182: You Can't Cheat the Marathon — Eric Floberg's 8-Year Journey to 2:29

Eric Floberg ran his first marathon in 3:50. Eight years later, he crossed the Boston finish line in 2:29. In this episode, we are covering his marathon journey, fueling breakthroughs, training volume, the mindset unlock, balancing fatherhood, sobriety, and why discipline without gratitude will cost you. CHAPTERS: 0:00 Intro 4:44 Sweat Tests, Sodium Loss & Electrolyte Strategy 12:30 Why Dads Need a Goal That's Just Theirs 23:08 The Wake-Up Moment 28:18 Years 1–5 32:28 How Everything Changed 40:16 Carb Loading/Race Fueling Mistakes 45:36 The Full Marathon Timeline 51:09 What Made the Biggest Difference 1:09:23 Stop Feeling Guilty for Being Tired 1:13:57 Balancing Training, Fatherhood & Presence 1:22:08 Sobriety, Family Legacy & Generational Health ORDER MY BOOK HERE:⁠ ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210⁠ https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠ ⁠https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutrition⁠ https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutrition IG: ⁠⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠⁠ http://instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: ⁠⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitness⁠ http://youtube.com/@nickbarefitness FOLLOW ERIC: IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/floberg.runs/?hl=en⁠ https://www.instagram.com/floberg.runs/?hl=en This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) MB01IFERB8217IU

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

• 0:00Nick Bare?

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• 0:44Nick Bare?

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• 1:35Nick Bare?

  Ladies and gentlemen, today on the podcast, we have Eric Floberg. What's up?

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Very excited to be here.

• 1:42Nick Bare?

  Thanks for being here.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, happy to be.

• 1:44Nick Bare?

  So you hit a workout this morning?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Did.

• 1:46Nick Bare?

  What was it?

• 1:47Speaker 01

  It was a lot of volume. It was two up.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  It was programmed as two by three mile, all 400 meter jaw rest in between, and then two by mile after that. Three mile section set about marathon pace. The mile repeats at the end at about half marathon pace.

• 2:06Nick Bare?

  What is marathon pace right now?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's hard with like acclimating to heat and then, well, I definitely went out too fast on the first set, thinking I could probably retain goal marathon pace for this fall, but that's floating right around 540 a mile. And yeah, I adjusted it halfway through because I, I hit the first set a bit too hot, went like high 530s to mid 530s and then was like, ah, I gotta salvage this. So just broke it up a bit like I typically do in that scenario. So yeah, did a two mile chunk and then three by mile instead with some walk rest instead of jog rest. So this is the first time I hit heat in like six months. So you come off

• 2:49Speaker 01

  of Chicago, you come off of a summer training and then you have essentially six months of all the way to deep freeze and then back up to like perfect marathon training weather through the spring and then slapped in the face. Cause right now it's high of 95 back in Chicago.

• 3:04Nick Bare?

  But no humidity?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Lot of humidity.

• 3:06Nick Bare?

  Oh, it is.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  So it's basically the same, but I didn't experience it yet. I hadn't done a midweek workout yet. So this was the first time in a very long time.

• 3:14Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I naturally get really lean in the summer here.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:18Nick Bare?

  Just from the amount of sweat from these workouts. Yeah, I do my morning run right now. My average morning run is six miles.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:27Nick Bare?

  I get back and I'm absolutely soaked and I hop right in the sauna for 10 minutes. And I probably lose seven to eight pounds in the morning.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  And you're just naturally a heavy sweater too. Yeah.

• 3:41Nick Bare?

  Salty sweater too.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Salty.

• 3:43Nick Bare?

  Have you ever done a, a sweat test?

• 3:44Speaker 01

  I've, I feel like I need to do all the tests. I've never done any of the, I don't think I've ever done like a proper blood test or sweat test. I think the sweat test would be real helpful for me because I'm a decently heavy sweater as well. Um, but yeah, when I was tracking weight and macros last fall, I was noticing the same in the, the summer training with a handful of pounds lost on each one.

• 4:08Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Especially on the, the big volume Wednesday workouts.

• 4:11Nick Bare?

  The sweat tests are interesting. I haven't done one for.

• 4:16Nick Bare?

  Maybe five years.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:18Nick Bare?

  But I remember when I did it, and I should do another one soon.

• 4:23Nick Bare?

  It's, it's a process where you weigh yourself before and after. You record that data. You record the temperature, the humidity, the due point of that day or morning. How much liquid you consumed during the session? And then you put this patch in, in the test that I did, it was like this patch you put on your arm. And then after the workout's done, you stuff it in this tube and you send it for analysis. And I believe I did this test in like June or July. And it was during a speed workout with Jeff and his crew on the east side loop in Austin.

• 5:07Nick Bare?

  And I think the results came back, I lost like 2,500 milligrams of sodium per hour.

• 5:13Nick Bare?

  So trying to stay on top of that.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  It's brutal.

• 5:15Nick Bare?

  It's tough.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I don't tend to think about it too much in marathon racing because usually you're racing marathons in 40 to 60 degrees. And so the sweat loss isn't nearly as much. I've had races where I'm barely sweating at all at the finish line. So it's, it's interesting to look at that dynamic and there was, it was really fascinating to talk to Luke last year when he was doing his sweat test and how much he struggled with, I think it was Ironman Texas, where he just sweat like crazy. And getting that test was really transformative for him to realize how much he needs to supplement back in. That's never really an issue for me is with that much sweat loss in a race because I'm usually only ever dealing with like grandma's was pretty brutal last year. So that was one where it like got into the seventies, which is rough for marathon.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  But you know, like Boston this past spring was, we didn't even touch 50 degrees. So I wasn't even sweating that much at all.

• 6:06Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:07Nick Bare?

  I think it's good data to have, but.

• 6:11Nick Bare?

  It's not black and white.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:13Nick Bare?

  Where the way that I interpret the data is, okay, I'm losing 2,500 milligrams of sodium per hour. I am then going to try and replace 2,500 milligrams of sodium per hour during this workout. For me, it's, it's this information where I can say, okay, I have to preload electrolytes within a certain range prior to this workout. I have to replenish at a certain rate and ratio during the workout. But more importantly, throughout the rest of the day, I should be mindful of consuming more electrolytes, add salt to food to maintain energy levels, recovery, appropriate fluid electrolyte balance.

• 6:57Nick Bare?

  But it's not one for one necessarily, it's just, it guides some of my decisions on a daily basis.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fascinating to see how much more people who are engaging with much more sweat loss need it back in their diet and how that can be transformative for them for their training. And it's, to me, it's always, it's always something that I'm thinking as secondary or tertiary to carbs. And it's always something I kind of forget about. And then I need to remember, because like six months of not thinking about it as much, and then all of a sudden you hit a workout like today and you're like, ah, yeah.

• 7:33Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Need to make sure.

• 7:35Nick Bare?

  There's days though, in the afternoon, especially here in Texas summer, where I start getting fatigued.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:41Nick Bare?

  And my initial response is I need caffeine. And I'll go mix up with some electrolytes. And 30 minutes later, I'm good.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:48Nick Bare?

  So sometimes fatigue is, is a response or a result of being dehydrated.

• 7:58Nick Bare?

  But I want to talk about your marathon journey.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:00Nick Bare?

  You had a, a video on your YouTube channel that's titled, You Can't Cheat the Marathon, which I think is so well said. Resonated with me a lot. Your marathon journey has also.

• 8:16Nick Bare?

  Really resonated with me a lot because it's similar to mine.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:19Nick Bare?

  Now, I'm not a 229 marathoner yet. Um, I'm a 239 marathoner. But your first marathon, 2017, mine was 2018.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. It is crazy how similar the trajectories.

• 8:35Nick Bare?

  It's wild, dude.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:37Nick Bare?

  So like my first marathon hometown, 2018. You ran Chicago, 350. I ran 357 for my first marathon. Your second marathon, you ran slower, 359. My second marathon, I ran slower, 415. And then it was a realization of, I gotta do something different.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:58Nick Bare?

  Let's go get faster and better.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:00Nick Bare?

  And then over the course of years and years and years, you just shave off minutes. You know, a little bit here and there over time.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, that's what was so crazy about following your videos too. Cause I was noticing that that was happening. And then once C I M rolled around where you ran your P R. You know, it wasn't a peak race for me, but it was just, it was kind of that wild realization of us both kind of transforming the speed at the same time. Cause I had just come off of 239 in Chicago, uh, two months prior. And then you had your day and that was. I'll always remember, I think we were at like mile 15 and like media came up and I'm like, what's up guys? And so I just signed with V P N and I'm like, I thought they were filming me. And I'm like, where's Nick? And they're like, he's right behind you. And I look back and you were so dialed.

• 9:50Nick Bare?

  I was so dialed that day.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  And I go, hey, how do you feel? And you're like, I feel strong. I was just like, okay.

• 9:58Nick Bare?

  That was the best run of my life.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  It was awesome, man. Your splits were like the most consistent, like within two seconds every mile.

• 10:04Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:05Nick Bare?

  That was the best run of my, I felt. So strong.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:09Nick Bare?

  The entire way through. It was a very well executed prep and I was so focused that day. I was so focused, but we have this. This shot of you and me running together.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:20Nick Bare?

  I think it's around mile fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, something like that.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  I had like had my mullet still.

• 10:25Nick Bare?

  Yep. And. So I remember Steph was with the media crew. And. She was yelling at me like, hey, how you feeling? How you doing? And I said nothing. I just. Kept my eyes looking. Down the course and I threw up the rock on sign. And they have a photo of that. This is me running. You're like next to me. I have the rock ones, the sign going. And that was, dude, that was such a fun day.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  That was really fun.

• 10:53Nick Bare?

  Man, it was, but uh. I just remember finishing that race. And I was looking at the guys that were filming. I said, I'm so proud of that one.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Right. I remember that.

• 11:01Nick Bare?

  There's nothing like that.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  It's insane and it's. It can, in marathoning, it can, those moments can be few and far between. Um, if you're really chasing a lifetime best and that's. Really the like, so. You know, that was, that was the last marathon you've run, right?

• 11:19Nick Bare?

  Yeah, two thousand twenty-three.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I've still every spring and fall been racing and progressing and. Think really since that point. Yeah. Cause fall of twenty-three for me, I had a goal of two forty-two or under two forty-two and I ran two thirty-nine. I knew I was in better fitness than that. I think I was really trying to go for like two thirty-six, two thirty-seven that day. But that seemed to kind of be the tale of the next five races. Where I would set a pretty specific time goal. And I would miss that time goal by a few minutes, but I would still progress and get a new PR. And.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  That whole time until Boston, just this past spring, Boston was the one where I was like. It all came together and it was that feeling where I crossed the finish line. It was like. The time was hit, the PR was hit. We had the perfect day. We had the perfect weather. And it was just euphoric. Like I ran in Boston in twenty-four. It was a really hot day. A lot of people really struggled.

• 12:19Nick Bare?

  I remember, I remember that one.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Me included. And I was trying to go under two thirty-five that day. I ran two thirty-eight. That was just a minute PR on. You know, obviously a pretty difficult course. But I walked away from Boston being like, I don't really know if I like that race. I like the energy of New York maybe more. And then Chicago is just, I don't know if I can look at it objectively since it's the hometown race. I just love it so much. But this time with Boston made me go, oh, wait, maybe it is on the same level as New York. As far as hype, excitement, the whole weekend. And just having run that time, trained as hard as I did, and then execute like that, getting under 230 by, what was it, 16 seconds?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  It was just like, I've never had that moment in racing, I don't think, where I just like ripped off my sunglasses and just like screamed at the top of my lungs.

• 13:12Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  And I didn't care, I didn't care about anything other than just that feeling of finally accomplishing that goal that I'd, you know, for that point, two years, really been wanting to hit. And to do it on that course and that epic of a marathon was, yeah, it was like nothing else. And I've, I've been saying it recently, I'm kind of, I've just been reflecting on it the past few months where I look at it, I'm like, if I, if I never even run a faster time than that, I'm pretty happy with that.

• 13:40Nick Bare?

  You should be.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Being the peak, you know?

• 13:42Nick Bare?

  You should be.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  And like, of course, I still want to run faster and want to test that because that's just, I think, in my nature. But yeah, if I keep, I keep saying if I, when I'm old and gray and I look back at that, that's going to be like, I, I feel real good about that one.

• 13:56Nick Bare?

  Yeah, you should be.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:59Nick Bare?

  Me and Trey were talking about this yesterday during our workout. You know, just like you, we're dads, we're husbands, we got businesses, we got jobs, we're driven professionally. And in so many different areas and disciplines of our life, it is, it is driven to sacrifice for others. We do things to sacrifice for our kids and our marriages and our team members.

• 14:30Nick Bare?

  And you get to a point in life where you are purposely driven to selflessly serve. And I think it's important to find a thing that you do for yourself. For me, that's training. That's fitness. You can dedicate that time to yourself and you can watch yourself improve and get better and grow. So when you set these massive goals that are for you and really no one else, and then you go chase it down and get it. That's just like this, yes, I did this thing that I said I was gonna do.

• 15:09Nick Bare?

  I think we need that, especially as more, as life becomes more complicated and complex and our responsibilities increase. And not for us, but for the welfare of others.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  And my inspiration to really start running as an adult is actually rooted in Hebrews 12, 1 through 2. I was like on a summer project and just the metaphor of running the race of life. I just went out and ran 10 miles randomly. And I think like I had some sort of running background as a kid and as a teenager, just went for it. And that is really the base of, and weirdly enough, like just this past Sunday at church. I was in kids church with my boys and that was the passage and it was all about running. And yeah, like one of our friends was like, oh, you need to take this lesson and go, go do that with them. Really cool, full circle moment for me in seeing that being the inspiration.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  But I've always recognized that metaphor as being directly tied to connecting running to life. And how deeply interwoven they are and to go even deeper than not to discredit any other discipline or race style or whatever. But the marathon as well and just the whole concept of life being a marathon. I think it really shapes. Your mentality in approaching life when you can actually go through the process of training for a race like that of that distance where metabolically you're getting destroyed and you have to replenish and all of your glycogen is being depleted and you have to have a strategy and there's so many variables. It's this phenomenal metaphor for the complexity

• 16:47Speaker 01

  of how difficult every season of life can be, how you adjust based off of things that are out of your control. And then when you see it to fruition, that's just, I mean, it's euphoric. And so then translating that into you, the toughest parts of your life relationally, for me with faith, that was an incredibly hard season through my twenties into mid thirties. I feel like I'm finally coming out of a daze with that. So many tools that shape my mentality and approach to being disciplined and finding selflessness in

• 17:25Speaker 01

  life. And a lot of my early twenties of building my business into my early thirties and the carnage and craziness of COVID mixed in there. But I feel like coming out of that fog now, especially as a dad and seeing my boys get around the double digits in years and starting to get into more complex emotional thoughts and sports and things that we can connect on where we didn't have as much as young kids, has really made me realize how valuable selflessness is. And so for my training, it's really interesting to see how I can still have this thing for myself within reason to train when they're asleep or to

• 18:08Speaker 01

  work it into my day, where it's I still get meaningful time with them and making sure that that happens. But then to them then see me do that and also be present. I've started cutting out my commute to my studio in the city. I built out my home office. I'm now working on average four and a half out of the five days a week at my home office just to get some of that time back. And I'm starting to realize that

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Even in my track workout this morning, like getting in the depths of the difficulty of the reps, a phrase came to me was like, "You've been here before." And so applying that same kind of, obviously very different, the physical difficulty of running a marathon race, but the same principle applying, how difficult it is in that moment, and realizing, "I can actually get through this and get to the finish line." I feel the same way about complexities in life. I zoom out and I go, "There is a finish line here." And, you know, God willing, that's decades down the line, but there will be a finish line and I can persist through this.

• 19:11Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I love that. We were in church this past weekend, and I just shared this in a recent YouTube video. But the message from our pastor, Pastor Joe Champion, Good Celebration Church here in Georgetown, he was talking about how so many people, when they find themselves in a valley, whether this is a hardship in life, or a challenging moment, or it's between two highs. You know, this big win in life and there's this lull between this previous high and this big milestone accomplishment and the next, you might not be experiencing hardship or struggle, but you're in between two highs.

• 19:55Nick Bare?

  So many people will set up camp in the valley. And when you find yourself in the valley, avoid setting up camp, throw your rucksack on, and climb out of that valley as fast and hard as possible. We are called, we are required to steward our ability to work and challenge ourselves and grow. And I've been sitting on that the last couple of days, that we have been provided all these talents and skills and ability, but we have to use them and apply them for good and to reach what is potential.

• 20:38Nick Bare?

  But I've been tested so much in this season of life with two young kids and...

• 20:49Nick Bare?

  Building a business and being driven, but also trying to be present at the same time.

• 20:56Nick Bare?

  I don't know if it's possible to find a way to balance all of it, end up managing it. But I'm learning so much in this season. But I do believe that the marathon has so many parallels. Between a build and the progress and the consistency required and how hard it gets and life itself.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  You can't cheat it. How people get exposed on race day. My buddy Kofuzi says it's like it's, this is the rehearsal day. Your race day is rehearsal. And it's like, you think about a piano recit- or sorry, recital. That you think of a piano recital, it's like, yeah, you get up on the stage and you're gonna get found out if you didn't do the work. And yeah, obviously there's variables and how it can be difficult on race day. But if you didn't actually do the work, there's no real shot at you reciting that and showing that the work was put in.

• 21:45Nick Bare?

  Yeah. Well, you said in your first marathon, you were shooting for sub three.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:50Nick Bare?

  Where did that naive, ignorant mindset come from?

• 21:56Speaker 01

  As a kid, I had a natural ability to run. I was always the kid that ran the mile the fastest in my class in sixth grade. I, you know, like ran sub seven and no one was really tracking with me. So I just kind of had that arrogance through childhood into middle school. I won my district in the mile. I ran a 524 mile in eighth grade and we had a really good cross country team in high school. They were like top three in state every year. Very good program. They're trying to get me to go out for it and I wanted nothing to do with it. I hated the stress of performing in races. We go to track meets, cross country meets and all my friends and teammates were just like, ready to win today. And I hated the pressure of feeling like I had to carry that weight and win.

• 22:42Nick Bare?

  Were you competitive when you were younger?

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Not really.

• 22:46Nick Bare?

  I was the same way. I wasn't really competitive.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was. I was really athletic, but I never really cared to be, you know, on top of the mountain, looking down. And I loved, I loved being good at sports. I really loved baseball, was good at baseball, made all-star teams. Wasn't really that great at many other sports, but was really athletic. But it was, it was cool to win this stuff. And I got really humbled my eighth grade year. I lost in the 800 the day before. It was a two-day track meet. And I got burned. I went out way too fast and I got burned. And my dad sat me down in the car and was just like, what lesson did you learn? Like, it was a pacing lesson. He's like, you need to camp out on their shoulders tomorrow for three laps and then just burn them in the last lap. And I did that and I, and I won the race.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  That was like a really good foundational thing to learn, that discipline actually can, can give you success. But I hated the pressure. I hated the feeling, just didn't fall in love with the sport. So there's a part of me that wonders what would have been if I had gone through that program. There's a very good chance I would have gone collegiate in running in whatever capacity. I don't know. Um, but I also, I'm almost fully convinced that if I had gone that route, I wouldn't be as in love with running as I am now.

• 23:59Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  And it would look very different because we see that story a lot with collegiate runners that they just burn out. And then I just made a video about it. Like there's so many stories of collegiate runners and there's a 10-year gap and then they come back to the marathon. And they didn't really keep up with running fitness there. And then they're trying to get back to, you know, a piece of who they were in that time. And so it's really interesting for a lot of people because I think a lot of people are similar to us where they didn't necessarily run in that phase of life. Then they get into their 30s and they really want to be competitive on the marathon stage because there aren't that many like pinnacle race experiences in the U.S. outside of marathoning, really. Like you have your local 5K, 10K halves. But like the majors and the huge events, I think are the most exciting.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, I wasn't super competitive. But.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  I knew I had that background and so I get into, I was 27, I think at the time, 26. We just had our second kid. I was the heaviest I'd ever been, the most out of shape I'd been. And it was, it was definitely a wake up moment. Like, I want the longevity. My dad was never in shape. Um, we never really did active stuff.

• 25:15Nick Bare?

  Were you training at all, like any sort of fitness?

• 25:17Speaker 01

  No, no, I was a full-time teacher, building my photo video business. And at that time, I had just gone full-time with, with my business. I did three years of teaching from 2013 to 2016, jumped to full-time with the business and then started YouTube in 2018, um, for my creative photo video channel. And it had always like, from that point of running that 10 miler, that one random summer in 2010, to that point when I was 27. I mean, life was a whirlwind. Like, we got married young. We had our first kid, super young. He was born in 2014. And then our second came 2017. And there's that feeling of, I, I always want to do a marathon as a bucket list thing.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  And so I think at that point, I was starting to get really competitive with, with business. And I was definitely, I was a performer. Like, in high school, I was the theater kid, actually. Like, I, I did choir, I did musicals, like, all that stuff. I loved being on stage. Um, and I had a ton of fun doing that. And I actually did gymnastics in high school. We won, we won state my sophomore year. So really random, but like, uh, I think that's the, kind of the culmination of like the teaching and the performance, leading to YouTube and finding success entrepreneurially and seeing that I could have that kind of win. It was always like, oh, well, I actually have this skill in running from my past.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Maybe I could, and so then I got, you know, I was following Casey Neistat. He was running and he wasn't really necessarily running marathons. And, you know, I think he ran New York every year. But yeah, immediately saw the sub three marker. And at that point, that was the Boston qualifier. And I knew I could run a sub seven mile here and there, or go out and run three miles under seven minutes. I'm like,

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Surely I could lengthen this out and do it for a whole race. So just, yeah, for two years straight, just had no idea what I was doing training wise. Go out, maybe do 25, 30 miles a week, no workouts, really no long runs, maybe. I think I ran my first half marathon in 2017 and I have video footage of it and it's hysterical. Like just absolutely slogging it the past, the last three, four miles. Uh, so no expectation or realistic understanding of what was going to go down in the race. And I think I proved to myself, I'm sorta in the fitness because I went through half in that first race and won 35. So I was tracking for a 310 and just got annihilated in the second half.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  And no feeling really, I think I had like a gel or two and yeah.

• 28:00Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it's how my early journey started.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 28:04Nick Bare?

  And I look back at some of these videos I was filming back then, I had no clue what I was doing. I wasn't wearing a smartwatch. I didn't track mileage. I didn't track pace. I didn't track heart rate. I would carry my phone with my headphones plugged in, cord whipping around my face everywhere. And I didn't have any expectations for my first marathon. I went out, easy pace. By mile 17, I was humbled pretty quickly, full body seizure, cramps. We have one of these videos of my early marathons where I stopped to give an update to the camera. Like thinking about that now, like stopping, drinking a cup of water, giving an update to the cameraman of,

• 28:49Nick Bare?

  here's where we're at, this is how I'm feeling, this is what's going on, little walk for a little bit. I remember like my first or second marathon, I was cramped up so bad and I'm walking and this cop who was working the marathon walks up to me, he's like, hey brother, what are you doing out here? Why are you doing this? I said, I'm running a marathon. And then I remember going for my first sub three and I wasn't in sub three shape. I wasn't able to hold the pace, but I told myself mentally I am stronger than I am physically. I just have to hold a six forty five minute per mile pace.

• 29:31Nick Bare?

  And I went out that first six miles and I was probably holding a six thirty pace. And I knew after six miles, there's no way I'm holding this any longer. And I ran three twenty four, the first time I actually tried to go for sub three. What was the first year you went sub three?

• 29:47Speaker 01

  That was fall of twenty two, so it took five years to get there. And I wasn't really competitive with a three hour marathon until twenty nineteen. I ran Chicago fall of twenty nineteen and ran three ten. And similarly, in that race, I I came to the race being like, I think, I think I'm around it. I have a shot at it, but really all I want to do and prove to myself this race is just do not stop. Because in the previous two races, every time I stopped, it was impossible to start back up again. And I just, I would run for half a mile and then just have to walk again.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  So that was my mantra going into the second half of that race is you may slow, but you just have to not stop. And so I think I slowed to almost eight minute pace at one point in the late part of the race and came through in three ten. But I did not stop that race and I proved to myself that I could push through it. So that was really transformative for me there. But then even from then, it was still three more years of just really struggling to hit it. And then in twenty twenty one, I had posterior tibial tendonitis in the ankle. And just very stereotypical dude, just not going to the doctor, not going to PT, not figuring it out for a half year.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  And I, I had, because I had fundraised for Chicago that past fall, they gave me a bib to New York the next year. And COVID came, so I ran it virtually, 2020, ran 305 on the lake that day. It was brutal. It was like freezing. I got hit by Lake Michigan water. It was ridiculous. Full blown cramps at 21, had to stop.

• 31:33Nick Bare?

  This by yourself?

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had some friends chasing me on an e-bike and just like, yeah, I came around the Oak Street Bend in, on the Chicago Lakefront Trail and the entire like, lake came up to the brake wall and soaked me from like my knees down.

• 31:49Nick Bare?

  Gosh.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  And that was like mile seven. And then we got lost from each other at like mile 15 and then turned around and had like 25 mile an hour headwinds. It was really dark. It was really difficult. I feel like that was in that era, maybe the best race I had. That was a 305 and then I actually went backwards the next year because of the tendonitis and ran a 311 in New York. But I went to PT that summer being like, if I'm going to run New York and actually run a decent time, I need to figure this out. So I did, um, and then ran 311, but I think that's really just what really lit a fire in me. Cause then 22, I went to grandma's, ran a 303, some of the same story, still not feeling, still not feeling correctly.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Puked really hard at mile 20 and just, I was on pace. I was, I was ready to run 256 that day. I was feeling great at mile 17. And then it just all imploded on me at 20, 21 and I had to just jog it in. That was like humiliating. It was so brutal. So I had a friend help me through that next block.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Going into fall of 22, that's where I finally, I think I was doing some, some speed work. No real long run workouts leading up to that Grandma's Spring Marathon. But then this friend who was at the time, he was like a 224 marathoner. He ended up running 219 eventually. He put me through mile repeat workouts, 800s. And then really understanding, he was like, we, we need, we need to fuel. Like we need to actually get carbs in. And it was still, I feel like still kind of emerging at that point. It's just exploded the last three years, understanding carbon take and how critically important it is in marathoning. So finally did that, had structured training, had the most confidence going into the race.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  And then went really conservative the first half to negative split. And then that was a huge unlock for me when my run 257 that fall. Like, oh, this is how it's supposed to work. Electric day, it was another one of those like similar to Boston. We're like, I'll never forget that day. 257 on the clock, like five years of trying to do this and you finally figured it out. And you know, I'm 31 at that point and just, yeah, it was really, really cool. But then it was just like an avalanche of fitness and just like hammering after that to keep getting faster.

• 34:19Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I remember my first sub three. And it was like, if I can just get a sub three hour marathon, I can call it quits.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:28Nick Bare?

  That's like, it's all I want to do. And then you do it and you realize there's so much potential left.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:37Nick Bare?

  It's, well, let's now, let's see where I can take this next. So from 2017, three hour, 50 minute marathon. And then getting slower the following year, three hour 59 marathon. What changes did you make to training specifically to get to sub three or close to sub three? Or was it just the compounding consistency of running more?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  I don't, the compounding consistency for me was the 257 to where I am now. That's what I attribute that progression to. The first progression was just go from knowing nothing to actually have some structured training. I think a lot of-

• 35:18Nick Bare?

  Some, but not much.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Some, but not, yeah, not, that last one leading to the 257, that was the huge unlock. It was like, this is actually how you train for a marathon. I just stubbornly was, literally that whole time, I'm like, I can will my way through this. Like, I'm, I'm a talented enough runner. I can figure it out. And just humbled over and over until someone who actually knew how to do it was like, let me hold your hand. And then I did it. And that really proves a point too, in this distance and discipline. Like, you do need to understand what you're doing if you want to have success in it. Because I would try gels, but they would make me so nauseous that I would just wrote them off. Like, I'm gonna do it without it.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  And then, like, it just didn't work. And, you know, a few of those blocks, maybe I was touching 40 miles a week, but that last one leading to 257, most weeks were 50 miles or more a week. And that was the proper volume I needed for that type of effort. I think I might have even done that for Grandma's, but the, the fueling part wasn't unlocked yet. I literally had like electrolyte sachets in my pocket and I, in Grandma's, I grabbed the water cups and like dumped them into it. I had no idea what I was doing. And just like little chews and I ate like five of them throughout the race.

• 36:40Nick Bare?

  Were you training fasted?

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Uh, oh yeah, yeah. I don't think I ever took anything. Maybe like ate a banana before and just had no idea. And I would, all my long runs, I remember at that point, all of my long runs, 15 to 18 miles, I would be laid out on the couch for the rest of the day. Like, Sabrina, my wife, talks about it and she's just like, I was ready to like kill you. Like, that you, that- You just couldn't, you were just a zombie the rest of the day. And I would just like sort of be able to, and it was, it was not good. I'm, I look back and I'm like, that was, that was foolish. Yeah, you weren't, you weren't giving enough to her, to the family. And it was that transitional, I mean, we were, we had young kids at that point too.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  And that was another part of like, if I'm actually gonna do this, I need to do it right. Cause this is not sustainable at all. I can't be this dad. You know, like, cool, you're going for a hard goal, but if you can't actually be available or useful at all at home, that's, we absolutely can't do this.

• 37:48Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  So that's a big part. She was like, you need to, you do need to figure this out. So, yeah, once the fitness started growing, fueling, replenishing, understanding that, getting enough calories in. Then I started bouncing back from long runs and I was able to actually be alive after those. And so I guess for everyone, it's a, you gotta figure that out for yourself. If, you know, you're gonna have much more success with doing it the right way early on. Instead of just turning into that zombie. I think that's why we've seen the sport explode the last three years. Because people are actually fueling and recovering correctly. In the way that no one was doing in the space really at all prior.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Like everything before 2020, like, you know, you hear all the stories of marathoning from 2000 to that, about that time. Everyone was like, I ate a banana and drank some water and I gritted it out. But now you're seeing this volume of people run the times they are. Even 2024, if I ran the time I did with my 229, I would have been around 100th place. This year at Boston, I ran 229 and I was like 360th. So like, so many people are figuring it out and progressing in that same way, which is really cool to see.

• 39:03Nick Bare?

  Yeah, the, the competitive advantage you can get from proper training and nutrition and fueling. I mean, everyone now is an athlete.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:14Nick Bare?

  Like we are training as regular people, dads, family men, business owners. We are training at the caliber of some professional athletes. And one of the things that Sally McRae told me years ago that I'll never forget. Cause she she's a professional athlete. She's a professional runner. I am not. She's like, Nick, you you train, you eat, you have the mindset of a professional, whether you are or not. You don't have to be a professional athlete to live the lifestyle. Because we can fuel properly, we can train properly, we can recover properly, we can

• 39:56Nick Bare?

  work out and and structure our our programs properly now to keep making progress in the sport.

• 40:04Nick Bare?

  So I've really leaned into into that. I mean, I I love being an athlete. It is not necessarily my job, it is is part of my job. But I love the lifestyle. I love the lifestyle. I love my early morning runs. I love my strength training, high rock sessions in the afternoon. I love structuring my meals to facilitate the results I want, the recovery, the fuel. But I remember those early days of starting to run, not understanding proper nutrition and fueling. I mean, just like you, I I vividly remember one of my first 10 mile runs ever. It was downtown Austin, around Lady Bird Lake.

• 40:47Nick Bare?

  And 10 miles to me was, it felt like 100 miles. I planned my whole day around it. So I'm going down there, I'm running 10 miles. And afterwards, I'm eating whatever I want, because I probably burned 10,000 calories. I remember finishing this run, being smoked, going to Whole Foods. I got like two smoothies, I hit the hot bar, I went to dinner that night. I'm like, yo, we're we're going all out today. I ran 10 miles. And then, you know, you get to some of these marathon training blocks and it's 10 miles for breakfast. Before the kids wake up. It's just part of, part of it. But nutrition is one of those things that we are in control of.

• 41:29Nick Bare?

  And that we can leverage and utilize to our advantage to get better.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah, and it's it's not just a gimmick. It really is not. And all the studies prove it. And. Yeah, I was talking to the crew on my morning session today. It's so individualized when you start getting to your fastest times and what you are capable of. So for me, like, I still struggle with nausea late in a marathon race. And so what I realized and what was such an unlock for me in Boston, I'm still learning every single race, is, you know, like, everyone talks about trying to hit 100 grams of carbs an hour in a marathon now, or even more, and people in ultras are doing like 120, 140. Pros are doing that much, but they have bottles. And there's only so much you could do as an amateur withholding something.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  So I had a handheld that I tossed, but that was what helped me in Boston get 100 grams down in the first hour. And then I sparse it out the last two thirds, or, you know, whatever percentage was left. And for me, like, understanding that I could get the majority of what I needed in that first hour when it was palatable and I wasn't like on my limit was what I need to do personally. And that's only realized in doing the thing over and over and training it that way. So then go, oh, I actually can. And then I proved that I can. And not forcing myself to try to get to 100 an hour, but dialing it in to exactly what I need to get the outcome.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Because there were times where I'm like, this might have a diminishing return if I'm trying to put too much down and I'm focusing on it too much. It's taking me out of the mental game.

• 43:08Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  And so I'm, I love that game as well. And then seeing how personalized it can be for some people, because some people just have iron stomachs and they can just rip through it and take down a ton. So yeah, really fascinating. And then part of that is carb load as well and how aggressive you go there. I had huge stomach issues in 24, Chicago 24, because I went crazy aggressive on the load. I was like 800 plus on each day, the two days leading up. And now I kind of sit in like 600 to 650, and that's my sweet spot. And so now it's like, okay, we kind of figured that out, repeat that, adjust the training, a few more variables. Let's do the next one.

• 43:49Nick Bare?

  I love the carb load. I have my carb load dialed down. Where if it's a Sunday race, I'm carb loading, like, I'm ramping up Wednesday. I hit Thursday, Friday really hard. Saturday, I eat as normal.

• 44:05Nick Bare?

  And then Sunday, obviously race day. And I shoot for between 700, 800 grams on those big days. But I know what sources work for me.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:14Nick Bare?

  It's low fiber. I lower protein. I lower dietary fat. It's foods that digest very quickly, very easily. I don't have any GI distress. I always have like my big meal two to three hours before the marathon. So I know digest very well. G M sport, go bars, go gels. I'm loading up on electrolytes because on my first couple of marathons, I made the mistake of loading up on water the day's leading up to. But didn't add enough electrolytes. So I was flushing and diluting all my natural electrolyte stores. Cramped even worse. But once you dial in that plan, you know, for me, I consume significant.

• 44:55Nick Bare?

  I'd say moderate carbs during the actual race when I'm doing a marathon. But I know that going into the race, my glycogen is topped off.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:06Nick Bare?

  You know, we can store a lot of carbs in our muscle, a little bit in our liver. As muscle glycogen. But a lot of people don't give themselves time to top off that glycogen. Glycogen, because from the time you consume the carbs, it takes 24 hours at least. To digest, break down, assimilate into glycogen. So it's that, you know, a famous office scene with Michael Scott eating the chicken alfredo right before the race. Like that is the opposite thing to do. But the carb load makes a big difference.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  And I'm also fascinated to see hybrid model and guys of your size because then you start to wonder like, can you retain more muscle glycogen?

• 45:51Nick Bare?

  For sure.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  And so your carb load is even more important and then intra race feeling isn't as important. That's really fascinating to me. Whereas like if I don't have as much muscle mass, I might need to rely on that intra fuel, intra race feeling more. And then you might need to focus more.

• 46:06Nick Bare?

  Good point.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  On the, on the carb load. I talked to Trevor about that, my friend who's a hybrid athlete as well and. He, I think he went three gels at Boston and ran a 228, but he carb loaded hard. And so we started kind of contemplating that. It's like, that's really fascinating that you could, you could potentially store more. Cause the, the people, the, the number of people talk about is 2000 calories. Your body can hold 2000 calories, but that's obviously going to be dependent on your, your size, your mass and your, your muscle to, to fat ratio and all that stuff. And that's going to be very nuanced for people of your size versus, you know, someone who's 130 pounds. So yeah, I think that's all really fascinating. And then how much, how many calories you're burning per mile? Cause then that number is like around 100 calories per mile.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  But are you burning more and am I burning more? You have to really figure that out for yourself. And that's why, again, individualizing that feeling for yourself is critically important to figure out over those years that you're progressing.

• 47:05Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it's so individually specific. So if someone would have told you in 2017, they, they came up to you and said, "Hey, if you keep at this for nearly 10 years, you'll run a 229 marathon." What would you have said back in 2017?

• 47:26Speaker 01

  No chance. Yeah. Especially at that time too, like 229 in Chicago probably would have been like top 60 or something. I'd have been like, that's not, there's no way.

• 47:37Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And also again, at that time, like marathoning wasn't as popular and people weren't progressing like that at that time. And there wasn't as many people doing it. So I think it's, it's a really fascinating thought experiment. But I think what's really cool is when you document that, it just makes people realize their potential as well and seeing that kind of progression and being like, oh, maybe it is possible for me too. And I'm still always playing that game. I don't know, I don't know what my ceiling is. And Really, the past two years, I was like, I think I'm plateauing. Like, this is getting pretty difficult to try to chip off more time. I did-

• 48:21Nick Bare?

  How old are you now?

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Thirty-four, going thirty-five this year. And that's another interesting thing. It's like, as we're seeing more people fuel and recover correctly, you start seeing people extend how far they can get their lifetime PR, like, into their forties.

• 48:37Nick Bare?

  Definitely.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  And that's also attributed to lack of burnout in early, you know, in twenties, early thirties, but progressing throughout the ages we are now, like, through the thirties into forties. And, yeah, the proper, that proper fueling, that proper recovery is starting to, I think, extend people's ability to get that lifetime PR and stack even more before there's a diminishing return on aging out.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  But, yeah, I never, I never imagined that that would be possible. And now we're trying to explore, okay, I, I mean, I'm, I can be pretty pessimistic with seeing what my potential might be. I try to play devil's advocate quite a bit. And that was actually huge for me with Boston. That friend Trevor, he's just like, you are capable of doing this. You realize, right? Like, we've been hanging in the same workouts. You do have what it takes to break two thirty. You have to believe that you can. So now it's becoming mental in that process and not sandbagging my effort and, like, really actually believing myself that I can do it. Because, yeah, past two years, I, from twenty-four to twenty-five, fall to spring, I only took off a minute.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  And then that spring to fall, I only took off seven seconds. And it was, it's pretty deflating. You're like, cool, got a PR, but, man. All that work for seven seconds was like, oh, dang.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  And that's a whole separate conversation too. It's like you cannot discredit. You just, you still ran the fastest marathon you ever have. They might be essentially the same time. But don't discredit that effort. But then to double back the next season and almost take off three minutes, I'm like, oh, okay, now I'm back in this thought experiment of, wait, can I, can I do that again? May, yeah, maybe there is more, maybe I can get down to low two twenties, maybe I can break two twenty. I don't know. And the only way you can find out is testing it and doing it. There's no way I can like take two years off now, maybe. And, and then come back and try to do that.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  As long as similar to you, like, I love this process. I love seeing what my potential is. I love running. I love the community of it too, like running with other people now and, and coaching other people and. I, major marathon weekends are like some of my favorite weekends ever. And just the, the excitement surrounding it.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's cool to see. And like I said, even if I don't progress more, I'm still super happy with what I've done so far.

• 51:21Nick Bare?

  You can't be mad.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  No, and it just, that was the biggest thing for me in Boston, I think, was the, the massive unlock of believing that I could do it. And then just leaning into gratitude, like, I couldn't believe. And just being like, I'm so, so grateful to just be here to do this, to have these experiences. This coming off the,

• 51:43Speaker 01

  the tale of my grandfather passing away and just a really heavy moment for my family. And just like, man, this is, this is living, this is life, this is what I get to do and, man, it's a blessing and I'm just so, so happy and thankful that I can. And every opportunity I get from here on out, like, having had that experience and accomplishing what I did, there's no way I'm walking into any race without like, complete gratitude. And just like, oh, man, what a, what a privilege blessing it is to train this hard and. Show my family, show my kids and we're going to Berlin altogether this fall. So they're going to see Sawway run, just broke the world record and they're so stoked to see that. Cause I woke them up at like 5am when, when they broke two.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Um, I ran upstairs and was like shaking them in bed like world record, world record. They came downstairs and yeah, it was really cool to experience that. It's just, yeah, all of it's so fun.

• 52:38Nick Bare?

  If you look back at these last couple of years where you've made significant progress, what would you attribute to seeing the biggest improvements in your times? You know, was it, I'm sure a combination nutrition and fueling,

• 53:00Nick Bare?

  training volume and intensity. But then I also want to talk about, you, you brought it up, the mindset. Because I look at so many athletes, maybe not necessarily professional athletes, but people who, who train really hard, who do these races. It might be part of their job, maybe they're a creator and they have a really great performance. And then it's years and years and years of missing the goal and digressing and injury and decline. And you have to sit back and watch this and be like, what's, what's going on?

• 53:43Nick Bare?

  Is it the coach? Everyone wants to blame the coach. Must be the coach. Needs a new coach.

• 53:48Nick Bare?

  Or is it the mindset? Is there a lack of confidence? Is there a doubt that is holding them back from unlocking that next level? So with all that being said, what do you think's made the biggest difference in your marathon training and performance?

• 54:04Speaker 01

  I think it can be attributed to satisfaction, like with, with the performance. It's that I may be frustrated that I didn't hit the exact time I wanted to, but I'm really thankful that I got a new time and. We were discussing before the pod, like, I actually allow myself to take a month where I just have no pressure on myself, kind of eat what I want, hang out, chill out. And I really feel like that time, especially like a bit more fat consumption, I feel like my hormone regulation gets back in. No, I haven't done blood tests or studies in that time, but I allow myself to get out of shape just enough that by the end of that month,

• 54:47Speaker 01

  that fire's kind of lit back in me. And I think a lot of people are, they feel that dissatisfaction and they just jump right back into training. And especially for marathoning, there's tons of studies that talk about how, you know, like, the typical thing they say is for every day is a, every day is attributed to a mile in the race for recovery. So you need 26 days before you're actually fully recovered and then you can go back into building back volume and training. And before I go into the nitty gritty of all of that, I think family and what's most important to you is deeply foundational to many people in this process because if you're not careful about that, you turn into 2020 version of me where

• 55:30Speaker 01

  I'm laid out on the couch. So for me with my wife, I did a whole segment with her in our fall series last fall where I interviewed her and she talked about frustrations with my training and just, and so many spouses came up to me in race weekends and just be like, I loved Sabrina time and like hearing her thoughts and feelings and we all feel this way. And it's a, it's a song and dance that we're constantly having to do. But the thread of success for us and our marriage and our family is that we're constantly communicating about expectations, where I'm at with training, if I need to adjust stuff. You know, if I, if I felt like I needed more sleep the night before, I might sleep in that day. And then

• 56:14Speaker 01

  I talk to her and go, I'm bringing the boys into the gym today. We're going to, I'm going to run my run on the treadmill, but I'm going to be with them. We split time. And just being adaptable and change in that way. It's not often that that happens, but constantly just talking about what's around the corner, what I'm doing, how I will be training and not just leave her guessing. And so then when I, you know, progress into more volume, when I progress into more intensity, I know that that's okay and that we're communicating. I'm like, okay, I'm going to be back by seven, 7:15. We'll be ready to go once kids start waking up. But functionally, as I've seen the progression, for me, it's been a lot of, a lot more long run workouts.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  It's doing goal marathon pace or faster within volume, that's 16 miles plus, all the way up to the 22. And not being afraid of those workouts, not going in with fear and just being like, this is a pretty normal thing that I do within blocks. And then, you know, whether Jeff wants to be mad at me for doing more of them or not. But I feel like for me, adding a few more within the block has been really foundational to building that fitness. And then the mental strength of going into a race, being like, I practiced this so many times on fatigue legs in harsh circumstances. Trevor and I did multiple long run workouts at a spot by us.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  It's a nine mile loop, but it almost perfectly mirrors the Boston course with elevation. There's this huge 150 foot climb on the backside of the loop. And we just, we ran it at night even, he got off of a shift and then we went and ran it at night. And it was just one of the gnarliest mental battles I've ever had in a long run workout. But it gave me that confidence, like I was wrecked by the end of it and just, yeah. But then going into the race, I was like, we, we did do that and we did a handful of other ones like that. And then it actually made Boston feel really palatable. And while we were racing it, we were fortunate enough to, to be racing it together.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  So it just felt like another one of those long run workouts. So.

• 58:28Nick Bare?

  How big was your prep for, for Boston?

• 58:31Speaker 01

  I actually pulled volume back a little bit and then just increased intensity more. So hammering Jeff's Wednesday workouts regularly. But I, I did probably out of the 12 weeks of prep, I probably did eight or nine long run workouts. And then just allowed.

• 58:46Nick Bare?

  This is like 20 plus miles?

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, most of them were like 18 to 22. And they all had in and around marathon pace intervals within them or unbroken stretches like that one we did that I just referenced. We progressed into the first, the first 12 miles, 14 miles. And then we did 10 unbroken at marathon pace on crushed limestone with hills in the dark. And yeah, that one in particular felt like a huge unlock for me. And it's something I had never really done before in a training block. And I'm starting to realize if I want to go for these even faster times, there needs to be some of

• 59:26Speaker 01

  that mental game where I'm feeling the confidence of actually doing that within a workout, succeeding in it, or at least trying and then going for that hard thing in the race.

• 59:38Nick Bare?

  And what was during those 12 weeks, what did weekly volume get to mileage wise?

• 59:44Speaker 01

  I don't think I ever really went over 85 miles a week on that prep. So I was mostly in the 70 to 85 mile range, whereas the fall, the previous build, I was at pretty much 90 miles every week. And so I'm starting to realize that my overall marathon periodization is it's really helpful for me to extend volume up, challenge myself with a new stimulus of more volume with kind of the same intensity and then draw it back with less volume, more intensity. And then this phase, this next season, I'm going to try to rubber band back up to do more volume, try to nail 90 to 100 miles a week. And that might mean less long run workouts, but I'm going to extend that volume up so

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  that the next adaptation might be less volume from there. Maybe I go back down to 80, 85, but then increase the intensity again. Yeah. And in the middle of that, I'm doing a lot of speed training. So like I did winter of speed in between these two blocks where I was, I was going for fast mile time. I was running 5K races or time trials on my treadmill and really working top end 200 meter neuromuscular stimulus. And that seemed to work. I'm going to do it, do it more this summer, race some more, doing 10K next week, some more 5K races, another mile race, and then go back into volume.

• 1:01:09Nick Bare?

  So when you finish a race, you have the month or so of a deload, resetting, allowing yourself to recover.

• 1:01:21Nick Bare?

  After that month is over and you start training again, before you get into a prep, what does your off-season look like? How are you structuring the week, workouts? What does that maintenance or build look like before the actual 12-week prep?

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  I think that's what's interesting for me is I never really look at a 12- to 16-week forecast and go, "I am starting the block." Like, it starts now. I think I come out of that month phase where, in that month phase, I'm doing 30 to 40 miles a week and 90 to 95% easy running. And I might do a little fart look here or there, or some steady running, maybe do a long run of 14 miles. And then, once I get out of that month, then I start pushing myself a little bit more. And then, relative to when my next race is, I just kind of start pushing on the gas and accelerating into that. And I'm still, right now, I'm kind of like, "Yeah, the Berlin block has started," but

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  it's also, I don't really see like my formal Berlin block starting until a month from now, because right now, I'm still periodizing with speed. And I'm still trying to hit speed races, you know, 10K down to mile. And I even tested out a 400-meter all-out the other day, and that was fascinating. But, yeah, it's more of like this ramp up into like really working top-end speed and then like coming back into marathon volume from there. And so, to me, a lot of times, I look at it, and I just go, "Fitness is fitness."

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  And you can really obsess over like, "Okay, today I have 12 800s, and it needs to be da-da-da-da-da." But today, I even said at the track while we were filming, and it's just like, consistency for me is showing up and doing whatever I can in the moment to finish what's going to be quality in that day. So even if I don't hit that second set the way I thought I was, or the way it was going to be prescribed, the variables, I'm not feeling it, whatever, I'm going to do what I can to make sure that I'm at threshold or critical velocity area today in the reps that I can with the rest that I need, because the body only knows what you feed it and the stimulus. It doesn't know what times you're running.

• 1:03:37Nick Bare?

  True.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  It doesn't care. That's all mental. And so, when you can actually get the work done then and progress through that, then that's where I zoom way out and I go... May not have been good on paper, may have been really messy, but my body got the fitness. Move on.

• 1:03:53Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  And then you'll have like a really good morning where it's really cool. And you carved up really well the day before, you were really dialed in and then you just absolutely obliterate that workout. And then you're like, great, got the physical stimulus, but I also got the mental stimulus on that one. So.

• 1:04:10Nick Bare?

  What changes, I remember watching you the last

• 1:04:15Nick Bare?

  few years, like last couple of years, really being intentional with your nutrition.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:20Nick Bare?

  They track your macros, consuming more carbohydrates. What have you seen that done to your performance and recovery?

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  I'll go through like seasons, ebbs and flows of doing it really hard or not. And I've really come to the realization that if I'm militant about it all the time, that's recipe for burnout for me. But I'll do it when I feel inspired to do so. And then relatively, at least I know what those numbers are now so that I can mimic it. When I need to, when I'm not tracking it to the T. But it was so transformative for me to actually get into an app and just see where everything was going. Now how everything is broken down.

• 1:05:03Nick Bare?

  But what did you learn about yourself in terms of how you were previously eating?

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:05:08Nick Bare?

  Before being intentional with it? What were you, were you over consuming one macronutrient, under consuming calories?

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was under consuming protein like crazy. I think I was pretty good on carbs, but I was over consuming fat, I think as well. I really came to realize that a certain amount of fat was going to be good enough for hormone regulation. But it just felt like I was wasting calories on too much fat in the diet. And it would be much better, it would be much better to hit a protein goal and a carb goal with keeping the fats at a certain regulation point. So that I could be recovering and feeling for the next thing.

• 1:05:51Nick Bare?

  Where was your fat coming from?

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  I'd say granola and I would do like a Greek yogurt bowl.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Nuts here and there. I really just looked at it as I wasn't like going for the healthy fats. I was just looking at really clean, if you will, carbon protein sources and fat kind of being.

• 1:06:18Nick Bare?

  Just naturally in it.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Exactly. Added on and then just making sure I'm not like, I get to the end of the day and I'm at like sixty five and I'm like, the ice cream's right there and I'm like, I'm gonna pass on it. And when I'm in that phase, I'm really tracking, I'll say no to that stuff. But when I'm not, I will say yes to that and indulge a bit.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  But I think really it's all just dependent on how I'm feeling and how it's shaping my mentality going in because I obsessed a little bit about race weight and what that could look like. And I think people just need to be really careful with that because it could, if you get hormone regulation out of whack or your iron gets out of whack, you see people just get obliterated.

• 1:07:03Nick Bare?

  Are you familiar with REDS?

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:05Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it's like relative energy deficiency syndrome. It's huge with runners, especially female runners. Obsessing over body weight and performance and.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  To be so careful.

• 1:07:16Nick Bare?

  It's very, very dangerous.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I naturally, in the volume that I'm running, I naturally kind of melt away a couple of pounds into the taper. We were talking about, you know, inflammation, all that stuff coming down after the intensity starts to taper off. And yeah, I try not to make it like too critical of a thing. I'll step on the scale here and there just to kind of see where I'm at. Like right now, I'm about five pounds over race weight. And I know that with a little bit of consistency of tracking throughout this block and then getting into the taper that I'll probably be back down to. I'm usually around one fifty seven for race weight, sitting about one sixty one, one sixty two now.

• 1:07:58Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I could probably get to two hundred thirty pounds by next month if I wanted to. And that's driven by my love for ribeye steaks, avocado.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:07Nick Bare?

  Peanut butter.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Peanut butter, that's a.

• 1:08:09Nick Bare?

  Egg yolks, like.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Peanut butter is so much fat and peanut butter.

• 1:08:13Nick Bare?

  It's so much fat and especially, I weigh everything.

• 1:08:18Nick Bare?

  I don't, I don't track my calories, but I, I weigh foods just so I can portion control. I'll weigh my carbs and my protein and if I'm putting peanut butter on something, I'll just throw the peanut butter jar on the scale. I'll tear it. I'll pull off thirty two grams, which is a serving, two tablespoons. But granola, for example, like we don't even get granola in the house anymore because we used to buy purely Elizabeth granola. If you weigh out a serving of that, it is pathetic how small it is. It is easy to consume a thousand of calories of granola. Yeah, like nuts, cashews, macadamia nuts, weigh on a serving, you're like, what the heck?

• 1:09:03Nick Bare?

  Holy smokes, it's two hundred calories. So yeah, that's, I could easily gain weight because I love, I don't, I don't gravitate towards french fries and burgers and pizza and chips. But mine is the avocado, the egg yolk, butter on toast.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  I wish I could be that way.

• 1:09:24Nick Bare?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  I love the fries.

• 1:09:25Nick Bare?

  That's, that's what I'm like gravitating towards. For a while after Ironman prep was over, I was having a, a large avocado before bed every night. And I'd cut it open and I'd take the seed out. I'd put everything but the bagel seasoning on it. Like, man, I don't need thirty grams of fat before bed. I'm gonna cut this out. So I, I do feel better on high protein, high carb, lower fat myself, especially as I go into a training block.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I won't cut things out like frosted shredded wheat. Like that's, I feel like that's perfectly fine for like ripping on hard workouts. It's just like carb, carb heavy. And I think allowing myself to have some of those things that I love in life, like it's just a balance for me. I don't ever want to be so critical that I'm just not enjoying life. If I get too disciplined, I'm just not going to love the process. And so allowing myself to have some of those things and enjoy and live a bit is, I love it. And it's part of, to me, it's a benefit of training really hard. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna have a bowl of frosted shredded wheat.

• 1:10:32Nick Bare?

  Yeah, fuel the fire.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Nick Bare?

  Dude, I was in Ironman prep. I'd finish every night, nine PM, massive bowl of cereal.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:39Nick Bare?

  Like cereal during preps is one of my favorite things.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  So good. Yeah.

• 1:10:43Nick Bare?

  You need the carbs, you need to replenish, you need a fuel. And you're not going to get all of it from chicken, rice and broccoli. No. It's impossible. No. I do want to talk a little bit about, you know, you touched on it briefly, but balancing training with family. Yeah. And being a dad and being a committed husband. It's hard. And I made this, this post a few days ago.

• 1:11:14Nick Bare?

  I had this realization, I used to, I used to feel guilty for being tired. Yeah. And I don't have many hobbies or passions outside of my work, my family, my health and fitness. Can't. None. And, you know, you finish a day and your head hits a pillow. It's like, yo, I'm exhausted. Exhausted. I used to feel, I used to feel bad for being tired. And I did an audit of my life. And I realized that I'm prioritizing the things that matter to me.

• 1:11:51Nick Bare?

  I don't have all of these guilty obsessions and hobbies that are, that lack purpose or intention. And instead of feeling bad for being tired, I gotta be grateful. Right. I'm, I'm working hard. I'm working hard to provide for my family and be present and play with my kids and lead a team and take care of my body and prep my meals and my, my food and my nutrition. So it's flipping the script of, you know, we're, we're going to be tired.

• 1:12:29Nick Bare?

  Especially people with kids pursuing passions and career and, and family. That's just part of it. There's really no way to escape it. And it's being grateful for being tired. Yeah.

• 1:12:46Nick Bare?

  But how do you manage, handle, feel about balancing family and these personal fitness ambitions and work and all the things of the season of life you're in right now?

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I try not to beat myself up too much and like make myself feel shameful. But whenever I feel too tired to go play wiffle ball in the backyard or too tired to do crazy pillow game, which is like my young ones, like we have our go-tos, you know, like, and they'll ask me pretty frequently to do it. Part of me just has tried to develop a reflex of say yes, just say yes immediately. But then it's to, you know, you have that tension of I am really tired, I am really fatigued, I did just X, Y, Z.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  But then I always go back to you have much less to stand on in that argument because you are training and are fit enough to be able to go do this right now. So for me, it's constantly trying to just say yes without even thinking about it and then just figuring it out as you go. It's so similar to your training. You know, you don't want to wake up, you don't want to do the miles that day. And so often you get a couple in and you're like, oh, I feel fine now. And it's the same way with playing with your kids and spending time in that way. We're playing out a board game, we gotta figure out the rules. I'm like, I really don't want to do this right now.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  But then you get 20 minutes into it and all of a sudden you're having a blast. You're like, this never would have happened if I didn't just say the yes and actually just committed in the same way. And

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I love that feeling of, again, that metaphor of, I do this daily for the thing that I care about, then they need that from me as well. They need that more than I need that for myself. That actually needs to come first before I say yes to do my thing. And if I'm saying no to them, then I need to say no to my training, if that's what's affecting it. So, yeah, I love that idea of, I'm feeling really beat up, I had fifteen miles on the lake. So I did a double and the boys were like, we're doing, right now, we're in a wiffle ball tournament league in the backyard. It's, we just played our first game before I left for the trip and like, didn't want to play the first game, started playing and all of a sudden it was just

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  a blast and I'm forgetting how tired I am because I'm present in the moment. And then, again, like, perfect compounding effect of saying yes in all those situations is what builds your relationship with your kids. It's what builds your relationship with your marriage, saying yes to date night, doing the thing, consistently going after it. To the point where like, my nine-year-old

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  is never really like

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  showing affection, he's kind of a, a bro in that way. You know, he's trying not to be emotional and stuff. And last night, he's, he had to FaceTime me, he's just like, man, I miss you. I'm like, whoa. It just feels like this, it feels like all the work that was done leads to moments like that. Where it's like, he, he feels the weight of my absence for a little bit, you know? And, yeah, it's just deeply special and far more special than any kind of time I'm gonna run. And I, you know, we'll frequently talk about the thought experiment of what's gonna be on your gravestone. It's just like, I don't care if it says two twenty-nine marathon on my gravestone. I just, I really don't care.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  I really want it to say, loving husband and father, who dedicated himself selflessly to them and what they accomplished in their life.

• 1:16:43Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it's one of the things I've changed the last couple of years with my training is, I used to reserve Saturdays,

• 1:16:51Nick Bare?

  especially before kids, for my big workout days.

• 1:16:55Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it's like didn't have work, wake up a little bit later and go for a huge run or whatever I'm prepping for. That was my big training day. And then as we started having kids and the family grew, I now view Saturday and Sunday, those are my sacred days.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:15Nick Bare?

  I look forward to the weekends so much to spend time with the family, especially in the summer where by the pool, I want all the energy.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Nick Bare?

  I want all the focus. I want all my attention there. So I put my bigger training days during the week if I have one. And when I finish my run Saturday morning, so I'll go for a one hour run Saturday morning. I don't train on Sundays right now. I finish that run Saturday morning. It's say 6:30 AM. The family's not up yet. I'm like, okay, from here until Monday morning, it is all family time.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Nick Bare?

  They get all of me. And that's a shift that I made over the last couple of years that I found very helpful.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's deeply transformative and powerful to show up regularly and just be present and find ways similarly, I think I mentioned it earlier, the commute to my studio to collaborate with a full-time employee meant that I was spending an hour and a half in the car every day. And I really had to sit back and think, is this worth the return? And I eventually was just thought it's, it's just not to have that bit of extra time. Or even now, I can't pursue the same business goals I once did because now I coach both of the boys' baseball teams. And that's a lot. It really is a lot to, we have four

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  days of baseball a week in the evenings and it's a huge time commitment. It's a lot of parent communication and just, you know, doing the not fun things. But man, like the depths of relationship we are building through that is insane. The character building, like my oldest is on a, a team of kids that have, handful of them have never played baseball before. And my boys have been playing, you know, for five years now and. And he's learning what it looks like to be a leader on a team like that, where he's not criticizing them, but lifting them up and figuring out how he can be a leader himself and me guiding it without, you know, barking at him, just kind of guiding him through it and like,

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  "Hey, we won that game. Why do you think we did?" And helping him realize those life lessons is really magical.

• 1:19:34Nick Bare?

  What do you hope your kids take away from your training and your marathon progress? As they watch you wake up early and log miles and make progress and hit these PRs and,

• 1:19:50Nick Bare?

  you know, after all is said and done, 20 years from now, you guys are at the Thanksgiving table and they're like, "Yeah, we learned this from dad." You know, example, uh, before I hand it over to you, I remember being young, my dad getting home from work, getting out of his car. He'd have his lifting belt in his hand. He was wearing a stringer tank top. Music was blaring. He just got back from the gym. I knew dad goes to work, he goes to the gym before he gets home, he trains and he comes home ready to eat. And then it's family time. And then every morning as we're eating our breakfast, my dad's doing a hundred pushups in the kitchen.

• 1:20:31Nick Bare?

  And I learned that from my dad. So do you want your kids to take away from, from your training?

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think it needs to be that they feel the need to go run. But yeah, I really, I really want them to understand that whatever discipline it is, it's deeply transformative in life to have some sort of physical activity that gets you outside and helps you experience life in a way that you wouldn't otherwise. And I even look at the relationships I've built and the experiences I've had with going to these major events and, and seeing what it's like. And now them being at an age, pretty much every peak race, they're there.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  And now we get to all go to Berlin together and I can't wait to like have that experience around that together. I never want it to be something that's Exclusively my thing, like we ran the Cubs 5K, which is a great combination of the things we love. We got to do a lap around Wrigley Field inside of the race and they just were like so stoked on that. I really want them to realize that they can pursue that stuff in their own life and it's not, it doesn't have to be a selfish pursuit, but that it can be complimentary to the things that are most important. And that might manifest in running, that they've showed some interest in that, but my nine

• 1:21:58Speaker 01

  year old's like such a gym bro. He's constantly asking me every single day to go to the gym and deadlift and do pull-ups and he'll do that pretty regularly. Like he'll bench while I'm running. He's nine and he's just, he just loves it.

• 1:22:14Nick Bare?

  I love that.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like, it's pretty crazy, uh, cause my oldest doesn't feel that way about the gym and he likes running a lot more and he'll go run seven miles on the treadmill here and there, just alone, solo. And it's just really cool to see them find their own personality and what they might want to do fitness-wise. Cause yeah, like I said, just coming from a family that didn't really take it seriously and now seeing the compounding effects of health decades down the line. I'm just like, man, isn't it great to be, I wanna, I wanna be like wrestling their, their kids. I want my grandkids to be doing

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  really fun, active things with me as well. And so there's something really powerful about that. Like I, I want to be able to hold them for as long as I can and carry them on my shoulders. And you know, like I wanna be a grandfather that is deeply involved as well and helping them, you know, and be able to handle the, taking them for a weekend or a week.

• 1:23:19Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:20Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I always find it cool when there's someone in a family line who is one of the first to take health and fitness serious, because it is a generational inflection point that, that pays off for generations to come.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:37Nick Bare?

  And it's, it's hard to like feel and see that in the moment, but it's so powerful.

• 1:23:46Nick Bare?

  And truly a generational inflection point.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's recently too, like I've come to realize there's alcohol alcoholism in my family as well. And while it was never an issue for me, I it's been just over a year now.

• 1:24:04Nick Bare?

  I saw you talk about that recently.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been sober for over a year now. There's always like casual beer here and there, glass of red wine at dinner. And yeah, I'm just kind of at a point where it's it's never been a problem for me. So I'm not abstaining from it in a way where it's like, I have to. But it's more so like, I just don't desire to. Cause I can see the effects between personal friendships and stuff that's gone down in family. I'm like, I just don't really feel the need to open that door. And my kids are starting to see it now. I'm talking to them about it a bit. It's like, yeah, I'm just choosing not to really drink at all. I like, I like my NA beers. They're nice. I like the taste of them. They're really good now. Like there's some really, really good NA beers.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  And then that just compounds as well in my training. I'm like, great. That's another added benefit to me not needing to struggle with recovery because I had a drink or two.

• 1:24:58Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I think that could also be very transformative and and then seeing that. And I think the reality is, I mean, there are all sorts of variables and things that can cause disruption relationally or addiction. You could be a really great father and you could still see your kid struggle with that in life. And then it's a matter of, am I going to abandon them or am I going to walk with them through that? And so just really starting to prep myself for those potentially really difficult moments as well. You see plenty of parents who have kids that really struggle with stuff and you're like, that looks really hard. But again, we do hard things and we walk with them through that.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  And we're available and present for them in that tough spot.

• 1:25:48Nick Bare?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:50Nick Bare?

  Well, Eric, it's been awesome to see your progress.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:25:54Nick Bare?

  I'm pumped to have you on the BPN team and really excited to see where you take the marathon.

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:00Nick Bare?

  You know, I think there's a lot of progress and potential well faster than 229, but we're fully behind you and support you.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:26:09Nick Bare?

  So I appreciate you, brother.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  I appreciate you. It's been so transformative to be on the team and see what that potential could be and to be supported in the way you guys have supported me these past three years. Um, yeah, just being able to make it my job to run and document it has just been an absolute dream. Like I, that's another, I guess that's probably bigger than someone in 2017 being like, you're gonna run 229. Be like, no, this is gonna be your job.

• 1:26:39Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  To do this. I'm like, what? You know, even, even a couple of years ago, I've been like, what are you talking about? But to see that that support has manifested in so many people, you know, doing the same and wanting to see what's possible for them has been incredible. So thank you.

• 1:26:57Nick Bare?

  Thank you, dude.