#14 Beyond the Finish Line: What's your WHY? And Happy Valley 70.3 Race Review

Dr. Moose Herring: 0:02

Welcome. I'm Dr Moose Herring, Orthopedic Sports Medicine Specialist.

Dr. Rob Green: 0:06

I'm Dr Rob Green, Sports Chiropractor, Coach, Trustee Sidekick. We are Lifetime Endurance Athletes. We are Eager Lab Rats.

Dr. Moose Herring: 0:13

We are Maker of Many Mistakes. We are Family-focused sports medicine docs that are balancing family work and fitness and are enjoying the ride While we are sports medicine professionals. this podcast is not part of our professional responsibilities. No doctor, patient or coach-athlete relationship developed this podcast. We have no financial support from any outside resources. The only support we get is from our fantastic wives that sit back and look at us in complete dismay.

Dr. Rob Green: 0:42

Welcome to HubLife. Enjoy the show. Yeah, baby, welcome back to the show. Moose, you just raced this morning. Welcome back. How to go?

Dr. Moose Herring: 0:53

Hot human day, but always fun to toe the line.

Dr. Rob Green: 0:55

Yeah, toe the line.

Dr. Moose Herring: 0:57

You sure did that Again.

Dr. Rob Green: 0:58

Yeah, you did great today, So what would you need to do? I just you won't say it, so I'll say it for you. You came first off the bike, didn't you?

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:04

First off the bike. But my goal, one of the things we'll talk about from last week and it didn't have a great weekend last weekend My goal was to swim and ride it absolutely hard as I could and I did, but it's a triathlon, not a biathlon, so the third part suffered a little bit, dude, yeah but it's super fun, Olympic man.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:23

It suffered by you finishing third overall, So like yeah, come on, That's killer man.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:27

But that's also don't take your fast friends to a race. That also helps.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:33

Oh, whatever Dude you are that fast friend, brother, so congrats on that today. So Sunday, sunday, what a fun week, man. Some big stuff happening. Do you see Messick stepped down?

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:46

No, I didn't knew it. You're pointing that out. That's interesting.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:50

Oh man, That's. I don't know about you, but I read that I was like, ah, that sounds about right.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:55

Thought it was coming. I mean, ironman's struggling, they're struggling And we'll talk a little bit about challenge. You know, challenge Road, that was a spectacular event And I think the time is right for challenges to step up because I think, with the split, niece and Kona, ironman's struggling.

Dr. Rob Green: 2:17

Yeah, they really are man And we're lifers, We love it And I don't know, it's in a weird place right now.

Dr. Rob Green: 2:22

It's so strange. They're still in purgatory a little bit with the two different races, but, like, if you look at races now, like Florida and you look at Maryland, they don't even say how many Kona slots that they're giving. They sort of just don't, they don't know what they're doing. They still produce a great race But, man, they seem to be fluttering a little bit. So it'll be interesting what the next leadership looks like And they're going to have to do some work because they got to make up some ground. But it'd be cool to see Challenge and Roth. Felix, i think, sold everything but Roth, so it's not like he owns all the challenge. If he did, man, they have a great opportunity and a great big race to kind of build around. But Roth is something you know well. You were talking about the results Some crazy, incredible results there.

Dr. Moose Herring: 3:09

Redible events. I mean with the female side. Then you know, daniela Reef says that his course record is truly, i mean just truly laid. She was 15 minutes fast on the bike, just crazy fast Yeah gosh, i mean what it like, something like 808.

Dr. Rob Green: 3:26

I mean that's not, i mean they're potentially makes you think that, like first female to go under eight, which is it wasn't that long ago, where you know there were only a, three, four people that who have ever gone under eight hours, and now it's. now it's 720 something.

Dr. Moose Herring: 3:41

So it's crazy. It's amazing to look at the guys that are swimming at the top of the top of the field and riding sub four hours on that. That course was hard, yeah. Roth course is. It's a hilly course, yeah, but sub four hours is amazing. And then and then backing it up with a 242, 243 marathon.

Dr. Rob Green: 4:01

Yeah, it's incredible, man, that's fun for the sport. I mean, it's amazing to see what people are doing, but it just is. It's pretty unreal.

Dr. Moose Herring: 4:10

It's amazing, but I think you know. if you look at Ironman races, a couple of years ago you had to be standing at your computer when it opened to get in.

Dr. Rob Green: 4:20

Yeah.

Dr. Moose Herring: 4:20

Now there's, you can basically sign for races several weeks before.

Dr. Rob Green: 4:24

Yeah, gosh, i still remember you'd have to sit there and hit refresh, refresh, refresh. It would open at 10 in the morning And if you weren't in queue within 15 seconds it was over Ironman Canada. You couldn't even register unless you were physically there, right. But but yeah, now you can register right up to the end. You know that's. That's maybe a good thing a little bit, because they built so many. I remember when North America only had six Ironman races And now they've got a bunch because the sport had grown so much so that that you can register. I don't think it's so bad for the sport, but but yeah, those are, those are unique days.

Dr. Moose Herring: 5:00

Interesting Cause we also saw that a race that we love and we've raced a lot Blue Ridge is not going to be around next year. Yeah, that's with the parkways closing right, so imagine that's complicated, doing some parkway work, so that, of course, is going to be shut down.

Dr. Rob Green: 5:15

I wonder if they'll do something different in Virginia or if they'll just kind of move on. The list is out, yeah.

Dr. Moose Herring: 5:20

So it's just the closest race for us is? I don't even know.

Dr. Rob Green: 5:26

Penn State, baby Penn State. That was amazing. We'll get into that, but they've got. What, from what I've heard, is they've they've committed to three years this is the first year and that I'm an alumni, so I have a very biased opinion. But that was a really cool, unique experience running through the campus challenging course. But that was man. That's a good substitute So yeah.

Dr. Rob Green: 5:50

Mark your calendar every July. I got plans for you, but yeah, not too much crazy going on. I thought that was really interesting about messic stepping down Makes you wonder about the podcast that he had, remember we talked about that. I mean, any leader of a corporation had a professional interview like that. You would think that they would lose their job. That was so beyond professionalism And it was instigated by somebody who wasn't being tremendously professional with his side, i don't think. But at the same time, when you're, when you're a CEO of a billion dollar company, your standards a little bit different, different.

Dr. Moose Herring: 6:32

So another current event going on as a tour I mean, i've been watching it most days and and those guys ability to dig deep, ride in a pack and sprint for the line and climb is incredible to me, incredible.

Dr. Rob Green: 6:50

It really is And watch him going up like a really steep percent and you're like it looks like they're like going really pretty fast. I didn't know you could pedal that much. You know, interesting, you bring that up. I had actually sort of stopped watching the tour for several years just because of all the doping and it just may be controversial to say, but I just feel like it's just such a dirty sport that it's just not as much fun to watch. I mean, it's not that like some people are cheating, i almost feel like everybody is.

Dr. Moose Herring: 7:16

I felt the same.

Dr. Rob Green: 7:17

Yeah, And then did you watch that Netflix documentary, Dude, that got me reignited. I was like you get behind the scenes, you see the grit and it's like man Watching the team directors get so excited, they're screaming and you're like come on.

Dr. Rob Green: 7:31

Yeah Boy, they did great marketing on that because I watched the whole thing. I watched that trainer bit and then I was all in when the tour started. Now I'm excited to. I feel like I'm missing a little bit of behind those scenes, but you know, i got back into it. But the grit that those guys go through and what they do on a stage and have just the data recovering and go do it again and man, it's incredible. And the pressure I mean it's incredible. I can't help it. But the Phillips and who keeps winning the sprint His name was what was his first name. It was something disaster.

Dr. Moose Herring: 8:01

I thought it was Jasper.

Dr. Rob Green: 8:04

It was Jasper the disaster, because he kept. he kept kind of like, you know, self imploding, and that poor guy. Now he's winning all the time, He's like even in the documentary.

Dr. Rob Green: 8:12

he's like I don't, I don't like this nickname, But it's like, well, this is a good way to get rid of it, right? Because he even celebrated in one of the stages last year when he thought he won the sprint and somebody had gone off the front. And he was the guy. That was like raising his arms and like somebody maybe 300 meters in front of our hustle line. They're like, ah, jasper, the disaster. Now the guys win every sprint stage, so good for him.

Dr. Moose Herring: 8:34

Just amazing And I can't imagine what, what goes into the preparation for those guys, and it's amazing Dude.

Dr. Rob Green: 8:42

Think about a big bike block that you've done and like I mean, these are professional athletes, they do this for a living, but like they're also racing at a professional standard, Holy cow It's.

Dr. Moose Herring: 8:52

It's also amazing to you. You know, adam Yates won a stage. He won a stage and the timing was like four hours. His average normalized power was 214. Oh, wow, 214. But but his, his ability. He had a 10 or 15 minute segment in there that was like 480. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So his average power was 214. Which doesn't seem that high.

Dr. Rob Green: 9:21

Yeah.

Dr. Moose Herring: 9:21

But his ability to accelerate and climb in his watts per kilogram, because he probably weighs 120 pounds.

Dr. Rob Green: 9:29

That's the thing is like how much of a chess match professional cycling is these guys made? cruise for a little bit and just kind of chill out in the Peloton and then somebody's off the front and then it just gets violent very quickly. Or you'll see the stages where you know that Peloton is strung out from the early part and those guys are running and riding up high power for a long period of time. It's just the. the gamesmanship is just gosh. that's unreal. But I wish we, i wish they had even more of the power data out there to see what these guys are doing. But that's pretty incredible. Last week we did happy valley 70.3 at Penn State. I think maybe a cool thing to do is to get into what we did to prepare for it, how the race went. We have some unique ways to to cover this race and some experiences that we both had and how we dealt with it, and I think that's going to be covered a lot in today's podcast. but happy valley 70.3 going into it, what were you thinking?

Dr. Moose Herring: 10:24

I mean we had. I had originally built for Blue Ridge, which was a month before, i think a month's ago before, and I decided to move it a month. I thought I wouldn't quite, you know, wouldn't quite ready. But I think I thought I build was good. I thought my fitness was good. I had done some Olympics to prep but Olympics and halves are different. I had done some decent bike training. I really felt like going in I was ready. Mine said I was ready. I had set out Go goals I thought were realistic, maybe a reach but, What were your goals?

Dr. Moose Herring: 11:04

So I wanted to swim solid, wanted to ride 220, 230 watts and I want to be able to run 737, 240 pace. even That's my goal, yeah, so I had trained that way. I'd done a bunch of pacing stuff that way, swimming really really well right now in the pool. I've been riding well mostly. I mean probably one day outside a week, mostly on the train, but feel really fit. I changed my bike fit some so I'm much more comfortable being down And run. I've had no niggles, i've just had I've been able to do my longer runs. I felt like my you know. so really I had zero issues going in, which is a blessing Anytime you're getting ready for a half, and you've had had three or three or four months of good, solid training with no issues. that's incredible.

Dr. Rob Green: 12:01

Yeah, that's really nice man.

Dr. Moose Herring: 12:03

How about you?

Dr. Rob Green: 12:05

It was. It was good. You know, this year was unique because I got a little bit of a later start to the build and was able to get a race in at Jamestown a couple of weeks from before. So just knock off some dust and man, i was just super excited. I was. You know, this one was different for me because my family was there. My wife and I graduated from Penn State and my girls, who are eight and 10, it was our first time taking them to Penn State. So I did what we normally don't do, as I think I've walked to have marathon before the race. But I mean I would do it again and I don't think it had that much of an impact on the race, but it was just. It was neat because I went in with the idea to race and and and race well and the training had gone well. But I was just really excited to have that experience And training has been going really well.

Dr. Rob Green: 12:51

The difference for me is usually at this point in the year you have more volume in you and you, kind of like I, leaned out a little bit. This was kind of a hilly course to be a little bit on the doier side to have to carry that around. But but training has gone really well. Man, i've, i've, i've prepped for the swim. Swim for me is in a pretty good spot. You know I'm swimming two to, sometimes three times a week, so it wasn't anything crazy, but but I was in a good spot. And then the, the bike lots of good half specific riding. You know, if we trained together you were riding super strong, you've done some longer stuff, and I did longer interval stuff and just felt really really good.

Dr. Rob Green: 13:36

And then the run was I kind of knew what I. I knew what I wanted to run. I knew kind of what my goals were. I thought you know, sitting at like a seven minute was relatively realistic. You know I don't know about you, but we drove the course. There's a tip for everybody. I mean, if you've got the opportunity, especially if it's a course you haven't seen before, drive the course the day before. What did you think about that? Was it like what you expected?

Dr. Moose Herring: 14:01

So no, no, so well, that's not true. So it was much more hilly than I thought, and some some say, and, and some of the hills were very sustained climbs. But I like a hilly or course. I'm not as strong on a flat Florida, texas kind of course. So I was looking forward to it, that was.

Dr. Rob Green: 14:22

I mean, yeah, that kind of course is monotonous. I was really looking forward to it, but it was. It was hilly than I had thought it was going to be, and then it's a, it's a net elevation of like I'm going to mess up the number maybe 700 feet, eight, maybe a thousand, but lots up and down. Lots up and down. It was great. I love it. I mean, I love that kind of challenge, but it was funny driving it beforehand. It was like, oh, that's a little bit punchier than I thought.

Dr. Moose Herring: 14:42

Right.

Dr. Rob Green: 14:44

And looking at the profile before and your best bikes, best bike split and everything like that was. But there's nothing like seeing it. So I was, i was excited about that. And then the run. I mean, for those of you thinking about doing Penn State, i mean I went to Penn State So I've got a biased opinion, but it's the only race that I know of like it legit runs.

Dr. Rob Green: 15:02

Not only is it run through the campus, it's two loops through the campus. You hit the iconic parts of the campus. You ran around Old Main, right up to the front of Old Main. You ran around the Nittany Lion. You were in the heart of the campus and it ended in Beaver Stadium football stadium. You know it's. That was a really cool opportunity. So, and that too was also a really so. I did have a little bit of a sneak advantage because those of you don't know Penn State on the college Ave and Beaver Ave, where all the students, where all we live, and then the campus is across the street. You got to walk uphill every single day And I swear every class I had was in the forum which is like the furthest.

Dr. Rob Green: 15:45

So I remember at that point I wasn't doing stuff like this but I remember being like slogging along walking to class. So I had some flashbacks of the ghost of Rob Green past, of being tired, but also remember being that tired college kid So I knew where I was, I knew the terrain.

Dr. Moose Herring: 16:01

That's awesome.

Dr. Rob Green: 16:02

And that was just man. That was fantastic. I just loved it. So preparation was really good, course was really good. It was fun to be there with the family, so you know, mind and body were in a really pretty good spot before the race. What do you?

Dr. Moose Herring: 16:14

think about the swim. I think Iron Man's call that it was 76 degrees with bullshit. You think so That water was hot.

Dr. Rob Green: 16:22

Really Because.

Dr. Moose Herring: 16:24

I got halfway through and I was. it was so hot. Yeah, it was in the 80s, for sure.

Dr. Rob Green: 16:29

Yeah, but we're also going to find out I didn't think it was that bad. We're also going to find out and I'm going to I'm going to take a little bit of a stronger stance than you probably will that you weren't doing so good that day, even though you did not know it. There might have been a little bit of a maybe a fever underneath that wetsuit. I definitely had a fever.

Dr. Moose Herring: 16:45

underneath those things, i thought it was because I had I mean, i wanted to rip my, my calf off halfway through. I thought the. I thought the water was warm Now.

Dr. Rob Green: 16:53

It doesn't help that you were fighting an infection. So so, man, maybe it wasn't that warm.

Dr. Moose Herring: 16:59

That, that, that that's an excuse on explanation.

Dr. Rob Green: 17:02

So that's not, that is not so let's talk about that too, because you, you are the one that came up with that. You're the one that came up with the, the, you know the excuse and the explanations, right, and I swear your column only has one column. You only think anything is ever an excuse where an infection is actually an explanation, doctor, right, you know, as a medical doctor, i think you would realize that, like if you're, if you're fighting some.

Dr. Moose Herring: 17:25

My lead in was good.

Dr. Rob Green: 17:27

Exactly Right. So it wasn't a lack of fitness, it was. It was all right we're, we're getting off to target. We'll get into that part. What?

Dr. Moose Herring: 17:34

I'm saying is is, i think, for Iron Man to have a very challenging bike course and a very challenging run course. If they'd measured the water correctly and said this is not a wetsuit swim, there there had been mutiny and and, and this race would not fill up next year.

Dr. Rob Green: 17:54

Oh, you think so Absolutely. I guess there were a lot of first timers Not first timers.

Dr. Moose Herring: 18:00

A lot of people who race Iron Man depend on a wetsuit, swim and and and and like I don't want to say it's a cookie cutter event, but a lot of people like an easier bike course and the easier run course because their why is to finish a half.

Dr. Rob Green: 18:18

Yeah, but Penn State's not advertised that way. So I mean we knew it was hilly. I mean, when we drove it it wasn't like where are these hills? I knew it was hilly.

Dr. Moose Herring: 18:26

But Iron Man wants to. One wants to have an event and they, they, they, they want to open up the entry and have it fill up next year, right? So if you have a non-wetsuit swim and a hilly ass bike ride and a hard run, that's not going to fill up next year.

Dr. Rob Green: 18:40

Oh man, that breaks my heart. I'm not a conspiracy theory guy and stuff like that. Because what, what, what are your thoughts on that? What do you think about? if that it's a, that's the way. That's the way they approach it.

Dr. Moose Herring: 18:50

That's where they approach it. And you, you and I have done hundreds of races and we know the race director goes out in the middle of the water and drops at their mom and her down as far as he can, just to get that that's. That's 78 reading, and the only reason that pisses me off because I hate wetsuit swims. Well, you're a great swimmer, i'll take a swim scan any day, and that's, that's my own, my own preference, yeah.

Dr. Rob Green: 19:14

I, just I, it was especially with what we do. I, i hate the concept of like, as as athletes we are that high maintenance where, like, we are going to complain if it's a non-wetsuit swim. I mean, in fact, i mean that that's a good thing. I mean we've all swim, we've all done the training and we become so dependent on it that that part bugs me a little bit. So if you're, you're out there, like if you can, if you are hoping for a wetsuit swim and it turns out to be a swim scan or non wetsuit, you can be bummed a little bit. But, like, if you throw a temper tantrum, like exit stage left, man, don't, don't do that.

Dr. Moose Herring: 19:46

So, so so today the war temperature was 84.

Dr. Rob Green: 19:52

That's hot, 84 degrees. Yeah, i mean.

Dr. Moose Herring: 19:55

I take showers, they're probably less than 84. Yeah, that's probably more information you wanted, but so 84 degrees and and the and the race director. He made a comment that this wasn't the USAT state championships. He would have gone out and found water temperatures. He said that There was 78 degrees. Because, dude, that's a, that's a safety problem.

Dr. Rob Green: 20:15

Folks, this water today was hot. That's I mean the wetsuit rule. It's funny because people who don't do triathlon they're like, oh, is it cold enough, did you need a wetsuit? And you go dude, i'm going to wear a wetsuit and everything. The rule is there to protect us from us, right, Right, you, i mean there have been deaths in in swim events from people overheating and cooking And so like. As a race director and a liability. Like dude, come on 84 and you're going to go search for something that's 78. Right.

Dr. Moose Herring: 20:39

So back to, you know, back to Penn State course. I thought the Penn State course was fantastic. I'm not as passionate about it as Rob and probably I left the race with a very foul taste in my mouth, but I don't think the swim was legal. I think it should have been a non wetsuit swim and I shouldn't have had a fever. Yeah, Yeah.

Dr. Rob Green: 21:05

I'll play devil's advocate on that a little bit. I, i, i never thought that at the end I felt like it was kind of borderline. It's kind of got that feel to it where it's got a little bit of Christmas at 76 is. You can sort of feel but but who knows? Yeah, either way, we had a wetsuit. It's part of the race, yeah, part of the race. Um but um but no, i thought it was a cool course. I thought we were prepared and we were ready to go and then race.

Dr. Moose Herring: 21:28

Morning hits.

Dr. Rob Green: 21:29

So they actually for me and we'll cover. we'll cover mine first, i guess. uh went really well. I mean, i thought it went really really well. My goal was to swim and swim smart. for the first 300 meters, right, just swim. What does that mean For me? like and I think this is a great tip You give a lot of athletes is like, don't focus on effort, because the effort's going to be there where you realize it or not, because the race adrenaline is going. My focus is to get a good, long, good strong stroke, make sure that I'm breathing and make sure that I'm. I've got a mantra in my head with every stroke I go breathe, breathe, because use that race adrenaline is going. If you build any of, if anybody's built up lactate in that first 300 meters, 400 meters of a swim, it's hard to clear out Um. and if you lose your breath, um, and then I don't know about you, but I you know what suit I start to feel claustrophobic.

Dr. Rob Green: 22:22

So, the big thing for me is starting off smart, uh, and what I tend to find is that that's still really pretty fast, believe it or not, even though you don't feel like you're doing much, and by the time you get 400 meters in, you can kind of really gauge where you honestly are. Um, and then at that point it's um, um about just settling in. Uh, i don't know what you found, but, um, you know, we staged ourselves, uh, right at the front, but sort of the back of the front, and I wish I would have gone up further, because we swam through a lot of people, a lot of people that said that they were going to swim under 27.

Dr. Moose Herring: 22:54

Um, you lose time. And it upsets me a little bit because we, we, we try to you know honestly seed ourselves. And if you, if you, if you're going off on this time trial, start swimming in this like Noah's Ark, two by two or three by three or whatever, and you're, and you're, you're faster than the 10 or 12 rows in front of you. It takes you time and effort to get get past them Yeah. So I think just gotta be at the front.

Dr. Rob Green: 23:22

Yeah, This be at the front, but it was. The course is really pretty cool cause it's it's, it's a, it's a triangle, So it's a straight shot and it's long So you can get in a good spot The boot.

Dr. Rob Green: 23:32

You're not fighting for that first movie, that's really close. And then you make a turn and you got a straight shot for a while. So it's it's. I think it's conducive, very good, solid time. So swimming through those people And then by the time I got to the first turn buoy I was able to really just sort of settle in And I never really because of that, i never really had any feet And that's fine. But usually you know you try to find some of those faster swimmers on the third boot turn buoy. Back I did find a pair of feet of somebody was just cruising on right on by which, which was nice. But for me it was just a really nice even swim. It's a relatively easy, straightforward course. I think the only lesson I would I would kind of take back from that is to push up a little bit further in the beginning So you don't have to swim through a whole bunch of people.

Dr. Moose Herring: 24:14

How about you?

Dr. Rob Green: 24:15

Other than being obviously not legal and too hot for you, it was too hot.

Dr. Moose Herring: 24:18

No, no, no, no, no. I'm just, it's just all my bitterness coming out. Um, no, i, i, I agree with you 100%. I think we start ourselves too far back, because there are people in front of us who, as soon as they, as soon as, as soon as they, went all in the first few hundred meters and started to fade.

Dr. Moose Herring: 24:36

It takes work to, it takes work to get past them, so they're not 27 swimmers, they're probably 33 swimmers that want me to be at the front And so it's not okay. So, um, i knew I was in a bit of a trouble on the swim because I felt warm immediately. They delayed the start 15 minutes or whatever, and I was feeling hot in my wetsuit And by the time I got the first buoy without a lot of huge effort. It's having some calf, you know, some some, some some calf crampy pain, which is not not like me in the water. So I backed off a little bit and had to drop my foot, um, but that's.

Dr. Rob Green: 25:13

I think it's fun I'd like to say it on anybody who's listening that this is going to end up turning into a little bit of an intervention for me on on moose. Uh, because I don't know if you remember me or you don't. If you remember telling me this, uh, i think it's just cause it was. It was it's. It turns out to be an explanation, but it was just the fact at the time. You're like man, like I asked you how you do And you're like I'm doing really good. I just got this bad headache. I don't know what the hell's going on And I was like headache. I was like we're definitely not dehydrated, right, we got the element where hyper hydrated and ready to go.

Dr. Rob Green: 25:43

And I was just kind of like, eh, maybe just slept. weird, you never get headaches. Yeah, you never get headaches, And that's I had the perfect buildup.

Dr. Moose Herring: 25:50

Yeah, Travel with Justin. he's a happy, go lucky guy. He's fantastic to travel with, He's easy. we laugh, we giggle, he's easy to stay with me. He's just. the builder was fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hope I didn't give him COVID. No, baby, no, baby, no.

Dr. Rob Green: 26:07

But I just thought it was funny afterwards to find out You're like headache, all right, i'm breaking out the sweat in my wetsuit waiting here, like honestly, and I'm you know what I'm like in heat, dude, i'm a Scottish guy man. I don't know what to do when it's not cloudy and rainy, any sort of heat, and I wasn't experiencing that heat, so I think a little something was going on.

Dr. Moose Herring: 26:29

That's what I'm saying. It's smooth around the buoy, that you know. I never had any issues. I was cramping a little bit, So I knew I'd stand on it. And I hit the ground before the bike and felt OK.

Dr. Rob Green: 26:41

Other than the headache and the cramping and the hot.

Dr. Moose Herring: 26:44

That's racing.

Dr. Rob Green: 26:45

Yeah, no, it is in the last half of the race, not when you're supposed to feel the freshness. But uneventful Did you when you came out with like time wise, did you kind of look at the time going?

Dr. Moose Herring: 26:54

no, yeah, i mean, i can never do that in swim Mother. Yeah, yeah, that was not. I was not. I was not where I thought it should be in relationship to people that I race with.

Dr. Rob Green: 27:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which happens, but It does. But that was, that was a tease for the things to come, yeah, and then yeah, transition, pretty straightforward. There's a lot of people in this race. There's a lot of people in this race When Macho Blanc got canceled, so I think a lot of people Jumped down, yeah, jumped in, And so I think it was close to 3,000 or so, wasn't there?

Dr. Moose Herring: 27:26

A lot.

Dr. Rob Green: 27:28

And so you get on the bike, you know where your rack is, and off on the bike, and I boy, i, really I don't. if you can look back at with with a clear lens, i'd be curious to think what you think of this bike course. But I really like the bike course. 15 miles is is pretty flat and fast, man. And then it. then you've got some hills from 15 all the way through 41. Yeah, and then you come down off of a bigger hill off of 41. And, and even though it's a net down, there are some bumps hidden in there. quite honestly, i think there's still 700 feet of elevation gain in that last little bit even despite it's coming, coming down.

Dr. Moose Herring: 28:07

There was a big bump at 54, 53, coming, coming back into town.

Dr. Rob Green: 28:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a steep. Yeah, that was really. That was like forgot that was there. And then there, that's where all the spectators are too, so they're watching you sort of grind up the hill. But I'll tell you what man for me, i paced this bike really well It was.

Dr. Rob Green: 28:26

It was unique because I went in with a game plan of of kind of knowing about what power I could ride and knowing that it's training and been spot on for it. But it developed into a race that that's not how it was going to work And so it unfolded. So the first 15 miles I just settled in And I settled in and found a larger group of a lot of us had swam together in a legal group. That's one thing in Trathlon is there's there's a legal group and you can be smart about being in that group or you can make some tactical decisions and about maybe I really committed myself. I knew my heart rate zones and I knew okay, hey, i don't want to go over 158. And the first five to 10 minutes it's really important just to sort of chill. So I let people go by, didn't even think about it. It was just more constant on my side. Easy, and I find that, especially as I get older, it takes a little bit more time for my body to adapt to the bike, whereas I used to be able to jump on the bike and be right at zone and be right there. But now that I'm older I need to be a little bit easier. For the first at least 10 minutes, if not sometimes longer, so I just sort of box everybody out. But then I kind of came down and through pretty well, which is a good indication of training, and I found myself in a group and I was just kind of cruising. I was like all right, stay in the group, be smart, it's a long day. You got hills to come. It's about the last half of this bike, it's the last 20 miles.

Dr. Rob Green: 29:52

And then I noticed that the group started to break up and there was a decision then to be made of okay, my power was down, my heart rate was down, and so I surged a decent amount to bridge up to different groups And I did that probably three or four different times And I was able to do that. Even though my power went up And I didn't go over FTP, i did ride close to FTP, if not FTP for a little bit, but my heart rate stayed down because they were in tactical spurts And I also never, you know, to couple with it. I never felt like it was hard. The important part for me was like to never feel like it was hard, that it never got overmod hard, and so I think I did a nice job of tactically riding and getting with some good groups, and then we hit the hills and then just sort of, because my power had been down with a little bit of surges, i was able to ride those hills above just slightly above what my half pace is and then recover on the way down And what I ended up finding was in my heart rate.

Dr. Rob Green: 30:50

I was paying attention to my heart rate, making sure my caps didn't get exceeded, i was watching my power and sort of tactically riding that power, but I was always coming back to how do I feel, making sure it never felt hard, and I didn't feel that lactate burn in my legs, knowing that that would come to show up later on the run. And then I found myself at like mile 45, feeling really strong, and rode away from a couple of people that were with me and was just pretty happy. I always like it when I've, because I've done enough races where I've not ridden intelligently, because I'm just a racer at heart. So I just kind of want to do maybe sometimes the wrong things or rationalize why the wrong thing is OK in the moment, only to pay for it later. And the last like five miles of the bike was like OK, i'm ready to run. I feel really pretty good.

Dr. Moose Herring: 31:37

So was your control early heart rate based or power?

Dr. Rob Green: 31:41

based. It was very much heart rate, So in the beginning it was heart rate. Get my heart rate down into zone because I have a hard time after transition settling and getting it down.

Dr. Moose Herring: 31:49

But that's normal, right. So it's normal to kind of I mean, it's important to know It's. when you come out of the water and you run to your bike, your heart rate is to the roof, yes, and it's normal for your heart rate to take 10 or 15 or 20 minutes to settle in on the bike. So don't panic, right.

Dr. Rob Green: 32:08

Yeah, what? And I don't know what happens to you and this individual, so maybe somebody has a different experience. But what I'm saying is, especially as I get older, my experience has been, if I ride to power early and I don't let that heart rate settle, that heart rate never comes down right Or it really takes a significant amount of time for that to come down, despite riding the power I thought I had trained for, if I am disciplined and I ride I think my plan was ride somewhere between 250 to 270 watts. I think in that first five miles I was riding 210, right, and it was just low.

Dr. Moose Herring: 32:45

But I was smart about it.

Dr. Rob Green: 32:46

But my heart rate was up but it was trending downward, it was totally trending downward. And what I found is that if I push the watts, not only do I push it and the heart rate stays up, it's a little bit harder than it should feel. And then I pay for it, for more at mile 40 on. And when you do this and you do it right, what you'll find is that even though you gave and maybe you thought you leaked a little bit of time early, when you feel strong at mile 40 on, man, that's powerful And you can see everybody around you suffering because they did too much work too early. So I'm getting wiser and I'm making better decisions on a regular basis.

Dr. Rob Green: 33:21

But if I don't stay disciplined in that first little bit, even though the power is down and I thought I trained for X amount of power and I deserved a right X amount of power heart rate is an indicator for me. But racing for me evolves Like that's my priority when I first come out And then when I settle. Now I'm always coming back to how do I feel At the end of the day, how do I feel It should always be in that perceived exertion. Now I'm looking down to say OK, what's that power? When I got to the hills I made sure don't go over FTP.

Dr. Rob Green: 33:55

I don't care how you feel Stupid, don't go over FTP, and if heart rate's staying down I might ride a little bit higher, and if the effort is going high and heart rate's starting to climb, i'll drop down power a little bit. So it's always coming back to how do I feel and how do I use the metrics to make sure that I'm staying in the boundaries that I defined. I went into the race knowing what's my heart rate cap, what's my range, of the watts I expect to see And I know that I want to feel half Ironman pace, not in the beginning. In the beginning it feels easy, but by the midway point I want to feel hard And I never want that to feel hard at any time.

Dr. Moose Herring: 34:35

How about you? My day was tough in general. My heart rate was high, which is normal for me. Out of the swim, you know, on the bike, in the first 10 or 15 miles I felt fine, but my heart rate was higher than it should have been with the power I was pushing.

Dr. Moose Herring: 34:51

And as we got into the hills rolling hills, toward the end I could tell my leg's been in trouble And so just stay below for the threshold for the climbs. My heart rate I rode a certain heart rate that I ride And just that's what it was going to be And that was that kind of day.

Dr. Rob Green: 35:14

And so your heart rate was higher than the power that you normally push right, and that's something we call decoupling. So when it's lost, it's coupling. It's usually an indication. It doesn't tell you what's going on, but it does tell you that something's disconnected.

Dr. Moose Herring: 35:30

A new. So the other thing is, when I raced halves on my training rides, i had practiced my nutrition over and over and over. I knew exactly what I was taking, the first hour, the second hour and third hour And I've simply had my nutrition, because I'm just this one company's nutrition And I'd practice that over and over and over And it didn't sit at all And I thought it was because my heart rate was high.

Dr. Moose Herring: 35:57

I thought it was because I just wasn't feeling that great But lessened, and we can cover it for lessens and knuckleheads. But if you're on antibiotics, that's going to change your gut And all those gels that you practice with aren't going to feel the same.

Dr. Rob Green: 36:15

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. So you've got a really good nutrition, and then I'll talk about mine too. But you got it down to grams per hour, right? Is that what you're doing on the bike? Tell us what you're doing.

Dr. Moose Herring: 36:28

So the plan was 90 grams a first hour, 60 or so the second hour And then 40 to 50, the third hour. So drink I use has 60 grams and one gel is 30. That's 90. So a second bottle has 60 grams and you use. I get through part of that. And then my third bottle has element in it which is all the all the sodium and stuff. But I was, i forced all that stuff down. It didn't sit well but I You know I'd practice that nutrition for a long course is key.

Dr. Rob Green: 37:05

Yeah, I'm a swim bike run.

Dr. Moose Herring: 37:07

Nutrition There's four disciplines If you don't practice that dude, you're in trouble, Yeah that's a new race day right, or if you take antibiotics and it chews up your gut, lining The nutrition you practice. May. It may not be.

Dr. Rob Green: 37:21

What you expect, and we're burying the lead here a little bit, right, i'll, i'll say it and then you correct me. Right, you had your antibiotic leading into a root canal the day after the race, which is a great time to put it. But you know, come to find out, you, you had an infection. You were you were fighting as well underneath the tooth.

Dr. Moose Herring: 37:39

So I knew that body was was going through.

Dr. Rob Green: 37:42

Yeah, that's why you're on the antibiotic, that's where you go, but But you know that doesn't go under excuse, that goes under Explanation. So we're gonna have that intervention today that you're allowed to have an explanation might go under knucklehead. Yeah, yeah, but but you're, you know, come to find out at the end and I'll, maybe I'll tease a little bit. I'll tell you what Moose said at the end of the race, which I think is comical. but you know, there's a clear decoupling and obviously Something ain't right, right?

Dr. Moose Herring: 38:10

So but if something ain't right, follow your max values, right? So for me, i know that I I can't go above a certain heart rate And if I'm convinced I can ride a certain power and my heart rate is going way up, you gotta listen to your body, yeah right? So if it's not not your day, it's not not your day, don't force it.

Dr. Rob Green: 38:31

Yeah, that's dude. That's such a great point. I mean you got ceilings and you got whatever you use, but like it's not uncommon on the bike, it's it's perceived exertion, it's heart rate and its power and you got. You know We don't live and die by one. You've got ranges and and you're only as good as your limiting factors. So whichever one ceiling you might, your heart rate might go above, but you're in your power And you think you deserve to have that and you go well, no, the heart rates you're ceiling.

Dr. Moose Herring: 38:54

Heart actual work you're doing well, yeah.

Dr. Rob Green: 38:56

But but then also think that like, maybe you know you're really fit and your heart rates? You're so fit right now, your heart rates delayed on coming up and you you go, well, my power range is here, but my heart rate is so low and you start pushing more power early one. Now you're screwed. So that's how we kind of don't live and die by by either. But if you have your, your goals and your ranges, like they're not, the goal is to never be perceived exertion. It should never feel harder than half effort, right. So if you're riding and and what you're starting to experience is your heart rates going up into Olympic effort and your efforts going up To Olympic and your power is going down to Ironman power, something, something ain't right, but you got to better bring it down. So There's nothing above that range, whichever metric that you're looking at, right? So how about the run? Man run was so cool, do the run was so cool. So the exciting part was, you know, nutrition was was really good on the bike. The bike pacing was really good and coming into transition It's got that feeling like, okay, i'm ready to run and I know this course well. We'd ridden the course the day before In the first mile straight downhill, right, i remember walking up that hill. Baseball field used to be all the way up where we were and I remember walking that hill at Time. So running down it was nice In my mindset and even I was saying, as I was riding into transition was like just Bikes been good. I was, um, i was actually a little bit guarded because I had more spikes in there than I anticipated, but they were tactical and I've raced enough to know. Kind of like I think that they're okay. But there ain't nothing like those first footsteps you have when you get off the bike. And I committed to myself that first downhill just be easy, right, just that one mile. Even if you run it 20 seconds per mile slower, you'll benefit from it later. So I made sure that first mile was Just sort of a calibration mile, like get your nutrition in, settle in, feel good, never feel bad.

Dr. Rob Green: 40:49

It's a two-loop course And it's, like I said, all through campus. You go straight downhill And then you got some punchy little hills that you run through where the student dorms are and then you come up and you run Through the heart of the campus to the hub and you go down through old main and And then you turn around and you go up one street above and then you run around The the lion statue and then you take that road all the way back past the creamery to to the stadium And then you repeat that lap again. So I really ran that first mile, you know, with respect to the rest of the race. And then a race like that, i always run the first lap with respect to the second lap, right, you know, if it should never feel crazy hard, i Had my metrics of what my heart rate cap was.

Dr. Rob Green: 41:34

I kind of, with a course like that, pacing is not a great thing to go by because you're they're going down, you're going up, you're not really going flat. So I kept with perceived exertion. I focus on some certain gate technique things that That are, i think, important. I try to make sure that my legs are moving a decent cadence. I try to make sure that you might my foot strike is is with a vertical shin and that my body is relaxed. So that's what I did for the for the first lap, and it felt really I mean, i felt really pretty good.

Dr. Rob Green: 42:04

It was um. Now I will say it did start to get a little sneaky hot. I mean it's you know we had some rains. There was cloud cover on paper doesn't look all that bad, but it did start to get a little bit humid and that second lap was was hard, so it just made sure I'd stay wet the whole time. Nutrition was good. I use the gels that I normally use and I get anywhere from you know 70 to 80 grams when I'm running of carbon and coke and gels.

Dr. Moose Herring: 42:33

Making sure I get water.

Dr. Rob Green: 42:34

It's. It's a lot, but I do that in the first hour and and the bike was preloaded a decent amount, so so that worked out really well and and It just stayed even. You know, i wasn't sure where I was in the race. That was a little bit challenging, but you just don't know no, no, no day starts.

Dr. Rob Green: 42:54

You know what I was thinking. It's funny, i didn't think about this, don't know. You brought that up. I was like, too bad, there wasn't some sort of Because body marking doesn't happen anymore, so you don't see ages on the back of the calves. I almost think you should, because they give us two numbers now, right. So they give us like one for you put up at home and one for your race belt. What if they invented race belts that had a front and a back to it and on the race number it actually had your age category. So you had to display it in the front and back. So when you're behind.

Dr. Moose Herring: 43:19

You are, though, because of the time trial, start.

Dr. Rob Green: 43:21

You don't, but you at least know kind of where people are And for the most part, if you're trying to be competitive, most those people did start, you know, towards the front, except for the sneaky bastards that maybe tried to like go way in the back and catch a big draft, and but you know, good luck to them. But I always thought it would be kind of cool to just know and again, do your own race, don't dictate on somebody else. But when you're really sort of looking where you are, i mean, gosh, i finished six overall and you know it was a difference of a minute between, you know, third and eighth right, and so it'd be kind of cool to kind of know where that, where that was. But But all in all finished really strong. So it was, it was exactly what I wanted. I went in from tip to tail in that race. I really pretty much followed my plan. I adapted to a few things. My nutrition was good, my pacing was good and you know that last 5k to me I think that half iron man, it's all about the last 5k. I was running strong and I felt good And so I was super stoked and and to see Justin out there was killing it, man.

Dr. Rob Green: 44:20

I saw him on on the first First lap and we went by each other, high-fived each other man. I was so stoked to see him and I knew he was pretty far out in front. And then I Went down to old man a circle back around and I was like, well, i wonder how further, how far out in front he is. And then we had a big section all the way back. I forgot about that overpass. I was so stoked, man. I get so excited when I see SCU, SC Justin dude he smashed it.

Dr. Rob Green: 44:49

He's worked so hard to get fitness and yeah to race well and yeah, but as I was doing the run, i was also super bummed because I like damn with the way the courses exact and I never got a chance to see moose, and so I finished. I finished the Finish the race. We finished in beaver stadium like literally in the football field. So cool families up in the stands I'm waving to him and I found my way to catch up with them And they, we were headed back and I was like, well, no, let's go back up the stands.

Dr. Rob Green: 45:16

I got, we got to see moose finish and Mary Beth looked at me and said, yeah, moose didn't finish, he's out. Yeah, i was like what? so as soon as I heard that because I know what a warrior I'm like what's going on? Is he all right? What we got to go and True to moose is for Mary Beth's like yeah, he just said he's out. He didn't say anything more and I was like, oh, he's pissed off, something. Something happened and then we connected and You can take it from there. So how did your run go?

Dr. Moose Herring: 45:41

My run went great. It lasted about a mile, no I, so my mindset coming off the bike wasn't great. I was kind of Bargaining just get through the bike, get through the bike, be fine, just get on your feet. I had to run, had nothing now nothing. And I I had done a lot of bike run Bricks that had been super, super strong. But I'm also smart to know What's not gonna go and I just wasn't willing to have the death march. I just was not not willing to be out there.

Dr. Rob Green: 46:13

What are your priorities? Family first family first, dude, you're putting yourself at risk, and for what? for?

Dr. Moose Herring: 46:19

what reason?

Dr. Moose Herring: 46:20

there was no reason and so I got to mile One really, and I was like this isn't, this isn't gonna, this isn't gonna gonna fly. That didn't feel good. Well, you know, wouldn't have fun, like I'm not gonna be out here too much, it's not. So it's very unusual for me to put to pull the plug. I'm gonna get in, like we lead into our next topic, but I just didn't have it, yeah, and so Stopped, got off. I tried to stretch, to try to try to, you know, drink water and I was like this isn't Didn't sell anything.

Dr. Moose Herring: 46:52

Yeah so jog back to the car, sat there and Powered for a while, i was like It is what it is. It has a hard thing about racing long courses. The preparation can be great. Going in, yeah, the traveling to. You know, traveling with Justin It's fantastic, it's easy, it sets you up for a great rate because he's all in. Yeah, there's no bullshit in the side. So. But I had some health issues we talked about going in. I probably should have respected that a little bit more And I just had had nothing. And if I am Not having fun and I feel like I'm at risk, i'm pulling the plug because I've raced enough where another Metal, even though it had a knitting line on or whatever, whatever head ain't that big a deal, yeah dude, i mean it's we've checked enough box.

Dr. Rob Green: 47:42

It wasn't. It wasn't a check the box or anything. Having experienced it There, i mean there's no willpower there. It's not a willpower thing. Your body's shut down, your body's busy doing other shit. You can ask it to do something. It's not available. It's like turning your cell phone on with zero powder. You keep hitting the power button harder, then turn on your at zero. Man, still still suck.

Dr. Rob Green: 48:02

But I'm gonna, i'm gonna, i'm gonna tattle on you a little bit because at the end of the race you know and we've all been there also a Experience very similar to that but asking moose how to go, you're right, man, what's happening? Like I'm just a sissy, like, no, you're not, i'm a sissy, i just, i just, i just I didn't do it And I'm like, dude, something's going on. You had a headache this morning. You're fighting something. No, no, no, man, i just could. And then come to find out, and because to you everything would be an excuse, like I told the line, i put a number on. It's my responsibility from go to Beginning to the finish line, and I love that about you, but sometimes it can be a little bit too big. No, dude, you really have something going on like Check it out.

Dr. Rob Green: 48:45

I did blue Ridge last year. I had a very similar experience. I didn't handle it in such a mentally tough way You did. I was like bad end of the race. I got the mile Half mile into the run and the same thing happened on the bike. That happened to you and the half mile in the run My body just shut down and I didn't. I didn't say I was a sissy. I go Oh dude, i got cancer, freaked out, man, i totally freaked out. Come to find out I had. I had COVID, it was. It was invisible, you didn't feel anything. But when you go to do something like this while your body is doing something else, you don't have the availability when you go into reserves, but you also gotta listen to yourself.

Dr. Moose Herring: 49:16

Yeah, there were very few of us making money doing this. No, we're doing it for fun. And you, you really got to consider Why you're out there.

Dr. Rob Green: 49:25

Yeah and the most mentally tough person I know is you, and I know a lot of really mentally tough people. So I was proud of you, man, to pull up, because it's not an option. You, you could walk and you can remember that Beagle story. I told you that Beagle story. I was just thinking that, man, i'll share that Beagle story. It because I I Called you scared after I heard the Beagle story. This is a little bit of a Debbie Downer story, but but it's important one to tell one of my wife's friends.

Dr. Rob Green: 49:49

Beagles got out and you, here in Richmond Virginia, it is hot, and the Beagles got out and they were panicking, they were looking for them. Well, the sad part is they ended up passing away, because what does a Beagle do? a Beagle is relentless. So they were on a scent and they would not leave the scent, even though they were suffering from major heat Complications, and they ended up having heat stroke and passing away. And I was like, oh my god, dude, i think I'm a Beagle. I'm a Beagle, i think of a big like called you, like a moose, were Beagles.

Dr. Rob Green: 50:19

If we don't make smart decisions like, yeah, our egos, right, can cause us to do things that are unsafe and and that is not in our Priority right I got to get back to my family. Man, i gotta be gonna be present. It'll be alive to be present. So like, don't be a, don't be a Beagle, even though you're a warrior and it's, it's not a hit to you. I mean it sucks, there's no two ways about it. At the end of the end of the day, it sucks, but you live to find another day. And then what'd you do today? a week, one week later, what'd you do today?

Dr. Moose Herring: 50:48

I Was all in, yeah, in the heat, and then he had a great day, dude.

Dr. Rob Green: 50:53

You smashed it. You finished third overall. You had a killer bike and what'd you do? you picked yourself up. So that was our Penn State experience. I would highly recommend, you know, really thinking about putting that on your race radar. I'm gonna make moose go back, even though he doesn't want to.

Dr. Moose Herring: 51:07

I'm wearing a sunskin Bastards welcome to Pennsylvania.

Dr. Rob Green: 51:13

So it was a really fun race. I would I would highly recommend that and you know, it's just Penn State. There's a reason they call it happy valley. It's just a really cool and fun place and They were very inviting there and I would. I would go back. Would you go back? I'm gonna make you go back, by the way. No yeah, you gotta go back, You gotta do also said, i was done Business you got unfinished business. You gotta go back.

Dr. Moose Herring: 51:35

We'll see. Unless you're a sissy, we'll see. Yeah, then you can, i might be a sissy.

Dr. Rob Green: 51:38

All right, well that I think we'll drop that and then, yeah, we'll cut to the next segment. I think the cool part about this race is we got some inspired. This next topic about understanding your why.

Dr. Moose Herring: 51:55

So our next topic I think we all need to think about is What is your why? Why do you do what you do? Why is it important to you? Because when you race long course It's not when it's gonna get hard, it's me, it's not if it's gonna get hard, it's when it gets hard because it gets hard, yeah. And if your why's not straight, you're probably not gonna make great decisions. So after races we both go into in-depth analysis of of of power and heart rate and pace and all this, all this stuff.

Dr. Moose Herring: 52:30

I Think, in my case, having a DNF, i have to really sit down if you feed a few days after and say what is my why? and my why always follows my priorities. So what is my family why? what is my work why? and what is my training and fitness Why? right, and so I can sit and I can pout or I can or I can decide does this race fit my why? does? Does pulling out of this race suit my why? and Where do I go from here?

Dr. Moose Herring: 53:17

So, so there's a great book by Simon Sinek, s-i-n-e-k And it's titled What Is Your Why And he looks at why is the central reason we should all do things right? He has this golden circle concept. I think it was really informative to me. There's three layers. This circle, the outside layer, is what we do. That's your chiropractor, your race long course, your dad, your husband. That's what we do. The second layer of that circle is how we do it And your home, your present. You coach soccer, we train 12 hours a week. How we do it. But the third, inside layer, the most important factor of that, is why you do it. So we all have to sit down and really think about why we want our family priority first. Why are we doing what we do? work wise, and why in the hell would you drive six hours to race in a place called Happy Valley? So what is your why? And a big part of my why and I wanna read one of the things that I'll share with you is I try to teach my kids to live with courage right.

Dr. Moose Herring: 54:44

And last week my daughter was in Portugal. She travels and she was in Portugal And she was surfing and she stepped on a spider fish. Spider fish have this toxic venom that makes your foot feels like it got struck by lightning And it's a heat label by toxin. This toxin it runs up your leg and it is misery And the only way you treat that toxin is to take a hot coin and heat it up and put it on the spot where it's done you That's gonna sting a little bit. Or you dump your foot in hot water So you got stung by a spider fish, your foot's on fire and somebody's burning the shit out of your foot. So she went through this misery for 12 hours and it's hard for a father to answer the phone. She's crying and cuckoovered in sand In a foreign country.

Dr. Moose Herring: 55:43

In a foreign country, nothing you can do but. but four days later you sent me a picture of a coastline. She said I got back in today. Yeah, hell, yeah. So that's courage. So how can I sit on my Monday Monday morning pouting after a DNF saying you know, it's racing is not. it's racing is not for me. So if I'm gonna emulate and say my kids should live with courage, i'm gonna live with courage. So within about 24 hours I'd signed up for ref three because I wanted to get back on the horse.

Dr. Moose Herring: 56:16

But that circles back to what is my why? So for fitness, and for this is third of my prairie list. So for me it's about having a long, healthy lifespan. So when I'm 95 years old I can get up off the floor. It's about living a healthy lifestyle, being a role model like kids, about living a health, healthy lifestyle and setting big, scary goals and working toward them. And if I fail on those goals, i learn how I learned from that and low back up and try again. So sitting on my Monday morning pouting about a DNF circle back to I wanna live with courage, right? I wanna get stung by a spider fish and have the courage to get back in the water right, or I wanna have a DNF and feel like I'm I can't race And I wanna get back on the wagon. So my why for the fitness part of my life is to live a healthy long lifespan, to set scary goals and try to reach those goals. But if I don't, i wanna learn from that.

Dr. Rob Green: 57:27

Yeah, yeah, molly inspired you, but reality is you have led by example and bided this all your life and she's learned that. And so, even though she inspired you, that's you fostered that And your why is living in them. And that's really cool man, that's boy, that's a powerful story.

Dr. Moose Herring: 57:49

So you should have your why on all your you know. So, if you look at your family, why I mean why is it so important for you to be present and to be a great, great, great, great great husband and have a 50, 50 relationship with Mary Beth you guys feel like you're all all in one together. So why is your family number one?

Dr. Rob Green: 58:16

Why is the family number one? I mean, that's the boy. There's so many different ways you can go with that, because they're everything right. I mean the kids. You don't have that time back again and you want them to move the needle forward in life, right, and it's our job to give them the gifts that our parents gave us so that way they can pay that forward. So, being present and for their quality of their long-term life, it's my job to teach them resiliency to be in this complicated world, for your exact same reason, to teach them that strength.

Dr. Rob Green: 58:49

And I think, man, what happened this? and it's a race, so it's, i mean, all things considered. People go through bigger challenges but, like we're living by example, it's important for them to see us quote unquote fail. I hate that word fail. Fail, i mean, dude, if you're not pushing boundaries, then you're living in a safe space where you never fail. So for the children to see that you can not accomplish something despite doing all the right things. But then what do you do? You get up, you dust yourself off and you move forward.

Dr. Rob Green: 59:23

So, being present for them, to show them that And to help them develop in their life, cause. You'll never get that time back And there's nobody on their deathbed wishing I would have worked more. They want to spend more time with their family. So to be present, to be there for them, to help them develop in life, to help them lead a happy and healthy and a long lifespan themselves It's we brought them into the world. It's our responsibility and our privilege and our luxury to help them become great human beings. So that's my why I want them to thrive, I want them to have everything and it's that's on me. Right, I could be selfish and do different things, but reality is I think the most selfish thing I get to do is be around them, I mean.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:00:10

So that's my deep why. So I think I think if you, whatever your three priorities are, i think you really have to set and write it down. I mean, i don't, i mean I write a lot of stuff down And I think it's so important to write it down. And one of the things in this Simon Sinek book is he states you should be able to state your why, whatever priorities you have in life, as a simple statement. That statement is this two and then blank. So that blank.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:00:49

So two the first blank is the contribution you make, right, the contribution you make to your family. You said it very eloquently to be present, right, the contribution you make to your family is to be a role model And so that your kids. And the second blank there is the impact it has. Right, so two blank. So that blank should be your simple why statement Right, so that first blank is the contribution you make And the second blank is the impact it's gonna have. So it takes a while to kind of consolidate that down into a simple statement. What's your why? Something important as your family, but just hearing you say that, so, to be present, so that they feel support or they become, become kind of loving human beings, yeah Right. So that's a simple why statement And that's not a, that's not part of your neocortex. I mean, that's a deep down feeling that you don't have to work for.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:02:09

Yeah, it's there.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:02:11

So if you set your priorities, like we talked about, family first, hub is always, is always family first. The second for us usually is our work, because it takes a large amount of time each week, right. So if you think about your why for work, right, and so It's, it's exact same same statement to blank and that's the contribution you make to work, so that blank and that's it has the impact it has on others, right. So for me, my orthopedic practice, my goal is to be the best orthopedic surgeon, to provide high quality care and patients feel like I'm present in there. Yeah, that's my why. Yeah, i have too, i have too many partners.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:03:04

Their why is money. Yeah, so the decisions they make, the procedures they do, the lifestyle they live affects their why. Yeah, right. And that why then leads into they're never happy enough because there's never enough money. Right, they can't have a car and they can't have a beach. If you're, if you're being an orthopedic surgeon, and your why is to make as much money as you can, that's a losing endeavor, yeah, right. So it drives me nuts in my day to day life that if we, as orthopedic surgeons, consider, if our why is quality care, then what we do every day matters, yeah, taking care of people and taking extra time and seeing people and taking longer for surgery. So the second most important part of our life is our work And my why is to provide quality care to people, so that, so that they- get better.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:04:06

Yeah, how about you? It shows the I mean intrinsic motivation as opposed to extrinsic motivation, right, like, what's the motivating factor? extrinsic if you're looking for the extrinsic And as you wrote that circle and most you've read the book, i haven't. So this is, this is a new way of looking at it, even though we've always talked about, like, what's your why? But to see it like this is really cool.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:04:27

I think about that where the, the what other than the outer radius, the house and the middle radius, and the why is in the core. Yeah, how many people look at the what and the what defines them, right, right, and a lot of those people have those extrinsic motivations. Or you know, i'm an, i'm an ortho and you know I'm a doc and and maybe the money's what they're after, as opposed to what's your intrinsic core. And they haven't asked those deeper layers. So, like, if you ask yourself, like what your why is, maybe even answer that two or three times to get a deeper, get deeper into that core. But you know, yeah, i can't stand to be around people who are extrinsically motivated as opposed to intrinsically motivated, right, whether it's professionally or personally.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:05:08

But that's what this is. Yeah, this is a simple concept. Yeah, because extrinsic is what. Yeah. So that's your neo neocortex. People get stuck there all the time Rational brain deals with you know language, yeah, but the intrinsic motivation is your why Yeah, and that this, this golden circle concept, is fantastic because it puts why at the center. And if you don't know what, your why is?

Dr. Rob Green: 1:05:36

you're lost. Yeah, we'll have a diagram up on the show notes and we'll put this info up. but really look at that, because you're looking at that and putting it in such a simple way. I just see so many people stuck in the what And they think that their why, they think they know their why, but the why is really stuck in the what, right, it's not deeper like that. So you know that's really powerful. So how about your work. Work for me, as I kind of think on the fly with this.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:06:02

I didn't give him any time to prepare. Yeah, no, but that's great.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:06:04

No, i love it. No, i love it because that way you know it's it's again. it would probably maybe even evolve. But really. so, two and the blank is what's your contribution? and then, so that is in the impact. And then, if I think about work, right, the two is to improve the quality of lives of others. Really, we talk about it in work all the time. Our product's awesome, it's quality life. So I want to increase the quality of life of others. so that blank, that's your impact. No, no, so well, let's see. well, let's see. So, to increase the quality of life of others right, that's what my goal is in a work capacity so that they can be impactful to other people around them, so they can live their family, work and play.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:06:47

So that's a great mission statement Yeah right.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:06:51

That's a great mission statement. Yeah, i mean, that's, that's the core of what we do. No, that's beautiful. I think I've always struggled to make a mission statement. Maybe I finally just made one. Yeah, so that's that's. that's how powerful what you read and you're putting together right now is not only to make me think about it in a, in a simple and powerful way, but it's maybe even answer something that I haven't been able to do in the past. So so, what's your, what's your work to? and then the blank is what's your contribution? and then so that, and what's your impact? So I would, i would encourage you to write that down, because that was, um, yeah, no, i appreciate that. That's, that's powerful, makes it easy.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:07:28

So then? so the third important part at hub that we look at is play our fitness, our racing, right. So for hub, right, my, my, my, my wife statement for hub is to inspire people so that they can be their best. You, yeah, that's hub, right, but but but for me, for fitness, is long-term health, health and fitness, right, so I can be the be the best, me right. So if I'm racing and I have lost my why or I'm not following my why, i'm pull plug. Yeah, cause it it. You know it doesn't follow along. And this goes back to the golden circle concept. In the outer layer of that circle is what, right, what we do? we race long course and we and we race short, short course, right.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:08:31

That's great.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:08:32

How do we do it? Right, we train 10,. We tend we train 10, 12 hours a week. We surround ourselves with, with high quality people, that that challenge us, that, that that that encourage us every day Call us out when we're not being honest with our, you know, with ourselves. That's the how, that's just the how.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:08:56

The why is the most important thing, yeah, right. So if your why is to qualify for Kona, that's great, but now your why depends on a lot of outside influences. You have no control. Yeah, because you, because you can go to a race and 18 people in your age group that are faster than you could have signed up for the same race, you don't have a chance of qualifying. You may have a have, have a great day, but if you and you're going to leave that Ironman, even if you had a fantastic day and you PR by an hour, you're going to be upset because your why had all these outside influences, you got no control up. Yeah, if your why was to go and enjoy the iron, not enjoy to go and race an Ironman and have your best day, then you should leave happy and fulfilled.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:09:50

Yeah.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:09:50

Right. So you got to be careful You don't set your why if there's a lot of outside influences. I remember clearly the year that you guys went to the court of lane and your fitness was ridiculous And the times you did would have qualified for Kona any other year. Yeah, but you didn't qualify because it was a freak show. Yeah, there was some Ironman that canceled before and you guys were fifth and sixth in your age group or whatever, whatever, but you had no control of that. Yeah. So you got to make sure in our fitness goals that our why's don't have a lot of outside influence And I'd also encourage your why's should not be social media based, right.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:10:38

So true, that's superficial.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:10:39

Yeah, and everybody has a Facebook life and it's a lot better than my life. You just need to think. As far as I'm concerned, your fitness goals need to be a deep seed of meaning of why Yeah.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:10:53

What do you think? No, dude, i couldn't agree more And I think a lot of that stuff is, especially now and you're seeing it with people that it creates more stressors, that they're living externally rather than internally. And to know that core why and not living in your virtual world and getting to your core roots and being present with people around you, i think it's a beautiful and a simple way to put it And I think you know it's cool because that's evolved over time And I think sports has helped it. I mean, gosh, i didn't even think about that until you brought up in that quarter length, because that was the first time I think I'd finally, was early in my Ironman career And I think it was the first time I'd raced well and was super excited. And it was funny because at the end and I know I don't plenty of people that like they, they maybe they may have had a great day but they didn't end up where they wanted to And it ruins their day and they thought that they deserved, or their self esteem goes down because their self esteem waxes and wanes violently, because they're living in the what, and then you know with and Justin, i think we're there and you were not there that year but we came back and we were like, ah, damn right, that was a really good day. Geez man, if we would have done that time any other year we would have qualified by 15 minutes. But it was just. You know, there were half a dozen other faster people.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:12:14

And because you're rooted in the why, why don't you look at your? your, your simple to blank, so that blank right To challenge my boundaries and you and live a life of fitness so that I can be sane, happy and the best spouse and father that I can be to the people around me? I think it really roots to my kind of family part of it. It wasn't. I went there and in a motivation, i'm a competitor, i want to compete, i want to qualify and that's a goal. But it didn't define me.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:12:48

So at the end of it it was like, man, that was really, really great. And you children get to see that you, you did all the right things and you went really well and everything went right. There were people better in you than that day. And what do you do You? you high five them and you say good job And you know, you get back to work and you try to continue to plug away, so you know when you're rooted with it it ends up. Your life is so much more peaceful Absolutely. It is so much less stressful.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:13:14

And it doesn't mean you don't set hard goals. No, It doesn't mean you don't put things out there that scare the crap out of you. It doesn't mean you can't come off a DDNF and say I'm getting back on the horse. You're going to live with courage and I'm going to get back on the horse.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:13:32

But you got resiliency because you live life like that. Now you got resiliency and in alignment with what your goals are to show your family and to have Molly get back in that ocean. They've seen that resiliency and they're not afraid. They're not afraid of falling short. I mean, there's so much fear that people fear falling short that they don't. They don't have stretch goals, they have safe goals and you're not man. At least have a coach that used to tell us before every single practice You're either getting better today or getting worse. Right, you decide. And then he would leave, we'd leave for practice, and that may sound cheesy, but it's so true. Nothing stays the same. You're either improving or you're losing. You're not static and mentally and mentally Physically.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:14:14

Physically everything. So when you get up on that day, what can you do to improve? And if you root yourself with your wise and you know what they are and you, you maybe if you sit down and paper and pen or paper and pencil, so you can race, because it'll evolve. And I would challenge you and I don't know if this is in the book or not, but we do this with our athletes all the time before they go to a race Like what's your why? And my way of doing it was don't just answer that question, what's your why? And when you come up with that answer, i want you to ask well, why? And then I want you to ask one more why at least get at least three deep, if not four deep, because you're going to need to know that You're going to need it.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:14:52

So if you're looking at this, like, don't just get your first, why? maybe, maybe ask that next layer? why, like, well, i want to be a better husband and spouse. Well, why? Right? Well, you know, they're important to me and I want them to have a happy life. Well, why? Well, it's the people I love. I owe it to them to be the person that can help them thrive in life.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:15:14

So just, ask layers, but this is why it makes it easy to see the contribution you make and the impact it has. It gets our quicker. That's your why. So it's the contribution you are willing to make and impact it has.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:15:33

That's powerful man. So you got your family, you got your work and you got your play. So that's your why. Thank you for watching. I'll see you in the next one.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:15:40

And if other people listen and have other aspects of their life. I would just encourage you to sit down, make a circle. What on the outside, what you do is easy. Yeah, because you can look at what you do. Yeah, how you do. It's easy because it's what you're doing Now. You can change how.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:15:58

I was gonna say I would challenge people a little bit how you do it. You see, people that sort of like are you? are you striving for mediocrity? Like, do you do you do it in a high level way.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:16:09

That's how they do it. Can they change that though? Sure they can, sure they can, and maybe if you, if you, if you look at how and you may not how you do it, you may not be putting all effort in you can change that.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:16:23

You know what I bet you find in your why? I'll help you change that even more. It changes everything.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:16:27

And that's the most important thing, because if you're seated on your, on your deep seated, why then that that mediocre effort on how it becomes not okay?

Dr. Rob Green: 1:16:40

Yeah, dude, that boy that'll expose it. So when you think the house, okay, after you find the why. But who crap, it's, it's okay. Damn that little graph is powerful man. See, it's a call the golden circle.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:16:51

The golden circle It's not my golden circle Simon Sinek's golden circle, and he's written a couple of books, he's done a couple of TED talks And if you've been through some, some, some, some failures, some knockdowns we all get knocked down I would encourage you to look at it because it just makes you think about why you do what you do. Yeah, because if you know your why, the how and the what, just kind of follow on.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:17:20

Yeah, and that you know it with. Now, learning what you put out here today, i would I would draw back to David Goggins mirror of accountability, right Once you find them. I not put that up in your bathroom mirror. I love that. You see it every morning when you wake up. It sets a tone for the day And it keeps you accountable. At the end of every day you review it And a lot of days you're like man I was, i was on it, and other days you can look at it and go. You know what I could have improved a little bit today. So if you get your why is put them in a lit, not only write them down. Put them on your bathroom mirror so you can see them.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:17:49

Yeah, set the tone Watch what happens in a couple of weeks when you start to root yourself with your why.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:17:54

And it is evolving. So it was important. It was important for me, after what happened at Penn State, to sit down on Monday, Monday morning. Write out my why's.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:18:03

Yeah.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:18:04

Because as you start thinking about your why's, you become less pouty and more focused on what you know, what you can do, because pouting is not in my why, it's not how I do it, it's not what I do, it's not it's not what I want to be. So if I think for all of us, if we have your priorities I don't care what your priorities are one, two, three at your priorities. I think if you look at those priorities and you really think about why, how and what, i bet it changes things.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:18:35

Yeah Amen man, Get a paper, get some pencil, get the work.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:18:40

So we'll stick this in the notes. We'll give you the information. We'll give you the information on the book, but I would highly encourage you to really consider what your why is. Lessons from the knuckleheads. We're going to do a couple of lessons from knuckleheads today. It's been a little bit of a longer, longer podcast, but I think this will be helpful.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:19:02

We're high, we're, we're long course athletes. It's OK, it's longer.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:19:06

I'm trying. I'm a short course guy now I'm just in. So you really got to plan out your transition and you got to think about the stuff you want to do between swim and bike and bike and run, because you add extra time if you have don't have it planned out and you make mistakes If you don't have it planned out. For example, when you come out of the water and you're wearing a speed suit and you're so focused on getting to that bike because today was the day I was going to ride as hard as I can ride. All I want to do is get to the bike. So I peeled down my speed suit, i peeled it down in my waist and I'm running, running, running. I get to the bike, put on my shoes, put on my helmet, put my visor down. I'm off, forgot to take off a speed suit. Speed suits pulled down Because I didn't think about it.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:20:02

Yeah because last weekend I was wearing this big, thick ass, heavy wetsuit. I knew when it was on with the speed suit I'd folded it down. I had planned it out. But if you don't plan your transitions well, you make mistakes and that costs you. So. And then, from bike to run, you need to know are you putting your shoes on, are you putting the visor on? And you should be moving the whole time and you can put your number on as you're moving, right, but lessons from a knucklehead plan your transitions, think about your transitions and try not to make mistakes.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:20:42

I got to tell you I think I've had one or two races where I've let that speed suit on You forget it, It feels comfortable.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:20:48

Once it gets down and you don't realize it's there, you're going to bike and you're like mother perv, Yeah, especially when it's a longer transition.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:20:55

You know I'll add one to that is because it's the last two races. I've done a horrible job. I've got my one piece tri-suit rolled down under the wetsuit coming up. I might as well have been a circus act trying to put the top on And, um, you know, i made enough jokes at my own expense to the crowd watching me when I was like that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:21:16

That's why a speed suit swim instead of a wetsuit swim is so nice, because you can have your one one piece on and the speed suit can be over.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:21:23

And there's no, there's no issue, that's not a solid lesson from knucklehead, solid show man. You know, i think this is pretty cool. This is what I love about doing the podcast. We had no, we had no intent, i think, of doing an episode like this today, but but for the fact of experiencing that Penn State, um, you know, we had all the content today and I think you had some really powerful things to share. So, um, i thought that was really cool. It's helpful, yeah, and so you know, as a, as a friend, and I've I've been there, um, and then, for anybody who's listening, you'll have friends who you know had a race that didn't go the way that they wanted it or you wanted for them. How does it feel Like? what would you like from your friends? Um, what's the best way to support somebody like that, like you don't want to, you're not going to get them false thing. I've been like, oh, don't worry about it, man, it's no big deal. I'd be like, no, that sucks, it's a big deal.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:22:19

Yeah, it's a big deal, but what's it? what's a good way to support your friends?

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:22:22

So we're lucky because our group is so close.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:22:25

Yeah.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:22:25

Right. So you guys re-reach out day to day And so you know those as simple texts. a simple phone call, that kind of stuff means a lot.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:22:36

Right.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:22:37

And I don't want to hear any bullshit. I don't want to be like you know, whatever, i don't want to hear that. But but but just just knowing you guys are around and you guys challenge me to be the best me every single single day. So when I sit down and think about my, my, why, right, you guys are part of that. So I don't think there's anything special except for be present. Yeah, it's the most important thing. And no, no, no no.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:23:04

After, after you DNF, nobody wants to hear about my, my, my bunch of bullshit, you know nobody wants to hear that. But but just be, be and being being present and saying you had the fitness, something's going on. Yeah, right, that's the most important thing. Yeah, no, i think that's great man And it's.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:23:17

You know there's something powerful. I mean, if you're doing training in your solo, i mean, try to connect with some people that that resonate with you and You share those core values because there's there's synergy and being together with it. And you know it's interesting because I think it's depending on who had the how to race that didn't go all that great, and then connecting with them and and being present And honestly, i think you know, we tell, i tell my family, i tell my staff the same thing. What's the easiest thing to remember? The truth, right, Right, just be truthful with them, don't be scared.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:23:50

I mean your true friends are going to be the most truthful with you and bring them up when they need to be brought up. Be honest with them, with with your thoughts, but but reach out and be a part of it. So you know, if you have a friend who's you know had challenges, don't be afraid, lean in a bit, but be truthful. Don't give them you know, false, you know hope or false praise or don't be harsh. Just be honest and and lean in. You've done it for us, man. If there's anybody who does it for everybody, as you, yeah, and so you know and honestly, I think we all do a really good job of doing it for each other.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:24:23

So, Absolutely, Find some people around you that can help support you. Make sure you teach them to find their why Right And today was powerful man, But for that happen, and that's what, there's no failure. That's not a failure. Look at you. We fall. We learn from our failures.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:24:39

Yeah, something in life, man, if you, if you live life like this, i have a true belief that you fall upwards. Yeah, you never fall downwards. Right, failures are not the same. Failure is not failure. You learn from it, you improve. So if you do it right and you pick yourself up, great things happen from it and it actually makes you a better person. Right, i hope this made a better podcast, and I know you smashed it today, so that was even better, olympics hurt.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:25:04

Dude, it is so fun, olympics hurt.

Dr. Rob Green: 1:25:07

Man, especially when you're tapered down and you're mentally chomping at the bit. So that that wraps it up. I think maybe a great way to end it is when you come to a hill.

Dr. Moose Herring: 1:25:19

Think about your wa. Go up, go up, go up.