Below is a transcript of an episode of The Marathon Podcast. It’s been lightly condensed and edited for clarity. You can watch a video version of the episode above, or via our YouTube channel (subscribe here), or on Spotify, which now supports video podcasts. You can listen to the episode in the embedded player below, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Alex Cyr (00:00.344)
Yes. Bowl. Beef brisket bowl.
Michael Doyle (00:01.261)
You’re a bull?
Katelyn Tocci (00:04.509)
We’re all bulls.
Michael Doyle (00:10.637)
This is the Marathon Handbook podcast and I am joined by the beef brisket bowl of runners. Senior editor Alex Sear. You’re you’re a bowl, not a burrito, correct? OK, you’re a bowl guy. OK. And Caitlin Tosse. You’re like the the keto bowl of of our crew here. Is that is that how you want to be described? No low carb, all power. Yeah.
Alex Cyr (00:19.971)
hello. I’m a ball. I’m a ball guy. Yes.
Katelyn Tocci (00:34.142)
Low carb, low carb. Yeah.
Michael Doyle (00:39.893)
And I am I’m your lifestyle ball, whatever the hell that is. Michael Doyle actually don’t know what a lifestyle ball is. Although I do enjoy Chipotle. We’re talking Chipotle. We’ll get into that in a second, but we’ll tee up the main segment of the of this episode of the pod. Guys, we’re going to do a little game that we’ve devised, which is. We’ve taken four.
called them enduring truisms or folk wisdom of running. And we’re going to ask the question of these four ideas that I think everyone has a sense of, but it’s not, I’m not sure if they’re correct or not. Is it true that dot dot dot will be the premise of the main segment of this episode? Pretty sciencey stuff for the most part. had to dig into
Dig into some studies to try to figure out the truth behind these questions. But first, I introduced us as items off the Chipotle menu. And I don’t mean to give our Mexican-American fast food overlords any more credit and marketing than they deserve, but this is kind of a fun story.
Fun content that they’ve produced out of this is so Strava and Chipotle have partnered and this is not the first year they’ve done it’s almost become an annual is an annual thing that they do in January where they do the Strava Chipotle challenge So if you live nearby a Chipotle restaurant The challenge is for you to run a segment basically run the block around your local Chipotle as many times as you can in the month of January
rack up as many miles as you can logged on Strava. And if you are the king or queen of your local Chipotle, you have won a year supply of lifestyle bowls. Is it?
Katelyn Tocci (02:45.117)
That’s a pretty good deal.
I don’t know, you get a bowl of what, every day? Every day for three? Well, I, know, guys, I have to admit, I’ve never eaten at Chipotle.
Michael Doyle (02:55.071)
What? Okay.
Alex Cyr (02:55.968)
Seriously.
Katelyn Tocci (02:57.766)
Well, the closest Chipotle to me is in Miami, so it would be quite a trek, a bit of a swim or a bit of a flight to get there.
Michael Doyle (03:01.048)
It’s a bit of a swim.
Fair enough. That’d a really dedicated month for you. You’d be like, well, I’ve uprooted my life to Miami to run one city block around the Chipotle by the airport. And then 31 days from now, I’m going to go back to Costa Rica with a year supply of Chipotle bowls I can’t eat.
Katelyn Tocci (03:08.562)
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (03:26.023)
They have to send them over in a container for me.
Michael Doyle (03:28.747)
That’s right. Ship them to you. Yeah. Yikes. Yeah. So this, this is a, reason why we’re talking about this is because there’s been a couple of stories that have kind of bubbled up with this one we’re working on, which I will tease. So pay attention to our site in the next couple of days, cause it’s a wild story. I so badly want to talk about it with you guys. And in fact, it’s such a good, delicious scrumptious story.
Alex Cyr (03:28.909)
It’s a big Uber Eats bill.
Michael Doyle (03:55.713)
Maybe we might even do a pod segment about it next week. But for now, I’ll just tease it. We’ve got another story on the site right now about two dudes, two ultra guys, Jamel Quarry and Kevin Russ, who are located in Arizona in the sort of Tempe, Phoenix area that I believe they’re in Tempe proper. And they decided to just throw it down around their local Tripoli. And they ran this like, I was like,
Katelyn Tocci (04:22.853)
You
Michael Doyle (04:25.591)
380 meter loop around the shop for an entire month. Constantly, seems they documented it, of course, on their socials, and they each ran over 600 miles, like over thousand kilometers in a month. Around a goddamn Chipotle.
Katelyn Tocci (04:43.748)
Yeah, that’s right.
Alex Cyr (04:48.991)
That is it.
Katelyn Tocci (04:49.233)
No, and it looked so frustrating because as I was watching some of the footage, they had to stop, you know, for people walking by. It wasn’t like you’re running on a track or you have kind of an open path. Like I think they had to stop all the time. Traffic lights, who knows what else was involved. It wasn’t a smooth ride.
Alex Cyr (05:06.22)
my god. And like do the math. So 1000 kilometers in a month, or I guess it’s like 650 miles is basically like if you ran 150 miles a week, or just under 250 kilometers a week.
Michael Doyle (05:07.7)
No.
Michael Doyle (05:15.013)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s like. That’s. That’s top level, like world’s best elite marathon runners at their peak week is 250 kilometers. That’s like Elliot Kipchoge breaking the world record in 2001, ever like.
Katelyn Tocci (05:23.986)
On a track
Alex Cyr (05:26.463)
Yeah, keep going around. Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (05:37.125)
That’s insanity.
Michael Doyle (05:41.139)
That would have been his peak week. That’s crazy. And they just did it for a month. I mean, I know obviously they’re not running at a super fast pace and hopefully they didn’t do too many like workouts, but.
Katelyn Tocci (05:51.986)
I saw a lot of walking in the footage. Did you guys see any of them? Yeah, exactly.
Michael Doyle (05:55.99)
It’s just racking up the miles. Yeah, there’s a lot of walking. There’s a lot of, mean, this is one of the dirty secrets of the long ultra hall is that once they disappear away from the checkpoint, it’s a little stroll might, might, uh, might be involved. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a long day going around the Chipotle. It just feels like Chipotle’s are strategically placed in cities in the worst possible place for you to run.
Katelyn Tocci (06:03.374)
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (06:11.162)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Michael Doyle (06:24.134)
like downtown cores, strip malls, that sort of thing. I think a lot of these segments must have been a pretty rough ride for runners.
Alex Cyr (06:34.731)
Our Chipotle here is across the street from a bank surrounded by a bunch of condos in I think the densest area of Toronto, Canada. Like I didn’t even attempt the challenge. I don’t think you could get around it. I think there’s like there’s a bridge behind. Yeah, I don’t think I could do a full loop of Chipotle without looping around Toronto.
Michael Doyle (06:57.749)
Alex and I have actually dined at your local Chipotle before. We’ve had a nice lunch there last year. yeah, that would be a hellish run. And you’re right. I’m not even sure you could execute on that one. There’s not one nearby in my neighborhood, so I’d have to travel to do it every day. what’s the stupidest thing you guys have ever done for a prize in running?
Alex Cyr (07:01.29)
Mm-hmm.
Katelyn Tocci (07:20.238)
Ha ha!
Michael Doyle (07:23.573)
Because this is like up there. This is like just a miserable run that you’d have to do every single day. You’re about you’re battling some other group of clowns for this same prize. Like just seems like it’s tilting at windmills, guys. This is ridiculous. What’s the what’s have you have you done anything that compares to.
Alex Cyr (07:44.778)
If do bragging rights count as a prize because I used to have this thing it okay good Because this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done on it on a continual basis When I was in college Pre Strava so or at least pre my own Strava account, so this is maybe 2014 2015 I Would run home from the bar?
Katelyn Tocci (07:50.071)
Yes. Yes.
Michael Doyle (08:11.497)
yeah, yeah, I’ve done that.
Katelyn Tocci (08:12.297)
Okay, here we go.
Alex Cyr (08:12.349)
I lived 1.2 kilometers away from the bar, 1.2, and I lived on top of a hill. And so the run back from the bar was a slight downhill and then a right turn, up a big hill, down a big hill, then up a big hill. And I tried to do it as fast as I could.
Michael Doyle (08:33.822)
This is after an evening at the bar.
Alex Cyr (08:36.7)
an evening of drinking. It’s usually two in the morning.
Michael Doyle (08:39.716)
Ice.
Katelyn Tocci (08:39.834)
okay, an early morning run, nice.
Alex Cyr (08:41.982)
Yes. And I started timing myself and got down to like a 4.05, a time of 4.05 for 1.2 kilometers, which always felt faster, which always was in dress shoes. And then I started competing with a friend. Yeah. No, no, you don’t bring your running shoes at the bar. But I started competing with a friend.
Michael Doyle (08:52.5)
A drunk 405.
Katelyn Tocci (09:01.283)
That was my question.
Alex Cyr (09:08.746)
and we started trading off times. And then in 2016, I got a Strava account and started logging these runs. And then it kind of killed it because I think a big part of the fun was in the legend. And so then it was a bit too measurable. And then we got intimidated. It was good to the point where like you’d stop drinking at the bar and you’d leave the bar early and maybe you’d bring more comfortable dress shoes. And then we see we had crossed the threshold. But I think by the time I graduated, I had the fastest time.
Michael Doyle (09:29.97)
my gosh.
Katelyn Tocci (09:30.996)
no, Alex.
Alex Cyr (09:39.55)
This should have been a Strava segment. See, back in the day, we didn’t do the Strava segments. Nowadays, this would be a Strava segment, and it would have to be run between 1 and 3 in the morning. But we missed out. It was the wrong time.
Katelyn Tocci (09:42.063)
you
Michael Doyle (09:51.86)
I like, I like the time constraint to the Strava segment where you’re like, that doesn’t count if it was in the middle of the afternoon. If it’s two 30 in the morning and you’re also, I, you know, indicating that you’re like eight beers deep, then, then it counts.
Katelyn Tocci (09:59.715)
Right.
Katelyn Tocci (10:10.58)
Yeah, you have to have those. Yeah, you have to check those boxes off a little tipsy and to what between one and three in the morning. I like it.
Alex Cyr (10:17.256)
And you can’t wear anything with a carbon plate.
Katelyn Tocci (10:21.675)
absolutely, yeah.
Michael Doyle (10:23.794)
Yeah. There are a couple of really ridiculous challenges that involve eating. I’m surprised you probably hasn’t like taking this to the next level and been like, and you also have to eat like a one of our bowls halfway through your run every day or whatever. But there is the, and this is known in Canada. I’m not sure if it’s known in the U S the highway to McDonald’s challenge.
Alex Cyr (10:46.554)
Yes, I thought that was too niche to mention. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (10:49.644)
What is it? I don’t know what it is.
Michael Doyle (10:49.716)
There’s a university in Ontario in the town of Kingston called Queen’s University. It’s a good running program historically.
Alex Cyr (11:01.242)
Sorry, quick side note, Queen’s University is also the birthplace of the beer mile. Please proceed.
Michael Doyle (11:06.598)
It is. Yes, it is. That’s right. It’s one of Canada’s great, great claims to fame. Maple syrup, universal healthcare, beer mile. That’s right. Yeah. So, Highway McDonald’s challenge. Basically, group of university students every year do this. I’m not sure if they still do anymore. They have to run from where they start their run.
Katelyn Tocci (11:19.892)
beer mile.
Michael Doyle (11:34.075)
every day, they run a few kilometers to the local McDonald’s, which is near the highway exit. And then they have to eat like, I think it’s like a double Big Mac, the largest fry, the largest Coke. And they have to finish it all and then run back in the winter. Of course, doesn’t puke everywhere and runs the fastest time in North Carolina. There’s also a crispy cream challenge. I think we have to like run.
four or five miles in one direction, eat an entire box of crispy, crispy cream donuts, then turn around and run back. Yeah. And like people have like strategies where they take multiples and crush them together so that they can eat them more quickly and things like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (12:07.339)
my gosh.
Katelyn Tocci (12:15.659)
and like ball it up into like one big ball of dough and then uh-huh. I love donuts. I’d do it if it was Dunkin’s.
Alex Cyr (12:21.239)
Guys, you’re grossing me out here. Ew. I hate- I hate Krispy Kreme.
Michael Doyle (12:21.874)
Classic Bostonian there.
wow. OK, that’s we’ll put a pin on that. But OK, let’s take a break and we will leave Chipotle in the rear view, at least for now, and move on to. Is it true that. Dot dot dot. Coming up next, you’re right back.
Alex Cyr (00:00.344)
Yes. Bowl. Beef brisket bowl.
Michael Doyle (00:01.261)
You’re a bull?
Katelyn Tocci (00:04.509)
We’re all bulls.
Michael Doyle (00:10.637)
This is the Marathon Handbook podcast and I am joined by the beef brisket bowl of runners. Senior editor Alex Sear. You’re you’re a bowl, not a burrito, correct? OK, you’re a bowl guy. OK. And Caitlin Tosse. You’re like the the keto bowl of of our crew here. Is that is that how you want to be described? No low carb, all power. Yeah.
Alex Cyr (00:19.971)
hello. I’m a ball. I’m a ball guy. Yes.
Katelyn Tocci (00:34.142)
Low carb, low carb. Yeah.
Michael Doyle (00:39.893)
And I am I’m your lifestyle ball, whatever the hell that is. Michael Doyle actually don’t know what a lifestyle ball is. Although I do enjoy Chipotle. We’re talking Chipotle. We’ll get into that in a second, but we’ll tee up the main segment of the of this episode of the pod. Guys, we’re going to do a little game that we’ve devised, which is. We’ve taken four.
called them enduring truisms or folk wisdom of running. And we’re going to ask the question of these four ideas that I think everyone has a sense of, but it’s not, I’m not sure if they’re correct or not. Is it true that dot dot dot will be the premise of the main segment of this episode? Pretty sciencey stuff for the most part. had to dig into
Dig into some studies to try to figure out the truth behind these questions. But first, I introduced us as items off the Chipotle menu. And I don’t mean to give our Mexican-American fast food overlords any more credit and marketing than they deserve, but this is kind of a fun story.
Fun content that they’ve produced out of this is so Strava and Chipotle have partnered and this is not the first year they’ve done it’s almost become an annual is an annual thing that they do in January where they do the Strava Chipotle challenge So if you live nearby a Chipotle restaurant The challenge is for you to run a segment basically run the block around your local Chipotle as many times as you can in the month of January
rack up as many miles as you can logged on Strava. And if you are the king or queen of your local Chipotle, you have won a year supply of lifestyle bowls. Is it?
Katelyn Tocci (02:45.117)
That’s a pretty good deal.
I don’t know, you get a bowl of what, every day? Every day for three? Well, I, know, guys, I have to admit, I’ve never eaten at Chipotle.
Michael Doyle (02:55.071)
What? Okay.
Alex Cyr (02:55.968)
Seriously.
Katelyn Tocci (02:57.766)
Well, the closest Chipotle to me is in Miami, so it would be quite a trek, a bit of a swim or a bit of a flight to get there.
Michael Doyle (03:01.048)
It’s a bit of a swim.
Fair enough. That’d a really dedicated month for you. You’d be like, well, I’ve uprooted my life to Miami to run one city block around the Chipotle by the airport. And then 31 days from now, I’m going to go back to Costa Rica with a year supply of Chipotle bowls I can’t eat.
Katelyn Tocci (03:08.562)
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (03:26.023)
They have to send them over in a container for me.
Michael Doyle (03:28.747)
That’s right. Ship them to you. Yeah. Yikes. Yeah. So this, this is a, reason why we’re talking about this is because there’s been a couple of stories that have kind of bubbled up with this one we’re working on, which I will tease. So pay attention to our site in the next couple of days, cause it’s a wild story. I so badly want to talk about it with you guys. And in fact, it’s such a good, delicious scrumptious story.
Alex Cyr (03:28.909)
It’s a big Uber Eats bill.
Michael Doyle (03:55.713)
Maybe we might even do a pod segment about it next week. But for now, I’ll just tease it. We’ve got another story on the site right now about two dudes, two ultra guys, Jamel Quarry and Kevin Russ, who are located in Arizona in the sort of Tempe, Phoenix area that I believe they’re in Tempe proper. And they decided to just throw it down around their local Tripoli. And they ran this like, I was like,
Katelyn Tocci (04:22.853)
You
Michael Doyle (04:25.591)
380 meter loop around the shop for an entire month. Constantly, seems they documented it, of course, on their socials, and they each ran over 600 miles, like over thousand kilometers in a month. Around a goddamn Chipotle.
Katelyn Tocci (04:43.748)
Yeah, that’s right.
Alex Cyr (04:48.991)
That is it.
Katelyn Tocci (04:49.233)
No, and it looked so frustrating because as I was watching some of the footage, they had to stop, you know, for people walking by. It wasn’t like you’re running on a track or you have kind of an open path. Like I think they had to stop all the time. Traffic lights, who knows what else was involved. It wasn’t a smooth ride.
Alex Cyr (05:06.22)
my god. And like do the math. So 1000 kilometers in a month, or I guess it’s like 650 miles is basically like if you ran 150 miles a week, or just under 250 kilometers a week.
Michael Doyle (05:07.7)
No.
Michael Doyle (05:15.013)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s like. That’s. That’s top level, like world’s best elite marathon runners at their peak week is 250 kilometers. That’s like Elliot Kipchoge breaking the world record in 2001, ever like.
Katelyn Tocci (05:23.986)
On a track
Alex Cyr (05:26.463)
Yeah, keep going around. Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (05:37.125)
That’s insanity.
Michael Doyle (05:41.139)
That would have been his peak week. That’s crazy. And they just did it for a month. I mean, I know obviously they’re not running at a super fast pace and hopefully they didn’t do too many like workouts, but.
Katelyn Tocci (05:51.986)
I saw a lot of walking in the footage. Did you guys see any of them? Yeah, exactly.
Michael Doyle (05:55.99)
It’s just racking up the miles. Yeah, there’s a lot of walking. There’s a lot of, mean, this is one of the dirty secrets of the long ultra hall is that once they disappear away from the checkpoint, it’s a little stroll might, might, uh, might be involved. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a long day going around the Chipotle. It just feels like Chipotle’s are strategically placed in cities in the worst possible place for you to run.
Katelyn Tocci (06:03.374)
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (06:11.162)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Michael Doyle (06:24.134)
like downtown cores, strip malls, that sort of thing. I think a lot of these segments must have been a pretty rough ride for runners.
Alex Cyr (06:34.731)
Our Chipotle here is across the street from a bank surrounded by a bunch of condos in I think the densest area of Toronto, Canada. Like I didn’t even attempt the challenge. I don’t think you could get around it. I think there’s like there’s a bridge behind. Yeah, I don’t think I could do a full loop of Chipotle without looping around Toronto.
Michael Doyle (06:57.749)
Alex and I have actually dined at your local Chipotle before. We’ve had a nice lunch there last year. yeah, that would be a hellish run. And you’re right. I’m not even sure you could execute on that one. There’s not one nearby in my neighborhood, so I’d have to travel to do it every day. what’s the stupidest thing you guys have ever done for a prize in running?
Alex Cyr (07:01.29)
Mm-hmm.
Katelyn Tocci (07:20.238)
Ha ha!
Michael Doyle (07:23.573)
Because this is like up there. This is like just a miserable run that you’d have to do every single day. You’re about you’re battling some other group of clowns for this same prize. Like just seems like it’s tilting at windmills, guys. This is ridiculous. What’s the what’s have you have you done anything that compares to.
Alex Cyr (07:44.778)
If do bragging rights count as a prize because I used to have this thing it okay good Because this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done on it on a continual basis When I was in college Pre Strava so or at least pre my own Strava account, so this is maybe 2014 2015 I Would run home from the bar?
Katelyn Tocci (07:50.071)
Yes. Yes.
Michael Doyle (08:11.497)
yeah, yeah, I’ve done that.
Katelyn Tocci (08:12.297)
Okay, here we go.
Alex Cyr (08:12.349)
I lived 1.2 kilometers away from the bar, 1.2, and I lived on top of a hill. And so the run back from the bar was a slight downhill and then a right turn, up a big hill, down a big hill, then up a big hill. And I tried to do it as fast as I could.
Michael Doyle (08:33.822)
This is after an evening at the bar.
Alex Cyr (08:36.7)
an evening of drinking. It’s usually two in the morning.
Michael Doyle (08:39.716)
Ice.
Katelyn Tocci (08:39.834)
okay, an early morning run, nice.
Alex Cyr (08:41.982)
Yes. And I started timing myself and got down to like a 4.05, a time of 4.05 for 1.2 kilometers, which always felt faster, which always was in dress shoes. And then I started competing with a friend. Yeah. No, no, you don’t bring your running shoes at the bar. But I started competing with a friend.
Michael Doyle (08:52.5)
A drunk 405.
Katelyn Tocci (09:01.283)
That was my question.
Alex Cyr (09:08.746)
and we started trading off times. And then in 2016, I got a Strava account and started logging these runs. And then it kind of killed it because I think a big part of the fun was in the legend. And so then it was a bit too measurable. And then we got intimidated. It was good to the point where like you’d stop drinking at the bar and you’d leave the bar early and maybe you’d bring more comfortable dress shoes. And then we see we had crossed the threshold. But I think by the time I graduated, I had the fastest time.
Michael Doyle (09:29.97)
my gosh.
Katelyn Tocci (09:30.996)
no, Alex.
Alex Cyr (09:39.55)
This should have been a Strava segment. See, back in the day, we didn’t do the Strava segments. Nowadays, this would be a Strava segment, and it would have to be run between 1 and 3 in the morning. But we missed out. It was the wrong time.
Katelyn Tocci (09:42.063)
you
Michael Doyle (09:51.86)
I like, I like the time constraint to the Strava segment where you’re like, that doesn’t count if it was in the middle of the afternoon. If it’s two 30 in the morning and you’re also, I, you know, indicating that you’re like eight beers deep, then, then it counts.
Katelyn Tocci (09:59.715)
Right.
Katelyn Tocci (10:10.58)
Yeah, you have to have those. Yeah, you have to check those boxes off a little tipsy and to what between one and three in the morning. I like it.
Alex Cyr (10:17.256)
And you can’t wear anything with a carbon plate.
Katelyn Tocci (10:21.675)
absolutely, yeah.
Michael Doyle (10:23.794)
Yeah. There are a couple of really ridiculous challenges that involve eating. I’m surprised you probably hasn’t like taking this to the next level and been like, and you also have to eat like a one of our bowls halfway through your run every day or whatever. But there is the, and this is known in Canada. I’m not sure if it’s known in the U S the highway to McDonald’s challenge.
Alex Cyr (10:46.554)
Yes, I thought that was too niche to mention. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (10:49.644)
What is it? I don’t know what it is.
Michael Doyle (10:49.716)
There’s a university in Ontario in the town of Kingston called Queen’s University. It’s a good running program historically.
Alex Cyr (11:01.242)
Sorry, quick side note, Queen’s University is also the birthplace of the beer mile. Please proceed.
Michael Doyle (11:06.598)
It is. Yes, it is. That’s right. It’s one of Canada’s great, great claims to fame. Maple syrup, universal healthcare, beer mile. That’s right. Yeah. So, Highway McDonald’s challenge. Basically, group of university students every year do this. I’m not sure if they still do anymore. They have to run from where they start their run.
Katelyn Tocci (11:19.892)
beer mile.
Michael Doyle (11:34.075)
every day, they run a few kilometers to the local McDonald’s, which is near the highway exit. And then they have to eat like, I think it’s like a double Big Mac, the largest fry, the largest Coke. And they have to finish it all and then run back in the winter. Of course, doesn’t puke everywhere and runs the fastest time in North Carolina. There’s also a crispy cream challenge. I think we have to like run.
four or five miles in one direction, eat an entire box of crispy, crispy cream donuts, then turn around and run back. Yeah. And like people have like strategies where they take multiples and crush them together so that they can eat them more quickly and things like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (12:07.339)
my gosh.
Katelyn Tocci (12:15.659)
and like ball it up into like one big ball of dough and then uh-huh. I love donuts. I’d do it if it was Dunkin’s.
Alex Cyr (12:21.239)
Guys, you’re grossing me out here. Ew. I hate- I hate Krispy Kreme.
Michael Doyle (12:21.874)
Classic Bostonian there.
wow. OK, that’s we’ll put a pin on that. But OK, let’s take a break and we will leave Chipotle in the rear view, at least for now, and move on to. Is it true that. Dot dot dot. Coming up next, you’re right back.
Michael Doyle (00:00)
All right. Is it true that super shoes don’t work for everybody? Alex Sear, you are our resident lord of the vapor fly, the Evo King.
What do we know? Like, let’s just talk about actual research. What’s the science saying? And I know this is relatively recent stuff because super shoes have only been in our lives since really 2017, 18 on a consumer level. A lot of people wear them. A lot of people all the way through a marathon from the front to the back of the marathon are rocking super shoes. I know there’s been some questions about whether or not they call them the.
A negative responder, someone who does not respond to the boost that super shoes provide or theoretically provide. Is this thing real? And if so, what’s the deal with it?
Alex Cyr (00:46)
Hmm.
the negative responder or the non-responder so far has been a lot more theory than proven. And I think it’s because mostly everyone who’s tried the super shoes have acknowledged that they make them faster. If you don’t acknowledge it, you’re almost seen as as a, as a Luddite or a someone making things up, right? Like last week we had our colleague,
Thomas Watson on the podcast, because he wrote this piece titled, and I will call myself out here, I told Thomas, title it differently. was titled, Super Shoes Don’t Make You Faster. And people clapped back at that title because they said, of course it makes me faster. People of all speeds have said that. And to be fair to Thomas, his premise was not that super shoes don’t work, is that they didn’t make you fitter necessarily, and that you’d have to acknowledge no matter who you are.
Michael Doyle (01:39)
Yeah. That’s right.
Katelyn Tocci (01:49)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Alex Cyr (01:52)
that across time, if you started wearing super shoes in the last few years, your PRs should be written with an asterisk next to them because by and large, super shoes make you faster. Now, in the last few years, the conversation around super shoes shifted from, the Nike ones better than all the other ones? To, wow, there’s a lot of good super shoes out there. Which ones are the best? And further, which ones are the best?
Katelyn Tocci (02:01)
Hahaha
Michael Doyle (02:17)
Yep.
Alex Cyr (02:22)
for each individual person because everyone has a different foot stride. And so that introduced the question of, you know, maybe we have a, let’s call it a soulmate, right? A soulmate, a shoe that makes you run really fast.
Michael Doyle (02:24)
Right.
see what he did there, Caitlin. So le a super critical soulmate. Yeah, it sounds like somebody even married to a decade. yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (02:37)
Yeah, I did, I did, I did.
Alex Cyr (02:41)
And then a super critical soulmate. That sounds awful. That sounds like a divorce.
Katelyn Tocci (02:46)
you
Alex Cyr (02:52)
But with that idea of having one super shoe work really well for you and perhaps another super shoe not working that well for you, it begs the question, are there super shoes that wouldn’t work for me? And then the further question, is my stride just toast and does it just not work for me or would it not work for some people? And so I have yet to find evidence that there are people with a certain biomechanical
Michael Doyle (03:13)
Right.
Alex Cyr (03:20)
that makes them immune to the Super Shoe Performance Boost, which is good for people because I would hate to be this person, right? Everyone else getting this 4 or 5, maybe even 7 % bump in times. There are studies on this. And then have you just be stuck with no performance benefits? I’m not sure if that happens. What is true is what we just previously said, right? Like there’s some Super Shoes that work a lot better for you.
than their other super shoes. And you probably can feel it. I’ve had this, so I review shoes, okay? So I put on a lot of different shoes. Sometimes I put on a super shoe that just feels wrong, okay? Either it is too high off the ground for me and I don’t like the feel, either it has too much of a rock forward profile and puts me onto my toes in a way that’s just uncomfortable, or they rub in a weird way. And so, yeah, it’s possible that…
Michael Doyle (03:53)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Katelyn Tocci (04:02)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Alex Cyr (04:18)
If I compare those super shoes that don’t work for me to a previous model of the, I don’t know, the Adidas Takumi Sens, those like racing flats from years ago before they had any carbon or supercritical foam to them, I might like those former shoes better, but by and large, super shoes will work. And I think you’d be really hard pressed to find someone who’s a non-responder. And if you are a non-responder, or you think you are, maybe you just haven’t tried the right—
SuperShoot for you.
Michael Doyle (04:51)
Maybe you just need the AlphaFly or the Adidas Pro Evo 1. It’s only $500 US dollars.
Alex Cyr (04:57)
Yeah, come on. What are you complaining about? Well, that’s the other thing too. It’s like it’s so hard to know what super shoes best for you. Like to buy five different types and testing them all out. It’s just it’s not realistic for the vast majority of people. Unless you get them for free, you’re not going to do that. So that’s that’s the tough part. Like you might have bought one pair of super shoes at one point and been unlucky because they’re just they don’t feel good on your feet or they’re the big bulky type and you don’t like the big bulky type. So.
Katelyn Tocci (04:58)
love it.
Right.
Michael Doyle (05:11)
No, it’s crazy. No.
Katelyn Tocci (05:26)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Cyr (05:26)
I don’t know. I would challenge anyone out there who’s a non-responder to like go to a running shop and try a bunch of running shoes, super shoes, and I bet they find one that they like.
Michael Doyle (05:36)
So I can lean into the, there’s been some studies, there’s been some groundwork done on super shoes. One interesting study identified it as on average, sub three hour more experienced marathon runners. like a faster sub group of marathon runners on average saw a boost of the running economy of 2.7%.
Not quite the 4 % that is getting that has been long used as a marketing tool for Nike to promote this huge wave in shoe technology, but still like a pretty substantial boost in your running economy, which is your ability to efficiently move through time and space, your body’s ability to efficiently use energy as it’s running a marathon. Then there was a later study that was done on
slower runners, runners in the three and half hour to four hour range that showed that they actually didn’t get quite the bump faster runners got. They got around a one point five to just under one percent in terms of the running economy gain. And there was a hypothesis there was that like. Because these the super critical, the big, huge chunk of foam that is really kind of like we’ve discovered is the.
The big reason one of the big along with the carbon plate is the big reason why these shoes are producing such a huge bump in times is because that foam needs to be loaded up with tons of energy. So there needs to be a big ground strike. And then the carbon plate looks you forward. And then that energy is released and it creates a pop in your pop in your step, a jump in your step. Right. And the theory is that older EVA style foam that you see in everyday trainers
For a slower runner that’s not putting as much impact into the ground and their ground contact and their foot strike isn’t producing as much energy return. so the EVA is like the difference between EVA and supercritical foam in that context is not as big. Alex, you’ve also looked at other studies like the New York Times did a lot of work on this in 2018 and 2019. They found the opposite. found that recreational runners actually gained more from
Katelyn Tocci (07:43)
Okay.
Michael Doyle (07:59)
Super shoes than elite runners did, which I thought was interesting and sort of, I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to think.
Alex Cyr (08:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it’s almost like there are two conflicting hypotheses and both make common sense to me. Like, I’m not a sports scientist, but the counter hypothesis to that was that if you’re a recreational runner and you’re not as fast a runner, you might have more imbalances and inefficiencies in your stride that a really good shoe that propels you forward and keeps you on track can fix. Whereas you put
Michael Doyle (08:11)
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (08:33)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Cyr (08:33)
a pair of super shoes on a professional athlete like Elliot Kipchoge and there’s less benefit to be had, right? Because his stride is almost perfect already. And so, if I had to guess, it’s kind of both things happening at once. And also, I think, and I’m off the top of my head here, but I’d say that all recreational runners, not elite runners, are not all created the same. Like, you could be a recreational runner and have a beautiful stride,
but you’re not putting that much force into the ground. And so maybe super shoes aren’t helping you as much or you’re the reverse, right? You put a hell of a lot of force into the ground, but your stride is flailing on both sides. And so maybe for that runner, a super shoe can help you. it’s, this is non-scientific on my part here, but it’s maybe these like, these conversations that end up, you know, explaining a little bit why there are some people who, wow, I’ve put on these shoes and I’m 10 % faster.
Michael Doyle (09:04)
All right.
Alex Cyr (09:30)
and then other people who put them on and say, yes, maybe a little change, but kind of running the same times.
Michael Doyle (09:35)
I’m both of those people depending on what my end result is.
Alex Cyr (09:38)
yeah, there you go.
Katelyn Tocci (09:39)
hahahaha
Michael Doyle (09:41)
So I think the
takeaways here are this. How do you know whether or not super shoes work for you? I would say one, if you run in them and they don’t feel like they’re impeding your stride or getting in your way or too bulky or sloppy or awkward to run in, as long as you feel good running in them, as long as you feel fast running in them, they’re working for you, I would say. And to that, something called the placebo effect.
Katelyn Tocci (10:04)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Doyle (10:10)
which recent studies have shown is a thing in endurance sports. It’s a thing. It means that if you believe something is giving you an advantage, you will actually gain an advantage. So if this whole idea of like putting on the outfit, right, putting on the armor, putting on the costume, putting on the, the, the mask as it were, I am a runner.
Katelyn Tocci (10:13)
It’s a real thing!
Michael Doyle (10:38)
I’m putting on my super shoes. I’m putting on my singlet. I’m putting on my short shorts, my split shorts, putting my garment on and I’m going to run this major marathon. It’s like you’re preparing yourself to do the task and it’s giving you more confidence and that will give you a boost if nothing else. So if nothing else, that’s worth your few hundred bucks right there. There you go. All right. Last one guys.
We should say, so is it true that there are people that don’t respond to super shoes? Unclear. The flip is do super shoes make you faster? Overall, I would say yes. It does make most people faster. They do.
Katelyn Tocci (11:17)
Unclear. Un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un-un
Alex Cyr (11:30)
And
I’d say we could accept the premise of at varying levels, depending on the individual and the shoe.
Michael Doyle (11:35)
Yes.
Yeah, but if time is important to you, I super shoes are essential. All right, last one. Is it true that there are performance enhancers for runners that are both legal, natural-ish and safe? Or a variation of this one will be, is it true that the only two ways that you can legally and safely
Katelyn Tocci (11:39)
Absolutely.
Michael Doyle (12:03)
enhance your performance and distance running is by consuming beet juice and caffeine. All right, guys.
Either of you ever drink beet juice in training or before a race?
Alex Cyr (12:14)
I got on that trend again in college. A friend of mine was doing his like undergrad thesis on does beetroot juice help with running performance and in part for the study but also just out of curiosity I started buying like Walmart grade beet juice and chugging it. I think I drank it at night. I can’t remember why but it was it was like my night drink for a little while. Yep.
Katelyn Tocci (12:42)
And how did you feel?
Michael Doyle (12:42)
some of us.
Alex Cyr (12:44)
Well, if you start consuming beats or beat root…
Try to remember that at all times of the day before becoming really concerned and running to your doctor.
Michael Doyle (12:52)
God!
Katelyn Tocci (12:56)
I’m dying!
Michael Doyle (12:56)
I’m dying. Yeah.
Alex Cyr (12:56)
The pigment is
very strong and it doesn’t disintegrate in your stomach.
Michael Doyle (13:00)
Indeed.
Katelyn Tocci (13:03)
One of the side effects, there was another, know, one of the other, I know if it’s a side effect or one of the risks of taking beet juice. I never got into trying it because that trend was really big here a few years ago. The beet juice loading, especially before an ultra, I didn’t do it because I often have low blood pressure. I’ve been really prone to that as a child and as an adolescent. And one of the side effects,
Michael Doyle (13:19)
Oof.
and
Katelyn Tocci (13:32)
that can, well that I have read can be a possibility from drinking beet juice is low blood pressure. So I always got, even if it maybe wasn’t 100 % back that it would happen to me, I was worried about it. So I didn’t really ever try the loading myself, but here it got really, really popular and people, trail runners swore by it.
Michael Doyle (13:50)
And that that makes a certain level of sense because of the science behind this. So. I should say beforehand, I love how like some people in college go through like their Marxist phase. Alex went through a beat juice phase. Incredible stuff. Indeed, indeed. We’ll leave that at that.
Alex Cyr (14:05)
That’s as red as it got, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Katelyn Tocci (14:11)
You
Michael Doyle (14:12)
Yeah, but there’s like
there is there’s been quite a bit of research done on this. There was a pretty significant study in 2018 took a dozen or so like. Legit high level, would assume collegiate athletes, distance runners who had like a pretty good view to Max in the 70s. like these are quality, efficient athletes and had them do run to exhaustion tests and found that like overall, like it was like a very.
It was very, the outcome was very likely that beet juice, a regimen of beet juice doping effectively for a couple of weeks before the test significantly aided in their performance of like a run to like time to exhaustion, basically tests. Now that’s because of a key ingredient in beet juice, which is nitrate, which gets turned into nitrite when it’s taken into your body.
Katelyn Tocci (14:56)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Doyle (15:10)
stomach enzymes transform it internally. And basically what that does is that the nitrite opens up your blood vessels and allows oxygen to pass more quickly to your muscles. And that’s the reason why it works. it looks like it’s like pretty much scientifically proven that yes, beet juice does help. The only problem is, is intake. Because beet juice is one major side effect is
And it goes through your goes through your system like grass through a goose, guys. So.
Katelyn Tocci (15:41)
You
Alex Cyr (15:41)
And people are at home, does that mean fast or slow? I’ve never seen grass go through a goose.
Michael Doyle (15:42)
So.
Oh, you need to run in an area like Toronto where there’s a lot of Canada geese. Quickly goes through quickly, goes through quickly. Yeah. So all of your ultra running friends who were a juice doping before an ultra. It’s like, imagine the second half of that race. There’s a lot of like.
Alex Cyr (15:52)
good point.
Katelyn Tocci (15:53)
yes, yes, God. Mm-hmm. Me too.
Alex Cyr (15:55)
Now I see what you mean.
Katelyn Tocci (16:06)
my god.
Michael Doyle (16:07)
Sea of red on the side of the trail. OK. Get my mind out of the gutter. Guys, I’m sorry I did it again.
Katelyn Tocci (16:10)
Go.
Michael Doyle (16:12)
Let’s pivot to caffeine, which is just going to be no better. Diuretic.
Alex Cyr (16:16)
Yeah, wait, yeah, that’s
on the topic of poop, let’s talk about coffee.
Michael Doyle (16:21)
like we did one episode where we didn’t talk about poop where our boss was in the episode and now now we’re back we’re back to zero episodes
Alex Cyr (16:23)
every time.
Katelyn Tocci (16:25)
Yeah, yeah, Thomas was it? Yeah.
Alex Cyr (16:28)
I was so close to mentioning poop
and then I didn’t want Thomas to get mad.
Michael Doyle (16:33)
Yeah, exactly. Get fired from the show. OK, so the other one that is often bandied about as a key performance enhancer that you’re not going to get, you know, in trouble with WADA overusing is caffeine. And I’d say in the last 15 years, you’ve heard of quite even elite marathon runners like caffeine dosing, like actually taking caffeine pills, over the counter caffeine pills.
Alex Cyr (16:35)
You
Katelyn Tocci (16:49)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Doyle (17:02)
before a race and then even during a race in some instances as well. First things first, do you guys, Alex, like your, your, your, like your bisexual phase in college? Did you also go through a caffeine phase as well?
Alex Cyr (17:15)
What
was that? I said, I said beetroot. I said beetroot. I know I didn’t go through either of those phases. I didn’t go through a caffeine phase in college. I only started drinking caffeine after university, so in 2018. But I did pop a few caffeine pills in college. At least that’s what I thought they were. No, I’m kidding. They were totally caffeine pills. To run.
Katelyn Tocci (17:21)
you
Michael Doyle (17:22)
sorry, sorry.
Katelyn Tocci (17:38)
To study or to run?
To run. Oh, okay.
Alex Cyr (17:44)
Yeah,
it also, so if you’ve, if you’ve listened to this whole podcast, you’ve gathered that we’ve, we’ve experimented with a lot of like little running things in college and we had this phase third, fourth years, you know, tried some supplements. around the same time as the, beetroot phase, we tried popping caffeine pills, especially for night races so that we don’t, we wouldn’t crash. And whether it was placebo or whether it was actual ergogenic effect,
Michael Doyle (17:45)
studying.
Alex Cyr (18:11)
it seemed to help me. Now, this was before starting to drink coffee. And one thing that happens when you drink coffee, as you all know, is that your tolerance for caffeine goes up. Now I have the reverse effect happen to me. I don’t necessarily feel a huge effect when taking my regular coffee before a run. I feel like I’m at baseline maybe. But if I go for a run in the morning without my coffee, I feel very sluggish.
Michael Doyle (18:39)
He’s narcoleptic, he’s falling asleep.
Katelyn Tocci (18:40)
Now you need it.
Alex Cyr (18:41)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (18:42)
You’re addicted. You’re addicted to it. I’ve used, I haven’t done the caffeine load, which I was reading a bunch of studies and a lot of runners are taking 200 to 300 milligrams before they start a race. So about an hour before the race starts. I haven’t done that. The gels that I do use when I’m competing or running long runs, they have caffeine in them. I use the PowerGels and they’ve got 50, I think it’s got 50 milligrams of caffeine per.
Michael Doyle (18:53)
Yes.
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (19:10)
So if I’m taking one or even two an hour, I won’t kind of get over the limit of what you should be taking because I was reading that maybe, you know, about a hundred milligrams per hour would be the limit during a race or during an activity. And I have taken that and I do feel that I’m not sure if it helps me or if it doesn’t. I like the gels. I started taking the gels. I feel great during a race. Now for an ultra for a hundred mile race.
I have brought those five hour energy boosts, which is, you know, probably just a huge shot of caffeine. And I have taken them and it does help because when you’re doing a hundred mile race and you’re at the end of it and you know, but that’s more not to fall asleep rather than thinking about, you know, performance benefits. It’s like, I don’t want to trip over a rock. because I’ve been running for 20 hours and I’m just about to finish up this race. So I have used that, but that’s been at the end of a race as opposed to before the race.
Alex Cyr (19:41)
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (20:06)
But about loading before, Alex, you said you did feel a difference in your races. Michael, have you tried that before a marathon?
Michael Doyle (20:14)
No, I I’m too lazy for this stuff. I. I tried the beat thing briefly, mainly as an experiment. You know, I’ve been working in running media for a long time, and this was like during that it was a phase, I’d say, like 20. It was before that study was done, actually, maybe 2015 or 16.
There was a lot of hype around it. There must’ve been an initial study that was done because there was a slew of companies that came out with like concentrated beetroot juice that you could like, they swore that it wouldn’t cause stomach upset. You could drink it like 15 minutes before your run or whatever, before a workout. And so I did some experimenting with that. I didn’t really notice anything specifically, apart from like forgetting and then being horrified in the bathroom afterwards, but, caffeine.
I just I’m a coffee drinker for me not to go down the toilet humor further, but like it’s just a part of my routine before a race to make sure that I’m ready to go. It’s not to like create some sort of like performance stimulus in the first five K of a marathon. And I haven’t really ever messed around with caffeinated gels either. I’ve got a couple of got I bought a few Morton ones at one point. I have drank the caffeinated
Alex Cyr (21:09)
Pfft.
Katelyn Tocci (21:26)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Doyle (21:32)
important drink. But I don’t know. don’t I don’t really I don’t I don’t think about that stuff very much. And I’ve not really experiment with it. I do like the idea of during an ultra like, man, during it during like a hundred miler, I’m going all day all night on a race. I’m like, I’m going to do breakfast. I’m going to have a coffee halfway through, maybe a little like.
Katelyn Tocci (21:48)
Yeah.
Michael Doyle (21:56)
bacon and egg sandwich, you know, I have to go through the daily routine a second time. Brush my teeth the whole bit.
Alex Cyr (22:03)
Ha!
Katelyn Tocci (22:04)
I
brush my teeth when I’m running 100 miler. bring those little, yeah of course I do. Because you know, you’re taking in gels most of the time. I mean, I don’t take in that much solid food, but I do stop maybe like in the second half. But you know, that sugar on your teeth all day is, yeah.
Michael Doyle (22:06)
Do you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Like you need a little like
bird bath and a toothbrush to kind of make refresh yourself a little bit. Aren’t you excited Alex for your future as a middle-aged ultra marathoner when you get to like, when you just burn out of these fast speeds and you can transition into a life of brushing your teeth and having a bath halfway through a race.
Katelyn Tocci (22:22)
Yep. Yeah.
Alex Cyr (22:28)
man.
Well,
I was worried about the broken bones and now I’m worried about the cavities. I still think I’m gonna do it.
Katelyn Tocci (22:44)
guys, I have I have a very I have a middle-aged I have a middle-aged story Should I take this aside has nothing to do with running but Michael? Yeah, how Michael how Michael just said middle-aged guys at the supermarket the other day Trying to read the nutrition facts on a label Okay I I Did this I did the pull it pull it way back
Michael Doyle (22:45)
we’ll see.
Alex Cyr (22:51)
You have a middle-aged story? Uh-oh.
Michael Doyle (22:53)
Yeah.
you did this. You did the the squint. you pulled it away.
Katelyn Tocci (23:11)
And my friend that I was with was like, why don’t we go next door real quick to the optical store and have them do a quick test on your eyes? I was like, yeah, yeah, because when I was 30, had laser surgery because I had minus 4.5 in each eye. I was really nearsighted. So I was like, oh, yeah, it’s been 12 years. It’s probably reverse effect and I need to get surgery again. That’s obviously what it is. And the woman’s like,
You can go to the closest CVS or price market a plus one. You’ve got age related near spot far sighted in it. I was like, what? She’s like, oh yeah, when you’re over 40, I was like, wait, what? I was like, oh God, I gotta tell Michael this story. Have you?
Michael Doyle (23:44)
There you go.
Alex Cyr (23:46)
Ugh.
Michael Doyle (23:51)
Drugstore glasses
in Caitlin’s future. You’re be getting your glasses out to read the menu in Boston. Like, oh, I’ll take, hold on, let me get my glasses. Do you have your glasses? Hun, do you have your glasses? I can’t find my glasses. Like,
Alex Cyr (24:06)
Yeah, that’s that that’s
Katelyn Tocci (24:06)
It’s
a real thing.
Alex Cyr (24:06)
around the time that that’s the time in your life when you start calling people hun as well.
Michael Doyle (24:11)
That’s
right. That’s right. That’s right. Diner servers and the and the middle age. Yes. Where the hell were we here? Yeah. caffeine. So there was a twenty twenty three study that I think like it was almost three hundred endurance athletes, runners. 80 of them can sort of self-describe serious runners. Only 18 women in the study, though, which is always a little alarming. It’s like I don’t know why.
Katelyn Tocci (24:14)
I don’t mean to digress, sorry.
I’m there.
Michael Doyle (24:39)
Caffeine wouldn’t work for women and would work for men. anyway, overall, the study seems to suggest that caffeine, yes, indeed, does have a positive impact to distance running outcomes. So I think we can answer that one with yes, there are two. Beat caffeine. They enhance your performance if taken properly and judiciously.
Katelyn Tocci (24:55)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Doyle (25:05)
timed well in the right amounts, you can see a performance boost without, I don’t know, being an age group doper or whatever. there anything else that they need? Alex, you’ve done, you’ve, you’ve gone in adventures in creatine recently for overall performance enhancing.
Alex Cyr (25:24)
I’m about to. So the creatine is ordered. It’s supposed to come in this week. I did this after consulting with a friend, Brady Holmer, who’s very online, sports science. I just love his stuff. So I follow his stuff. He’s a fast runner himself. I think he’s run like 68 over the half marathon and 226 in the marathon. And he mentioned on, is it a podcast or some article,
Michael Doyle (25:37)
Yes.
Alex Cyr (25:53)
that he had started experimenting with creatine, he was happy with the results. So I sent him a message, I asked for recommendation, and I’m getting the creatine. I hesitated for a long time. Creatine, I think, has the connotation of being like a gym supplement. Like you’re trying to gain weight, you have your protein and your creatine. I’m convinced now based on what I read that that’s a little bit of a misnomer. It’s also a naturally occurring substance. like you…
Michael Doyle (26:22)
worse.
Alex Cyr (26:22)
you produce creatine yourself. So it’s not like you’re introducing something foreign to your body. The one thing that scares me a little and the reason that I didn’t start it during my past training block building into Houston was that I guess that some people tend to retain more water weight when they’re on creatine, which means they’ll gain five or 10 healthy pounds, but also you don’t want to gain 10 pounds of water weight before.
Katelyn Tocci (26:45)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Michael Doyle (26:45)
Yeah.
Alex Cyr (26:51)
a key race. So I decided to do it now, which is because I’m like at the start of another training block. I guess, yeah, the reason for that, it’s supposed to help with muscle recovery. And there’s some new research that shows that it’s good for distance runners. And so, you know, as someone who’s training pretty hard every day, you want to be recovered for your next run. anyway, that’s I’ll have more I’ll have more updates at the end of this training block. And, know, I’ll see. The thing is, it’s hard to know, you know.
Michael Doyle (27:16)
Yeah.
Alex Cyr (27:19)
when you started your training block, what’s helping? Is it that you’re just getting fitter or is it the supplement that you’ve introduced? But yeah, I’m curious to try it.
Michael Doyle (27:28)
At the very worst,
Katelyn Tocci (27:28)
You’ll have
to keep… me too.
Michael Doyle (27:29)
at the very worst, you’re getting the placebo boost from taking creatine. you believe Brady, Brady Homer has told you that it’s going to have a positive impact. You trust him and you believe yourself and you’re going to get a little boost. And we should say the Brady boost. that’s a good segment. And we should say speaking of Brady Homer, newest member of the Marathon Handbook family.
Alex Cyr (27:34)
Mm-hmm.
Katelyn Tocci (27:35)
That’s right.
Alex Cyr (27:44)
It’s the Bra- It’s a Brady boost. Brady boost.
I didn’t know
if I could say it. Woo.
Michael Doyle (27:55)
Yeah, we can say it now because he’s I
think the thing is first newsletter is going out on Friday. So yeah. So if you do not, this is what it’s segue. Well done. Thank you, Alex. You like just like the softball underhand pitch. I’m going to crack it out of the park here. If you if you do not subscribe to our newsletter, we’re up to like 220,000 subscribers runners just like you five days a week.
Alex Cyr (28:01)
Awesome.
Katelyn Tocci (28:11)
He handed it right to you.
Michael Doyle (28:22)
Caitlin is one of the great captains of the great ship Marathon Handbook newsletter. It goes out Monday to Friday, 5.05 Eastern time. It’s chock full of good stuff. And including Brady’s newsletter going out on Fridays. And it’s going to be very like, if you know Brady, if you follow him on X, he’s a very respected sports science guy, great runner, good storyteller.
and is able to unpack these sort of complex ideas, sports science and nutrition and fitness training. And he’s going to put that together once a week on Fridays for us. And we’re going to get him on the show, doing the odd segment as well. It’s good talker as well. So that’s going to be exciting. We’re going to be going to be at the Boston Run show, March 1st and 2nd. Alex and I need to book flights and find a hotel. And yeah, we’re going to get our act together here.
Katelyn Tocci (29:10)
Come on, guys.
Michael Doyle (29:13)
But we are going to be there come hell or high water. We’re going to be doing, you’re not going to be doing the pod by yourself, Caitlin. I promise we’re to do a little, a little pot live podcast, on the floor at the Boston run show. I’m one of the stages, some great speakers, Lazarus Lake, inventor creator mastermind behind the Berkeley marathons. He’s doing a keynote. Boston marathon winners, Medca flaski and Des Linden are also talking.
Katelyn Tocci (29:16)
Don’t leave me alone.
Alex Cyr (29:17)
You
Michael Doyle (29:41)
And like all the brands are going to be there showing off their new shoes. So it’s like all the upside of an expo. None of the downside of having to run the friggin race. So that’s March 1st and 2nd. If you’re in the Boston area, you can get tickets. We’ll put a link in the show notes for that. Or if you’re just looking for a fun little trip, come come from fun little running weekend. We’ll go for a run with you. Let us know you’re going to be there. We’ll we’ll hang out. We’ll do we’ll do something. If you’re there to see us.
Katelyn Tocci (30:02)
Yeah.
Alex Cyr (30:03)
Yes.
Michael Doyle (30:09)
We’ll be there to see you as well. OK. And last thing, guys. Alex, anything got all kinds of stuff going on the YouTube channel behind the scenes. But I guess we can formally say now we can pitch this content around the Wahoo kicker run that we have we have produced. We’ve got a couple of videos coming out.
Alex Cyr (30:31)
Yes, we do. couple of Waku Kicker run-related videos. So, is a very, I call it very thorough review of the treadmill itself, how it connects with Zwift, how it goes really fast, how it operates not quite like other treadmills, and it almost has not really a mind of its own, but it caters to the runner. It’s got this cool thing that other treadmills don’t have. I’ll leave it at that. I’ve got to tease it little bit.
Michael Doyle (30:57)
Yeah,
it’s the it’s the runners treadmill. Yeah, it’s incredible. We tore the hell we tore the thing apart trying to see how it worked figuratively, not literally.
Alex Cyr (30:59)
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Yes. And along with that, we have a more of a vlog. We have two vlogs coming out. You’re going to hear me talk a lot in the next couple of weeks. One vlog around my key preparatory workout for the Houston Half Marathon, which was on the treadmill because it happened during the deep dark winter here out in Canada. And a second vlog that’s going to be everything Houston. So it’s me and Houston running the half marathon.
training with my friends. have a couple new one-time guests on the Handbook channel. And after that, after that, we’re going to get into some pretty heavy shoe reviews because I’m pretty excited. The 2025 models have made it to my door. A lot of them. And I think we’re going to start with a couple of Hoka shoes. That’s all I’ll say right now, but we have the very new Hoka shoes. One looks incredibly funky and the other one looks very durable.
Michael Doyle (31:42)
Ooh.
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (31:51)
Nice.
Michael Doyle (32:05)
Alex, I can also tease some shoe review content. I’ve been running in Saucony’s products pretty extensively. And I’ve done a couple of workouts in the Saucony Endorphin Elite 2, which is a pretty coveted new version, new model of their Super shoe.
Alex Cyr (32:14)
Mm-hmm.
yep.
Michael Doyle (32:29)
I will contribute my thoughts, my first impressions on that as well in the near future. And finally guys, next week’s podcast, we can tease it right away. I’ve been laboring over a, hopefully a, for you the consumer of running content, a fun kind of interactive feature, all about the sub two hour marathon.
And the fact that it’s never been broken on a legal course, Mr. Kipchoge of course did run sub two once on, a Testament in 2019, that was almost six years ago. Now we still not seen anyone break two hours. so I did a big feature unpacking why that is and who might finally break the two hour barrier and if it will happen this year. And we’re going to get into that.
in great detail in next week’s podcast. It’s going to be a special episode all about the two hour barrier and the marathon. All right, guys, until next time and happy beat doping.
Alex Cyr (33:34)
Happy beat doping. Remember that you’ve taken it.
Katelyn Tocci (33:36)
You
Michael Doyle (33:37)
Yeah.
Katelyn Tocci (33:38)
or your body will remind you.
Alex Cyr (33:40)
Yes.
Michael Doyle (33:40)
Until then.
Okay, that was great.
Katelyn Tocci (33:42)
You
