Why We Love to Hate (and Hate to Love) Running Influencers

In this week's episode, Alex, Katelyn and Michael discuss why it is that the Boston Marathon decided to (literally) give the unicorn on their logo a face lift. Then, they unpack the brief history of the running influencer — how it all started, some of the influential figures in the space, the pro athlete as influencer, and where this all goes from here. Finally, they break down how to approach eating pre run or race, as well as some terrible mistakes each has made in the past with food before running.

Podcast hosts: Alex Cyr, Katelyn Tocci, Michael Doyle

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Marathon Handbook was founded in 2016, with the mission from day one of helping you to run far, set goals and meet them. We provide free and super popular coach-vetted training plans for just about every distance and ability level, from your first 5K to a sub-3 hour marathon, to a 100-miler training plan. We've got you covered. We also follow the latest news and storylines in the running world, and review all the best shoes, running watches and gear on our site and our Youtube channel.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Boston Marathon changes its iconic logo... why?
• 14:45 A brief history of the running influencer
• 1:02:36 What and when should you eat before a run or race?

Transcript

Coming up next on the show, Alex, Katelyn and I talk about this new Boston Marathon logo and the curious facelift they gave the unicorn. Then we get into a brief history of the running influencer we go back to the beginnings we talk about the role they now play in the industry whether or not we love them love to hate them, hate to love them, a combination of all three?Some influencers that we can't get enough of some that we hate watch or follow. And Alex provides a really interesting Insight because he's actually uh done quite a bit of research on this and quite a bit of reporting on it in the past so that's a fun one and then finally we picked Caitlyn's brain about pre-run and pre-race fuelling what we eat when we eat it what the science says uh what each of us individually does depending on the situation Long Run Race Marathon Ultra 5K 10K easy run we break it all down and we also talk about the stupidest mistakes we've made with eating before a run or not all right let's get into the [Music] show all right I'm joined by Alex and Katelyn, and and before we jump to our main topics for the day guys did you see this uh did a tweet a a post on social media we'll call it I don't even know what to call a tweet anymore uh from the Boston Marathon the baa Boston Athletic Association that they've changed their logo moving forward and they've given the Unicorn like a literal facelift you guys seen this yeah yep yeah I did see it uh yesterday or this morning and um yeah I was checking out the changes to see I don't know what was new I mean it didn't seem so incredibly different than the last logo I don't know what you guys think about that but yeah the Unicorn looks is now looking to the right it used to be looking to the left like that's the main thing flipped that and the athletic jawline that the Unicorn now has oo it's a fit Unicorn it's a fit Unicorn it's a unicorn that could qualify with the open standard at the Boston Marathon this unicorn does not have to wait to be 40 plus to get in with an ageg graded standard I I I get the reason why they did this I get that they've got a new sponsor that they kind of it felt a little everything felt a little rushed going into last year everything felt a little kind of like shoehorned in with Bank of America coming on board and John Hancock the insurance company that was for many years the title sponsor uh going away and there was a lot of criticism you guys remember I mean uh Alex you and I were both in Boston there was a lot of criticism around that metal I mean the metal looked it looked kind of gudy it looked kind of weird right it had the big Bank of America logo on the bottom of it felt very the the uh the ratio was way off compared to the Unicorn so it seems like with this logo they're saying like guys don't worry we're going to tone it back a little bit we're going to make this look a little bit more clean streamlined and we're also going to like kind of shoehorn in a whole bunch of other jargon about why we've changed the look of the unicorn um do you like

it I like it I just feel like in the vert like you just still really see the Bank of America it's jumping out at you yeah it does it does jump out at me so I don't know if it makes the biggest difference um you know I did see the medals I didn't run Boston last year but I've been reading the Uproar and the upset Runners with the new metal with the big logo on it and I feel like I guess they're trying to make it blend in a little bit uh the Bank of America written under the new logo but I mean I still I still see it it still looks pretty prominent to me I don't know what do you think Alex yeah I don't mind it when I heard there was going to be a new logo I expected the worst because isn't like every company now coming out with a new logo that just looks crappier and more paired down and they take out the vowels like all these tech companies are making these logos tiny I was expecting like bstn blue and yellow four letters no unicorn no nothing so I think like this is this is better than what I expected or like just the horn they get rid of the rest of the Unicorn yeah yeah I don't like that the so one little fussy detail is I noticed like they've they've modified the horn the horn doesn't have the little like uh grooves in it anymore and you know oh yeah yeah they got rid of the the grooves and there's like there's a bunch of marketing jargon around this too like you know they break down like the reason why there's X number of like flips or points in the in the unicorn's main now that represents the how 13 spikes M Spike oh Spike sorry Spike that's right the unicorn's name is Spike I forgot um which is nice that they they acknowledge that it is the unicorns name is Spike in the in the press release but yeah it just feels like it feels like what it's doing is it's um putting spin on or trying to turn into a positive what was like a pretty harsh negative uh last year at or this past year in the marathon which was no one liked the the medal everyone was super disappointed uh and and rightfully so historically the Boston Marathon medal is kind of the classiest most desirable of medals not only just because it's really hard to get into the race it's really hard to qualify it's it's hard to finish it's a hard race itself so it's a well-earned metal but also just because like it was I think it was always seen as really Tastefully done and really an understated metal compared to some of the like dinner plates and sort of trashy attempts at making metals that really stand out that are ultimately just pretty gy for the most part this one was always really nice and AER and the Bank of America logo kind of took away from that and kind of wrecked that a little bit right so yeah and also not to mention the Civil legal problems the Boston Marathon is currently facing uh and accusations of uh a lack of diversity and inequity and I think that they're trying to spin a lot of what they're doing in a in a very different direction um and Alex I mean we noticed this past year cover during the race in person in Boston that like and I'd heard rumors of this in the last couple of years that with a Changing of the Guard at the baa the Boston Athletic Association which runs the race there's been a real push more towards a deeper corporatization of the event and of the organization and I think that this is like an obvious example of that MH oh my God I got it I got it I was trying to figure out what this reminded me of it's the Denver Broncos yeah this is the Denver Broncos logo yes yes absolutely Alex yeah you got it the nail on the head go Google that go Google that it's like the Denver Broncos with a horn I think they I think there's grounds for a copyright lawsuit oh my goodness and also it's that's a little bit of a like a a punch in the gut for the baa because that that Denver Bronco that that logo's been around a long time so that's kind of like a bit of a bit of an an aged look if you ask me like a little outdated maybe but anyway not to tear them down too badly I understand that you know you need to refresh your look every once in a while and I think it is great that they ultimately kind of kept everything in place uh yeah like you'll recognize it no matter what they didn't do any huge changes or anything like Alex was saying make it letters or something I mean you still the essence is there yeah for sure yeah so the one little criticism is is like oh man why can't they change that Bank of America logo to be that what is it um maze I believe is is the yellow is the actual name of the color of yellow that Boston Marathon uses I believe it's maze like corn um just change it all to be that unified color and it would look a lot Slicker and it would it would nail that subtlety that I think everyone is longing for it would blend in yeah so this was released on uh on global running day so we're we're recording Thursday afternoon uh and the podast podcast goes out on Friday so Global running day was on Wednesday as I discovered on Tuesday Morning um no it was earlier than that it came across the came across the desk that Global running day was happening yet again this year guys what's grow what is global running day like what what's the point what are we doing here isn't every day Global running day yeah well when I was a kid when I was a kid we had Mother's Day and Father's Day and the first time that I registered that I think was when I was four or 5 years old and then after Father's Day which comes after Mother's Day I hit my parents with the okay we've had Father's Day we've had Mother's Day when is Children's Day and then they hit me with every day Children's Day Al it feel the same about this if you run every day why celebrate Global running day in one day guess what in Costa Rica there is a children's day oh that's nice oh God I should have moved there because I remember as being a teacher for so many years we always had a children's day so it was like a day of activities and stuff for the kids and I was like and I remembered my mother's voice Alex she said exactly the same thing well because every day is Kids Day every she well there's probably a kids day there's probably a kids we in Canada there's probably a Kids Day in Canada too there's a day for everything and that's what this yeah that's what this is this is somebody I think it was I remember this like maybe six seven years ago someone was looking at one of those online calendars that was like today is international popcorn day and today is like hug your best friend day and today is also Global running day and someone made a big deal out of it I think at the time on Twitter and it immediately marketers were like wait a minute there's a global running day let's sink our teeth into that and then the following year it was this Gong Show of like activations and coupon codes and discounts and influencers who we'll talk about later or just you know like Hawking the Wares on on on Instagram I remember I think it was like 2016 maybe I remember going to an event being hosted by one brand at at a park in Toronto and on global running day to celebrate Global running day and they were doing some sort of activation where it was like come try on our new shoe and run around the track for a little while and then there was like another brand that was at the same park and neither realized that the other was going to be setting up and then there was a third brand up on the hill and that was Lululemon and everyone wanted to be at the Lululemon uh uh popup because I think they were giving something away or they they I think they were giving away like ice cream or something like that and it just turned into this um kind kind of a total [ __ ] show it was just like dueling brands in the same park kind of all trying to sell you the same thing so you you know that scene on Anchor Man when all the news outlets meet in the town square and start fighting it was that it was definitely definitely that um yeah and Lululemon's kind of like Ron Burgundy in that situation but um yeah it was it's weird I I did go for a run I will I I looked around the running landscape yesterday I didn't see a whole lot going on besides kind of what we did which was just we sent out a newsletter and we were like it's Global running day you love running we love running this is awesome make sure you go for a run today which you know I think is a great sentiment and I I got a the newsletters I subscribed to uh in the running Universe kind of we all did the same thing uh it's a bit kind of calorie empty in in in a certain it did get me thinking about like the history and purpose of global running day and kind of what we're doing with it but uh yeah I just want did you guys run yes oh Alex sorry I did not I'm still heard but but I celebrated Global running day by hiring a coach and that's a story for another podcast whoa oh we need to talk tease Big Tease cuz I did not get that phone call ouch [Laughter] you didn't even think you just you walked right into that one Alex kayin I tried and you didn't answer your phone and maybe it's the countries the connection I don't know when when when invariably you give in and you convert to the trails because it's just more fun to run on the trails ultimately then you'll come right begging know I got scared I got scared Caitlyn I got scared I know what your mileage is and I can't maybe maybe maybe when I'm a lot more durable all right we we'll we'll hear more about that in a future in a a future pod I'm curious to hear about the the man who claimed he was able to self coach and uh and his move to being coached I'm curious to hear about that coach the untrainable let's see coach coach the uncoachable unach shots fired by Caitlyn all right we'll take a we'll take a quick break and then we're going to get into a brief history of running influencers we'll be right [Music]

back all right and we're back we're going to talk about running influencers it's a topic that the three of us discuss on a regular basis it's they're a a huge have become a huge part of the running Community the running indust industry in the last number of years there's very blurred lines between what a running in what an influencer is and isn't these days particularly in running and uh so I thought I thought we'd unpack this we do a little brief history we'd go back and see if we can figure out sort of Ground Zero the the birth of the running influencer and talk a little bit about the evolution of this I guess it's a profession way of life uh uh side hustle main hustle depending on who you are and Alex I know you you're kind of like um I would describe you as an expert in the field at this stage because you've actually written a really in-depth feature article uh for a magazine about this subject a couple years back uh you know influencers I know we all know running influencers I we've all interacted with them in various capacities at events uh on press junkets all these sorts of things and I'm curious to hear your take on them and sort of how this has evolved over the last uh bunch of years so let's let's start by getting into the uh into the time machine and going back to a long time ago before social media if anyone can remember a time before we stared at our phones constantly uh let's talk a little bit about early running influencers people who predate social media and the impact that social media has had on the space

that's a funny thing to think about right because when you when you say running influencer we start thinking about these last couple years but it's true that when I think back of when I started running I had influences and not just the people around me but the people that I would seek out online and before then even in books so Caitlin and Michael you got into running before me the books that I read were a little bit aged by the time I got into it but you know we think of these these these authors who position themselves as authorities on running before Facebook before Instagram there was Dean Dean Carnes Dean carnis I saying that right carnassus had uh an ultra guide there was uh there were I remember having this book that was like chicken soup you know the chicken soup books yes for the soul Chicken Soup for the Soul chicken soup yeah Chicken Soup for the for the Runner soul and in it there were essays from running writers and these people I looked them up on an early version of the internet and started you know following their news articles stuff like that those were early early influencers but I think of the people who influenced me when I started you know getting competitive and they were high level athletes I think these were my influencers right they were probably the only Runners who had a platform is if you ran fast you made the Olympics or World Championship people would start following you and also around that time see they were mainly the only athletes who were able to get brand deals right get free gear from Nike soy even money from these companies too and then I remember it to be 2015 so I was about 19 years old at the time something changed YouTube became a a lot more popular but from where I stand I think it was even Instagram that that supercharged this influencing movement these pro athletes got onto Instagram and then started to to develop a following but not just them soon people realized that they could build a big following by being Runners online and then soon after that I think bran started realizing that hey you know speed doesn't really matter in building a big following and it might make more sense to sponsor somebody who has I don't know 50,000 followers but runs at a slower pace and doesn't stand a chance of making an Olympic team then to sponsor someone who's going to be at the Olympics but who doesn't want to post online and I think in the last few years we're hearing a lot more about running influencers we're seeing it a lot more because I think a lot more people have gotten into running and and what do they do when they get into running they seek people with whom they resonate so maybe that's not the Olympian but maybe that's like the person who runs at a recreational level and who posts a real every day I think we're in a running boom right now we have like I think I I remember seeing a stat think 25% of current Runners started during the pandemic so we're in this space where there are a whole lot of new beginning runners everybody's on Instagram and it's it's becoming very easy for someone to post content and build a big following getting attention from Brands and then getting a deal I have a friend okay and I'm he wouldn't mind me mentioning him because all I'm giving him is a compliment his Instagram handle is Runner jmd and he's from Eastern Canada about a year ago he had he had maybe a thousand followers about a year ago which I guess is an ordinary follower count these days he started posting one reel a day one reel every two days let's call it of him running with a motivational quote sometimes little funny skits um sometimes he do running with his kids with his wife sometimes just himself and it took him months to start to build a following but when he did it just skyrocketed now now my friend he's he's a quick runner you know he's a he's a fast runner I think he's run like a 230 Marathon but he's not an Olympic level Runner his followers shot up to about a 100,000 I think he that's he's hovering around 100,000 now and that's it like he doesn't need to run a 210 Marathon to get there it's just constant posting people like his stuff so brands are catching on to that right it's like hey you know we have someone who's who's consistently going to post they want to play the game a little bit they want to engage with their followers they're going to answer comments why not sponsor this person as opposed to someone who's super quick but doesn't want to engage so now we're in this movement where like every run it seems like every Runner is an influencer and every influencer is is starting to be a runner and the line between both is becoming somewhat blurred yeah I mean I I think back and there's like a there's there's a similarity to like a few a few of the old-timers I think about like pre pre-social media like Bart yaso who was the runner and chief at Runners world for a number of years and then just like toured the the Marathon Expo circuit like like Pearl Jam goes on or just like you know 80 dates a year they somehow pull it off he was like hitting every single Marathon Expo and it was a he developed a cult of personality uh same with the Inc carnassus uh and even Jeff Galloway the guy who was pioneered the walk run walk thing uh John Bingham who was the penguin Runner these these guys were guys who kind of um expanded the idea that you know you could run and run slowly and that's cool and that's fine uh and that connected with a lot of people in the in the '90s in particular in the early 2000s as there was the the kind of baby boom running boom in the early 2000s and then our our very own amby burfoot who is you know deeply involved in what we do and kind of is one of our uh our our Pat our patri Saint you know he's a former uh Runners World editor and he went from being an athlete to being someone who is then a a journalist but then also kind of became a a a running celebrity and personality himself as well and I guess they were the pioneers of that because they built out this personality and the the sense was you kind of knew the person to a degree right either back in the day it was writing a an editorial on a regular basis uh or just getting yourself in front of a microphone whenever possible and and doing your your your song and dance at an expo talking about like okay here's how you P out a marathon and who's running the fir the marathon for the first time this year you know let me give you some advice that sort of thing let me tell you some of my stories and in a way a lot of influencers are kind of doing the same thing it's the same set of moves it's uh what psychologists call developing a one-way parasocial relationship which is that you let a person feel you you share details of your life to a degree and it makes the person feel as though they know you and Instagram in particular YouTube as well certainly uh and now Tik Tok are a very very powerful ways of doing that right um hell we're doing it right now ourselves full disclosure right we're doing this podcast we've got this banter we're chitchatting we're sharing little details of little drips of our lives in detail um you know Caitlyn's in Costa Rica and she's living a specific life that's kind of interesting Alex is a really good runner who is living in Toronto and he's also on YouTube and doing our YouTube reviews and and and various other things and I'm Ning on in this uh in this microphone on a regular basis so we're kind of doing that too right so not to get too meta here but um it's an interesting Dynamic and it's I think completely obviously taken over culturally like our like all social media but in particular in running as well so yeah I see it as like there's um there's kind of these stages that have that have uh that have happened I think Alex you touched upon the impact that Instagram has had uh right around what was it like 20 2015 around 2015 CU then we started to see and it was kind of wild west back then I remember like influencers popped up and some of them were doing kind of like like kind of early Instagram kind of scams which was like you'd pay a company in uh in India usually to basically Jin up a whole bunch of fake followers so you had like suddenly you had 10,000 followers right and that got you enough lift that you could go and then turn to a brand and be like I've got 10,000 followers on Instagram I'm a runner like send me free stuff or like or even pay me a bit of money to like post about your shoe or whatever and then obviously Brand's got sort of more sophisticated uh they started using more sophistic more sophisticated auditing tools to know whether or not you were legit um there's basic metrics you can look at like how many likes there are on a post versus how many followers the person has to see whether or not they followings are legitimate or not and then so there was kind of the say the smoothing out of that and now we're sort of in a situation where I think there's a number of Instagram uh influencers in the running space that don't make very much money doing this but they still are stuck having to present this lifestyle and this experience that is very like aspirational and desirable right it's like no one's going to watch your channel if you're just moaning about how you don't make any money as an influencer even though you have like 75,000 followers the instead it's you know this week I'm off to Valencia next week I'm off to you know California International Marathon the week after that you know I'm going to to Houston and then I'm going to do these like Vlogs about it or I'm going to you know post a bunch of reals about it and it's all amazing and great and I'm meeting up with all of my you know followers in each town and that sort of thing and the reality of it is is I think it's probably a pretty tough grind likely and you need as an influencer you probably have to play into the the idea that you're doing really well because of a Snowball Effect right you you somehow feel like there are always eyes on you and so if you're portraying that you're very successful you're likely thinking in the back of your mind well hey another brand might notice this and then reach out send an email it's you're you're piloting your own illusion in a sense not saying that all of it is false I'm sure people do quite well in it but it must be a tough space to be in because you know Michael you mentioned some people are are turning on influencers people are becoming a bit more skeptical and my guess is that now that we're a decade into this influencer movement call it it's not only brands that are becoming more sophisticated in choosing who should be an influencer and who they should support but also viewers right we've become pretty smart social media consumers I think at this point and we're wise enough you know doesn't matter how how experienced of a runner you are you're likely wise enough to know that if someone one week starts talking about how this A6 shoe is the best shoe they've ever had and there's no better shoe than this one and then the next week say the same thing about the Nike shoe well then you lose trust in in that person right so as an influencer it must be a tough grind too and so I wonder where it's going for someone who's in that type of business you wonder if it's maybe a better call this is what I think is going to happen eventually it's like a running influencer right now or maybe the game a couple years ago was to try to get as many brand deals as you could now I think it might end up being that Brands would prefer to to buy an influencer and keep them with them MH kind of like don't exactly or or if they're not an elite athlete they basically become a sales rep which is just a full circle kind of thing right is that instead of being an influencer endorsing everything you are paid by one company to endorse a product and then again it's and probably go to events with them and run booths and stuff and so and then you look back and you you say okay I'm calling myself an influencer but aren't I just like a classic sales rep from 2007 or whatever it was yeah well I think that's I think that's kind of what I was going to get to about um hearing you guys say that about being like kind of skeptical I've always been pretty skeptical about influencers and I feel like if it does go in that direction that Alex is mentioning I would feel a lot more comfortable able with that product or with the promotion of that product because I would feel like okay this person is sticking to their guns or sticking with the product they really do believe in it and they're just not bouncing around because I feel like a lot of in influencers that I might I don't follow so many so I I feel like I'm a little out of touch and not so into this world as you guys may be but um some that I have started to follow or that I did follow in the past I just got sick of it and unfollowed because like you're saying you just see them with a lot of different products um and products that are competing with each other maybe not shoes but maybe with I don't know with uh food or supplements or nutritional um products to run or gels or I don't know so one week there with hammer and then the next week they're with ethics Sport and you're just it's you know the same kind of idea and so I kind of lost a lot of trust in watching at least a lot of the influencers that I had big on Twitch but I think that's I think if you're going to stick with a brand like you're saying absolutely you're like their sales rep but you'll have people really believing in it because like you said we're getting smarter we're not just going to believe every single thing in influencer says especially when they're bouncing around like one of those old you know pingpong games you know I yeah I I I what one brand that comes to mind um and you know we're going to be totally candid here I mean I'm not pulling any punches right we've got we have no Masters so one brand that comes to mind that I think made like a pretty bad uh a pretty sort of poor decision in its marketing Approach at a certain point because at least I noticed that like this goes back a bunch of years but like noon hydration at one point was so oversaturated in the influencer market and was so clearly just taking on anybody who wanted to have a like sponsored by nun hydration or nun hydration athlete because they wanted to feel like they were you know a sponsor athlete the ambassadors an ambassador yeah they're just pumping it hard yep uh with the coupon discount code and whatever and it just felt very tacky and it was a huge I think a huge mistake now I mean maybe a A salesperson might disagree with me and be like yeah but we also like grew this much and sold this much product at the time so like you're wrong Michael and that might be the case uh but it just it felt like a cheap in their brand uh although maybe that was maybe they weren't after brand Prestige they were just after like pure volume in sales and saturation of the market I have no idea um that comes to mind I don't you don't really see you see things have become much more sophisticated I think now and like even a brand like Lululemon will just outright say this person is one of our ambassadors which is was kind of like a a no no word even a few years ago right or a word was like Ambassador was code for you're not getting paid which probably is still the same code code language right it's probably means that l lemon's not paying the a the athlete right I mean I think about that the six- day challenge that they did recently and then there was like you know they they have uh um they have athletes and they have ambassadors and my guess would be the ambassadors are probably not on the payroll I hope they are because they're doing a lot of work for the brand and the brand makes a lot of money right so I hope they're getting paid right especially ifig they would be but I feel like here I saw that happen with a bunch of Brands as well like smaller stores and stuff but the store The Running Store a couple running stores here Force um or different brands would say yeah we're going to sponsor you okay yeah they're one of our sponsored athletes and I saw the shift to we're sponsoring you as athletes and still really not getting paid May with product and then moving to the Ambassador thing I feel like just that word change that play on words made them feel like okay now we're not um we're not obligated to pay you anything because you're just an ambassador just trying out the stuff right we we'd be we'd be remiss not to mention what like the supposed good side of running and influencing or the rise of run fluencing supposedly is and that is that more exposure to athletes gets them paid more money by Brands we don't know that though right like we don't know if Lululemon is actually paying them the what I remember talking to athletes I I did a story on this three years ago and I remember talking to a number of Olympians bonified Olympians professional athletes who had started to influence or at least post pictures on Instagram and these are people who didn't really want to do this at first but they did that just so that they could get more sponsorship dollars and get more eyes and exposure so that companies would pick them up when their sponsorships would end some would even have these stipulations inside of their contracts like you need to post twice a month as part of this contract and also run 340 in the 1500 or whatever it was but like you know I don't know if if I don't know if that's actually carrying through like you're an athlete you're making a bunch of posts to get more followings hopefully to be more than just an ambassador right you hope that that translates to money because if so that's a good thing I this comes a specific conversation I had to I had last year comes to mind which was I was interviewing the Canadian marathoner cam Levens who's the fastest marathoner in North American history right he's he's he's got the best time if he was American or Canadian and he also has a a an American contract so a bigger contract with uh as6 and he he was very candid with me and said because I asked him like sort of like what's the what's the deal with your straa what's the deal with your relationship with social media and he indicated that like obviously he's not super into social media and if you follow his accounts you can see that that he's like he he he does his part he checks the Box off it's clearly it was clearly a contract stipulation uh but he's this mythical figure in sort of nerdy Elite distance running because he's got this incredible past doing like Mega mileage in college so he's got a huge following in that regard and then obviously straa becomes this natural place for him to Excel on in in on in terms of social media presence right and he said that that was part of the contract with as6 is that he had to post a certain number of times a month on Strava and that's why he uses straa to post some not all of his workouts and runs uh and that's how he fulfills that contract and also I don't think this is probably conscious but unconsciously like that's building the that's further building his brand and his mythology right that it's all about his his uh his running Feats and his his Mega mileage Feats and his incredible work incredible workouts right um but it's an awkward space for for athletes especially pro athletes or athletes that are on the edge of being pro or Olympic level like I think of somebody like Philly Bowen who is a uh a uk-based runner who uh I believe went to Oregon if I'm not mistaken and so did a stent in the us as well well and she's got a a decent YouTube channel and following like 75ish thousand uh subscribers on her channel so it's a pretty popular uh Vlog and she's regularly posting kind of like a day in the life it's like a like a total like a vlog it is a vlog and she she documented her process of trying to make the Olympics this upcoming year it didn't work out for her she also got dropped by New Balance cuz that was her sponsor she was part of like the uh a training uh training group in the UK she got dropped by them and was like really candid about it on YouTube after she got dropped and was then kind of like okay guys this is now my job I am now I'm now a YouTuber I am now going to continue doing this and this is I'm like I'm basically a uh a solo act now and I transitioning from effectively being an elite Runner chasing the Olympic stream to being a YouTuber to being an influencer which is a really interesting transition um and as a little bit of a a little bit of a tease uh we've been in touch with her and and uh Jesse our colleague uh our news editor is is going to going to do an interview with her in the near future and going to pick her brain about all this stuff so there'll be more details about that um like that I just did this little like teased a future future piece for us um but that's a the Elite athletes or sort of on the edge of being Elite athletes uh are in a really weird predicament right now in that regard I think and yeah because I think they need to feel like they feel like they need to be influencers instead of athletes athletes and influencers like if you're an athlete I wonder how many feel pressured that they must be influencers to gain that to get more sponsorships instead of like if you think of any other job or any other profession you don't need to or May you do or maybe some it helps a lot but maybe you don't need to focus so much on social media and growing your fan base like an athlete would I I would say it's becoming common in weird places that you wouldn't even imagine I have a few friends who are around my age so they're in their late 20s they're starting out in their careers I'm talking about a doctor and a chiropractor in particular these are the two people that come to mind just right now who've both started their own social pages so that they can gain Traction in their area and have people go and see them it's like it seems like a part of business MH you know oh man there's like there's dentists on social media now like you know being the like dentist in the the the the the the tooth Health Care Health uh influencer you know like it's social media influencing has uh permeated all corners of our world um I I think that sorry Alex I interrupted you carry on no now I'm just thinking of someone getting the camera and be like yo what's up guys let's G to take out some MERS today oh my God this awful do you imagine being this guy's patient yeah but yeah know I don't know it's it's like it's a weird middle to be in it's a weird middle to be in I think that for I think that for some people it's it's a positive thing it it doesn't come with much resistance I think of Tin Man Elite which is like this professional running group of mostly guys in the United States who are all quick enough to make a living as professional runners but who made this YouTube channel that's doing so well and you got to think that that's probably helped them keep the sponsorship they have with Adidas for a long time and they seem to be having fun making the channel and I mean when it comes to that maybe it's just like any type of job or career that you make business decisions that don't you know automatically or directly affect your output but also just expand your business you know you're a chiropractor how much time are you going to spend practicing and improving your skills and how much time are you going to spend developing growing your business online both of those things tend to be important and I mean let's be honest the market has spoken for professional running there it's getting better but there isn't that much of a of a market there there isn't that much money there and if you want to make it as a professional Runner and you tell yourself all right I'm going to take a cool video of myself once a day and this is going to help me achieve my goals there really isn't much of a problem with that but I think the tension comes where you compare two people one professional athlete and one nonprofessional athlete you know what let okay put myself in this situation all right I'm not I'm a nonprofessional athlete but I have a lot of free shoes because I review shoes yeah this is something that you know someone who's quicker than me doesn't get and it's like in that those weird little areas that I'll feel the tension and other people might also feel the tension because there's like this inherent thought that only the best should be able to make a living as a runner and I totally understand that that way of thinking that's how careers go but you're the best at making what would should be a very boring shoe review super funny and entertaining so you are that is very true you may be a 30 minute 10K guy but you're a 27 minute YouTube uh shoe reviewer in my mind there's this saying that goes like don't try to be the best try to be the only which means don't try to be the best at one very obvious thing take two or three things that you like and become the best at the combination of those things so I'm not saying I'm on a mission to become the best actually I'm on a mission to become the best runner SL weird skit maker of Brooks ghost shoes and I challenge anyone to come and take that title from me words of wisdom throw downlet Bring it on I love it I love it I I would say like to start to wrap this subject up uh I would say that when it comes to influencers and the reason why I think we we we hooked into this subject and we've been chattering about it over the last couple of weeks and certainly the last week is because a topic we T we discussed last week on the pod which was the the big debacle the big uh brewhaha around spring energy the the gel uh nutrition company and the awesome sauce controversy they for those who were not paying attention uh to that uh because it's in some respects on the surface kind of a like trivial uh controversy because it's a gel that claimed that had a certain number of calories in carbohydrates turns out it had like less than half maybe even a third in um in each gel so big big Scandal controversy accusations that it was a a fraudulent product so on and so forth but the reason why I think people were upset about that and really got got worked up about it is because of the influencer relationship to that product couple of prominent coaches that that a lot of people liked that had a pretty good reach on social media and were very uh front facing people for that brand and a couple of athletes as well got pulled into it and it was this sort of this Awkward Moment where there was questions about like what's your responsibility as an influencer when you're repping a brand uh particularly if in the case of these two coaches the the the Roes um husband and wife Duo they supposedly sort of initially the initial claim or conceit was that they they kind of like co-created awesome sauce this specific gel and it turns out they backpedal and said we actually had nothing really to do with the development of the gel we just sort of like thought it would be a cool name and sort of thought it' be a neat brand a neat or say neat product and they and the company ran with that um but like what's the responsibility of those people to that to those claims and what's the responsibility of any influencer when they start pedaling aware and then what what is going on behind the scenes that we as consumers of their content and followers don't get to see or don't uh um or or unaware of you know like and I think and this is something that I think about often whenever I'm watching any sort of influencer talking about any sort of product whether it's running or not and I've noticed this in running in particular even if an influencer on YouTube for example says this shoe was sent to me for free but it has in no way influenced my opinion of the shoe and Brand X has no say on what I say in this video or how it was edited or so on and so forth okay that may be true and also hilariously is something I think Alex we have we have done in the past I'm not sure whether or not you do the disclaimer anymore or not but it is true however I always think to myself yeah but yeah but what about your long-term relationship with that brand okay so if as6 sends you a shoe and you're like I'm going to say exactly what I think about this shoe are you really saying that because you know what's going to happen if you say something really disparaging about the brand maybe they may not interact with you anymore maybe they may not pay for your trip to the California International Marathon and future for example um so whether you're conscious of it or not in the back of your mind your relationship with the brand is influencing what you're saying and also maybe you're not reviewing the shoes that you don't like but what is that what does that say about you as a reviewer right like if you're not reviewing an Adidas shoe because Adidas won't play ball with you because uh they won't pay for some sort of like brand marketing relationship uh what kind of Integrity is that so there's a lot of factors involved here and I don't mean to sound so heavy-handed and critical here because it's a very difficult space to navigate and a lot of these influencers sort of came to it organically right they probably most of them started by not by saying like you know what I want to do is I want to become an influencer and I want to get a whole bunch of free product and I want to get paid to like go to the New York City marathon and and like shill New Balance shoes for the weekend like I don't think most people think that way they're like I love running I'm really interested in gear and Tech I really want to talk about these shoes that I'm interested in so I'm just going to like make some videos because I'm interested in also trying to make a YouTube channel like it just seems like a fun thing to do like a fun hobby or a fun side project or side hustle and then it develops into something bigger than that and they're not business people and there's no business plan initially and then it's sort of like this job cuz that's what it is finds them over time and we're all uh victim to the same predatory aspects the same predatory design of social media which is we love attention and we love the likes right and we love to win and everything is gamified so it's it's very intoxicating once you start building a platform and it's very difficult to have ethics when you're trying to get likes and you're trying to then also maybe keep your head above water and get paid after you've maybe quit your full-time job to become a YouTuber right so it's a complex I think it's still like a pretty complex uh complex space that is continuing to evolve and I'm curious to see where it goes I think that because it's so tough and complicated to assign rules to the influencer the way I think about it is maybe around the the consumer as someone it might be more helpful to to ask you know how how do I what information should I take in from influencers as opposed to our influencers giving us the right information I think as a as someone who's like who who has done shoe reviews online but also who listens to other ones and not just shoes but everything right I get ads for phones and laptops and all this stuff I don't really listen to the influencers let's take shoes there's a personal variability in there that you can't overcome like if someone likes the Sak kinvara it doesn't mean that I'll like it in fact I hate it it doesn't work for me though it's a very popular shoe I kind of like the canara so okay yeah there you go well well there you go it's not a good or bad shoe I don't like it you might like it and so it's like okay well what do I do as a consumer try it yourself talk to friends talk to friends who don't have any stake in the game go out in the world and try these things and take everything you hear online with a grain of salt I although I will say and I'm not just saying this to Def to defend what we do but I am saying it to defend what we do which is it's really important to have some sort of editorial integrity and some sort of editorial Code of Ethics in place that's locked in so that anytime you're dealing with a brand you're like here are here is my code of ethics here are the rules here's the guard rails for us and we're not breaking it under any circumstances and then also try to review as many different things as possible good and bad and pay attention to when when a reviewer saying or when an influencer is saying something negative about something and not in a in a shitty way where they're just trying to gain attention but in a way where they're being honest and they're trying to like share constructive criticism and feedback and and hopefully help their audience um I think that's valuable to pay attention to and I will say that Alex that's what you do and so kudos to you for doing that you've got a green light to do that you've got a green no one has ever said to you like be nice to this shoe or whatever it's say what you think and your opinions are your opinions and that's that and then obviously like Different Strokes for different folks right like certain shoes are going to work for certain people and you're going to have an opinion about it like I'm sure if poor scky now if you review a canara uh you're going to be like I don't like this shoe but that doesn't mean it's not a good shoe right so but but you know that's also that's a a pro tip from a from a uh somewhat seasoned Reviewer is this is also potentially a way to get Brands to respect you to know that that you're going to be honest with every product that they send you so that if they send you a product and you like it and you talk about it your audience will will resonate with it because they know you're not just giving everything tens and that actually speaks a lot more for a glowing review if everything is a glowing

review all right I think we've we've talked enough about influencers um is there oh actually do you feel influenced I who's your do you do you have anybody that you really like I mean I think that's a huge component of influencing is you are drawn the person has a Magnetic Personality they are a one of one they are an intriguing figure they do things in a certain way or they're producing the videos or the Instagram content or the Tik toks in a certain way that you find compelling um and sometimes you hate watch too sometimes you just like I find this guy like fraking annoying but for some reason I just it's like watching a car crash in slow motion I'm like I got to watch this just cuz I this guy GRS on me or whatever I mean that is definitely a component of uh influencing which is super weird to put yourself in the line of fire that way and maybe you don't even know that you're doing that but oh my God guys maybe we're doing that um no but is there an influencer that you guys uh are there influencers that you recommend like let's let's try to be positive here let's let's let's go with Alex let's go with Alex because I really don't follow any I feel like I follow some Runners but they don't work in the same way as like influencing me to use Brands they influence me with like the way that they run like I mean I follow very few I know I should probably follow a ton more but like I love following need to Walter but I don't follow her because of the brands you know I don't use Salomon products I don't you know use Tailwind products or you know I do useing gingi which she uses but it's just a coincidence that that's the product that I use or like but I follow her because of her and because she's an incredible Runner not because of you know or using products that she's pedaling so I think Alex would probably be best to answer this question you can give us maybe some good uh examples or people that maybe I could start following to see if I get inspired by by an influencer I mean I have a biased take I think I don't follow people on Instagram that much for their content I just don't browse it very much I gravitate more towards YouTube because I like the longer form stuff and I tend to follow people who are roughly my speed or faster just because I'm curious about what they do makes me want to get to that level there was one there was one uh YouTuber that I followed for a long time Spencer Brown the athlete special and uh and it's funny to talk about these accounts because people have opinions and there's so much of them online that many of them have received blowback for whichever thing I liked his videos he pulled the curtain uh and showed like what it was like to go under four a 4minute mile that was in his collegiate career he had a whole section of post Colgate stuff at one point I think Brooks gave him a professional tryy out and he got to go to the the pros training camp for a few months or something like that and it was it was the story of a guy trying to make it as a professional Runner and it was no no uh no punches pulled quite honest I I enjoyed that channel and it was a regular upload I liked Tin Man Elite because of the storyline it was a group of guys training together there's a lot of dialogue I think I just gravitated towards that type of thing too and oh god um I remember watching the the ingga brixon and that didn't age well I know there's a uh maybe an impending lawsuit between the sons Henrik philli and yakob who have become some of the best absolute best runners in the world and their coach slfa G who uh was very intense with them throughout their lives um bordering on abusive potentially I think that's the allegation but it produced a crazy YouTube series I think five or six episodes of their lives how they how they've dedicated everything since childhood to training and it was a compelling watch but it was also a little bit horrific at times those are probably the three channels I watched the most do you have a I feel like Michael you're not an influen influenceable guy you're not into influencers but do you have a guilty pleasure I'd have to say in recent months a guilty pleasure I'll give a shout out to flowerg runs that's a YouTube YouTuber who uh is I think a photographer videographer for by trade outside of running and the videos are very well done I at times have to admit I kind of hate watch it because there's elements of it that I'm just like I roll my eyes at it because he and I are roughly the same ability level so he's like making a big deal out of breaking 240 and whatever I'm like dude it's not that big a deal come on like it's like it's just it's a combination of your talent your age and work ethic and maybe that's enough maybe that's enough that we should be making a big deal out of it but it's like it is a big deal H whatever come on Caitlyn it's it's yeah it's it's it's a big deal to the person where that's what's in front of them which is an important thing and it's something that we something celebrate it it's great um but it just it is a little weird and cringy and it's kind of the reason why I watch in part but also I watch it because like the videos are very well produced they look great um and I think for somebody who's looking to watch some aspirational and really well shot really well documented videos they are fantastic um and also I will give the guy full marks full credit he ran Boston this year he was one I think he was one of the well he qualified because he was uh he ran a very good time uh to qualify for it so I would assume he was one of the influencers that got bought invited to that didn't get a a a uh an influencer bib for the Boston Marathon that was a big talk that a big sort of the chatter at Boston this year was that there were just like a [ __ ] ton of influencers crawling around and none of them had actually qualified for Boston they were just brought in to to to Pedal Boston which is so weird because Boston is like the last event it doesn't need it it's so strange really strange concept yeah I mean but who knows though I don't know what the demographic numbers are like how many young people is Bost and attracting are they do they have do they have a gen Z problem are they not attracting enough people who are say under the age of I don't know 20 just late 20s who are who are who are you know say 19 or 20 I don't know what they age 18 is age the is 18 you have to be over 18 to run Boston I think something like that I don't know how well they're doing with like the 18 to 29 demographic for example I have no idea maybe they're not doing well and that's the reason why they're reaching out to all these influencers maybe and so credit to this dude flowerg because he shows up he's first of all like my nightmare he's being followed by a by like a camera person who's like documenting him running and he's also getting paced by a pal um but that was a tough day and he actually ran really well he put down a really good time he was very smart about his race and he kind of delivered on it whereas like I found like so many other influencers were just like doing the like the [ __ ] song and dance of like oh tough day at the office I I don't know what went out the what what what happened but it just the wheels came off at 20 mil and it's like well okay yeah you know that's Marathon running right am yeah and so credit to him for for doing well in Boston and I shouldn't be so hard on what he's trying to do like I think it you should be excited about what you're doing you should be passionate about what you do you have to get up every day and run you know especially at his level uh just looking at a video that he made he was like what it was like to run 10 mil a day for 30 days and I'm like yeah I done that that I've done that and it's uh it's just something you have to do if you want to run under 240 for a marathon unless you're super duper talented right so uh yeah he's good Jeff Peltier who's a Vancouver guy a trail Runner and he does these like really beautiful documentary type videos about his experiences around the world running Ultras it's pretty cool Caitlyn you should check that out yeah did a really nice one on Moab uh recently that was pretty nice to to watch yeah again though these are sort of these they're these uh content products that are very alluring very intoxicating to watch they're very like narratively complete these people are very talented storytellers right but is it the truth of Life as a as that person I don't know it's an edited version right they're not it's not warts and all um and influencers have to put up barriers which ultimately creates this weird sort of like conflict with the with the follower as well over time but okay we talked a lot about influencers there I think it was pretty pretty complete uh let's take a break and then we'll we'll jump on our last topic of the day which is lighter Fair uh literally in fig no pun intended pre pre-run pre-race and I get a nerd out what do you eat when do you eat it some of our horrible horrible mistakes that we've made along the way we'll share all that after the break be right [Music] back all right our final topic of the day and this is one that especially if you're newer to running uh will definitely be of interest it's like a one of the most common questions that I've fielded over the years uh from newer Runners and from Runners that are maybe new to something like running the marathon which is kind of its own different animal altogether from just running well and certainly ultas absolutely because that's a whole other uh whole other ball of wax alog together but the question is how do you what do you eat before a run or a race how do you time it um and you know is the whole carb thing legit or not so put together a few sort of basic guidelines or tips for how to nail pre-run and pre-race because they could be a little bit different yeah approaches to fueling uh eating just so it works if nothing else and also to fuel properly before I run okay Caitlyn question number one I got for you like how important is it to fuel before a run or a race and is there a difference between like fueling before a run versus fueling before a race yeah I feel like fueling I mean at least in my experience and what I've seen in athletes and what you see all I mean fueling can make or break a race I mean you don't know how to properly fuel before your race or during your race and or in the days leading up to the race and you could literally just ruin your Performance Based on not fueling properly and today we're going to focus just a little bit more on because there's so much we could get into because you've got carb loading which you're talking about maybe 1 2 3 days before the race you're talking about what you eat before a run or a race the morning of and what you do for your fueling strategy throughout the race today we're really just going to touch on because we just don't have time to go through everything we're going to just touch on what you would eat the morning of so or if you don't run in the mornings you know it could be an afternoon or evening run or lunch run or whenever you get your chance to do your workouts but we're basically going to talk about the before the run or before the race the morning of and I feel like most of us know that there's been a big fad with keto diets and fasted running or fasted exercise in general and um you know everyone's going to have their own take and what works for them and like we've mentioned and we will continue to mention every single time uh everything is it depends because what you eat and how you eat is going to be very different than what I eat and what works for me so that's why trial and error and running is the most important you know piece of advice we can possibly give but at least we can look at General guidelines and kind of figure out the why and fasted exercise or fasted running yeah maybe you can get away with it um for a recovery run in the morning after you've fasted all night and you've just had something in the evening for dinner and you wake up and you go for a run but does that really make you feel good even during a recovery run um I like to fuel before every run and I just feel like the way that you do fuel is is going to be different as Michael mentioned like before a recovery run or before a super difficult threshold run or speed workout or before a long run or before a race so I feel like no matter what we're looking at here or what workout or what race I do feel like it's really important to to fuel no matter what it's important to know what's going to work for you it's important to know the timing what you're going to eat one because you just don't want to feel hungry I don't know about you guys but if I don't eat before a run I feel hungry I feel I get a headache I get stomach growling grumbling while I'm running I mean I'm obviously not going to perform well if I feel hunger and my you know the all famous you don't want to be in a glycogen depleted state right we want to make sure our glycogen stores are topped off carbs you know we've got everything all the energy that we need um to be able to perform and so the why is basically to feel good to perform well uh and to make sure that you can follow through with whatever you have in your plan you know you might have a a workout where you need to hit Paces well if you're fatigued and tired and glycogen depleted you're not eating you're not going to feel well enough uh to be able to and if you do do it you'll probably feel terrible you'll feel better if you eat so I think um you know uh carbs carbs carbs we'll get into that in a second when we talk a little bit more about what we eat and we're each going to have something different but I do suggest fueling before any run whether it be recovery whether it be speed workor whether it be a long run or whether it be a race what about timing like um okay just simple example yep just your daily run like today this okay if you run today like how'd you space it out okay when I run um I run here at 5: in the morning so I eat a snack at 4:00 a.m. I like to do the hour the hour before and yes I know it's a huge commitment that's the middle of the night Caitlyn that's not the morning 4:00 in the morning is not the morning okay if you run at 8:00 in the morning or 700 in the morning and you're lucky enough to be able to do that I just kind of always got on a schedu from being a teacher for so many years I had to be at the high school at 7:00 a.m. so if I had to run and then I had to get home and I had to shower and I had to change and I had to get to to work you know I I kind of got on the schedule years and years ago so for whatever it is let's not talk about time let's talk about an hour before a recovery run a speed work I can handle that one hour with a small snack um so if it's going to be either recovery if it's going to be um like today I had to do a threshold run and I was like okay this is going to be you remember my favorite kinds of runs we know it's going to be super hard very taxing um and then afterward I was going to go to the gym and do strength training so I said okay I've really got to got to feel good so I find something that's like very carbohydrate calorie dense but it's not a lot of food um and we can get into like what we eat later I ate like a very sugar dense vanilla granola um with you know and it was like it only had to be like 2/3 of a cup but it was you know plenty of carbs in tons of calories and I said okay this isn't a lot of food and so in an hour I'm not going to feel like I'm full I'm just going to feel I'm just going to have all this energy so for me it's an hour before I know some people can get away with eating 15 30 minutes before a workout I can't I still feel like it's a little bit uncomfortable sitting there in my stomach so I prefer to eat 1 hour before if we're moving on to a long run and I'm going to be eating basically breakfast or a my first breakfast of the day um it would be 2 hours before um so again I'm you're getting up at you're getting up at 3:00 a.m. no no because usually well perhaps if if I'm going to go out for a long run at 5: but usually the long runs are with our running club and so we they're later they're like at 7:00 a.m. because we have usually have to travel a lot to get to different places so say like a long run if I'm starting a little later it's a little easier so you do about two hours you space it at about two hours right and do you eat the same sort of thing or you sort of are you thinking about trying to get a little bit more of a a carb intake in because it's the longer effort yeah I do I do I I think um I do you know toast jelly uh Bagels honey like Bagel a bagel for me is the max because it's just like a ton of carbs and sugar you know packed into the bagel and if you just put a ton of honey on it I mean you can really get a lot of carbs uh in there so that's what I would do that's what I do before a long run an important long run or definitely a race but the race I don't know about you guys I want to hear what you guys do and see how we differ with with the nutrient timing but I I will eat three hours before a race and sometimes that can be you know really extreme because if you're running usually a race is at least here in Costa Rica they're starting at 6:00 a.m. so we're talking about literally getting up right before 3 eating going back to rest for a little bit look at Michael's face I love it you guys have to you have to see Michael's face right now he's just shaking his head at me I I wake up at 2:30 in the morning go to bed at 6:00 p.m. to run my race you're not too far off there yeah yeah well that's that's a that's a commitment to the craft right there so I'd say about you know three hours before a race but then for a race I'm always taking something half an hour 20 minutes before popping an energy energy gel or something because obviously it's been a while before I've had something to eat and then obviously you know the the race strategy which is which is for another day but um I think the time for me that works best um and that's pretty much if you look for General guidelines the you know you'd say pre-run snack 15 to an hour before if you can cuz people don't want to get up super early like I do couple of hours before a longer run and then maybe two to three hours or so before before a race but why don't you guys tell me what you do what works for you Alex H see I made two Cardinal mistakes in my life when I was a kid I needed you Caitlyn someone told me I needed to have carbs before a race so my pre-race meal became Alfredo didn't matter what time of the day just Alfredo like a cream sauce yes oh God the type that you get at like an Applebees and you don't have to eat for the rest of the day I would have a full plate of Alfredo and then my stomach would kill at the race and I would tell myself my God I'm nervous and then it took until grade 12 to find out that I was doing it wrong and that carbo loading had to happen the day before anyway details details details are important y um in University I started doing this thing where I would eat 3 hours before the race as well Y and I think I nailed that timeline but I would always try to eat something weird and fancy like something a bit healthier than my regular meal so for example like two trays of raspberries or like a type of fruit that I don't really have very much fiber and then yeah yeah so tale of mistake do Nots yeah this is the do kns but then what I realized by maybe my third year of University so I I was 20 years old at this point was just eat things that your body is used to taking in when I'm in the morning it's easy I have a classic I have the same breakfast every morning I have a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit that's it when the race is later in the day well then you're you're playing around with meals so that can get to be a little bit more complicated but for for me what works with 3 hours before is a a meal that's divided into like three pretty equal portions between carbs protein and uh vegetables right so so a pasta or rice some vegetables and chicken or salmon and I try to have it 3 hours before if I have it too close to the race then I do feel heavy yep um and then coffee 90 minutes before the race I have coffee that's what I'm most religious about food takes care of itself okay why are you so religious about the coffee Alex because I've LED myself to believe that caffeine gives you a boost I'm a regular coffee drinker so now I used to not drink coffee and so coffee actually did give me the Boost now it just puts me up to Baseline so I'll usually have a double coffee or something a little bit strong like a a double espresso or double Americano um there are there are like quite a bit studies out there that show that caffeine caffeine does give you some yep health benefits or some uh some running benefits When taken before fun fact it used to be banned used to be a banned substance back in the day yeah so my my Approach is uh pretty similar to yours Alex which is that I I'll work my way backwards races absolutely three hours before it's like it's dialed in it's part of the tried andrue routine that I've stuck with for I mean nearly since nearly the beginning particularly with the marathon like you don't you don't screw around with the marathon so like uh as an example um it's really difficult when I'm traveling you know Chicago marathon B Boston is really tricky because there's all this like weird screwy travel to get out to the start line with on the on on the bus of Doom that takes you from the city to to hopkington uh and then you're just it's a really tough thing to time that that meal but I try to keep it at 3 hours as well and I actually practice this for my long runs once the long runs get to be 30 plus kilm so uh whatever uh 19 is Miles uh 18 and 1 half miles once they get into that zone and I start doing a a longer long run so you know 2 and a half hours on my feet type thing or more I start practicing basically I start using that sun day as my blueprint or my Proving Ground for race day and so I get up so if I if I'm doing a long run at the Civilized hour of 9:00 a.m. 900 a.m. yeah well it doesn't get very hot here right Ian it gets hot but it doesn't get like pulverizing hot but let's say 8:00 a.m. 8 or 9:00 a.m. okay uh so when Caitlin's having lunch I I was just going to say that's my second breakfast down yes when Caitlyn is eating lunch and I am getting ready to go for my run I have woke I woke up at 6:00 a.m. for 9:00 a.m. 5: a.m. for 8:00 a.m. typically and that works really well just timing I also like to consume a lot of fluid and I practice this because I also do this before a race I consume an an inordinate amount of fluid probably more than most people would and I don't necessarily recommend it but like before a long run I'll take in like a liter of of fluid or more before a long run um and that just helps sort of like regulate my body I'm like I'm well hydrated uh I'm peeing a lot before in the hour before I'm going out to run and I just I know it's like I know it works for me so and I will definitely drink so I will have a a bagel and honey or Jam um or if I'm really like if I don't have any of those things in the house I'll just like take cinnamon and sugar and kind of sprinkle it on top um yeah yeah it's a good it's a good one and uh and then also kind of like a warm nostalgic childhood memory having like the toast with cinnamon and sugar was a kid so it's like a comfort food for me and I absolutely have to have a cup of coffee and I need to get into the system soon and this we're going to be TMI here guys but like there's a huge element of the all this well the thing we're talking around right now thing we're all sort of like dancing around is we're talking about like what should I eat and how long should I wait before I eat and why should I eat vegetables and it's because of poop people it's because of pooping back we all need to we just we've Caitlyn we found our way back to poop we found our way back to it every time every damn time it's a the runner's preoccupation um it's timing that is why we're talking about not eating lots of like n super nutrient macros like why we're avoiding lots of fiber why we're not eating you know uh uh really like weed AXS cereal beforehand why we're not consuming a lot of dairy why we're yeah not eating not eating our uh our uh our raisin brand it's because it and why you don't eat vegetables in car the night before with your pasta dinner the night before the big race or the long run is because you're producing a huge amount of fiber it's hard in your body and then it throws everything off you want to think keep things nice and clean and simple and basic and Carby and there's the aformentioned glycogen stores it's the way your muscles absorb and retain a form a basic like sugars basically energy and they St and your body stores it up and it's gly in the form of glycogen and then release it during its release during a long distance effort um and in fact lots of studies show that it's not released until um until it it it it takes a while to train your body to release it properly that's why long runs are pretty important right so anyway yeah so I 3 hours before a Long Run 3 hours before a marathon for sure I keep it the same for the 5K and the 10K I just sort of keep that same practice about 3 hours I've experimented in the long run with like how what I can get away with before things kind of get a little disastrous um and it I can get up to 90 minutes before a long run and pull it off but I just have to like consume a little bit more fluid to kind of get the digestive tract working in my working properly working yeah um I will say one thing that might upset Caitlyn though which is I do a 5 a.m. run too caylin and quite often I don't need anything before I don't get up I get up I run at i r i run at 5:15 most mornings okay I wake up at 5:00 I put on my running shorts I'm still half asleep my legs are super stiff and I walk out the front door and I'm like all right let's do this and it works pretty well everything seems kind of closed and shut down at 5:15 in the morning so everything I don't drink coffee that would be a bad idea it gets things moving it's a bad idea it's a diuretic right I don't need anything I don't even take any water but does but do you feel good I mean if you feel okay and it works for you it's okay I feel nothing until about 7:00 in the morning I see I see you don't even know you ran yeah I just come back and I'm like oh there was 10 miles that just got done on my watch somehow I give this little like you ran a 10K Michael badge on my Apple watch and I'm like yes okay that happened uh no I just I just find I find like if maybe I haven't been running very much uh it affects me a little bit and I feel a little bit tired and kind of gross and maybe I could have used something to eat but it's just like I'm not getting up at 5: in the morning 4 in the morning I'm I have to get up at 5: because it's where it fits but that's it um but I find over time it doesn't really affect me for a recovery run for a workout it's very different for a workout I then employ a similar strategy at a different point in the day because I typically do my workouts on Thursday evenings um kind of after you've been eating I've been eating throughout the day and I do and today is a we're recording on a Thursday so today I'm approaching things in a certain way and I I would recommend others do this as well if you have an evening workout which is tricky because you've been consuming food all day and it's tough to get things timed properly but I try to think about things in terms of like I will stop I won't I have to be very careful about how much I snack in the afternoon I eat a kbby lunch and I switch to liquids after about 2 and I actually try to avoid drinking an afternoon coffee um for a for mentioned diuretic reasons so that's my strategy and yeah so I I try to last thing I'll put in my body would be yeah 3 to four hours out and it and it is true I get hungry and I get the growl and I get the like oh man I should have eaten something but a decade or more of experience has told me that being a little bit hungry going into a workout versus having a full complicated tummy is is is the better choice so that's my Approach okay yeah I mean we want to avoid any di problems like we're always circling back so that's why we say you know if you can stick to the simple carbs don't try to eat a lot of vegetables but like in Alex's case he just told us he's able to eat a portion of vegetables he's able to eat a portion of protein and he feels good and so that's why you know you've got to try it out I don't before you know the night before I'll do pasta I'll just or I'll do simple carbs almost all the way just because that's what works for me and but I feel like if you can handle it and you can have that you know the three macros in there and have a little fat a little protein a little carbs and some vegetables and you can handle it it's fine but I think that you know the simple carbs is what works for me it's easier to to you know obviously it's going to be used for energy the protein and the Fat's a little harder to break down um all that stuff um but one thing that I absolutely want to highlight that Michael said that I think that we have like that pract we have to practice it a lot and so um when Michael mentioned that you know we have to try this and start doing it before all of our long long runs is absolutely Paramount to being able to figure out what you're going to do on race day and it's with absolutely everything and we always talk about that you know the Golden Rule don't try anything new on race day that's I think we all have fun stories we can tell about that I've got a great one and guess what it circles back to our favorite topic so I feel I feel um that that's it practice your fueling trial and error your training runs you know it's not the end of the world and your long runs it's not the end of the world we want everything to go well but that's the time to try it out so um that's the best advice I think that we can give is to try to figure out how much what sources work for you because yeah we can give you the general guidelines and you can say okay for a recovery run 20 Gams of carbs is going to work just fine a piece of toast and some some honey or for a workout I need 40 grams of carbs and people are probably thinking well how much is that and how much do I need well if you weigh more if you there are so many factors that could mean that you might need more or that you might need a little less and so the trial and error is super important and so please start doing that if you're not used to eating maybe try something out and you might be like wow I just felt incredible on this run you know someone that maybe hasn't like is like Michael and and doesn't eat and wants to try to eat and maybe will feel better because they eat and then you decide is the sleep more important in Michael's case it is or is it that I felt a little better in my run that's more important for me right now or in this specific training cycle that's a little more important for my goal so maybe I'm going to give it a try so trial and error 100% figure out what works um figure out what works for you is just super important so I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention again because I feel like it's like the Golden Rule I'll give you guys some real time feedback which is I'm doing a workout in about an hour and a half and my tummy is starting to growl a little bit because I'm getting a little bit kind of hungry mhm I'm going to ignore it because I would rather have a relatively empty stomach and be well hydrated of course than to have some sort of horrible explosion um okay so let's let's wrap it up with some with some more TMI uh stupidest thing Alex stupidest thing you've ever done I me besides the Alfredo which is just like chef's kiss man like that's just incredible incredible poll there dumbest thing you've ever done pre-race eating wise oh man I feel like I gave you my stupidest thing although a runnerup would be in 20 2016 2017 I was in Montreal for an indoor track meet the race was before dinner but after lunch and I didn't know what to get for lunch and for some reason I settled for Supermarket Sushi oh my god oh no cuz you're like the rice right yeah the rice cuz I'm like the rice you don't you think of the rice that's been sitting there the poisonous fish or the Wasabi I I dropped out of the race I I had a brutal race it was a 3,000 M and after 2K I was way off pace and felt terrible and you know could be the sushi could be something else probably the sushi we we'll let you blame it on the sushi we'll blame it on the sushi but I think that moment solidified it for me like okay don't don't don't try new things don't try new things to get a new little Edge on raay day stick with the regular yeah this is why I'm against things like like fattish stuff like diets and like the the keto hype thing and like I get it we were once we were once uh uh you know uh Homo erectus or whatever and we were you know uh hunter gatherers and we would just eat one meaty meal a day and survive on that and run dozens of kilometers to to hunt for that but like you know uh there's a lot of science that points in the other direction which is we need we need to fuel on carbs before we run so just just balance out your meals otherwise you know you can go carb heavy for pre-workout pre-long run but go be balanced otherwise um and hit your food groups uh Caitlyn what's your uh tell us a story Caitlyn okay I'm going to tell you a story um I am very square and Nerdy when it comes to my running I bring Tupperware when I travel for races like I am that kind of Runner so I don't want to have any stomach problems because I'm just prone to it so I figure everything out and I'm getting ready to run in 80k and actually it's the famous one I was talking to you guys about that used to be the Northface challenge so I was super excited about it really trained and we're at you know the night before they always do like a race briefing and they tell you what the what the markings are going to look like and they go over you know the ins and outs of the race and so we're all there super excited just like hundreds of people anticipating the race and we're leaving there some booths you know with product and an entrepreneur who was here had been producing some new granola bars and you know they were packaged up and she was handing them out and she handed them out to a friend um my husband and I and we all took one my husband however did not eat it my friend and I did and it didn't take more than a few hours to begin to have uh stomach issues and I said okay well this is going to pass this will be fine got to the race literally stopped five or six times like serious food poisoning but I was like but I'm in second place I'm doing so well I'm going to continue I'm going to push through and I did which is not recommended because I was completely dehydrated by the end of the race because not only is it 90° and humid where I was running but I was also not able to let's say replenish my fluid as fast as I was getting rid of it so it was just like why did I do that and my f the same exact thing happened to my friend so I feel okay like Alex can say I want to blame it on the sushi maybe if you had had another person there and the same thing happened to them and they ate the sushi we were both like why did we do that that was like the stupidest decision we could have ever made he dropped out of the race he was the smart one who said I'm I have food poisoning and you finished you finished it I did I did and I do not recommend that that was the smartest idea but as I was running I was like well if I still feel well I mean if I if I obviously I had to take the stops and you know you feel well after those stops if you can just keep hydrating up but it was definitely not an ideal race and I don't suggest that someone would try to kind of push through in those sort of of circumstances I said this was like when I was really starting out my running career it was a while ago and I was just excited and I wanted to finish the race um but please don't take any handouts the night before a race don't try anything new don't eat anything that someone gives you so the more of the story wow me and my friends from college have this thought experiment that's like you're leading a race but you need to poop do you stop or do you just keep going and hope for the best and now I know which team you're on well in an ultra at least at least you've got uh Nature's toilet all around you so you can pull off to the side and uh take care of business but in say uh Road 5K in inner city core or a track or oh my God you're on full display yeah track that's a tough call cuz that a really embarrassing thing to go through and it's not it's I don't I mean I've never gone through that I don't I think i' I think I'd stop I think I'd stop and it's not a pride thing it's just there's something really crass about [ __ ] yourself in a race that I just think it's like I'm not sure it's worth it right I'm just not sure that that's actually a good like that's a good um it's like kind of a good runner like one of these fundamental like personality quiz type questions it's like what type Ty of Runner are you are you the like you said with you with your friend it's like are you the person who you're W you're winning a race do you [ __ ] yourself to win the race or do you pull out of the race in order to take care of I'm not doing that no yeah I'm uh I am the I am the latter maybe I'm a a lesser runner for it but uh Alex well I'll turn the question on you which which Rush which Runner are you well they say a broken clock is two times a day and to win a, 1500 you got to run past your own poop at least three and 3/4 times so yeah I would do it you do it you do it oh my God no I'm kind of no I'm kidding I'm kind of bluffing maybe in my younger days not now now that I have a job and stuff I think it you're like H the Instagram post would be bad um yeah you like live stream yeah in this in this social world of uh influencing yeah you end up a story on our site that's what that's what happened someone is videoing Jess yeah no no thanks there was I mean like about 10 years ago there was a a story this poor guy like he just that's he [ __ ] himself at some point in the race and I think he won the race and he's just it's so awful and you can find it was like a meme it was a meme for I mean I'm sure it still is a meme I I haven't seen the meme around in a while but like that guy became sort of known because he was the guy who [ __ ] himself in a race and that's anyway I don't want that name not worth it I uh my probably the dumbest thing I've ever done pre-race was okay so I don't know if I've told you guys this story before I went and did as a media trip I went and covered or ran as an experience to write kind of a kind of a fluffy tourism piece about the loch nest marathon in Scotland okay and I was super excited cuz I'm like I've always I'd always wanted to go to Scotland you literally around run around lock nests it's like that's the Marathon course is around this beautiful lock in the Scottish Highlands incredible Race by the way incredibly well organized beautiful event high high re highest recommend it's it's fantastic really cool part of the world but I didn't really do my homework and I was planning on doing another race afterwards as my Big Goal race and I was like and it was a a bit of a rushed media trip it kind of got put together at the last minute and I was like yes yes I'll absolutely go and I thinking I was thinking to myself I'll just run the half you know I'll go I won't run the whole Marathon I'll just run the half it'll give me enough of an experience of the race that I can write about the weekend I can write about the experience you know everyone will be happy right speaking of influencer being an influencer right um uh appeasing your Masters and I get there and the Night Before the Race okay first I'm staying in this lovely little Inn in the Scottish Highlands in in veress where the race starts and finishes and I think to myself I'm just going to jog a half marathon I'm not even going to run it very fast I'm just going to go out for basically kind of like a little bit of a mediumish long run great I believe the race was in September if I'm not mistaken okay I'll just I'll eat whatever I want the night before there's no pressure on me to have to eat the pasta meal or whatever so I go to this like I go to the the the uh the dining room of the little in the little Inn and they've got like um I think it was like a a roasted cornish hen with uh mashed potatoes and gravy and uh like um it was just like this like pile of brown wonderful food uh and I had two pints of beer I was just like yeah [ __ ] it I don't care I'm just going to eat whatever I want right like and uh and and so I I I ate this pile of rich brown food and downed it downed a couple of Scottish alses to to wash it all down and then I ran into the um the race person afterwards the organizer and was like oh hey um is it cool if I just run the half tomorrow morning like you know I'm planning on running I think it was Chicago or something like that in a month's time it's okay if I just downgrade to running like the half and he was like what half marathon and I was and then I had this realization that I was in for 26.2 miles the following morning and I had done zero prep and eat this like super heavy meal at like it was like 9:00 the night before I'm just like I have just done everything wrong I have not I'm not hydrated I just drank a whole bunch of beer I ate like a half a I ate a small animal uh in full I'm like oh my God anyway I didn't have any like I had nothing to like Hydrate with the next morning I don't think their kitchen was open first thing in the morning so I couldn't I didn't I don't know if I had I don't know I think I went to a corner store and bought a banana and I was like I guess this is going to be it you had to get bust out to the start line so there was this gap before the start every I did everything wrong everything wrong oh no ran a great Marathon the next day did you yep no stomach issues nothing I just drank a bunch of water before the race um you got lucky I got lucky I think but also I was fairly fit at the time too so I think there that was a factor and I didn't run like a hard allout Marathon I found somebody to run with and I just ran with him the entire time and we chatted and had a really good experience and I made a friend um and uh it was a great race a great experience very beautiful race I did not [ __ ] myself in the race which was great so I mean but that was definitely the stupidest thing I've ever done before race and I could have paid dearly for it and I do not recommend a Cornish hen and two pints of beer and gravy the night before a marathon not a great idea noted okay well this is neither here nor there but your story about this race while well written uh didn't contain all of these graphic details but it was the first Michael Doyle piece I've ever read I remember it get out okay oh really mhm I was deciding whether or not I I should write for you I had never met you in my life and so I thought okay can this guy write so I pulled up a story and that's the one I read and I quite liked it and now I glad that I know the full story that's a nice there's the the story behind the story the story I should have written is about how I did everything wrong then I before and it still panned out okay yeah um all right well um oh final thing weirdest thing I've ever seen someone else do I saw a guy eat like a like a huge chunk of cheese like 30 minutes before running a race once okay e like a huge chunk of like yurg cheese just like gnarling on on a on a chunk of cheese and I was like what are you doing man he was like oh I always eat I always eat a bunch of cheese like my I always get really hungry during a Race So I just eat a bunch of cheese beforehand whatevers I guess yeah weird yeah all right guys I think that was pretty comprehensive I think we covered everything you need to know about what to do uh pre-race in terms of fueling eating and pre-run timing I think the takeaways are practice yep in practice practice on your long runs practice on your easy days figure out what works for you seems like easy days about an hour beforehand you should be okay eat something light carb rich long runs two to three hours for sure a bit more heavy bit more Carby uh make sure drink a lot of fluid with that CU carbs need fluid and you should be good and uh maybe coffee if you're a coffee drinker to get things going all right that's it for the marathon handbook podcast for today make sure to follow us on all the socials we we are like we're we're pumping out the hits every single day um we're now getting into doing a lot of like vertical video content where we're commenting on giving our perspective our point of view on what's happening in the world of running uh myself and our colleague Jesse we're doing that on a regular basis Alex is doing these amazing reels and YouTube shorts that are super fun and kind of give you a a little uh glance into the inner life of the runner from a a pretty funny perspective uh kudos to you Alex for doing those those are awesome yeah they're so funny and you see inside my condo and you get to see inside the inner Life of Alex and feel like you feel like you know him he's he's influencing you um and uh follow us on YouTube Alex's shoe review videos are the gold standard of shoe review videos I feel uh and you should check them out they're amazing and our newsletter uh Caitlyn produces half the newsletters we're at five well not half I guess it's are you doing two or three a week Caitlyn I'm doing I'm doing two you're doing two a week Jesse does the other three oh sorry Jessie does two and then Ambi has is on Friday we have five newsletters a week everyone is different and special in its own way they're really great we just went through a sort of revamp ing the look the sort of fit and feel of them and I think that they're they're pretty slick and nice and easy to read that was our our goal with that was to build it to to revamp the newsletter so that it's really enjoyable to look at as well as is content Rich it's like your pre-run or race meal and in fact we're sending them out super early we're sending them out at like 5:55 a.m. eastern time every morning so that it's in your inbox when you get up to go for your run unless you're Caitlyn and then it's in your inbox for when you get the middle of the night get up in the middle of the night all right guys thanks so much for uh listening and watching and uh yeah subscribe give us that F star rating uh and uh thanks for listening [Music]