#ICYMI - Ultra-Running, with Ann Trason & Dr. Ultra

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Do you have what it takes to run 50,100, or 200 miles? Hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore ultra-running and ultramarathons with runner Ann Trason and Shawn Bearden, a.k.a. Dr. Ultra. Photo Credit: John Doe [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Knight.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing with Science. Today, we throw a little something extra into our endurance. It's not going to be enough just to go long or even play at being Ironman. Today, we're going to max it out as this show goes ultra.

• 0:26Chuck Nice?

  Ultra, baby. You ever run a marathon? You know, 26 heartbreaking miles of bone jarring pain, right? Why am I saying right? Like, I've ever done that. I've never done that.

• 0:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Neither have I.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  Guess what? I'm never gonna do it either.

• 0:40Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I'm not.

• 0:41Chuck Nice?

  But imagine that and then take it to another level because that marathon is a warm-up to an ultra runner. These guys and women are the ones who run 50-mile races, blast through 100-kilometer runs and drop 100-mile races like it's a dime. That's how it goes down. It's their thing, man.

• 1:03Gary O'Reilly?

  It is. And Trason is one of those truly amazing athletes who just happened to have broken 20 world records in her time, just 20.

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  Just 20.

• 1:12Gary O'Reilly?

  And she'll be joining us along with the fabulously-named Dr. Ultra.

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  Dr. Ultra.

• 1:17Gary O'Reilly?

  I must admit, that has really captivated my imagination, aka Sean Bearden, who will be with us very shortly and bring us the insight into the science behind ultra endurance. So let's not waste any time.

• 1:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 1:30Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's get straight to Sean and aka Dr. Ultra.

• 1:34Chuck Nice?

  Dr. Ultra, are you there? I am here. Sweet. We are living in the age of ultra. Okay, I'm sorry.

• 1:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome to the show.

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  I'm not gonna do it anymore.

• 1:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's just introduce you a little bit better. Exercise physiologist at Idaho State University with particular interest in ultra endurance performance and host of the podcast Science of Ultra.

• 1:56Chuck Nice?

  So maybe you could tell people, what is ultra running really? Like, can you give us a more detailed breakdown? I mean, people know what a marathon is. And is it really just running longer or is there more to it?

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Technically, that's exactly what it is. So very specifically, an ultra marathon is anything defined as anything longer than a marathon. So, you know, in some ways, everybody who's run a marathon has run an ultra because they've walked a few more steps. But of course, that's, that's pushing the limits of the definition. Really, an ultra marathon race, the shortest ones are about 50K. So that's 31 miles.

• 2:34Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  And then the standard distances are 50 miles, 100K, which is 62 miles, and 100 miles. But they go on up to, to, to multiple several hundred miles. And the longest sanctioned event is in New York City at 3100 miles.

• 2:51Chuck Nice?

  Now, can you please tell us about that? Because I've never heard of a race that's 3100 miles long. And you're running this race? You're running for 3100 miles?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Indeed. So it's called the self-transcendence. And get so it gets even worse than that.

• 3:05Chuck Nice?

  Please.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  It's you go, you go around a city block in, I believe it's in Brooklyn. It's a half a mile. And you have to go around it 6,200 times.

• 3:15Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Now. In one go, you just don't stop? Or you're gonna take, you're gonna take a relay?

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Certainly stop. Yeah. So it takes people 50 something days to do that.

• 3:26Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that is insane. It's a city, a New York City block, square block is what we're talking about. When you say go around the block, you mean all the way around. So it's, it's really like four blocks. When you think about it, the way, the way things would be set up. And you just do that 6,000 times?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  You do. And, you know, self-transcendence, it kind of gives you an idea of where your, your head has to be to be able to accomplish something like that. But that's an oddity. Traditionally, marathons, ultra marathons are on trails. They're sometimes on track, actually, and sometimes on road. But they're often on mountain trails. And, you know, the typical distances are, like I said, up to about 100, although the 200 mile distance is becoming much more popular.

• 4:09Chuck Nice?

  Wow. And these trails. When 100 miles isn't enough. Yeah, exactly. For 200 miles. Wow. Yeah, you know, I just knocked out 100 miles like it was no thing. I, I'm not even tired. I'm not even winded. Going to have to up this to 200. So when you're running these trails, are there sanctioned trails and different races that take place during different times of the year? So that you can kind of train for the terrain? Does it work like that?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. So there are races all around the country and of course indeed all around the world of all distances. And so people plan out their calendar year, you know, shorter races perhaps to prepare for their goal races of longer, longer distances. And most people can't handle a hundred mile race for more than a couple or a few times per year.

• 4:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, wow.

• 4:59Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm not handling it at all, Matt, but that's just a personal note. I'd like to take you to some of your research and you have a fabulous term here called bioenergetics. And that's the sort of gaseous movement at a cellular level. Could you break that down for us as we can understand a little bit more of what your research was about and what you actually came to the conclusion with?

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. So bioenergetics is really just a sounding fancy sounding term to describe an interest in the energy use by the body when we're doing work. And in this case, it's running. So do we use carbohydrates? Do we use fats? How does oxygen use incorporate into all of that? And so my research is really about understanding the efficiency of movement and the economy of of movement, particularly of of running then, and trying to then translate that understanding into helping people be able to go these greater distances just a little bit easier.

• 6:03Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, that's what it's about. So when you're talking about efficiency and you're talking about conservation of energy and output. So what are some of the ways that you see to increase efficiency? And does it happen on, is it something that we can do in terms of change, changing our physical behavior while we're running? Like, or is it something that happens on a cellular level? So we have to change like maybe our diet or what? How's it work?

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, all of the above.

• 6:38Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  So initially, initially, we're, we're talking about people learning how to run better, better form, better diet.

• 6:46Chuck Nice?

  Got you.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  You know, we've all seen people that look like they're running from a fire when they're running. Right? So people become more efficient early on from that standpoint. Once you're fairly well-trained, though, over years, you become more efficient. We think through a lot of connective tissue adaptation. So we think about normally of our organs, our muscles, our heart, or all of these sorts of things. But what holds us all together is the connective tissue. It's the stuff between the cells. And it turns out that we now appreciate when muscle contracts. The muscle itself, the muscle cells, aren't the things that are, that are transmitting most of the force. But in fact, actually, most of the force is transmitted laterally into that connective tissue, about 80% of it.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  And it's that connective tissue that's holding the tension and actually able to, to do the work for us.

• 7:34Chuck Nice?

  Now, give me a second. Give me a second. And let me, just so I can understand you, I'm sorry. Well, because when you say connective tissue, are you actually talking about tendons and ligaments and actual connective tissue?

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  So tendons and ligaments and inside the muscle, that, that, that tissue continues. The tendons continue up into, in between cells, up in the muscle.

• 7:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay, okay.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  But at a cellular level, we become more efficient as well. So you know, if you start to exercise, you get to a point where it's hard, but conversation is still possible. And then you go a little bit harder and now maybe it's shorter sentences. And then you get to a point where you're just like, dude, don't talk to me. I want to, I just need to run, I need to focus, right?

• 8:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  And then you get to that point where you know something's burning inside because you're working too hard. Well, there are a couple of cutoffs in there. The one that's around where you no longer want to have a conversation. And then one that's closer to where you're sort of starting to burn. And We can predict the amount of oxygen, the amount of energy you're using for every increase in pace or every increase in speed during those easy, that easy segment. But when you get above that conversational effort, we become inefficient. We actually start using more oxygen for the change in pace.

• 8:52Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  And with training, we can reduce that. So we do become more economical and more efficient, both of them, from the cellular level right up to connective tissue and form.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  So you're saying that there is a law of diminishing returns that's at play during the performance of running. And so you can actually change that to kind of increase that threshold before you reach that law of diminishing returns or that point of diminishing return.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  That's right. And for shorter races, you go ahead and you just use up that inefficient place because going faster is more important.

• 9:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  You're not going to necessarily fatigue until you hit the finish line if it's a 10K or 5K or even a marathon. But if we're talking 50 miles and 100 miles, now that little bit of inefficiency catches up to you long before the finish line. And you need to train to get better at that and you also need to manage yourself better and your pacing strategy.

• 9:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't that what we would always call muscle memory and sort of in a broader term where you're conditioning your muscles and the connective tissue therein and you're adapting it to work at the load that you want it to work at?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's probably some, some parallel there. When we think about muscle memory, we're really thinking more about the adaptations that occur in muscle and then what we're able to stimulate that muscle to adapt to again later. So from a training perspective, I think there's probably, there's probably some truth to what you're saying.

• 10:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Particularly for the endurance and the ultra runners, is there a muscle type fiber that's more conducive to that? We always hear about fast switch muscles and sprinters, but what's the other side of that or the other end of that spectrum for endurance runners?

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. So we classically think of of fiber types in three or four kinds. There's a slow twitch, there's fast twitch, and we can start subdividing the fast twitch muscles into ones that are more oxidative, more endurance prone, and ones that are just much more power. Well, so it's the slow twitch type one fibers that are the ones you really want if you're going to be an endurance runner. And one of the interesting things that happens with aging is we tend to get more slow twitch fibers as well as training. So training, we now know will do this, and aging tends to do this as well. And so we're finding that the peak age for people in ultra marathons, that is the peak performance age, is somewhere in like the older 30s to the younger 40s.

• 11:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's hear for the old people. Yeah, that's right. There's hope for the old people. Yes. Okay, so speaking of training, what's the most important thing when it comes to training? Is it proper training in terms of your regimen? Is it nutrition? Is it sleep? Is it recovery? What is it?

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Rule number one, absolutely will get you 90% of the way there, it's consistency.

• 11:49Chuck Nice?

  Oh.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  So the the number one pillar for training is just being consistent. And so people take up running and run, say, on the weekend because they don't feel like they have time during the during the week.

• 12:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  You can't make up on the weekend for what you didn't do during the week. You just go through this cycle of sort of you getting injured and then trying to recover and getting injured. So consistency, a little bit every day trumps all the rest. Then we can start layering in all the other little subtleties of doing little faster bits or doing hill speed work, things like that, or cross training even. But number one, consistency will get you most of the way there. But I love that you brought up recovery and sleep, because that is where we get better, isn't it? During a workout, when you go for a run, you are not getting faster, you are not getting better, you're breaking down.

• 12:38Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  And but that's the point. So it's a stimulus. And then we get better when we're resting. And our body can recover and adapt and change. So people need to really pay a little more attention to to that. And ultra marathon runners run a lot of miles. A lot of people get away with doing something like like fifty miles per week. But there are many people who do ninety, a hundred, a hundred and forty. And even a few rare people.

• 13:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Where do you get the time to run those kind of miles?

• 13:06Chuck Nice?

  Of best.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Well, of course, the people doing close to two hundred are that's their job. Right. So they're professional runners.

• 13:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, yeah. All right. We got that one.

• 13:14Chuck Nice?

  So so thinking of when you talk, when you talk about two hundred miles a week. Okay, I want to I want to phrase this so I don't offend anybody. Okay.

• 13:22Gary O'Reilly?

  This would be a first.

• 13:26Chuck Nice?

  Chuck, you're worried about people's feelings? What the hell just happened? What happened to Chuck? What have you done with him? So I have a friend who has to have a tendon taken out of another part of her body and put into her Achilles. Because she kept running when the doctor said, hey, you need to do this, this, this, and this. And she was like, oh, I can sneak in thirty miles a week. It's okay. So here's what I want to know. How do you stop that from happening? Number one. Number two, is running that deleterious in terms of punishing your body? Number two.

• 14:09Chuck Nice?

  And number three, is is it is it her fault?

• 14:14Chuck Nice?

  Is it your fault when that happens? Okay.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  You're testing my memory with these multi.

• 14:18Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't he just?

• 14:19Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's a lot going on there.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Achilles strain is one of the most common injuries in all of running, whether you're doing massive miles or not.

• 14:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  And so it is something that's common. The way that you can avoid, to the best of your ability, avoid injuries like that is that the first time you start to feel something, rest.

• 14:40Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  So too many people say, oh, it's just a little something.

• 14:43Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  And it's okay. And they keep going and they keep going before you know it, they develop a chronic injury that that that either breaks.

• 14:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  And like you're talking about surgery. Or then you need to take a tremendous amount of time off. So that's the most important thing to be able to do. In her case, was it her fault? So I would say it sounds like yes, because it sounds like people were telling her that she needed to rest more, right? And she didn't.

• 15:04Chuck Nice?

  There you go, Jackie. I told you. I'm the one who told you. Okay, I'm sorry.

• 15:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Going back to the recovery, I mean, occupational hazard for any, anyone running or performing in that sense is an injury. But when you are doing this sort of mileage, when you talked about the professionals who might be running, you know, north of 200 miles per week, how do they recover? You know, some of the elite guys, I mean, I've seen people like Mo Farah, who's not really an ultra, but he's a distance runner. He'll go to sleep in an oxygen tent. You've got cryo chambers, you've got all these other things. I mean, are we way past ice baths by now and we're into the real science fiction? Or are there other things going on?

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Well, there are quite a number of things you mentioned there that is, there are cans of worms, things like altitude tents and oxygen tents and ice baths. And so to not take us off on to sort of those tangents.

• 16:03Chuck Nice?

  No, I want to go on those tangents. I want to go on those tangents. You seem to have a problem with those other things. Do you?

• 16:12Speaker 02

  There are some modalities that are useful, but many that athletes use that are not.

• 16:17Chuck Nice?

  Well, let's get into that, man. That's good stuff. Let's go there. So what are the ones that you think are not good and why? Just, I mean, just as a general?

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Let me address the original question.

• 16:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. I got too excited.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Are we pushing the limits? And I think that we are. And a good example was this last year at a famous race in Europe called UTMB, where an American runner named Jim Walmsley was really expected to do very well. But in the months before this, he was pushing his training to the limits. And he was doing about 140 miles per week in the Grand Canyon, which included about 50,000 feet of elevation gain and loss per week.

• 16:54Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  And then when he hit the race, the start line at UTMB, he didn't get very far and he broke. He was burned out.

• 17:01Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  And we do, and we see that happen. So these runners, and it's rare to have a runner that is doing 200, but they, they're out there. We tend to see them not living in the sport for more than a couple of years generally. It's the people who are more conservative down closer to 100 or a little over 100 that tend to last longer, but that's still a lot. You're right. That's still a lot and recovery is important. So, you know, oxygen tent, probably not is because what we're trying to do there is is deliver higher pressure of oxygen for better recovery. But the reality is that our blood flow to all of our tissues, when we're resting is adequate. If we measure the blood that's coming out of those tissues, we have not extracted all the oxygen that's there.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Higher pressure of oxygen, eh, probably doesn't really do much, but you know what? The placebo effect is real.

• 17:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  It matters. If somebody believes it works and it doesn't hurt you, do it. I'm all for placebo effect.

• 17:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Whatever benefit you can get. So physiologically, maybe the data aren't there, but if, if they work out mentally, then no. Ice baths, if you have an acute injury, yes. If not, what you're doing is dampening the, the reaction of the immune system that is beneficial to helping you to adapt.

• 18:15Chuck Nice?

  Ah, interesting, interesting, interesting.

• 18:18Gary O'Reilly?

  I don't like the idea of an ice bath for my whole, but that's just, forget that. I mean, it's bad enough you ice your ankle and you put it in a, in a little sort of ice bucket. Yeah. Those things. Right. We're going to take a break. Uh, more from Dr. Ultra. I love saying that. More from Dr. Ultra, AKA Sean Bearden, when we get back.

• 18:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science and our Ultra running show. Um, Ultra. And we have Dr. Ultra, AKA Sean Bearden. And if you've just joined us, you've missed an awful lot. So you've got a lot of catch up to do.

• 18:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 18:56Gary O'Reilly?

  And just press away, Ryan, and go back and listen to the rest of it. So.

• 19:00Chuck Nice?

  Hey Doc, you, you, Gary was just saying in the break that you played soccer. And you know, before you got into uh uh running period, you played soccer. And so I'm interested to know, and maybe Gary, you can help me with this too. Uh, is soccer a good prerequisite for getting into distance running? Because you guys who are the Gary is a professional soccer player, former professional soccer player. So.

• 19:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Many years ago.

• 19:25Chuck Nice?

  But still you did it. So uh, but you guys run like, I don't know how many miles you have to. How many miles do you think you run during the game honestly?

• 19:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Like it just depends on position. Certain positions will cover more ground than others. You might do the conversion for me, doctor. If you get a midfield player who's really, I would say, active.

• 19:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:46Gary O'Reilly?

  They might get towards 15 kilometers.

• 19:49Chuck Nice?

  15 kilometers.

• 19:49Gary O'Reilly?

  In a game.

• 19:50Chuck Nice?

  So so does that, did did that have anything to do with helping you in your um? You know, discovery that you really love this ultra running thing?

• 20:00Speaker 02

  No, didn't help me discover that at all.

• 20:02Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  But I do think it helped me in performance and I do, I do think that it helps in performance. The reason it didn't is because I I love, you know, soccer is sprint, rest, sprint, walk, sprint, jog, sprint. Right?

• 20:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  It is not continuous, slow running. And when I was a soccer player.

• 20:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Almost like an interval training, isn't it?

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Exactly what it is, exactly what it is. I I looked at the track runners and I just thought they were crazy. And that's just looking at people going five, 10 miles.

• 20:25Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Um, but when you get into your later years, soccer isn't competitive anymore. And you know, if that's my mindset, then I can't just play for fun. And so I looked at other ways to to push myself and this seemed to be one. But I think that a background of soccer and I would say multi dimensional sport. So lacrosse, other things like that. Works really well for for mountain trails. So again, ultra marathons are often run on track or road, but they're most commonly thought of on mountain trails.

• 20:56Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  The power that you're that you develop in soccer is very useful for for pounding up up short hills.

• 21:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  And the agility, the leg agility for running over rocks and roots and an uneven terrain.

• 21:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  I have found seems to be a real benefit.

• 21:14Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 21:15Chuck Nice?

  That's great, that's great.

• 21:16Gary O'Reilly?

  We've discussed in that first segment with you about the biomechanics and all the cellular things and things it needs to be done. But we are learning so much as we do on every show. So much has to take place upstairs in the mind.

• 21:32Chuck Nice?

  Mentally.

• 21:33Gary O'Reilly?

  And the psychology of ultra running. First and foremost, most people will run the other way from an ultra event because that's just way, way out of their comfort zone. How have you found that?

• 21:45Speaker 02

  They can run the other way.

• 21:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  As long as they're running, I'm happy.

• 21:52Gary O'Reilly?

  But you took my point. How do you see the psychology of ultra runners, ultra endurance athletes?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  You know, that really is what it's about. Honestly, that is what it's, that is what it's about. So I like to say that, that running an ultra marathon is about 50% physical and 90% mental.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 22:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 22:12Chuck Nice?

  Okay. I love, I love the math.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  You know, I don't believe you can go beyond.

• 22:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  And I always have trouble with those things.

• 22:18Chuck Nice?

  50% physical and 90% mental. I love the math.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  110%, let's be honest, you only have 100%, right? But, but it gets the point across. The point is that these, once you, once you can run a marathon, a lot of people think these ultra marathons are crazy. And they think they, well, I ran a marathon and I'm destroyed. How can I possibly go more? I promise you, even though I've run 100 miles at a time, every time I finish a shorter race, I think the same thing. So how do I do that? And it's because it's, as you said, it's all upstairs. It really is mental. It's about taking care of yourself. It's about doing all the things that are important in life skills, if you will. How do you handle a day? How do you handle adversity? Do you take negative feelings, quickly observe that they're there, turn them around to find a positive in it and keep going?

• 23:05Gary O'Reilly?

  So how do you, because that's, it's not something you go, oh, now I know how to do it. I'll do it.

• 23:12Gary O'Reilly?

  So how do you set yourself up to achieve that? Identifying it firstly is step number one.

• 23:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:20Gary O'Reilly?

  What steps follow number one?

• 23:23Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Where do you go with that?

• 23:24Chuck Nice?

  Secrets. Give us your secrets.

• 23:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Talk to Dr. Ultra like that.

• 23:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Go on, please.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  There are a lot of parallels here to meditation and mindfulness training.

• 23:37Gary O'Reilly?

  All right.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Because that's exactly what that is all about. It's really just to get you observing your own thoughts. You know how your day goes. You're paying attention to a thing at one moment and suddenly now you're thinking about the next thing and that thought takes you to something else. And before you know it, you're thinking about, you know, you're way off topic. And it's being able to see that happening, catch it and bring it back to the present moment. So what you do is you go out, you run and you practice this. And as you're running, you think about, how am I feeling? You look around, you're paying attention to yourself all the time and you're paying attention to your thoughts. You know, am I suddenly thinking about what's for dinner later or that appointment I've got to get to? Bring it back. That doesn't matter right now.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  What matters right now is being here and making sure I don't have a blister, making sure I'm eating, making sure I'm drinking. So you practice it in running. But you know what? What I encourage my athletes to do and I coach as well is to do this in their daily lives. You're driving down the road. What are you thinking about? You know, pay attention to what you're really doing, stay in the moment. And when you observe yourself starting that conversation with that colleague that you don't like so much and you're starting to feel a little aggravated, observe that as quickly as you can and bring it back.

• 24:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh, sorry, Gary. I didn't mean to do that to you. I don't know how the good doctor knew about that, but.

• 24:57Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 24:58Chuck Nice?

  So let me ask you this. Let's switch gears for one second, okay? As we get kind of towards the end here of our interview. So I see people, and this is maybe a cliche or just a trope for running, but they're running and they're running and then they stop and then they throw up. But I read that one of the most common reasons for a DNF, which I believe is a do not finish, is gastrointestinal distress. So can you speak to that, please?

• 25:26Speaker 02

  I sure can. So yes, but we need to be careful about how we view the science. So first of all, those studies have been done in very hot races.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  And when there's a lot of heat, we're sending a lot of blood flow out to our skin. And we're getting less blood flow to our gut than we even normally do when we run. And the gut doesn't like that because blood flow is what we need to be absorbing those nutrients. And you have to be eating in an ultra because you run out of available energy. So that's an issue that's already set up in a hotter race where those studies have been done. Number one, but number two, yes, it's the most common single reason.

• 26:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  For a DNF, but if you add up all the other reasons as one group. Few more people drop out of a race for a reason other than GI distress. So in other words, GI distress may be like 20 or 30% of the dropouts.

• 26:23Chuck Nice?

  Gotcha.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  But there's no other single group that's bigger than that. No other single reason that's bigger than that, right?

• 26:28Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Still, a lot of people just find it hard to eat after, after they have been running for a very long time. And it's hard to get calories and just nothing looks good.

• 26:37Chuck Nice?

  Wow, wow.

• 26:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you have to, you train the body in terms of the muscle? And you acclimatize it if you're running altitude and you acclimatize to the distance. We've now got ourselves focused because we've, we've, we've listened to Dr. Ultra. And we, we're in our zone and in our moment. Do we now have to learn how to eat?

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, brilliant. We, yeah, we do, we do absolutely. So our guts do adapt. The lining of our intestines do, does adapt. The things that we eat, we express more of those receptors and channels to absorb things. And the reality is that at aid stations, at ultra marathons, it's a lot of junk food. It's candy and potato chips and cookies.

• 27:16Chuck Nice?

  Jelly beans.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  And things like that, and things that a lot of people don't normally eat, especially health conscious people don't normally eat during the day. And it is important to train your guts. Eat when you go for a run and eat the kinds of things that you're going to be eating at an aid station.

• 27:29Chuck Nice?

  Wow, very cool, man. I can't believe we're out of time, man.

• 27:33Gary O'Reilly?

  When are you running next? Cause you do like to run.

• 27:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you still run.

• 27:35Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, you're, how many, how many, how many runs do you undertake per week? Personally.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  I take one, I take one day off. I take one day off and so it's, I run every day. And I do about, I average about seventy miles a week and it goes up to eighty, ninety, sometimes a hundred, depending on, on the race I'm training for.

• 27:53Chuck Nice?

  Why do my knees hurt right now? Just hearing him say that. I don't know why. My whole body is just impacted.

• 27:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Anyone who's never met you or was unfamiliar with you now knows that Dr. Ultra isn't just, you know what, I'll call myself Dr. Ultra because I can. You kind of live in it. You are absolutely immersed in it, aren't you?

• 28:12Chuck Nice?

  He has the fun because he runs the run.

• 28:15Gary O'Reilly?

  There you go.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  I am. It's, it's an amazing thing to find what you love in life and be able to do it in all the aspects of your life.

• 28:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, it's been a pleasure having this conversation. Thank you.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Yep. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

• 28:26Chuck Nice?

  Without a doubt, man.

• 28:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, yeah. Uh, another day where we sat in the front of the class.

• 28:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. Learned a lot of good stuff today.

• 28:32Gary O'Reilly?

  We did. So thank you to Dr. Ultra. I'm only going to use Dr. Ultra.

• 28:37Chuck Nice?

  Dr. Ultra.

• 28:37Gary O'Reilly?

  And we're going to take a break and then when we come back, Anne Trason. This lady is an ultra, ultra runner. She has broken twenty world records. Oh, I'm going to enjoy talking to her. Stick around. We'll be back very, very shortly.

• 29:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science. This is our Ultra Show. Yes. Uh, we can talk about the science. We can talk about how the mind does things, but in the end, we need to talk to someone who knows exactly what it's like to put one foot in front of the other.

• 29:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Gary O'Reilly?

  And Trason is our guest. Uh, here we go, Chuck. You're going to love this. Broke twenty, twenty world records.

• 29:26Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 29:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Um, it's not unfamiliar with running fifty mile races, a hundred kilometers or a hundred mile races.

• 29:33Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 29:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow. That is ultra. That is pure, that is the pure, to me, definition of ultra. And Trason, welcome to the show.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Well, thank you very much for having me.

• 29:44Chuck Nice?

  Ah, it's a pleasure.

• 29:45Gary O'Reilly?

  You are welcome. Um.

• 29:48Gary O'Reilly?

  What first attracts an athlete to running this sort of distance?

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Not thinking that you can.

• 29:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Not thinking that you can.

• 29:56Speaker 03

  I mean, you're talking ultra marathons, you know, you can get into, people have discussions on what really an ultra is. I personally think anything more than a marathon, so anything more than twenty six point two miles is an ultra. And I knew, say, when I was twenty four, I was looking for a new challenge in my life. And I knew I could run a marathon because I'd done twenty miles in a race before in high school. But when I saw a fifty mile advertised, I was like, that's not possible. You know, it was like you start something and you think, I'm not sure I can do this. And it gets you alive. It's like electricity flowing through your body. Like, I'm starting something and I don't know if it's possible.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  And there's not a lot of things in life, really, that you can do it within a reasonable amount of time and challenge yourself. Like, and also train for it. And, you know, there's just a lot that goes on.

• 30:47Gary O'Reilly?

  How did it feel to be so far out of the comfort zone? Because that is way out of the terms of my thinking, that distance.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  That's, you got, you hit the nail on the head. You do, you're getting out of the comfort zone. I'm someone, if I'm not getting out of the comfort zone, then I'm not feeling part of life. The first fifty I did, it was a hundred and ten degrees. I had no idea what I was gonna do. So it really, um, wasn't a very pleasant experience.

• 31:12Gary O'Reilly?

  I should say. You're not kidding?

• 31:16Gary O'Reilly?

  It, I cannot, having, I mean, at the moment, I wouldn't even run a bath, let alone fifty miles. Is it a kind of addictive thing that you, once you get going in there, you just gotta go back and do it again and again and again?

• 31:33Speaker 03

  You know, I think probably for a lot of people, it is. Some people, it's like a bucket list. They wanna go do this thing called Western States One Hundred. It's a hundred miles in California. Um, and then we always say, hey, that person got bit, got, took the bite. And those are the people you see that, you know, there's a guy I met, he wants to do, there's. Fifty hundreds in next year.

• 31:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  And I, I was at this running, new running store where I live. I live in Auburn, California, where Western States happens to end. I love that race, by the way. Um, but.

• 32:08Chuck Nice?

  By the way, you're, you're, you've set a world, you've set a world record in Western States, just to let people know that.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  No, I didn't say there wasn't a world record, but I, I did win it fourteen times.

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  Fourteen times.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  The women's, but I'm sitting in this store and I said, prove it. He had a spreadsheet. He was like, see, and I'm driving and he figured out how much money it would cost to drive to all these events. I was, and each one, like he's paid for it. He's on the fence. And he has fifty-three he's gonna sign up for and he's trying to do fifty hundreds. And I mean, you know, whatever challenge, you know, pretty amazing.

• 32:43Chuck Nice?

  How do you train for an event like that?

• 32:48Speaker 03

  Well, I try and train it, you know, kind of comparable to whatever I'm racing on. So if you're doing a mountain hundred, I do a lot of mountain running if I'm doing flats. But oppositely, what people don't realize, it's the recovery time.

• 33:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  So say I'm doing something that has a lot of mountainous trail. Now my recovery was on roads and do short road runs because it's quick, it's fast, it's different. So, um, yeah, but every single person, when you push an envelope reacts differently. So that's kind of the beauty of training. You kind of learn what, how your body can handle. I could never do back to back. A lot of people run thirty miles, thirty miles at twenty, twenty.

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Uh, but it would take me six weeks to recover. So.

• 33:30Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  A lot of trial and error. Well, at least that's how it was for me. I mean, other people might not, but, um.

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  I think that was the beauty of it because you really, you, you learn so much about yourself, mentally, physically, emotionally, that, um, I, I've never, never got it before in anything I've done.

• 33:51Chuck Nice?

  So I'm interested to know, like with all these races, you know, the fourteen world championships and all the world records, you run the fifties, you run hundreds, the one hundred K. And all these races, do, do you, do you, are they kind of like children to you? Do you have recollection of every single race? Is, is there a race that was your toughest race and a race that was your favorite race? I mean, how do you look back and view these accomplishments?

• 34:22Speaker 03

  You know, I tell people, I don't really have much of a review mirror when I'm talking to people like yourself, or people ask me, Western States was where I felt most comfortable. I ran the first thirty miles on that course and it changed my life. I mean, I was gonna go to graduate school, I was gonna get married, I was gonna do all this stuff, and within thirty miles, I decided I wasn't getting married to this dude, and I was gonna spend the rest of my life outdoors, I wasn't gonna be in the lab.

• 34:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  But, um, Western States definitely, just, there's things in life, I mean, I fell in love with it like you fall in love with a person, I mean, I, but the hardest race I ever had was Comrades Marathon. It was in, it's in South Africa, I was really challenged there, and I am, I ran a performance when I wasn't feeling at my best, and ran, uh, was pushed, and I responded in a way I didn't know I could really respond, and it's probably something I hold dearest in my heart, that I could do that and be challenged and not give up. There was a woman, Maria Bach, subsequently, she did get popped for steroids, I'm just saying.

• 35:32Gary O'Reilly?

  As, as you do, yes.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, she, but, you know, I knew that was what was hard. I looked at her, and I'd been running against her, and I'm like, damn, man, she's not, there's something going on here, but you can't say anything.

• 35:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. I'm interested, I'm interested when we discuss with athletes, that if they don't do it, it doesn't get done, so all of the responsibility lies with them, and they are faced. We, we recently did a show with Sugar Ray Leonard, the boxer.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 36:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Uh, and he was getting served by, uh, Roberto Duran, and he said, I had to dig deep, I had to go somewhere. And he said, we've all got that place, it's how we use it when we get there. And I'm interested in your story, where did you go, what did you find, and how did you use it when that challenge came to you?

• 36:28Speaker 03

  You know, I looked at myself and I kinda was watching myself run. I was two minutes behind Maria for the longest time. She took off up this hill and I said, how do you wanna be when you cross that finish line? And I said, I just don't wanna be two minutes behind her because I kept saying two minutes, two minutes. And I said, you know, I, I'm gonna hold my head high no matter what happens. Damn if she's gonna be two minutes ahead of me. So when it got to be double, the single digits, it was in K, so fifteen K, there was a big downhill. I said, I'm just gonna pretend the bottom of the hill is the end of the race. So I just started sprinting. I just said, you know what? I just, I'm gonna be the person I'm wanna see at that finish line. And it just clicked and I started running super hard. I had one of the fastest last fifteen Ks. And there are fifteen thousand people on this race.

• 37:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  And I just, when I cut from bottom, I was one forty-five behind her. And it was just like someone, I was like, I don't know what happened. I just like took off. I'm running like five, thirty miles at the end of a fifty-some mile race. And it was so crazy. I entered the stadium. I mean, we're talking, there's,

• 37:33Speaker 03

  so there's over a million spectators. Just things on TV, live, South Africa. Nelson Mandela gave the awards. I mean, this is a big deal for Ann and I'm pretty shy at the time. And I entered the stadium and Nike had my, they call them seconding teams, all these rugby clubs. And they announced me as Maria Bach. I'm not kidding. And then the rugby team busted through all the security people. I mean, I don't know how I did it, but I, I beat her by two minutes. And, and I never said anything. I just, you know, and I, I was grateful for the challenge because I, I really, and I just put everything else. I just focused on the now moment.

• 38:15Gary O'Reilly?

  It sounds as if you have a certain amount of freedom mentally when you are running those sort of distances. Is that ultimately your reward, apart from if it's a race, you're winning?

• 38:28Speaker 03

  I always tell you, you have to be in the now moment. I mean, if you start, if I start daydreaming, a trip in rock, fall, I mean, there's some times, a lot of times you have a companion, I had a really good friend that used to, they're called Pacers, but like the last, it's nice when you get to, and I'd look, hey Gary, look at the river, and then bang, I hit my head on a rock or my knees, you know, so, and also, the more you're in tune with your body, the better you're gonna be, because you're really, and all these things, you're kind of pushing an envelope. And so, the more you're in tune, the less something, less something will mess up, you know, or you have to catch it before it becomes a problem. I always said, I wasn't the most talented, but I was a good problem solver.

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm. What were the problems?

• 39:13Speaker 03

  So I was always thinking, how am I doing, how am I fit, I had a little mantra, and then, if it was a problem, I wouldn't panic. I mean, I'm one of these, one of the things I'd say is, there's a place where I get so much pressure, I do better, but if it's like, today or something where, you know, there's a lot going on, I have an event coming up, I'm scattered, I'm not focused, but if there's something like, you know,

• 39:38Speaker 03

  car coming towards me, you know, fifty miles an hour, somehow, I can rise to that kind of pressure, but day-to-day pressure, I'm kind of a plague.

• 39:45Chuck Nice?

  Wow, so let me ask you, when you, with all of these championships and these victories and, you know, of course, you love what you do, and so that is what drives you. Um, but do, is there ever any kind of, I don't know, post-race letdown, or like, it's like, wow, you did all this training, and now, here you are, you've accomplished a goal, you've even maybe even exceeded your own expectations. Is there ever any kind of like, I don't know, maybe like, post-race blues, like, like, what they used to call like the baby blues after you have a baby, or, like, are there like post-race blues, I mean, or anything like that, do you ever experience that kind of stuff?

• 40:27Chuck Nice?

  Because you're so accomplished, I mean, is, is there any psychology involved with that?

• 40:34Speaker 03

  Well, you know, when I, well, you don't know, I hate when people say, you know, you know, you know. Um, when I first started doing these, it was, and I couldn't stand it. So what I did was, I started planning my next event before the event even started.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  And so, because I'd get a little nervous, so how I would do it is I'd start sketching out my challenge for the next race. And I wouldn't let myself, I, I said, like, I didn't have rearview mirrors, so I'd finish a race, and I wouldn't even be, I'd be like, well, that's great, but I have this other goal. Wow. So I'm very goal oriented, and I found that helped, because I know a lot of people talk about that. And most likely, um,

• 41:14Speaker 03

  it did initially, but I'm not that kind of, you know, I'm always looking, after that fifty mile, it was so miserable, I said, well, you know, I really wanna find some endurance, I like the endurance. Someone tried double century, didn't like that on a bicycle. And I tried a marathon, and I was successful, but it was not my, it didn't drive me. So then I just got back into, um, trying to do more fifties and hundreds, but there's always, there's always something, like right now, I have, we've told me before the show, right now I have a goal, I, unfortunately, I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and I, I can't run anymore. Oh. I love, yeah, it's, it's not, it's not a nice illness, but No, it's not.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  It's very like, around, and you know, you, uh, I started like walking ultra, and now I'm doing one in every state, I'm gonna do one in every province, every territory, and I have Kansas next weekend, I'm going to Virginia, then we have Thanksgiving, and I'm going to South Carolina. And my new biggest challenge is I'm gonna do a six day. And those are historic, so they go back to the eighteen eighties, and I, I just need those challenges and the people, it's like kind of my tribe, it's my family, and it's where I feel comfortable. And yet, even after everything I've done, I go out and I waddle around and can't hardly do these things, you know, like, for instance, I did a hundred and ten seven hours, I went and did this one in,

• 42:43Speaker 03

  in Georgia, it took me twenty nine hours to do sixty two miles. Okay, I was chatting around, but, but I don't like, oh, wow, man, that's kind of depressing. And that flickered through my head, I went, wow, that would get most people depressed, and I said, hey, you know, I'm still out here. And

• 43:00Gary O'Reilly?

  And that's just it, you, you are, there is still an element of competition within you. Uh, no matter what condition your body is or is not in, that competitive, the competitive self won't diminish.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  It's a competitive self. I never really, really tried to compete against someone else. Like that one in South Africa was a big deal and Nike, it was my sponsor and they, you know, it's kind of, you have a sponsor, it's like win or go, go home. And somewhere like that, I knew, you know, I didn't want to let them down. They'd put a lot, but mostly it's like, how to make, do better against them. I, I think if you compete, especially these endurance and you're always thinking about someone else, you're never going to be the best you can be.

• 43:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow, that is some great advice right there. I've got one question, Anne, and I hopefully.

• 43:48Gary O'Reilly?

  How do you organize your nutrition? Because you can't eat heavy, but you're going to need as much energy as you can get your hands on. So how do you organize that?

• 44:00Speaker 03

  Well, I've done a little research. What I did in the day was, you can't really digest, I think, more than, you know, don't, you know, be scientists out there agreeing, you know, say 350, no more than 400 calories an hour. So I try and just get it, I set my watch, I'm old. You know, you have garments, now you have everything to go off every 30 minutes and I just take a goo. Before that, I eat some M and M's and jelly beans, but I tried to get a hundred calories in. And it's not easy because you kind of like, after a while, it, you don't want to eat. But I just pretend to see myself kind of sitting on a rock. And how I'd look if I bonked and they'd be like, okay, you gotta eat. And I'd just like, ah. But yeah, I just forced myself to do a hundred calories every 30 minutes.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  And it's not easy. Some of the stuff you're, the research is still out. A lot of people get upset stomachs and go up. It's disgusting.

• 44:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  I used to have a lot of problems. I kind of learned where, how far you can push it, chew on a little ice that, you know, kind of, it'd swallow the eye, you know, like kind of was thinking, mom, when I had surgery, you know, they always give you ice chips. So I started doing that, that helped. But yeah, you have to keep that constant kind of energy going and just sometimes, that's the hardest part, I have to say. A lot of people, you gotta figure out what to eat. I was lucky when goo came out. It's like this gel.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  I honestly, I would do one, we're talking every thirty minutes for eighteen hours. That's a lot. That's a lot.

• 45:35Chuck Nice?

  It's a lot of goo.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  I would do it.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  Wow. What a pleasure.

• 45:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, it was. And thank you, and Tras on. And good luck with your quest to do a hundred mile walk in every state.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I'm out. No, no, anything over twenty six point two. It's my rules.

• 45:54Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 45:56Gary O'Reilly?

  And they're your rules and you make them break them.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  Okay, well, nice chatting with you gentlemen.

• 46:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Pleasure was ours. Thank you so much indeed. So, thank you to Anne Tras on. I mean,

• 46:09Gary O'Reilly?

  there is so much going on out there that I didn't realize with the ultra ultra and things we've learnt from this endurance series.

• 46:19Chuck Nice?

  The thing I've learned. The thing I've learned the most is I'm not ever doing any of this stuff.

• 46:24Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I agree with you. I'm not running a marathon, let alone going ultra.

• 46:27Chuck Nice?

  Never again.

• 46:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Um, but.

• 46:29Chuck Nice?

  I said never again, like I've done it once.

• 46:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly.

• 46:33Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, it's it's another area of sport where we've sort of like pulled the curtain back, stuck our head in, had a look around and gone, wow. Total respect for what these athletes are achieving, what they have to do. I mean, who thought you've got to consider all of your dietary nutrition and everything else? Not just your your Monday to Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but your in race nutrition, how you do it. And if you don't, the problems that you might have.

• 47:05Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 47:06Gary O'Reilly?

  And then the constant battle with your own mind.

• 47:10Chuck Nice?

  That's where it is.

• 47:11Gary O'Reilly?

  To achieve. I mean, the elite, elite athletes who are out there going for world titles. You think, well, they're winning because it's easy for them. No, they've got devils and arguments and conversations going on in their head, just like the rest of us.

• 47:25Chuck Nice?

  That's I I know, I know, I know. It makes it even that much more daunting to think about that. You know, I I mean, I just think about how scattered my brain is, you know, uh, walking from the bedroom to the shower. I can't imagine running twenty six miles.

• 47:41Gary O'Reilly?

  I think what we've discovered is that's your best excuse for not doing ultra.

• 47:45Chuck Nice?

  And not taking showers.

• 47:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, TMI. Right, on that note, which is possibly not the most fragrant, we are going to say goodbye. I've been Gary O'Reilly.

• 47:56Chuck Nice?

  And I've been Stinky.

• 47:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Fabulous. Right, this has been Playing with Science. Hope you've enjoyed our ultra-marathon endurance show and we look forward to your company very, very soon.