nike Plus you can track your runs using your phone. None of us run with our phones, typically because that's our time to kind of get away from the noise and the chaos, and we're experienced enough at this point that it's not something that we feel necessary to carry. I think females, especially if they run early at morning, late at night, they'll run with their phones at all time, and I completely understand why they would do that. And I think it's especially if they run early at morning, late at night, they'll run with their phones at all time, and I completely understand why they would do that and I think it's a good idea, especially having a 10-year-old daughter and a wife who's going to get back into running soon. But anyways, I think one of the big things there is watches, so that's the other way you can track these runs If you're not using your phone.
Speaker 2:In your app you have a watch and there's a couple of different brands or brands that have made their names in the watch space over the years. Some have started out in the hardware game and faded. So you know Garmin has always been a player. Polar was a big player early on. Nike actually played in the hardware space for a little bit, and even Motorola with the Moto Active back in 2011, something to that effect and then, as things have evolved, nike's gotten out of the hardware game. Motorola only had one device.
Speaker 2:Garmin has continued to innovate. Polar has has stayed in the space, but isn't necessarily dominant. They're probably third or fourth right now. And then you have Suunto, who had a peak probably third or fourth right now. And then you have Suunto, who had a peak six or seven years ago and I don't think has put as much time and effort into that part of their business. And then Coros has probably moved definitively into the number two spot, with Garmin leading the way in terms of wearable devices. Now we can get real detailed on these devices and what their capabilities are and how you can use them. I don't know. You know both of you guys have Garmin watches. I don't know if you want to expound on your experiences with them or you want me to dive in open to whatever.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to kind of I think the watch depends on what you're doing, right? I think we've all talked about that. There are ones that I would probably recommend as entry level, like the 235, the 225. There's certain ones, like for kids, I think there's the 40 or something.
Speaker 2:They have a new one out that's specifically for kids. I can't remember. The thing is, though, it uses the Garmin kids app. Okay, so like that data. I don't believe transfers. So if you have this, this kid's watch, when you're seven, eight, nine, 10, and then you decide to switch to the, it doesn't mesh, doesn't mesh.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think, like when I used to have, I think, a two 35 and it did everything I wanted to at the time. And then the 945 came out the Garmin 945, and that had music. Now, I could sync my Spotify playlist and so I'd have my watch and I have my headphones, which is another one we want to cover. I had my headphones and I could sync it to my watch and then I could literally play songs from my watch, which was awesome, uh, and so I used the nine 45 for a while. That was one of the first features.
Speaker 1:And then I got into the Phoenix series, which I would say is probably their Cadillac, their flagship model, and that's probably. It does everything from you know, deep diving and aviation and you know, um, but it's a, it's a thousand dollar watch, yeah, right. So, um, all the garmin products are very reliable. I mean, we all I run with people that have garmin's that are from all different phases and all different ages, and we always end up within half a tenth of each other for the most part, even over a six, seven, eight, eight mile stretch. So, uh, they're all pretty good.
Speaker 1:I think some of the, the nicer ones, maybe catch a little quicker from a GPS standpoint. But depending on whether you want music when you run or podcasts that you want to be able to actually load on your watch, battery life could be something that's important. Again, I think the Phoenix will last a week or more, where some of the other watches will maybe last a couple of days. So battery life functionality but really any of the Garmin lineup can, if you're just want to record runs and sync to Strava just to kind of track progress right, cause that's the gamification, it's how am I doing, am I making incremental progress, and so forth, and so on. I don't think you can really go wrong.
Speaker 2:I think, one thing that I want to. I forgot to mention a company, and you've had experience here, so I want to take it and twist it Apple. Obviously, apple came into the game, started implementing in collaboration with Nike Early on. They've since released a couple of watches that are a little bit more fitness focused, with the Ultra and the Ultra 2. I know you haven't worn the Ultra stuff, but there for a while you were. You experienced both sides of things. So you know, I think there are positives and negatives to both, and I'd love to hear that assessment from you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say, you know Apple was great and if you have an Apple watch, that worked very, very well. Also, I think you know, from a precision perspective and when I say precision we're talking about a hundredth give or take in a mile, which seems a little bit ridiculous. That's where I found a little more reliability in the Garmin. But for 99% of use cases out there, the Apple is very sufficient. I would say the Apple is as much similarly reliable and, as Apple is just in general very good with experience, that's kind of a usually very intuitive experience. Some of the things that I found there were things that connected with the Apple Watch that I could use that were even a little easier to do than Garmin, like, for example, intervals. You kind of do more live versus having to like pre-program it into the watch.
Speaker 1:Um, so you know, I've gone back to the Garmin since having the Apple watch on, but I also, um, you know, I think what's what's interesting is they both kind of converged over time. Uh, you know, for for a while your, your Garmin watch was you only had that available in a very sporty kind of look and it was, you know, more functional based, and I think you had your Apple, which was experience based and had some function with it. I think Apple has done a great job kind of closing the gap on the functionality side, and I think Garmin has actually done a really good job on the fashion and experience side. I think it's the Garmin Venue maybe that's one of their new ones that looks very much like a watch, a nicer watch that you would wear, but has all the same capabilities. So I think Apple is also a real player.
Speaker 2:I think one of the big things talking about wearables in general a real player. I think one of the big things you know talking about wearables in general that everybody's adopted is measuring your health overall right and all of these different bodily metrics. You know, one of the things that Garmin does to differentiate their watches. A lot of these watches, like you've seen with Apple phones, are very incremental from a hardware perspective. They're just changing little things, like from the Garmin Fenix 7 to the 8, there was a screen change that went from the traditional MIPS display to an OLED display, but the big change was the heart rate sensor, the optical heart rate sensor that you wear on your wrist. There has been a lot of discussion, especially early on.
Speaker 2:With heart rate sensors the inaccuracy could be wild. Whether this is years ago, whether it was Apple or Garmin, it has gotten better. You know I used to wear a heart rate strap exclusively with this particular watch. I haven't over the last couple of months. But one of the main reasons for them wanting to improve the accuracy of the heart rate sensor is they want to measure all of these things. Now that does require you wear your watch 24 seven with with Garmin. That's great If you're not running every day.
Speaker 2:If you're running every day, you'll get about a week, especially if you're using music here and there. If you're not, you can get a month where with Apple even with the Ultra 2, you might get two days. So you're recharging it constantly but you have to wear this to sleep. Garmin has features like body battery and I think most of these, the top-end watches, have all of that feature set. Like you said, with some of the entry-level Garmin stuff, it's going to track your run. It might allow you to do simplified intervals where they're very fixed. You can do 400 repeats or thousand meter repeats, but you can't do like 400. You can't do a ladder two, four, six, eight, 10. Um, they're not necessarily programmable. They don't have music, but anyways, back to it.
Speaker 2:They want to measure your resting heart rate at night. They want to measure your heart rate variability, which is a measurement of how recovered you are. They want to measure your O2 saturation to make sure that your oxygen levels are at the right level. They want to measure that to be able to deliver you predictions on your readiness for that particular day. How ready are you to take on a particular type of workout? What is the strenuousness level of that particular workout for the day? Does it align with where you are physiologically? And then, once you've executed against the workout, taking into account all of these measurements, after the workout, how quickly are you recovering? When can you hit the next one? So this is all interwoven into this, like, ultimately, what will be AI powered prediction for what you should do to achieve the goals that you kind of input in there?
Speaker 1:Imagine, for a lot of people that can be very overwhelming Talk about. I think those of us who have done it for a long time have our kind of opinions on the importance of a lot of that and or the accuracy of that. So maybe talk that through with some people who might be overwhelmed by all of the things that they're getting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that they try to make it as simple as possible and it's not necessarily they try to just give you a score. I think what we found, what I found is that, while these might not be extremely accurate so example being, if you have a particular HRV, first of all that's a. That is a really interesting metric in and of itself, because your HRV average is way different from your HRV peak and it just varies so drastically from person to person that you can't necessarily, you know, just because I'm 45, a 45 year old male that weighs 160 pounds, and this guy's a 40, you know, and we're the same level of fitness our HRVs could be wildly different.
Speaker 1:There's a genetic element to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely, and you don't want to go Google and say, oh, my HRV is 65. And it's like, oh, it should be 118. Just so you know, hrv is a measure of the variability between the beats of your heart, so it's measured in milliseconds, and the more recovered you are, the higher that variability should be.
Speaker 1:Isn't it somewhat of a? Explain this a little bit. My understanding is there's a little bit of a measure of that as kind of your reaction time in a sense to like. Is that like, if your?
Speaker 2:body's fatigued, it's not going to be able to appropriately react from a heart pumping perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, your, your energy is focused on rebuilding the, the, the damaged muscle cells or whatever, versus when you are recovered, your, your body is. There's going to be a higher rate of variability, again, based on kind of what you're doing. So there, yeah, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1:And the higher the better the higher, the better.
Speaker 1:So you've kind of so. The watch now has all that, but you're spending a lot of time talking about recovery. Might be a great pivot. So there's recovery is a big thing now, right, everyone was all about let's run, let's get our exercise and let's do as much as we can. A lot of the newer science it's about recovery and there's all these wearables for recovery. So we both have the Oura Ring, which does a lot of the stuff that you just talked about, and you have the Whoop Band, and I actually had the Whoop Band for several years as well, and so these devices are mainly just recovery devices. So either one of you talk about you know your experience and how important recovery is and and how you've kind of integrated that into the whole cycle of how you take take care of yourself.
Speaker 2:I think for me the benefit has become again. You know, I wouldn't say that anything is perfectly accurate, I don't think anything, I wouldn't rely on anything as medical grade. I think some of these are very close. There's a guy on YouTube who is a scientist who tests the efficacy of these and has actually done a pretty good job at identifying which ones are closer to medical grade versus not. But anyways, for me I think it's interesting because I think you can unfortunately make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like, for instance, if you were none the wiser and you had a rough night, you just didn't sleep well, you could probably wake up and get through the day. But if you wake up and you see that your recovery score is 40, that might negatively reinforce your behavior. Be like oh I'm tired, my recovery score was 40. Whereas if you didn't know. On the flip side, though, I find that it helps me diagnose myself to the best of my ability. So I was having so for me when I experienced COVID.
Speaker 2:I get crazy body aches and I was experiencing something that felt really systemic a couple of weeks ago. Oddly enough, it had kind of crossed over, so I was having some joint pain and then it got really severe for a couple of days and I didn't know what it was it could. It was it my workload? Was I just doing too much? Was I not moving enough and getting good blood flow? Well, my ring. What I noticed was that my resting heart rate was elevated. Seven beats a minute was up that way for like 10 days. Well, if it's that elevated for that long a period of time, my body is obviously fighting something systemic. It's not just a joint flare up or something like that. So it helps in that regard. And then it does I think it does for me. Help me to focus on. I want to get that good score, so help me to focus on getting good sleep and waking up refreshed.
Speaker 1:Gamification. I love the gamification of it. I'm also a what gets measured gets managed. I enjoy data, as you'll find over the episodes, so it's been wonderful for me. I've been wearing the whoop band for probably four years now, I would guess Pretty religiously. Just wear it all the time and there's a little thing. You clip on the top to recharge the battery. You don't even have to take it off. I'm really debating going to the aura ring because I'm starting to get like having both wrists and I've got a silicone ring anyway. To go to something like that, I think what's interesting, tj. I wanted to point out what you said. Not necessarily medical grade, but I think the value of these things are. Not necessarily is my hrv 65, but what days are? Is it it lower and is it higher?
Speaker 2:And it's the trend.
Speaker 1:So, as long as there's a consistent baseline and you're measuring whether it's better or worse, a lot of times I'll notice very much notice patterns in my behavior in the evenings and what my score is in the in the morning. So sleep a huge indicator If you have a drink of alcohol or two, if you eat late at night, another one that's really interesting. So what's cool about it is being able to just observe. And then the depth of your sleep. How much are you getting deep and REM sleep, which is true kind of recovery type sleep, versus light sleep, and those two things, two different things. Light sleep is more for memory. Deep and REM, if I'm remembering correctly, deep and REM is more kind of true kind of recovery and I think even within deep and REM there's different purposes of those and so there's just a lot of fascinating things in there. That I think the awareness for me I've absolutely loved. And again, with a consistent baseline, you can, to the extent that you have interest in doing so, continue to optimize your routines, to be at your best and you've said this in prior episodes maximize your energy units each day.
Speaker 1:I had the Whoop initially and what I really loved about that was the journaling and the questions, so you can set that particular app up. And it really did help with the patterns, right, it was like it asked me a question, you know, did I have alcohol tonight? And like, for me, sugar, and and I mean you can, you can set it up to ask you any questions. So, um, you could be like, did I have sex that night? Like you can figure out what things are driving and then at the end you would see, okay, well, here's what my scores were and here's how I answered these questions and there was a general kind of catch-all. So for me, wearing the whoop really helped me identify those patterns and over time I kind of know it's like, yeah, if I drink alcohol or I, you know, if I have some sugar late at night, of course that's going to impact me, Like we all know that, but to what extent it was probably it was very dramatic and and so I really enjoyed the whoop.
Speaker 1:My, my whole thing for switching is the same thing you talk about. I don't even have my watch on. Like I don't like wearing stuff, Um, and so that that was the main reason why I switched, but I think it's it's important to know we all have a focus on recovery. We're all monitoring recovery. We're all responding to our bodies. We don't although we have a lot going on, we don't operate in that let's sleep four hours a night and just go. Now there are nights that that happens, but for for the most part, we're very dialed in on our recovery.
Speaker 2:I think. I think what you both said is important. It also allows you. You know, we talked, I said I mentioned out of sight, out of mind, right, had I not known, my recovery was 40, maybe I would have of of operated better.
Speaker 2:But I think, conversely, you can't run away from the bullshit anymore, meaning that you can't. You know, if you have four or five drinks in a night, your HRV is going to be through the floor and your heart rate is going to be through the roof and it validates, like you know, I think at times, if you have an issue and we can do an episode on food, which I think a lot of us have struggled with, I will say I have in a major way, you try to ignore the impact. Oh, you know, cause, when you're in your teens and your twenties and your thirties, you can kind of eat whatever you want and and I, and, and not necessarily you can't necessarily avoid weight gain. My weight's always fluctuated drastically, but you don't necessarily feel the physical impact the next day. You know, if you have five or six drinks when you're 23, if you've built up a tolerance, those first two, three, four years, four drinks is not going to affect a senior in college, like you know.
Speaker 2:That's like you know, having a light breakfast. Same thing with eating food at midnight and snacking on Cheetos. You're not going to feel that in the morning when you're 27. But and I think we try to ignore that as adults Like you try to block it out and man to your point, like if I eat after 6.30 and I go to bed, my heart rate is going to be four or five beats higher, resting because my body's digesting that food. And if your body's digesting it food, what isn't it doing? It's not repairing itself. Same thing with alcohol, but it's multiplied, it's way worse and it's trying to, you know, process that alcohol through your system instead of doing what it's supposed to do and helping your body recover and get back to that stasis.
Speaker 1:And I find what's interesting. It's nothing that's like revolutionary that you haven't heard before. I mean, this may be news to some people, but like yeah, you've heard alcohol's not great for your body, or eating late at night you kind of hear these things, but it makes it so real and so obvious that, to your point, you can't ignore it. It's not like, eh, you can't sweep it under the rug when you see that, like okay, I'm eating late and my body is not able to get into a deep sleep because it's digesting this food and it's not recovering. For me, it just changes the accountability. So I was going to ask about another app City Strides. You didn't talk at all about that. That's been something that you've used a lot to gamify and keep things fun. I think you mentioned it, maybe in a prior episode, but talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. I think City Strides is phenomenal and you both have a lot of extensive experience with City Strides. So this is back in July of 2021, maybe A buddy of mine, the Unicorn, maybe a buddy in my buddy of mine, the unicorn um, he's lived in a particular city most of his life, or at least his adult life carmel, indiana, and he would always take me on these unique routes and we'd just be running random places in carmel. He has a very unique internal compass, so he always knows where he is and he can go off and complete random tangents and always end up back where he started, whereas if I went off on a tangent I'd end up in a different country. Um, but he's really good at that and so for a while I'm like why don't we just run every street in the in the city?
Speaker 2:And we found this app called city strides, and what it does is it takes GPS data, um from all of your prior runs.
Speaker 2:So whatever platform you're on Strava, garmin, you know all the ones I just mentioned we just talked about and it imports it into this application and then it creates a map for you and it shows you on the map what you have run and what you haven't run. And then there's also and a couple other elements, so there's also a list in that particular city of the streets that you've run in the streets you haven't run. And then what you can do is it has a route creator so you can bring up your map of completed streets and you can draw a route of the streets that you haven't completed yet. Then you can export that and import it into your watch and you can go out and run those streets. So you know what a phenomenal way to keep things fun and interesting. But both of you have each done a city. You've done three or four um, and you've done Westfield. I think I'd love to hear you guys kind of talk through what you loved about those, because you had wildly different experiences in the two different cities that you ran.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, uh, it's it was. It took me through another winter. You know Zwift had one winter. This was another winter. Um, and it was great, like I would get down and you'd create a five, six-mile route and you'd have to do some backtracking, but you got those segments and you just kind of worked your way across the city. It was great, it actually made purpose and it showed progress and I was excited.
Speaker 1:I've hit a bunch of small towns and actually when we did a I think we're doing the GA 5K, me and my buddy Beal we did two towns back to back. We had one that was like 15 miles, another one was like 13 and we went back to back on those. But it is a phenomenal app the fact that you can draw your route out, you can export it, you load it into your watch and then I go to my watch, we get to, you know, we drive to the starting point. I hit start, it recognized where I'm at and it says, okay, go. And then it'll say turn right. And you'll turn right and then turn left, like it literally beeps at you and directs you and I don't know which watch that that you need in order for that to work, but, um, it just makes it a lot of fun. And then you have your.
Speaker 1:You know this, I've done this many cities and I've done this many roads and, um, where I'm at, one of the challenges was there was just a lot of dogs. So we uh, um, we had that to to kind of deal with. But I got to see some amazing places. I grew up in this town of 25,000 and there were roads I've never been down and there were like brick roads from a hundred years old. Again, that exploration of a place I've been my whole life was really, really cool. Yeah, wonderful gamification.
Speaker 1:And I think it's 1,338 streets was I remember our latest. And, what's cool, the Westfield's growing a lot, and so every couple of months you check back in, there's more streets to do, and so you kind of keep up with it. But, gosh, we would go out and I feel like it made the miles go faster. Right, it would be. You know we go out, run seven, eight miles and it would just, you know, we're thinking, okay, how many streets is it? And it's just a fun, again, a fun thing to occupy your mind, so you're not just going out there and putting one foot in front of the other for 10,000 steps, right, and that's kind of the monotony you're trying to break up and it just did a fantastic job of doing that.
Speaker 2:It is kind of fun in those cities that are growing, because it doesn't always keep up. So there is and I forget the system I have to remember there's a particular system online where new roads are entered into this government database and then individuals can go and this is all done it's a kind of a labor of love through the community that's behind City Strides. They can go and they can make sure these roads populate on the application itself and even together. I know we took Trent once. Trent was down at Westfield like oh, oh, let's go hit these roads, and it's a neighborhood that's not even up yet, it's just dirt. So we're running like these, you know, cleared dirt, mud pits, um, that will be roads one day. Um, and we have to make decisions.
Speaker 2:Todd and I at times will show up places and like 70 of it's paved and it's kind of like gosh, we're nine miles in, but we're here. We might as well get these other four miles, because are we really going to drive? That is the one that gets to be kind of after a while. A little bit daunting is as you get towards the ends of these cities. You're driving like 20, 30 minutes each way to get to your starting point and we try to keep it authentic or honest.
Speaker 2:You know you could go out and park and run a cul-de-sac for a half mile and then stop your run, but the way we do it, you know it's typically a five or six mile run and we're doing backtracking. We want to get a little bit more out of it than that. So, really, one of my favorite apps, one of the other ones that we've been using, especially this year you want to talk about gamification is Smash Run. I don't think a lot of people use that, but it's a really cool platform and I don't know, trent, if you've used that a lot this year for the streak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got it for me for Christmas one year, and that was probably three years ago. So yet another system that imports data from all the other systems and you get badges. And you get badges for running on different continents and badges for running before the sun's up and badges for streaks, and it tells you every time you log in you're on streak 350 days, and so I generally hit that one once a week. It talks about all time, so it's easy for me to see how many miles that I run in 2024, 23, 22. So it's a really easy way to navigate all your data. It has your PRs for all the different distances, but I think the badge system is super cool it's pretty.
Speaker 1:Why don't you tell them about your favorite badge on smash run? You were talking about it for multiple years and we finally got that badge.
Speaker 2:It was solstice. Yes, yes, we finally got the solstice badge. Um, I've I've gotten most of the badges on there and they're really cool. You want to talk about again gamification and making it fun, like if you go and you gather all these badges, it's pretty wild, but solstice is really cool because you have to run. You have to start your run before sunrise on the day of summer solstice and you have to run after sundown same day, and you also can do winter solstice, which I think is coming up really soon. Yeah, um, where it's? It's very similar and you have to run like in those same windows. So todd and I this last summer.
Speaker 2:That one, yeah, the summer one yeah, ran um on both sides of it and got the solstice badge, so now I'm gonna have to see when winter solstice is coming up you guys continue your conversation so, um, those are some, some apps that you can download, I think most of those.
Speaker 1:I believe city strides is a like a 499 app, and I think smash run is like you can do it for free, but it's like 60 a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's like 60 a year. So, as you can see, there's just I want to get on a treadmill and I'm just going to run, or I'm going to go out and run. There's a lot of different ways to make things interesting, to just continue to keep things exciting, and we just keep trying to find new ways to do that. What about headphones? Oh yeah, you guys have. I believe you guys wear the same headphones, a little bit different than what I do, but why don't you talk about that? And then I'd also like to talk before we leave is about shoe technology too I think, that's a different element.
Speaker 1:So I have the uh, the shocks, um, that go over the ear, um, they have been fantastic. I I love them. I've tried a lot of different things. I have little ears, so the ones that go in and turn and you put actually in your ears never have stayed in my entire life I've had ones that cover the ears. The shocks are just incredible because they sit outside and they use like vibration of the bones and so you can hear everything around you. But they have really good quality. They have really good quality, they have great battery life. I can't say enough good things and, frankly, there's been some races where they're the only type of headphones you can wear, depending on what the race is. I think that was Hood to Coast was that way. So love, love, love my Shox.
Speaker 2:I would agree and if you guys remember, I wore the very first pair of Shox for that 100 miler. They were corded um back then, yeah, yeah and and uh, yeah, that was a technology that was when the company was in its infancy. I'm wearing the shocks open air, open air fit now. So they've had, they've gone from around the back of the head to the bone. Conduction um, true wireless to now. Open air is the newest true wireless technology where it kind of is a speaker sitting over your ear. So it's a little bit different. Those just came out a couple of months ago and I've been wearing those. But same same. They stay where they're supposed to stay. They allow you to hear your external environment. They're plenty loud enough.
Speaker 2:You know, watches are changing a little bit. This is a pet peeve of mine, but today we were running and we had, you know, had it we've. We had a conversation and we had kind of paused for a little bit and these newer watches this one in particular, the new Phoenix, has a speaker on it so I was able to play music through it. What I do like is that I can do that in a pinch if I do want to listen to music. I don't have my headphones. I also like that it's not loud because, contrary to your opinion, runners, no one wants to hear your music when you're running. So those of you wearing like loud wearable speakers, if you're on a remote trail by yourself or with your buddies and you guys have agreed on the music, totally cool, um, but please not on busy trails blasting as loud as you possibly can. But yeah, I love the shocks, open air stuff for sure.
Speaker 1:I've worn the Powerbeat Pros that are kind of over the ear. They kind of go around. I've had those for a few years now and just worked really well. I haven't had any issues the first generation some battery life issues after a couple of years, which I think is pretty common with tech these days.
Speaker 2:but uh, the most recent ones I've got, maybe a year ago, have been really solid, very reliable, good quality audio and I know there's a a ton of options out there yeah, I think, um, you know the only other real area of tech before we jump into shoes, which could be quite the rabbit hole with the innovation over the last couple of years. There's two other elements that we haven't really talked about it, and I think those relate to the approach to training. So we've talked a lot about time metrics, right Seconds and minutes and intervals and distance and things like that, and this speed for this duration, you that, and this speed for this duration, you know, or this pace for this duration. That's one way to approach training. There are three other typical methods right. One is RPE, which is rate of perceived exertion, and it's basically it comes with practice, but it's kind of knowing where you are based on how you feel. That's something that is really hard to. It's like perfect pitch. It's really hard to get off the jump, but once you've run for a period of time, you kind of know.
Speaker 2:The other two ways to measure your running is one, heart rate zones, which is a big thing you hear a lot about now. Zone two is back in vogue and training in that particular zone. So heart rate zones are established a number of different ways, but typically it's your max heart rate. So figuring that out, and then each zone is a percentage of that maximum heart rate, and so heart rate straps are the most efficacious way to measure heart rate and a lot of the higher end ones, like the Garmin HRM Pro, those also measure other metrics. Most of the metrics aren't going to be utilized by normal people Vertical oscillation, left-right balance.
Speaker 2:So which are you favoring? A foot Stride rate? Stride rate can help they use it. There's an accelerometer in the actual heart rate monitor around the chest strap itself, so that also adds some metrics. So that's one thing. If you're into heart rate training, your coach is into heart rate training, or if you do, if you are interested and you want to understand. You know Trent mentioned it very, very briefly in the first episode as it relates to stride length and cadence. You know you want to improve your cadence first and then, as you get stronger and as you get faster, you want to improve your cadence first and then, as you get stronger and as you get faster, you want to take that cadence and lengthen your stride out. But you know, if you don't have something that allows you to measure that cadence accurately, accurately, you can't necessarily address that problem.
Speaker 1:So talk about just heart, the heart rate training for a second before you jump into the last scenario, you're going to go. There are some benefits to that right, because you do find yourself in different environments. You're running, maybe, different undulations, you're running on different terrains, you're running in different temperatures. Talk about the benefits of doing a heart rate-based.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it really is keeping yourself honest, and I think it's super beneficial for runners just beginning, even though it seems like it's a little bit more difficult. You know, one of the things that I think you know we talked about kind of literally walking before you run and working your way into it slowly. I think our egos push us to exert more effort than we probably should be exerting, and one of the things that I think puts people in a position to fail right away with running is the only type of running they've ever experienced was on the playground when they were in fourth grade. Run as hard as you can because we're playing chase, we're playing hide and seek, and that's just not it. You know, if you, if you go basic, it's really people still call out the 80 20 rule, you know, and, and as it relates if you get nuanced about it, as it relates to that effort of running, that should probably be about 5% of what you do every week, and so what the heart rate training does is it keeps you honest.
Speaker 2:If you get to a point of fitness where, let's say, an eight-minute mile is zone four, so we'll call it like a high anaerobic or tempo work, well, that's great if you're running on a flat surface.
Speaker 2:But again to your point, if you're running up a seven percent grade, you're way over your skis if you're running an eight minute mile, so it helps keep you honest and keep you where you should be, because the goal is that you want to get the most efficient work you can we've talked a lot about recovery in this episode right, and you want to get the most efficient work you can We've talked a lot about recovery in this episode right, and you want to get the biggest bang for your buck.
Speaker 2:If you can get the same aerobic adaptation running at 70% effort that you can running at 90% effort, why would you ever run at 90% effort? It's just an ego thing at that point. Now, that's oversimplified, right? You're going to get different adaptations at 90% that you are going to get at 70, but let's say it's a difference between 70 and 73. You're still in the same zone, but it's going to take longer. It just is how it is, and the older you get, or the higher level you get, the more intentional you have to be about that, because if you're running 110 miles a week, you have to be very specific with your recovery.
Speaker 1:I would say. The other thing I would add too is you may not all be. You know, everyone may not be going for kind of aerobic efficiencies or gains, right. So I know, with different zones, your body reacts differently to those different zones. So some people may be more interested in what they I think is.
Speaker 1:Zone two is called the fat burning zone. Is that zone two? So where, if you're really trying to burn fat off, that is going to be a better place for you to do incline walking, that sort of thing, and you may never need to get into zone three, four, five, because when you get into some of those upper end zones, your body has to I think, if I, and correct me on this has to start using muscle and other types of things to you know, keep your body fully fueled for those things. So that could be counterproductive for someone that's trying to build muscle and lose fat. You may want to just hang out in zone two. So that is another thing I would add about the. You know why you might do the heart rate training if that's.
Speaker 2:No, that's absolutely, that's particularly, it's really accurate. I mean, if you look at bodybuilders and you go look at a bodybuilder doing cardio, it's always inclined walking because they don't want to burn that muscle. Obviously, the higher you get into the heart rate zones, your body's scrambling to find anything it can to use for fuel. It doesn't have the cycles to break down fat and use it for fuel. When you're running, you know full-blown VO2 stuff or high in anaerobic, it's just trying to stay afloat. So yeah, that's super, spot on.
Speaker 1:And you were going to go into, I think, the next.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the final one. This is again kind of a nuanced thing. It's kind of new, but as a cyclist which I'm not, but most cyclists out there their main metric is power, and so they use power meters on their bikes to determine it plays very heavily into their training different levels of power. Well, stride is an organization that I think came out with the first Stride back in 2016 or 2017. I remember I took the first version when I went to boss, I think Boston and 17,. They had their booth at the Boston expo for the first time and I just purchased their product and had some conversations with them.
Speaker 2:Um, but stride is another piece of technology that's continued to get more and more accurate. You're seeing a lot of the professionals using it and really what it does is it's it's Depending on the way you're looking at it maybe even a more accurate representation of effort and heart rate. Again, there's a lot of nuance to that, because your heart rate can be affected by other things. Stride is a number or strides. Power number takes into account if you're running into the wind, takes into account if you're running up hills a number of different things. So it's another different way to measure your output. A lot of people are starting to develop training programs where they're using running power. Garmin has added that functionality to their watches, but it's not necessarily as accurate. What is it?
Speaker 1:Is it like a pod you put on your shoe?
Speaker 2:It's a little shoe pod They've recently introduced I think last year they introduced Stride duo. So you wear one on either foot and it actually measures your um foot strike patterns. So if you're having issues imbalance issues, or our friend cory and cory is about, you know as deep as you can get into running culture and training culture and all of these other things cory got the stride duo. He was having imbalance issues and he was able to share that data with a physical therapist and they were like, oh my God, you know, like his imbalance was insane. I mean, if you guys look at your running balances, it's normally 49 and 51 or 49 and a half and 50 and a half. His was like 37 and 63 or just like something completely out of control.
Speaker 2:But there ended up being some credence to that and so he found out through the use of that technology that he had some things that he needed to work through. So that's another. I guess probably you know, without getting into things that are, you know, more gear related, like we can talk about these at some other time but the types of headlamps or the types of clothing we could spend probably an entire another episode on how to dress appropriately for 10 degrees and 30 degrees and 50 degrees and 70 or whatever. But I think, from a hardcore technology perspective, I think we've covered a lot of it.
Speaker 1:Yep, I believe Peloton tracks output and I'm not sure if it's the exact same output, as I'd be interested in comparing that, but there there's an output there that they track as well. I was going to ask you about one other, and I know this is probably for more relevant for the elite level who are interested in training, but the lactate stuff like just maybe briefly cover the fact. I mean, some might be interested that some actually do this and use this. Sure, yeah, because that's another.
Speaker 2:I think this, for me, is like the ultimate in gamification, and I say that because, no matter what method you use, you don't know for sure whether or not you're where you're supposed to be when you're training. And everybody, at the end of the day, 99% of people are going to be over their skis. In some regard, they're going to be training a little harder than they should. Everybody wants to go out and run an effort and call it a tempo when it was nowhere near a tempo right. Or you know, there's a guy I think he goes by Jack Harrell on Instagram and he's hilarious because he pokes fun at this. He'll be like, you know, zone one effort 21 miles at 430 pace, heart rate 115, just being completely facetious and kind of poking fun at the people that want to call. And it's funny because I think if there's one element of running culture that people really get into, it's like there's no way that was a tempo run or there's no way that guy did that at that effort or whatever. For some reason, that really strikes people viscerally and they react.
Speaker 2:But to get back to the lactate piece of the puzzle, so what it is, there's a meter that you can buy and this has been around for years but really popularized. I mentioned Jakob Ingebrigtsen earlier. The Norwegian training method right now is gaining a lot of traction because it allows you to pack a bunch of quality work into a condensed period of time. And again to the point I made earlier, the only way you can do that is to ensure that you're exactly where you need to be from an effort perspective. So what this is is this is a meter and you have strips that come along with it and you prick your finger like you would to do a blood glucose test and you measure the lactate level in millimoles of your blood on this machine, so you can see specifically where you need to be. So I'll give an example of this in real world application.
Speaker 1:How about? I give the example when I showed up to a run with you guys, so if you haven't figured out, they're a little more intense than I am. Like the way I would describe running is you go out and you run. You know 60, 70% of the time you just run easy so you can work on distance, and then you run hard, you do intervals. The other side time they're like hey, we got this new thing, we're gonna do this lactate threshold. Let's meet out at the track.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, oh, this sounds good. And I'm like, so I meet my brothers out and and we get out there and they, they get a table out, they get these, they line all this stuff up and I'm like it looks like a pharmacy and like, okay, we're're going to run a couple of laps and then you're going to come around, you're going to prick your finger and you're going to check your blood and and then this is going to tell you what you need and this will tell you whether you need to, you know, slow down or speed up. And so then you prick it and then you know, based off of that, you would run the next lap, kind of knowing where you're at until you knew you were in the segment, but you know we were. We have all those blood things in the trash, can I mean it was. It was quite the experience, but it was really interesting to kind of figure out where, where that zone was.
Speaker 2:The game, the gamification of it, and this is like the example. So I'm coming back kind of off of a break with some injuries that I was dealing with and I don't really know where I'm at from a physical fitness perspective. And so the number for kind of an aerobic threshold in millimoles for lactate is, let's call it, two, the number's two. So I would do a particular interval, I would test my blood and if I'm around two that means I'm where I should be Two.
Speaker 1:What I was going to try and explain this a little bit. So there there's a you know when you're talking about the certain levels and help me explain this, but basically there's a certain point, uh, where your body struggles to clear the lactic acid from your bloodstream. The lactic acid builds up and that's where the numbers go up and that's where you're kind of a ticking time bomb. If the lactic acid is building up, you are basically on your way to a long recovery yes there's going to be a point in time where you're not going to be able to continue.
Speaker 1:So these numbers are measuring at what speed, at what level? And again, given all the conditions, is that lactic acid starting to build up versus your body's able to continually clear it? So I just wanted to set that foundation.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's thank you for articulating it that way. So like, it's so cool, you get on a treadmill and for me it was. I'm going to run 12 minute long intervals and I'm going to run them. I think it was at 620 pace and I want to be at two, because two is for me, what I can hold for a marathon. Most people go for a marathon that are well-trained, so I ran it.
Speaker 2:I pricked my finger, it's 2.1. After my first interval, after my third interval, it was 1.7. So I know I can go out next time and instead of 9.5, I can try 9.6 and then I can go measure again and if I'm not, then I need to do a couple of weeks of nine, six. And so it's this really cool way from a statistical perspective to see your progress. Wow, my body is getting more efficient, um, at performing this, this process, and I'm seeing actual, real represent, especially in a controlled environment like the treadmill, real representation of progress. And that's one of the very few ways with running outside of having a good day, um, cause even when you complete a hard workout, you don't know how much you had to put into complete that hard workout. You can't quantify it. Yeah, I finished it, but I may you know, be way deeper in the well than I think I am, um. So that's something that I really like about that and something I'm really looking forward to coming back over these next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Should we close with shoes?
Speaker 2:Let's get it.
Speaker 1:We might as well do gear too. Shoes and gear, I mean we got-.
Speaker 2:I guess we're here.
Speaker 1:Well, let's hit shoes. I mean, I think just obvious, the obvious thing here, and I think most people have maybe heard this, but it was maybe what five years ago now, when, right around bq2, when was that?
Speaker 2:uh, 17, 2017 yeah, it would have been because we ran 18.
Speaker 1:They uh four percenters yeah, the four, the four percenters which nike came out with with this premise that our hypothesis that you would basically, if you wore these shoes, you would be four percent more efficient, and so there was a carbon fiber plate that was inserted into the shoe that essentially propelled your foot forward in a sense that helped you. So that motion you weren't having to fully do manually, but you had a little help. And so obviously since then there's been all kinds of enhancements and different evolutions or versions of that technology. But, tj, why don't you share? And then, trent, you chime in because we've all worn them and it would just be interesting to get everybody's opinion.
Speaker 2:You can go first, because I can wax on this forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I started my running journey in Adidas. I was wearing the. They're kind of ultra boost yeah, these are more like what you would see people wear, you know, just not to run it. I mean they're, they're probably a pound each, they're very heavy shoes yeah, they're kind of casual lifestyle shoes.
Speaker 1:That's where I started and then over the years I've worn. I think it's important to know. Probably the most important thing is to find a running store where they can have some type of measurement, some type of footprint. Um, I know there's some people in the indie area, the athletic yep, luke and those guys and Jake uh, jake, and so they've.
Speaker 1:They've got a great place, but going somewhere where they can actually do some testing right To kind of figure out is your foot wide, is your arch high? You know there's all different types of, there's several different brands that we could arguably like. You've run in more shoes than all of us, but I've tried Saucony, I've tried New Balance, hoka Ons, and for me I did see some pickup. So, going back to your question, the four percenters make a pretty significant difference there. They are a race shoe that you don't get a lot of miles out of them, but they are super light and they're super bouncy and they definitely make a difference. But I've kind of settled into like a little bit of a harder shoe and I've I seem to always be going back to the Boston 12s. Those have been kind of my staple. But I also think it's good and you taught me this is to just rotate other shoes in. So I do have two or three different pairs of shoes that I'm wearing. You know you can get three to 400 miles out of a pair of shoes, which you know if you have a cycle of three. You know you're running. I don't know. I'm probably doing 120, 130 miles a month, so I can get a couple months out of all those.
Speaker 1:But I think it's important to note that there's not like here's the best shoe, go buy this shoe. A lot of it just depends on the makeup. Well, and the landscape's changed a lot in the last five years too, so brands have caught up. That's one thing we didn't I don't know that we mentioned about Strava is with Strava you can track the mileage you're putting on your shoes, which virtually, unless you're keeping a spreadsheet somewhere, is extremely difficult. But when you go on a run, you can. You can have those shoes that you basically put into Strava and then you can select which shoe you ran with. So even if you're running with one pair of shoes, it's hard to know exactly unless you're keeping track of dates or whatever. Certainly, when you get multiple pairs, it's nice to know when you're hitting that 250, 300, 350-mile mark, because it can compound injuries if you're running in shoes that don't have enough miles left.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't, yeah, and I track mine on Garmin. It has the same functionality. I would not. I know people at a time took that kind of as a badge of honor how many miles could they get out of their shoes? Now there are some shoes out there, like Mount Coast, that are designed specifically to last for 600, 700, 800 miles and they actually advertise that. But I was running with a buddy the other day and he made the comment he'd gotten a new pair of Asics Nova Blast and he's like man putting the difference between putting on a pair that's fresh and a pair that's got 350 miles on. It is night and day and what they'll tell you is that those shoes only compress a couple of millimeters but it does make a pretty massive difference and the longer you've run, your body will tell you you'll get these different pains and different things that you weren't getting before when your shoes get to that point.
Speaker 2:You know, another innovation that came along with the carbon plate was obviously P-backs and these different foams, and they're continuing to innovate in the foam space. Nitrogen infused EVA is something that people are exploring right now. Different stack heights you know what happened was because the shoes themselves were were essentially you would show up to a major marathon after Nike released the four percenters and then after vapor flies came out and alpha flies came out, you showed up to a major marathon and everybody in the first thousand people in the corral had these shoes on and there there was a heavy discussion around whether or not it was technological doping, um, and so there were restrictions put in place on the stack height of shoes. You can't be over 41 millimeters, I think. You can only have a single carbon fiber plate. You can't have multiple. Now there are companies out there that have continued to release shoes that are illegal, but in reality, if you're not winning prize money or breaking world records or Olympic records, you can kind of run in whatever you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean from a brand's perspective, the landscape has changed drastically. There are probably three or four brands right now that are really I think you know Hoka really made a comeback this year. They were really big, obviously early on in the ultra scene back in the early 2010s. Then they kind of had their lull where they were seen as the senior citizen walking shoe there for a while. But they really came back this year with some great performance shoes. Saucony has continued to do really well with their endorphin line shoes. Saucony has continued to do really well with their endorphin line. Adidas has had a lot of success from an elite marathon perspective with their Adios Pro 3s. The Pro Evo 1 is kind of the pinnacle of ridiculousness for a shoe.
Speaker 2:So this is taking the concepts that we were talking about earlier. It's a shoe that has no sock liner, that has a painted on sole that costs $500, and that is supposed to last for 30 miles, so you get a warmup and a race out of them. However, they have won a number of marathons and at one point had world records, at least on the female side. I don't know if they still do, but they're still winning a ton of marathons. Nike still has a couple of good shoes out there, and then New Balance has released some great top of the line trainers, but I think the number one racing shoe right now in my mind is probably the Metaspeed Sky and the Metaspeed Edge from Asics. Those are probably the two most utilized shoe right now in my mind is probably the metaspeed sky and the metaspeed edge from asics. Those are probably the two most utilized, at least in the us.
Speaker 1:So when you say that, you mean and obviously nike, who's kind of started some of the they call them super shoes right, you're saying these asics have caught up to, and potentially so I mean clearly the, the adidas. Uh, you said evo audio.
Speaker 2:Well, the evo evos, but the Adios Pro 3s. The elites are still wearing those.
Speaker 1:Okay, but for, like the common, the Asics have caught up from an efficiency perspective and are every bit as effective as the next. Yeah, I would say that they're right there.
Speaker 2:I mean, you're seeing some of the best people in the world wear them. Unfortunately, you know, when you get to that level, the difference in these shoes is probably a half a percent, and some of these individuals are, you know sponsorships and things come into play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean asics does not have a lot of east african sponsorships and that's just an entirely different level of of so, for the every everyday joe or jill, it's really more about comfort and kind of exploring and being willing to try different shoes and, um, if they're not, you know, if you're not trying to get out there and you're really a competitive racer, it's really just about finding the right place.
Speaker 2:Find it. Yeah, find the right place, man. I mean, that's the most important thing. People that really care about you because there's so many gimmicks right Like the shoes you're wearing On would try to sell you that those were running shoes at one point in time. They are not. That technology if you hear the founder of the brand explain it is hilarious Makes no sense at all. Now On has gone a different way. They've made great lifestyle shoes like that and they've actually changed. If you look at their top end racers, they don't look anything like that anymore because they've realized that it doesn't work. So really go in and talk to somebody Don't trust. There are some reviewers on the internet, but I would definitely start with somebody at a local running store. You know, ask, ask your local runners, get referred to your local running store, start there and then, once you've established your own baseline, then start to explore the different reviewers and things online. But don't just go out there and and uh, because it's not. It's not all created equal, for sure.
Speaker 1:So why don't we finish with uh, your favorite running gear, whether that's a shirt or a jacket or tights, something that, if you had to pick one or two things, or like a perfect outfit, you couldn't live without? What would that be? Just go right around, gosh, a perfect outfit. Well, I'm going to steal this from you guys, because I know we all wear these, because I hate the cold so much. I think I've got it on right now.
Speaker 2:Brighton.
Speaker 1:The Tracksmith Brighton base layer no. Tracksmith. They've got this little red ribbon thing on the back. Tracksmith base layer is really incredible at not only keeping you warm but also, if you maybe are overdressed a little bit, it's got a way of almost cooling you down too. It's phenomenal From a gloves perspective. I think I've got Salomon gloves. I've got Raynaud's syndrome, where my circulation, my fingers, my hands are cold all the time, and so I'm that guy out there and it's 50 degrees and I've got gloves on because my hands are always cold, so the Solomon gloves have been great.
Speaker 1:I'm a big mittens fan. I find when I'm in gloves that doesn't work for me, so I'm big on mittens. Yeah, I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2:Uh, on your shorts underwear or liners underwear yeah, big 100 yeah yeah, big uh under armor boxer jocks and then shorts on top of that all day see you know, it's funny because, like in in the running community, tracksmith can be looked at as kind of cliche because it's expensive and it's that brand that associates with runners that are kind of right on the cusp of elite and so, like there, there was a period of time where Tracksmith was looked at as like this brand, that people who you know, the guy you guys will remember this, the guy that showed up to our cruise run when what we call full gear, and there are memes like this all over the internet where the guy shows up to the turkey trot 5k in his boston jacket and has his iron man tattoo on his calf and you know, um.
Speaker 2:And so I think there were certain people that looked at tracksmith like that a little bit like, you know they were trying hard. Think there were certain people that looked at Tracksmith like that a little bit like, and they were trying hard. But I will say this and luckily Trent has made this a Christmas gift a couple of times over the last couple of years but that Brighton base layer, you're absolutely right, and people hate it because every time I run in the winter I talk about how good it is. It's unbelievable, it's unbelievable I, it's unbelievable. I really like their tights. They're one of the few pairs of tights that do have the briefs built in, so they're like a corduroy type, not material but pattern.
Speaker 2:And so for me I'm that guy I show up to winter runs in my Tracksmith tights with my Tracksmith base layer. I have two Tracksmith second layers. So what you'll find is I think this is important to call out for running in the winter is that it's layering, it's all layers. It's not wearing this heavy North Face jacket, it's all layers. So one or two of my Tracksmith top layers. I have Tracksmith mittens that I wear over gloves if it's really cold out, and then I'm an Njinji socks guy, which are the toe socks. I love those. So that's typically, you know, my ultimate outfit for running in the winter, and then, you know, summer, half tights in a tank or just shirtless.
Speaker 1:I put a quick vote in on the Njinji socks as well, just from a blister perspective. When I've got the NGG toe socks on, my blisters are down considerably. And you are a liner or underwear guy, I'm a liner guy. Joke is with TJ like if you can't see what religion he is by his shorts, they're so short. I mean it's all out there, that's right. They are tight there. No, no doubt about that. Um, two inch inseam, yeah, that's right. Gotta have the slit all the way up the side. It's good stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so there's about three years ago I think I bought all tracksmith entire catalog and, um, I have every piece that they've probably ever made and and we've shared in all of that the gloves, the hats, the base layers. I have the pants, the tights and the shorts. And it was really weird because I remember the exact time that TJ's like you need to switch to liners and moving from a liner, from underwear, to liner was very, very odd for me, but I wouldn't go back. I've enjoyed the liners but I haven't had to buy.
Speaker 1:So one thing is the quality of it. You know there's some wool in it, so if you're allergic to wool it's not a good fit. I bought my daughter one and she wore it to a game and came and she was all red all over. But the quality. I haven't bought anything from Tracksmith in probably two and a half years and like I did make this big old purchase but I've been able to maintain, um, I've washed them dozens of time at times and so the quality is there. It's like sometimes you get what you pay for. I know there's a lot of other good brands that have a lot of other good stuff out there, but, uh, definitely a high quality, good, good product.
Speaker 2:One other thing I'll mention on the gear front that's important for this time of year. Because One other thing I'll mention on the gear front that's important for this time of year, because it's dark so often is Ultra Aspire waist lamps.
Speaker 2:So if you're running in the dark. Yeah, you can buy different headlamps on Amazon that are pretty good, but investing in a waist light from Ultra Aspire, it's expensive, but you guys have run with me with those it lights up an entire road. They can last for hours and hours and hours on end. They make very good gear when it comes to longer events. So, whether that's vests, waist packs, things like that, that's a brand that I'd throw out there that makes really good gear in that regard. So I think that closes it out for me.
Speaker 1:Awesome, good. Well, thank you guys for listening in. Hopefully you learned about some really cool things. There's a lot of stuff that people have developed out there. There's just a lot of creative people. There's a lot of ways to gamify, running, exercise in general, and so just encourage you to look into some of this stuff. We'll put a lot of the links that we talked about and some of those things within the post and you'll be able to get some of that stuff. We'll put a lot of the links that we talked about and some of those things within the post and you'll be able to get some of that gear and check it out. We'll see you next time.