In episode 22 of HUB Life, we dive into the world of female athletes, celebrating their remarkable strength and endurance. It's a story that defies the old narrative of "Man the Hunter" theory and instead, uncovers a tale of resilience, dedication, and the remarkable science behind it all.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/
Join us as we cover the pivotal role played by estrogen in their journey toward excellence. We'll delve into the often-overlooked hormone, discovering how it becomes a game-changer in their athletic achievements. This episode will explore the physiological advantages of estrogen, its impact on long-term health, and why it stands as a crucial component in the performance of female athletes.
We'll also shed light on the Female Athlete Triad, a syndrome that casts a shadow on the long-term health and performance of female athletes. Throughout the episode, we'll emphasize the critical importance of meeting the energy demands of rigorous training to ensure that estrogen levels remain strong, contributing not only to their physical well-being but also to their success in sports.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8702454/
We celebrate all the female warriors who continually push boundaries and redefine the possibilities in the world of sports.
In episode 22 of HUB Life, we dive into the world of female athletes, celebrating their remarkable strength and endurance. It's a story that defies the old narrative of "Man the Hunter" theory and instead, uncovers a tale of resilience, dedication, and the remarkable science behind it all.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-men-evolved-to-hunt-and-women-evolved-to-gather-is-wrong1/
Join us as we cover the pivotal role played by estrogen in their journey toward excellence. We'll delve into the often-overlooked hormone, discovering how it becomes a game-changer in their athletic achievements. This episode will explore the physiological advantages of estrogen, its impact on long-term health, and why it stands as a crucial component in the performance of female athletes.
We'll also shed light on the Female Athlete Triad, a syndrome that casts a shadow on the long-term health and performance of female athletes. Throughout the episode, we'll emphasize the critical importance of meeting the energy demands of rigorous training to ensure that estrogen levels remain strong, contributing not only to their physical well-being but also to their success in sports.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8702454/
We celebrate all the female warriors who continually push boundaries and redefine the possibilities in the world of sports.
Welcome. I'm Dr Moose Herring, Orthopedic Sports Medicine Specialist.
Speaker 2:I'm Dr Rob Green, Sports Chiropractor, Coach, Trustee Sidekick. We are Lifetime Endurance Athletes. We are Eager Lab Rats.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:Welcome to HubLife. Enjoy the show, all right. Welcome back to Episode 22. 22. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Man, it really is All from like just having an idea to get an almost two dozen podcast and that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:It's all for those hypoxic board meetings up in Forest Hill Park. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's what we even thought about a podcast. We're like you know what man? We love this stuff so much It'd be fun to share it. You know, let's share it, let's get out there, and then, with our computer savvy I don't know that, that was the most. That was a challenge, that was a stretch goal.
Speaker 1:Right. So here we are. That's a scary goal, and I've gotten some decent texts this week of folks who enjoyed the one last week, even some folks that they laughed out loud, which is awesome. So if we're giving you some information, it's making you laugh out loud on your walk or your run or your whenever you're listening. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the goal with this is to make you part of the conversation, right, right, so not to feel like you're coming to some sort of lecture. So we like to share some of our fun stuff, our knowledge, our mistakes, our successes and, and you know, we're all in this together. So if you have any feedback, hubtrainingcentercom we've got website contact. You can reach us at hello. At HubTrainingCentercom, we're on Instagram, facebook, please, you know, share a message. We love this. We're building a community. We've gotten a lot of great feedback and it's it's hub life, you know you'll see that you know I'm not a hashtag guy and I've had hashtag hub life.
Speaker 2:I don't even really know what that means. Apparently it was sort of important, but you know I still do it anyway, just because to me it's we're branded as hub life. Man, it's a certain way. You balance life right. We challenge ourselves, we lift each other up right. We we buffer right. We have the lows and we double the highs with each other. And you know where family is first, and you know our work we're passionate about and then we fit training around it. And you know we're looking for the eighth decade in life and beyond.
Speaker 2:So if we can help you do it in a smart way, if we can help you do it in a fun way and enjoyable way and one that you're proud of, that you can, you know, smile and the people around you love, love you for doing it too and don't look at you with any sort of resentment because you've got your priorities out of focus. So, yeah, thanks for being with us. That's great. So, man, we had a for Todd. We had a couple of athletes out there at North Carolina 70.3.
Speaker 2:You know it's a fun, usually fast race, but I don't know if you saw the swimtizers. Sometimes we're slow, yeah, supposedly down current and apparently the currents may have hit a little bit of reverse on them. So you know it's a shocker and that's a great lesson. You always teach and we know this from experiencing it A lot of times, like you get out of the water and you look at your watch and then if you, if you define that, that you know that swim might be four minutes longer and you're like man, I thought it was a great swim. There goes my day, right, right, and then what you don't know until after the races all over, it was four minutes longer for everybody else, everybody.
Speaker 2:So, if you don't like keep your head in the game. A lot of races are ruined and it's just not something you can define by it. You know, go by your field. Swim courses are funny. I mean currents are different, but like even distances, I mean how many times you see buoys out there like changing and can't be exact how accurate it is? So just go by your field and then and then review your swim afterwards. So right, if you come out of the water and you're like man, there goes the whole day then, then like just remember you have no clue. So those guys did great. Alex and Chad really fantastic.
Speaker 1:They had good seasons.
Speaker 2:They've had great, really great seasons, man, really, really. You know Chad's been, you know dialing it in and, just you know, getting faster, just on a pretty consistent basis. Alex is one of our younger athletes and he's finding his way and doing some really cool things at his age to do 70.3. Moe big shout out to Moe she did 100K bike ride. That's big for her, that was breakthrough for her. She's got some big fun stretch goals next year, man. She's she qualified for Boston, so she's going to start off with Boston and then that's amazing, you know, she did 70.3 first time last this year and then she's going to do Ironman Chattanooga. Wow, man, I was great course. I love that course, but it's a great course. Holy hot yeah.
Speaker 1:Hot. You cross that bridge and you climb, climb, climb and you go down the backside and you turn around and you're thinking I could do this again. I got to go up and down and around and up and down. So more power to her, that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:That's a great goal. I did that. I did that one year and it was scorching hot. It's like late September in.
Speaker 1:Tennessee. Anytime you race is hot.
Speaker 2:Dude. Well, you know, I whine about it so much it probably seems to go up. You're just a heat miser, I think it just follows you around.
Speaker 1:I'm from.
Speaker 2:Buffalo, New York. Man, I'm from Buffalo.
Speaker 1:I've been too many hot races with you to know that Gosh.
Speaker 2:But it was. It's in Tennessee and it's late September. So I did it that year and I was like you know what? I'm going to play the odds it would not be that hot again. There's no way it's that hot again. The following year was just as it was hotter actually, and I was like I'm not going back to Chattanooga. So good on Mo, It'll probably be a beautiful day. The first year they had that race it was beautiful, Right, so hopefully she gets a great day, but she's been just some cool things. So our athletes are just so much fun. I mean, they really are a ton of fun and it's always a privilege to help guide them, and if you have any, any questions or any insight or any inquiries, please reach out to us.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm in Chattanooga, has a, has a. I wouldn't call it a fond memory, but has a very distinct memory in my mind Because I'm not sure what year it was and this, this goes along. You should you should not always follow your friends. Yeah, because a group of us went to Ironman Chattanooga and the swim was canceled. Yeah, right, yep, and we rode and I ran the marathon. Yeah, and I finished and some of my friends convinced me we had not done a true Ironman because we hadn't swum. Yeah, despite the fact we'd out been out there for 116 mile biker, because it's four miles longer and 26 mile. So we re-ramped up and race Louisville two weeks later, two weeks later, yeah, yeah, yeah, you need better friends, man I need better friends.
Speaker 1:I mean, that was just not a good decision.
Speaker 2:No, you know that that's 100% my fault. That's 100% my fault because that was the second year, yeah, and I got right to the same point that I cooked the previous year and I think it was like mile 16, 18. I was like you know where's the golf cart? I'm going to take the golf cart back. This is ridiculous. I know I can do it, but I'm not walking. I did this last year. So in my mind I had a really good bike workout and like a half marathon before it really started to kind of implode and I figured what a great session two weeks before I'm in Louisville and you had a tough day. I remember getting carted to the med tent and full tetany and then people being worried about him. I was like, don't worry, I've seen him like this before. He's fine, he's fine, He'll be good.
Speaker 1:Full rig of mortar. My wife thought I was dying and Rob said, no, that's just what he does after Ironman. He got some cramping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you've had two IV bags and the musculoskeletal damage wasn't all that bad because we couldn't run very fast and you brought yourself to the to the brink. So if you're, if you get reinflated by a couple of bags, you should be good in two weeks.
Speaker 1:Reinflate your ego and everything except for your heart. Muscle needs a break. So, whoop, don't follow your friends, yeah. But, Chattanooga is a great course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a great course you had a. You had a strong day, though, man. I mean considering. It was two weeks later and it was freezing. It was freezing in Louisville.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Everybody was in their skimpsuits on the bike and half way through were shivering yeah man.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, there was a. There was a lot of dropout from hypothermia. That was the first time I think I've ever seen that. You, you saved the day because you had. You had those little hot pocket sort of handhold things, Warmers.
Speaker 1:And I had never.
Speaker 2:I just had them because I was like huh need some buffalo. Yeah, and I've. I you've put them up the bike shorts. Put them up the bike shorts on my thighs so it kept my thighs warm and then I could take my hands off the bars and just put my hand on my thigh where the heat was. Those things, I think, probably saved me man, that's where the artery runs.
Speaker 1:So heating and heating, cooling escaping, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was huge, but but yeah, good luck in Chattanooga. Yeah, mo Mo will have a great time. And and then Kona. We were reflecting a bit on Kona, huh.
Speaker 1:Dude, what an amazing race. And you know we were both kind of. You know, who knows what's going to happen without out the men racing there. But I don't know if you, if you watch Kona or if you track Kona the times that are happening are insane, yeah, and, and I think they had a relatively good day, I think the winds were okay and but, but they had real heat. And for Lucy Charles Barkley to lead out of the water against people like Lauren Brandon 90 seconds, she put on Lauren Brandon in the swim. That's crazy. She swam 49 minutes.
Speaker 2:I saw an over. I saw a wetsuit. That's crazy. I saw a shot from above of the women and it was like she had. She had gaped them by a ton and it was just on a totally different level and there was a big pack. It wasn't like she had broken away and there was like two or three people trying to chase her. There was a big pack working together and she was swimming just significantly further in front of them. It was amazing to see.
Speaker 1:So she swam 49, which is it without a wetsuit, which is insane. She had it set a new bike course record 432. Yeah, that's amazing, all by herself. Out front. Yeah, just out there she stayed two, three minutes all out. Yeah, and there were girls I mean women that were were coming and going the whole time and she got off the bike with a several, several minute lead on some and up to up to 10 minutes lead and she ran a 257, her fastest marathon time by five minutes.
Speaker 2:And that's with Anne Hague chasing behind, like the pressure to to lead from tip to tail. The pressure that's there is so remarkably hard and I just I mean there's. They were saying I think the last athlete to do it was, I can't remember. It's been a while. It was like tip to tail. I was thinking Ferdinand had done it one year but I think he had kind of been in the mix. But for what she did and to run five minutes faster and have Anne Hague, hey, I don't know if you realize, but last podcast we had talked about before they even started, and those are the two names that we brought out. We're like, hey, I think Anne Hague would, I think she's right, the one that's going to win it. And Lucy Charles Barkley has finished second so many times that, like, can she just have that breakthrough and to do it and to do it in that fashion, man, that's that's. I mean, that's a that's. That's one of the best things that we've seen out in Ironman and big, big props to her.
Speaker 1:And I think there's some other important, you know key points. To look at Wakona, anne Hague ran a 248. Even split, wow, 248. On that island. She broke Miranda Caffrey's record about like a minute and a half. Yeah, 248. In the heat.
Speaker 2:It's incredible, man. There was a cool, did you see, at the end, when, uh, uh, brenda Carphe was interviewing her man I didn't know Miranda Carphe's that pregnant again, but that was a really cool thing of like sort of handing, handing that baton to her and say congrats, not so much congrats but congrats of breaking it. And yeah, that's I mean, like you said, across the board. So not only for to win from tip to tail, but to do it when, when everybody's having really strong days and the women across the field, that's so deep. Yeah, um, that's amazing to see.
Speaker 1:It's amazing and I think the last you know kind of key thing is Taylor Nibb was a rookie and she signed up for Kona because her mother was there. She's focusing on short course racing. She already has her Olympic trials for Paris and she just showed up saying I'm gonna race and she swam 51, rode 434. Wow, so only two minutes slower. And she chased Lucy Charles Barkley in the run and then she got run down by Laura Phillips who ran 253. But she still ran a 305.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for somebody who didn't gear up for this Right, imagine when she's dialed in, and I mean she's super fit, she's an incredible athlete. But to like have sport, specific distance, specific training, is I mean that's? That's an incredible feat, yeah did you say her longest run before? This was like 12 miles?
Speaker 1:No, that was Kat Matthews. Oh, that's Kat Matthews. I think Kat Matthews's longest run was 13 or 14 miles, I think. I think I this may be wrong, but I think I saw Taylor Nibb had done 18 training for a half yeah, so. I mean, the whole point here is, as we're seeing, times completed by these females that are off the charts. Yeah, and you know we used to laugh you don't want to be checked at a race, but oh, dude, there's. I mean, it is different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally man, yeah, totally yeah. What do you think the difference is? What do you think? What do you think they're doing?
Speaker 1:I think we're gonna talk about it, yeah, and so I think they're training differently. Yeah, I think they're training more specific to their anatomy and physiology, yeah, and I think they're racing fearless. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be. It'll be a fun discussion. Yeah, fun discussion on it on and maybe I shouldn't bring this I don't know what, I don't know what to say about this, but I think it's important to bring it up. Do you see the Sam Lidlow kind of like clickable stuff that's out there? I didn't see much about it, I don't know it's, it's a bit vague, but he's proactively coming out and saying that he's under investigation by the, the ITA. So we'll draw what well, wada and and that's yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you think about them.
Speaker 1:Well, the last person that was charged was Colin Chartier and he's been on a bike ride from Columbia and through Costa Rica like a year. Yeah, yeah, you're finding self. So maybe, if he is guilty, maybe he needs to find a good solid steel bike and some paniers and go find Colin Chartier. I don't know. Yeah, I don't want, I don't want charging by until he has a chance to defend himself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's the thing it's. It's hard, but like you just live in that naive world where you just sort of hope that doesn't happen. But you know it's part of it and and I'm gonna. You know that guys, we're on the outside looking in.
Speaker 2:I'm conflicted by how I feel about that guy because I remember, I remember not liking him, remember the the PTO event, when he was like he was pushy to Sam Long and to Lionel Sanders and and he just wasn't a likable guy and and Sam Long stormed out of the interview. They're like two American Canadian, two North Americans against the French guy. And I was like, hey, screw that French guy. And then you, you, you saw him finish second in Kona last year and in his interviews and he's sort of a likable guy, was a bit charismatic, so I was kind of coming around and he won this year and you're like, all right, all right, all right. And so I'm judging this guy. I don't know him, but, but those are some of the things. And now you see this and I'm like, if you're from France, you from Spain, I'm always a little suspect of you.
Speaker 1:But but you know, you and I both know they're age groupers that are dirty yeah and we're lining up and racing racing folks that are dirty yeah. And if you're taking super physiological loads of testosterone, if you're using inhalers and you shouldn't be using inhalers if you're doing, doing something, it's just not right and it's.
Speaker 2:It's weird. I mean you're from the medical side. You have people in docs that are doing it for like proactively. You see a lot of like the Joe Rogan's in the sort of like the some of the leaders that are out there talking about the testosterone that they're taking and its for longevity and it's for all these things. So it's becoming sort of like acceptable to some people about doing it. But a lot of these people and we know I mean we see them in gosh, we even see them clinically that are doing it but then also racing with it and that dude, that's that's. I mean it's doping, I mean it's whether you got it from prescription, so, but it's complicated because now they're doing it. They're doing it in a fashion that they think is acceptable and right, but that's coming into racing and you're seeing weird things happening, like the fifth decade and beyond, age groups of like what the hell is right.
Speaker 1:Well, if you look at NISIS here for men, the top performers in your age group and my age group were guys who've been previously banned from pro cycling. Yeah, and they're, and they may be clean now, but but their cycling times are four or five, six minutes faster than the next people so it's you know, if Sam Layla is clean, awesome. If he's not, he'll be dealt with. Yeah. But all we can do is affect ourselves, yeah, and make good decisions for ourselves yeah, it's a great way to look at it.
Speaker 2:And it's a great way to look at it, it's just the lover of the sport. I just you'd love to see it. You know, stay and be clean and there's always gonna be somebody pushing the rules and breaking the rules. But, yeah, take care of yourself, right? You know, try not to cast stones but at the same time, you know it's good to see that they're policing it and it's good to see that they're policing it so you know I'm happy they're testing yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:So a little bit of a bummer, but but back to the, to the great part. So I think we're gonna maybe dive into the, the female side of everything. Right, and it's not just for females, of your female listener, it's, it's great to hear and, but, as as men and father of daughters and you know, to advocate for and also understand what the female athletes going through right, we tend to look at from a, from a egotistical standpoint, like we look at it from the way we deal with things. We think everybody else deals with them that way, and this would be a fun way to focus on the women, right so this is this work.
Speaker 1:We're gonna focus on a slightly different topic and this evolved. My daughter, molly, who is out in Santa Cruz she's going to school sent me an article and her comment was I think you'll like this, love, molly. And the article was from Scientific American and the title was the theory that men evolved to hunt and women evolved to gather is wrong and it was the influential data. In the past, men were hunters and women were not. They stayed home to have kids. We're seeing more and more data that this was wrong. Yeah, that the fact that hunting required in endurance because they would chase their prey till they were exhausted and then in Calculator prey, and all the, all the data and all the written reports in the past suggested men were the hunters. As we thumped our chest, women stayed home. I'm taking care of their kids and we're seeing of evolving evidence that this is not right now. This makes me incredibly proud because I think my greatest accomplishment is raising strong, independent women yeah so in in the past.
Speaker 1:Evolving literature states the day that when women did not have the physical ability to chase prey, that men were the hunters. Right and so.
Speaker 2:I even want to interject now and be like oh hell, no, oh no, you didn't just say that so as the hunter, hunter, hunter gather.
Speaker 1:It has been been written that the the making of of civilization, genetic variability, inventiveness, communication and social life was all based on these biases, that men were the hunter gatherers and women were passive beneficiaries from this and they basically stayed home. Yeah, so, as Molly pointed out in this article, that is absolutely not the case yeah, so what they find?
Speaker 2:what are they so?
Speaker 1:new scientific research has showed there is true, bibibibib, true benefit to the amount of estrogen you have. Yeah, okay, so estrogen, which is a majority female hormone, has some fantastic benefits and those, those benefits are exactly aimed at endurance performance. So the scientific community has has come through with this new scientific data that said, women are actually more suited for endurance sports. Yeah, and as they've gone back and looked at the history and we'll include this article and the notes from today but as they gone back, they went back and looked at it, they realized that when, in 1966, when Richard Lee wrote the man the hunter, he excluded all the all, the all the all the evidence that women were out there hunting, killing, just like men were. Yeah, so the way we defined our society, the way men and women behaved for centuries, is incorrect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so estrogen, we know, and you'll see, you'll see from the article has some huge benefits to the endurance community. One it decreases atherosclerosis, so decreases your risk of heart attack, unless you're eating KFC and smoking. Hmm, so you have a less chance of having a heart attack if you're female, if, if your estrogen level is higher, that it helps motor skills, it decreases neuronal death. So, if so, if you have have a head injury or, as we all, as we all, as we all get older, that the higher the estrogen level there is less neural cell death. Helps memory, it helps verbal fluency which is definitely true in my house so it can regulate your body temperature. So those women that have a higher estrogen level are going to be able to withstand heat better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it helps the cell membrane be more stable and we know when we exercise and we have cell death, our creatine kinase goes up. There's now great data out there that said, if you're estrogen level is higher, less cell death. Why is that? Why is that important One? There is more subq and intramuscular fat if you have increased estrogen level. There is less insulin less. There's more insulin sensitivity if you have increased estrogen level. All the things that we have discussed in prior podcasts were all trying to work on. So if you have increased estrogen levels, you have an advantage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's crazy important, and I'm especially as you go longer. I mean, you see where the females start to like really shine. But now here's the thing how do they make sure that their estrogen levels are where they should be?
Speaker 1:So one key factor is their menstrual cycle. Yeah, right. So menstrual cycle is key and that's one thing we're gonna get into a little bit later, but that starts early on, yeah, right. So if you're having irregular menstrual cycles and your estrogen levels not, okay, right. So I think that's important and that's something we'll discuss.
Speaker 1:The other thing I think it's super important to you know, to realize and we can argue about this or not is it is not a binary male-female world. What I mean by that. We know if you have an XY chromosome, you're considered male. We know if you have an XX chromosome, you're considered female. But there's huge variation in testosterone level which leads to muscle growth, increased type two or power fibers Right, you can have high levels of testosterone, you can have low levels of testosterone, and that can change as you age. And we also know the estrogen level can change. You can have high levels of estrogen, low level of estrogen. So it is not a binary male, female, female thing. Look at the sprinters that are successful, that are running in female races. They're strong, they're very, very strong. But if you look at the endurance community, they have less type two muscle fibers, more type one muscle fibers and are able to use fat better, so they're more suited for that endurance.
Speaker 2:And a lot of that is genetic right. So you're born with certain sort of like distribution, some of that. We won't get into the variability of changing type 2a and type 2b, things like that, but yeah, so I mean, everybody's physiology is, even though they're male and female, they've got different makeup of those muscle fibers, exactly what you said. Look at I always love to look at the Olympics. The Olympics are, you're gonna see, a magnification of the muscles that do the most amount of work in that sport, absolutely so. It's a great thing to show the difference of the physiology and the frame of a sprinter from that of an endurance athlete.
Speaker 1:That's why, reading through this Scientific American article, that we're kind of redefined the way the benefit of estrogen not as a harmful thing that can lead to breast cancer and that kind of stuff, but a beneficial thing to what you and I know and love in the endurance community. So when I read through this article, after I read it my comment back to Molly you know in my head was damn, you got more estrogen than I do and so you have some that gives them some benefit. So if you read through this Scientific American article I want you to understand that women have higher estrogen levels and there's some true endurance benefit to that.
Speaker 2:There's something to always remember, like there's a reason your body has the biochemistry that it has right. So a lot of times we look at it and we, you know, with training I mean, we can deplete those things and they can. Your body can come out of homeostasis from all the things that we're gonna talk about that. But, like, the things that we have in our body are there for a reason and they're there for you know, for your long-term health and your ability, and I think you're obviously pointing that out, especially with estrogen.
Speaker 1:Right. So then this leads into. Really, I think the key to this whole discussion is we know that estrogen has a key benefit to healthy training for the endurance lifestyle. One right how do we train our young female athletes? Well, the Nike Commission, led by Alberto Salazar, shamed females into being as thin as they could be.
Speaker 1:So Mary Kane, who was this young female male runner in high school, had set the mile past this time and you know, forever and ever, and she came to the Nike project at age 15 or 16. Well, after two or three years, she was destroyed. She had no periods for, you know, for two or three years, mentally she was a wreck and she'd had multiple stress fractures. Why? Because she had developed this female athlete triad, which is basically a calorie deficient condition. So you don't eat enough, you train, your estrogen levels are low and then your body basically eats itself, which will kind of go, kind of, kind of, kind of go through. So the American way, led by Nike, right? If you don't know about the Nike Oregon or Oregon project, that is the elite endurance running in our country. So look at why we weren't successful because the lead guy, alberto Salazar who was a cheat, by the way had led these young women in this training idea that lighter was better. And they may be light, but they're not going to be long-term healthy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, disturbing book is, but the longest race by Kara Goucher, that was one of the. That's what started, I think, to implode everything. And it's great to have you know whistleblower coming out and I mean it's just for our young athletes and especially our female athletes. It's disturbing, right, as a father of daughters. And you know, gosh, it's behind the curtains, right, you don't see it. But knowledge is power, so I think this is really powerful to know.
Speaker 1:So I think it's super important. So if we again go back to damn, I wish I had more estrogen. There are true benefits to have an estrogen in a young female runner. Okay, so one is you. Estrogen has a key benefit to bone mass and I see I see runners every day with stress fractures, and stress fractures occur from abnormal force across a joint one or normal force across abnormal bone. Yeah, if your estrogen deficient, amenorrhea, your bone is not normal. Now amenorrhea means no periods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not having yep or dysmenorrhea if you're having intermittent and non-regular periods.
Speaker 1:Those are.
Speaker 2:Those are huge indicators. Of system is not in balance.
Speaker 1:Not in balance. And why is that so important? Because we can develop bone mass up to the age of 30 or so, and so we only have a certain amount of time to build bone mass. And then, at the age of 30, we start to lose that bone mass and as you get to 70, your fracture more and your, your spine, your bent over and you don't have a healthy last decade of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we stress that all the time. Like osteopenia, osteoporosis are not an old person's problem, they're really a young person's problem that shows up later. So we look at it like it's a savings account until about 28 to 30. You are gaining all that bone density and then at 28 or 30, that stops and now you're just minimizing the loss. So not only is it you create a lot of stress, fractures in these female athletes, but, like you know, if you've got daughters or if you're a female listening to this, if you're experiencing that it not only has the short-term negative effects but long-term, like you said, when you're 70 and you know you can't, you're, you're, when you treat it, you're not so much trying to gain the density, you're just minimizing the loss, and it's everything that you do early. So we can't stress this enough. I mean, if you've got kids at home and in clinic, I've talked to us all the time to parents when they come in with their female athletes, because they'll, they and we'll get into the different, maybe ways that they'll restrict food. But if, if they'll make it look like they're taking as much or they'll tell you what they're eating and the calories are coming in, I'm like you know what? Don't just believe them.
Speaker 2:What's their cycle? Be in touch with their cycle as soon as their cycle is interrupted or it's or it's intermittent. That's an indicator, because it's nothing more than a it's. Think about it like a savings account, right? You make X amount of money and you got to spend that amount of money, or less, or else you're at a deficit. And it sounds easy on paper, but reality is like. That's why we all kind of sometimes struggle with our budgets, and the first thing to get cut when you're in a negative is the cycle, which then affects your estrogen, right, and that's just crazy important. So always check in on the cycle.
Speaker 1:And so I think that's crucial. So, and I think, if we can go about this as we educate our young runners, share with them this picture, and the Scientific American Oracle has a beautiful, beautiful drawing of the benefits of estrogen, how they, how they can be successful in their endurance endurance levels if their estrogen levels are normal. But if their body weight is low and then their estrogen level is low, they're decreasing their chance of having the best outcome. So, instead of parents and coaches stressing race weight and how you look in your running kit, we should be stressing to these young females damn, you got estrogen and I don't. There's benefit to that. But the only way to have benefit to that is if they're healthy, not if they look thin, but if they're healthy.
Speaker 1:So the Scientific American American Oracle then led to looking at a review of this female athlete triad and they are directly related. They are directly related. So it is an energy deficient syndrome. Why? Because they're not eating enough. So we're training, training, training. They're losing weight. Estrogen levels are down. Okay, there's one article that said 62% 62% of college runners admit they have irregular menstrual or no menstrual cycles.
Speaker 2:That's a big number.
Speaker 1:It's a big number Okay.
Speaker 2:And the ones that admit who, who, how many are not admitting Same, same. So when you say females, just so the listeners know, female triad, there's three, three things in the triad. What are they?
Speaker 1:So it one is now been been relabeled as energy deficiency. It used to be labeled as eating disorder. It is not anorexia, it is not. It is not bulimia, it is lack of calorie intake to suit your lifestyle, yeah.
Speaker 2:You got more going out than you got coming in. Okay, they got savings account right. You, you're spending more pennies than the pennies you're bringing in, and so you're at a deficit.
Speaker 1:Right. And then the second one is menstrual dysfunction, and we've talked about all that. We've talked about how important, important estrogen is and how damn lucky you women are. You have it right. And the last one is low, low bone mineral density, which is directly from the estrogen.
Speaker 2:And those all three of those are tied together.
Speaker 1:All three of those are tied together.
Speaker 2:And then to couple those words, the the cycle happening about monthly right and dysmenorrhea means it's not happening consistently and amenorrhea being the total absence of it.
Speaker 1:And if you read Mary Kane's, there's a beautiful paper written in sports illustrated on on her whole her whole experience. She was amenorrhea for two or three years and so now she's sponsoring another running group out in Cal California, somewhere. That's changed the way women view themselves, their bodies, their, their techniques, what you know, you know. You know what they you know. I think that's one of the one of the reasons we're seeing these female times being so fast is women are changing. They're healthier. They're healthier, they're eating. They have normal are her regular, normal periods? And I think that's also why you're seeing the ridiculous success in women heroes like our own care, a model who had multiple kids and came back to, came back to running and look what she's doing. It's incredible. It's incredible. You have Chelsea, chelsea Sedara, who won Kona last year after having a kid. Well, you can't have a kid if you're not having periods. Yeah, so we're seeing success of these, these females, and I'm hoping we're seeing this, this evolution of the way we train our endurance community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then the biggest selling point is is reality, the fear of not doing it the old way, but realities. You're seeing these women leading through example because the finishers are finishing well. You're seeing the science behind it, they're embodying it and when they cross the finish line they're going exceptionally fast and they it's just the best athletes look the healthiest. They just look the healthiest Right. And you, you understand that you're only doing yourself harm, but it's, it's rooted in you know the warrior mindset that you know the men and the women have of of just like more, more, more, more, more at what causes it diminishing. And unfortunately, you said it was being led by our leaders, where, where we're actually promoting this really unhealthy approach, getting negative responses and people like Kara Goucher coming out and sharing that story so people can learn from it. And our, our children and you know our, our women that we are, so you know that are so important in our lives we can help them.
Speaker 1:But I just think it's important, it's super important if you have young girls or you coach, you know young girls. If there's any discussion about race, weight, just that's. That is not okay.
Speaker 2:Now the discussion is are you having your period Right? Right, have an open dialogue and educate them the why behind it. Right, you take and write a list and show all the important things of estrogen. Talk to them about bone density. Give them the why. Don't just sort of you got to, you got to eat? I don't know what you're talking about. Don't worry about race weight. Give them the why You're you're rooted in wanting to perform better. Right, so I get it. I love that. I want you to perform better too. You and I are in alignment. Your pathway is unhealthy and doesn't lead to the outcome that you're looking for. This way is healthier and actually it's a win-win. But knowledge is power. Right, knowledge is power.
Speaker 1:So I just think these, these are these articles are key and and what interesting to think to me is, in 1967, Catherine Switzer, you know, you know that name, I don't she entered the Boston Marathon as a male. As a male, because Is she the?
Speaker 2:first one because she wanted to be. Because she wanted to, yeah, because they wouldn't let. So I didn't know the name. I know exactly what you're talking about, so they wouldn't.
Speaker 1:So, you know, in in 1967, some great people were born. No, I'm just kidding, but that's not. That's not that that long ago, when you look at how long you know men had been been racing. You know, you know women, in 1967, catherine Switzer, she, she, she earned the Boston Boston Marathon as a male at mile 18 or 19. She was forced off the course by the race organizers because women were not capable of running that far and it made damage to their reproductive organs. Oh my gosh, that was one year after Richard Lee wrote his truly biased man is a Hunter.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So our evolution evolution, I think, has led to why we're seeing such fantastic training and times with women.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's unfortunate, but it's also fortunate now because it's changing. Right, right, dude, I've watched Vikings. These shield mazes are the the baddest ones out there. So I mean, that's new. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's new. So our, I think I just think you're, you know you're biased of what male and female roles should be. Yeah, good, yeah, I think you got to re, you know, I think you have to reconsider that. But I also think you know the way we train our young female athletes has to be different. Yes, In males the increased testosterone level comes 17, 18, 19, 20. Right, so in college we see the natural progression of freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and that's the way normal football programs go, and that's the way a lot of the programs go, because we see that natural progression of estrogen, meaning of the testosterone. But if you look at women.
Speaker 1:it is, it is, it's not the same. Yeah, so we don't see the normal progression for them. Normally they don't progress until later. Why?
Speaker 2:Because their estrogen levels are higher, they can have a bit of a regression.
Speaker 2:I've talked to Benji.
Speaker 2:So our coach Benji, with Hub is got it because he coaches swimming in that age range and his insight to the female athlete and he's an exceptional coach.
Speaker 2:I mean he's very, very mindful of this and the way he approaches athletes is different for the individual athletes but also between the male and the female athletes and I know that there's a challenge there in that sort of like gap as they hit puberty and the body starts changing and they're getting used to sort of that change and they make some short-term decisions that are not healthy for them. But if they have people like coach Benji or you have a podcast like this and you're listening and you can help somebody or you can share it with female athletes, it's really important because there's a challenging time there when men and the boys and the girls hit their puberty and then the girls, which up to that point are like shoulder to shoulder with them and then struggle to see that jump that the men get and then don't let their body sort of like develop as the time goes along and then they start to kind of catch back up to what their potential is.
Speaker 1:I think that's why a lot of female runners fall off in college and come back at age 30 and are just phenomenal athletes yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's um gosh, it's, it's so important.
Speaker 1:So I think you know in summary, right, I think it's super important that we understand that having estrogen has true benefits, yeah, so I would encourage you to read this article. Look at the diagrams. Having estrogen has true, true benefits to overall body health. It has even more benefit if you're an endurance athlete. Yeah, you're going to have more type one fiber. Type one fiber is the endurance fiber. You're going to have the ability to use your subcutaneous fat and intramuscular fat better, right, less chance of heart, of heart disease and more stable cell environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are four things where having more estrogen has true, true benefit. And that leads into we have to and I think we are seeing it an aggressive change in the way we see and develop our young female athletes. And a major major key indicator there is periods. Yeah, if you're not having normal periods, you're not normal. And if you're not not not having normal periods, there's all kind of treatments and stuff. But you got to get to the point where you're having normal, normal periods One for short term health, two for short term endurance gains if that's your goal, but three for long term health yeah, All those are crucial, I think.
Speaker 2:Can they do testing for estrogen? I can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how would they do it? And for bone density, yeah, so you can go to your, go to your primary care and you know, and kind of the key hormones there, estrogen levels one cortisol level is higher with menstrual irregularities because it gets it's a stress hormone, yeah, right. And as soon as, as soon as cortisol, you know, you know, go, goes up, it's you know it's going to affect things, so you can test for estrogen, you can test for, you know, for cortisol. You can test for testosterone. Yeah, you know you're right.
Speaker 1:And you can get a bone, bone density test to see if you're in the standard deviation for your age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and all comers. So we used to look at, you know, we test these young, 25 year old runners and say, oh, you know, your, your bone density is fine, but there there's different scores. They look at their age group compared to the over their age group and then their scores compared to everybody. We used to only get bone density tests in the 65 and older, after fractures, so those numbers were skewed to the low margin. So if a 25 year old runner has is in the standard deviation of a 65 year old woman, that ain't all great. Yeah, because, as you said you, you fill up that glass until you're 30 or 35, that glass slowly empties, yeah, right. So I just think that there needs to be and there. And then there is a slow focus on the benefits of estrogen, the benefits of having normal periods, the benefit of a normal caloric intake with what you're trying to do Right, and the benefit that has for performance and the benefit that has for long term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things we suggest, and it's a it's a little bit of an asterisk on this too, because you got to be mindful of you try not to get too uh, in the details of calorie counting, but to get a bmr done, the basic metabolic rate, resting metabolic rate, so you know how much calories your body burns at rest. And that's different, right test, don't guess. I mean, I've done enough bmr's on different people that you really you, you don't know that number until you get it. And then you gotta match with like, okay, if I train and I've got to have x amount of calories, and that's a. That's a remarkable number for people, I mean these female athletes you gotta get thirty five hundred calories and you gotta get thirty two hundred calories and on a training day, and maybe it's a little bit lower in other days, and and so that number can be remarkable. Um, and it's really important to test, especially if you're, if you have some dysfunction in the cycle, go to nutrition first and then start to. Basically, I mean, it's this simple, it's how many pennies do you spend out? You gotta be able to get in, and if you don't, the first thing that gets trimmed is the cycle, right. So, and that can happen chronically over time and um, and you just don't know so. So get that testing and then match it with your uh, day to day calorie needs and make sure that you're getting it in, and sometimes a lot of times in with like shakes or because that number is much higher than what you would think it would be. But you, you just want to be careful, because I know it's changed, but I think it might be important to bring up, right I I think of sort of like three key um eating disorders, right, we've.
Speaker 2:We've got anorexia, which is just your, your, your chronically getting in less than what you spend out and that's a life-threatening thing if you've ever really truly seen it. Um, bulimia, where you're purging it out, and a lot of times that can be purging through actually vomiting or it can be through excessive exercise, so it's not just of throwing up. And then there's the orthorexia, which is I see a lot of athletes with that right, they eat so clean. They've this unhealthy obsession with eating clean and, honestly, those are usually lower caloric, dense foods and so while they're eating super healthy and they're lean and they're healthy and they're putting pure things in, at the end of the day, they're chronically and getting less and they put out and they're running into a problem. So it's important to know what those are and if, if that's the case, then it can be a little bit challenging to where, like that athlete now starts to have to count calories, right, and if you get somebody with with some and that needs, that needs therapy, that that's not just an easy thing. I mean that the number one thing is like, just don't you know it makes sense on paper, don't do that, but there's more behind it.
Speaker 2:You really seek out therapists if you have a, if you have a daughter who is not getting regular cycle, but you see them eating and they're telling you they're eating right. The cycle is telling you that there's a problem, right. So you know, do a deeper dive. And if there's a bigger problem with you know eating disorder in one of those three categories and and it's not able to come back, get some outside help. That's a very serious thing.
Speaker 2:That, um, that you would, um, you you'd want to get them in front of, especially not only for now, but they're like you said, they're long term health, um, and it's hard to be a kid these days, man, it's so hard.
Speaker 2:So it's okay. I mean it's totally normal. I mean it's one thing I'm going to tell my girls, and I've already told my wife my girls are not in the have not hit puberty yet, they're not getting a cycle, but I'm going to have a consistent dialogue with them about are they having their cycle and, if they're not, um, so that way we can, we can always have an honest dialogue with one another and I'm going to be mindful of that, and you know it's it's hard nowadays and you know you're going to see it a lot. I think you're going to see it a lot, even though you do. If I'm educating them about that and they understand it, there's still a good chance that they may fall into it and I'm going to get them the help that they need. Uh, so, just be, be patient, be loving, be, be present with them. I think that's crazy important, right? I don't know, it seemed a little soap boxy, didn't it?
Speaker 1:I think you're right I mean I and I and I and I and it's all. It's all starts, I think, with looking at the incredible women results we're seeing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why are they?
Speaker 1:faster.
Speaker 2:So much, yeah, because they're training better, protecting their body better and more specific to their female genes yeah, and I look at the leaders in the female world now that are leading that charge, right, the athletes that have been through it and see it now as we get older and we get smarter, and that are bringing up a dialogue that aren't afraid to bring up some. You know that imploded niking. It should have, right, it really should have, and that went on that long. It's just a testament to women. They're just strong man to me. I and I'm not to say this to like a daughter's I I really think the world should be run by women. Right, they are just strong, steady men. We tend to have our egos that get in the way even more so, not to say that we all have egos, women have egos too, but they have. They have much more healthy egos, um, and so they're just so strong and they won't get things done they've got estrogen, man.
Speaker 1:That's the key, right?
Speaker 2:damn, you got more estrogen than I do, so now we look at it as I, as that's the perk man, right? So, um, you know, it's just uh, I think it's remarkable of where it is, and you're seeing them continue to to do just incredible things, right, it's fun to watch lessons from the knuckleheads all right for lessons from knuckleheads.
Speaker 2:This one is timely because we're going to talk about off season. Right, for most of us in northern hemisphere it's it's off season, which doesn't mean we stop, but it means like every season season's over. Uh, now we're going to head into the winter, winter block, and I think maybe the best lessons from knuckleheads is like don't take it all the way off and don't smash it. I know people that are trying to like you know what? They think it's this huge linear line of progression and they think they got to like do huge volume or super high intensity. Um, and you know, they try to smash it in the winter time and they come out in like march and they're really pretty strong and they are gone and depleted or injured and jacked up in like june, july season's end yeah, oh man, it's in.
Speaker 2:You see a lot of it. I see people that routine me do it and they haven't learned from it. So like I think the the easy takeaway is like don't shut down, don't do anything. In fact, we, we like it to vary it up a little bit. Do different stuff, right. Cross-country skiing, do rowing, rowing we did rowing challenge, um, and don't smash it. Yeah, yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 1:I think that's good and I think the winter time is also a chance to work on specific categories. Yeah, you can do a swim block and work on your swim technique. You can do a run block, you can do a bike, but you can do a strength mobility block. I think that's the winter, but if you stay so focused, like you are, in the race season, yeah you're gonna burn out.
Speaker 2:All you need is just consistency, and I think now next episode we're talking about next episode, talking about and going a deeper dive on off season. So we're not gonna leave you totally stranded, just lessons from knuckleheads don't, don't shoot for the moon and don't, you know, shut down. Uh, and it's different for different people. I would say, like, I mean, the classic thing is what are your limiting factors? Work on? That is a swim technique, um, you know so. So you have a.
Speaker 2:I like to like this is the end of the season for most athletes, so, as hub athletes, we're going to be meeting with hub athletes and then and it's not like, hey, we're going to do the hub off season it's more of like what are your thoughts, what are your goals, what are your wants? What are your um, what would you like to work on? What do you need to do? And then I'll get some from some athletes. Like I need to do more cycling. I'm gonna cycle so much this winter, but like I would, I would strongly encourage you not to do that.
Speaker 2:Let's make some goals and maybe look at it like six weeks blocks, right, what in six week block, would you maybe have a swim block, right. Maybe you have a ftp block, um. It depends on the athlete. It depends on what their season is, what their um, what their limiting factors are, what their next season is going to look like, where their head space is. So it varies and we can go on a deeper dive on it, but the the general thing is like just don't, don't overdo it and don't shut down, right and I've made that mistake a lot actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where you finish your season, the season goes good, season goes not, not so good, and you start hearing from your friends, next year we're going to do x and you get to get excited about. Next you're doing x and you're all in. Yeah, you're, you're all into training and that affects everything. And then bye-bye, junior lot like whoo.
Speaker 2:And dad, I see that a lot, you know. What else I see too is like people that come out and you're man, at the end of the season you're, you're really pretty fit. You got a seasons worth. Your brain and your body need to recover a little bit, but you're like I am the fittest I've been. And people think like, well, I don't, I got to keep it, I got.
Speaker 2:It's this linear line of progression. In reality it's very counterintuitive, but you got to let it go. And if you have the, if you've done it and you'll if you've done it, you usually commit to it because if you watch it, your general fitness come down. When it comes back up, it exceeds where it was before. So it's not the straight line climb and a lot of people are afraid to lose that fitness and they think that like I'm not going to get faster next year if I don't keep this up. And it doesn't work that way. It really doesn't and I get why they think it does. Like it makes it sort of. If you write it out, it makes sense. You draw a line and I'm going from the left to right and it's continually climbing and reality is it's peaks and valleys.
Speaker 1:It's fun to be fit. It's fun to see I can ride certain power if I can run a certain certain pace and I can swim a certain pace, right, it's fun yeah, there there was a name.
Speaker 2:I can't remember it. I don't know if you remember or not, but there was something I wanted to say. It was like the March Muscles. There was a saying that you kind of had when they came out of winter. There's a, there's a category of athletes that come out in the winter time and they are smoking it in March. You're like man and almost every single time they're what they. Whatever it was, it was like the March Muscle. It was something even more clever than that, but they're they're like totally shelled by like June. So when it comes to races and I call those excellent trainers and horrible racers, right- I know.
Speaker 2:And if you find yourself in the category, who'd be like I train so good, but I don't know how to race? Well, I just don't execute on race day. Chances are you're in that over trained population. And then what does that athlete do if you're not getting the results? Racing, and you've been pushing hard and you've been pushing and it's showing growth and and you're not doing well, what do you do? You do more. You do more. You work harder, right, so dig that hole deeper, yeah, so if you find yourself in that rut winter time is about fun, man you. Something that I think is really important in our athletes and and a lot of people don't account for this is the mental battery. Right, the mental battery it's you need. I view our mental battery like a cell phone battery.
Speaker 2:Right, when you get to a race, you want that thing at 100% right and if you're going deep all the time you're, you're depleting that down and there's something to be said for the mental fatigue. You know you may look at your TSS score and you may look at your training blog but you know you're, you, you're not accounting for that mental want to fatigue. So, winter time, what I usually like to tell people to do is, after that last race, two weeks unstructured. You know that first week really sort of do nothing. But by unstructured I mean like just very little sort of whatever you want to do, but just don't do much. And and you know, let's talk when you get that want to back right when you get that sort of mental want to, like I'm kind of jonesing for that workout and yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's, that's less because we've done enough times. We've done it. I've shut down. I've been on the other side where I'm like I'm exhausted, I get up at dark, I go to bed at dark and I've shut down for like too long. Yeah, and that sucks, man, that's. That's hard to come back from, especially as I get older. But then you try to force it back. You know, getting hurt. That's almost every single time.
Speaker 2:My, my trigger for injury and I see a lot of this in clinic is intermittent training, yeah, which is, you know, you're just sort of like sporadically doing it and you, you lose your durability. So you start running like two, three times every two weeks. But but you know, don't fall into that over training side, don't fall into that intermittent training side. It's. It's just, the biggest thing is the consistency is king, right, five days a week at least, and just kind of keep it low. Key doesn't even have to be long distance and you'll find yourself having a great winter, working some limiting things, limiting factors, and and then you come out in March and you're ready for the buildup. You've got that want to and you know you, you will see growth each year by letting it go in the winter time. So blessings from knuckleheads. So I love it.
Speaker 2:This, this episode, some female love, as they deserve after kona, some insight to the female physiology, some simple, really, really important things, whether you're a female athlete looking to get the most out of what you do, or you've got females in your life and maybe daughters that you can be mindful of. But you know, here's what I got from a moose and tell me what I missed. But essentially, estrogen's crazy valuable for the female athlete. It does a lot of incredible things for their general health, but it actually is an enhancer for their endurance in training. Right, being familiar with the female athlete triad right, there's an energy deficiency, there's disruption or loss of period and then there's a bone density factor with that that not only has as an endurance athlete, we know about stress factors makes you a higher risk because you can put normal load into abnormal bone and that can cause injury and your training sidelines can't train very well. And the long-term consequences of it? Right, osteopenia, osteoporosis, which is a bone density thinning, is not an older person problem, it's a younger person problem that shows up later.
Speaker 2:And so our athletes are improving because knowledge is power, because the great leaders like Kara Goucher and and other female athletes that are sharing it. We're seeing in Kira Damato. We're seeing in other female athletes that have had children and are on to racing at an elite world, breaking American, breaking record because they're healthy. So, like that's how important it is for the females around us. They are, they are shield maidens, man, they are strong, as can be. They put us to shame in so many different ways, but you know that knowledge is power about. You know energy in, energy out, monitor the cycle and and that way they can continue to perform at a high level and and be healthy. That that's what I got from you. You came into this. You know I didn't know a ton about what you were kind of diving into, as I thought was pretty cool, but as, as we talked about it, that that was sort of my takeaway, yeah, so I seemed to like what else where?
Speaker 1:else would you go? No, I think that's right on and I just, you know, I love the fact that my kids keep me on my toes and light me up with these articles saying, hey, look at this, yeah, and that leads me to think about things like that. So I love the fact I have that relationship with my, my group, with all my kids. Yeah, that's not number one. Two I truly learned something reading through these papers of the benefits of estrogen and you've you've talked about those and how we have been the running community has been a detriment to female endurance running for so long and we we are changing that. We are seeing the change of that and I think our running endurance community on the on the female side is going to be going to show incredible progress from that. Specific training, specific focus on details, is going to go a long way yeah, exciting.
Speaker 2:You know what I would also point out? I think I think it's changing for so much better, but there's still people out there with an old mindset and I would say that, like, have the strength to call it out. Yeah, right. So if there's anything, you maybe, you have my, maybe. When my kids get older, they're in a cross-country program and if they're doing bad things, I'm going to be a voice that's loud. I'd want my girls to have a voice that's loud, because it's not only affecting them but it's affecting all the other.
Speaker 2:This has got to change and it is changing. But it takes speaking up, right, I think. And female athletes are so great. I mean, they are so great for the fact that, like, they will just like, they'll execute what you asked me to do, man, I wish every athlete was that way. But as a whole, the female athlete is so great with that. And if you see it from an outside, and athletes are just complying because they are going to do what their leaders are telling them to do and it's a detriment to them, speak up so other people can benefit from your knowledge and stop this behavior, because it's it's just it's bad.
Speaker 1:Yep, so we are changing the long-term bias that we've seen from the man being the hunter pounding his chest and the woman staying home raising the kids. We know that the women fought side by side and probably outlasted the men and then came home and and did everything else.
Speaker 2:So man and I married one right. So the thing I fell in love with Mary Beth is she was a strong, independent woman. That that challenged me, and it was just. You know, we're we're rider-diver in this together.
Speaker 1:So what a pleasure it is to raise strong, independent women yeah, it's, I mean truly, I mean absolutely it's.
Speaker 2:It's. I grew up with a brother, so I grew up in a male-dominated household. Now I've got two daughters. I wouldn't change it for the world, man, it's. It's a magical thing and, like I said, the world should be run by females. I really, truly believe that, and so no estrogen is good damn.
Speaker 1:I wish I had more estrogen man.
Speaker 2:So men and women. When you get to a fork in the road, what do you do? Go uphill always.