Welcome back to HUB Life! Episode 26 is here, and we're thrilled to reconnect with all our amazing listeners. In this episode, we dive headfirst into the pulse of current events, sharing our insights and perspectives on what's happening in the world around us.
But that's not all – we're tackling a topic that resonates with many of us: finding your year goals. Have you ever felt lost or struggled to identify a motivating goal for yourself? Well, you're not alone, and we've got your back. Join us as we share personal experiences and discuss strategies to discover fun and exciting goals that will truly challenge and inspire you.
Whether you need a fresh perspective, looking to reignite your motivation, or simply seeking some guidance on setting meaningful goals, this episode has something for everyone. Get ready for an engaging conversation filled with insights, laughter, and practical tips to help you navigate the journey of defining and achieving your year goals.
Tune in to HUB Life Episode 26 and let's embark on this empowering journey together!
Welcome back to HUB Life! Episode 26 is here, and we're thrilled to reconnect with all our amazing listeners. In this episode, we dive headfirst into the pulse of current events, sharing our insights and perspectives on what's happening in the world around us.
But that's not all – we're tackling a topic that resonates with many of us: finding your year goals. Have you ever felt lost or struggled to identify a motivating goal for yourself? Well, you're not alone, and we've got your back. Join us as we share personal experiences and discuss strategies to discover fun and exciting goals that will truly challenge and inspire you.
Whether you need a fresh perspective, looking to reignite your motivation, or simply seeking some guidance on setting meaningful goals, this episode has something for everyone. Get ready for an engaging conversation filled with insights, laughter, and practical tips to help you navigate the journey of defining and achieving your year goals.
Tune in to HUB Life Episode 26 and let's embark on this empowering journey together!
Welcome. I'm Dr Moose Herring, Orthopedic Sports Medicine Specialist.
Dr. Rob Green:I'm Dr Rob Green, Sports Chiropractor, Coach, Trustee Sidekick. We are Lifetime Endurance Athletes. We are Eager Lab Rats.
Dr. Marion Herring: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:Welcome to HubLife. Enjoy the show. Welcome back. Welcome back, dr Herring. How are you? Older, older, it's been a while. It has, man, it has. It goes quick though, doesn't it? It goes quick. Yeah, I keep thinking of the Eminem song Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back we are. Yeah, I know we had a little bit of a break since Christmas time, holiday time.
Dr. Rob Green:Man, you know, what's really cool is I don't know if you got this, but I got a lot more than I expected of messages like hey guys, where are you? Is it coming back? Are you doing it? Those of you who did it big shout out to you. That really meant a lot, because we're in a podcast, we're in a little studio here, and you were doing it because we love this stuff. I know we got a really good following, but at the same time, you don't realize I'm a podcast listener. I love to listen to podcasts while they're driving or working out. So those of you who have messaged man thanks, it really meant a lot. I appreciate it. You know who you are. There's a pretty decent list. Each one of you really meant a lot. I don't know if you get much of that at all.
Dr. Marion Herring:No, exactly, I just want to make sure we're spending our time wisely. If we're making a difference, that's great. We'll keep this up. If we're not, then we'll do something different. Our perspective on things is unique and there seems to be a need out there there for it, so we're going to keep trying to do it. Yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:That's fun, I mean, gosh, we've been doing this for decades and professionally Right. I don't know about you, but I do know you. It's the same way. We are in front of people and we're helping them navigate injuries and we're helping them get back to stuff that they love. One of the things that I think we really really pride ourselves on is we know how to treat those things, but we also know what it's like physically, psychologically. And to share that knowledge, man, because there's no cookie cutter way to approach this. There's different ways.
Dr. Rob Green:One of my favorite things is to remind everybody is like every person is different and that person is different at different times. So we can share our professional experience, we can share our personal experience, and it's fun to have a platform to do it. Hopefully, you may get a little bit entertaining, because I mean, good Lord, if you can't make fun of yourself, I don't think you're allowed to make fun of anybody else. I hope everybody feels that spirit. We don't sit here and say, hey, we know it all, but we've experienced a lot, we know a lot and we can share things with you and whether they're valuable for you or not, we hope it is, but no, it's a lot of fun and it really means a lot to have the following that we do and we would ask you to share it with your friends.
Dr. Rob Green:I mean, we're growing and that's really pretty cool. So if you've got some other endurance friends, do us a favor, send it to them, find one that may resonate with them and share the word, because we would love to continue to grow and share and get this whole sort of crew together, man, because it's fun. We're around a lot of like-minded people who are looking to always kind of get the best out of themselves and get the best out of other people. So, yeah, we love it and thanks for the words and we are back and we will get back into a pretty good cadence. And yeah, that's what. How about you, man Onward?
Dr. Marion Herring:Onward. It's like 2024 is going to be interesting and we'll talk about a little bit. You know how to set up your year, but onward.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, and I think in this episode this is really pretty cool. We really don't I mean not that we plan much before we get into it, because it's just sharing sort of conversation but this one will be pretty cool because if you've ever found yourself in a place where you're uncertain, right, you don't know where to go well, both you and I were there, right, we sort of like where do we go? Now, I know we're going somewhere onward, but like I sort of felt like we needed an address put in the GPS and we didn't really know where to go. So what we're going to share with you today is well, how did we find the right way? We didn't do what we thought we were supposed to do. We needed to find what we wanted to do, and at the time we didn't, we didn't really know.
Dr. Rob Green:But we'll share with you, maybe how we got there. You know some ways to help you if you find yourself in that spot. But then also, like, what do you do with it and who do you lean on and how do you come up with something that excites you? Because if you find yourself in a pattern or a loop where you're not having as much fun, well then let's find a new way. Yeah, so let's share that today. But, man, a lot of stuff's been going on. What's the current events? What's been a few weeks?
Dr. Marion Herring:You know I haven't been following very closely but I think there's some crucial things out there in the endurance world. One, just the heartbreaking loss of Kelvin Kiptum, the 24-year-old marathoner from Kenya who had just set the world on fire, had broken the world record at two hours and 35 seconds in Chicago in his third marathon. So three of his of his marathon Spain, london and Chicago were all sub-202 and he was kind of the great sub-two-hour hope and he was kind of. He was killed in a car crash near, near his home and it's a tragic loss. It's unbelievable. It's a car crash, right, he was driving car crash. And you know, and the amazing thing about him that that that we're not going to get to see play out was he was 24 years old. Most great endurance runners get better and better until they're 28, 29 and 30. The problem was that dude was running 30 miles a day at marathon pace. He was running a lot of his pace stuff.
Dr. Rob Green:Is he the one you referenced that said that like I'll rest when I'm tired, and he says not tired yet that's the app that you were talking about.
Dr. Marion Herring:I forgot that connection of that's who it was, so it I mean we can't do it now, but it'd been interesting to see how he plays out, and but just, it's a it's, it's a. It's a terrible loss to, you know, to the running community. I've seen a lot of interviews from some other great runners and it's truly sad that's.
Dr. Rob Green:I mean so young and taken away, it's gosh. I mean, just mind you, man, life changes in an instant. Yeah Right, I mean, you can be. You can be the fastest marathoner in the world and the fittest thing in the world, and in a blink of an eye, it can just be one little, one little thing on the road. How many times do we drive to and from work? And yeah, gosh, it just goes. Show you got to live every day. Man totally does. And there was a new CEO to Iron man. Yeah, that was pretty interesting. Well, so Scott DeRue from Equinox and you know I'll share something with you that my wife is is brilliant, she's. I hope she's listening to this. She can hear that she's brilliant, she's, so she's just just incredibly smart.
Dr. Rob Green:We both got married Well this is what's really cool about her too. It's like hey, iron man like Scott DeRue. Who's Scott DeRue? She's like, oh, scott DeRue, she's the former CEO of Equinox. I was like honey, how do you just know that?
Dr. Rob Green:And yeah because she's brilliant and she's just, she's, she's, yeah, she just is. And she was talking about like oh, that would be great. And I was like why is that great? I'm like the guy I don't even know who this guy is and apparently Equinox, and she's like, well, he, he's run Equinox and Equinox has really grown in this sort of niche world of workout facility and they're really known for a high standard and he's really brought them there.
Dr. Rob Green:And I was like oh wow that you know we could. We could use a CEO that kind of takes a company who's maybe struggling from a from a PR standpoint and from a from a from a I don't know a tactic standpoint too, and maybe maybe something like that can come in. So so from somebody who's very much in the know and quite brilliant in the executive world, looks at him and thought that was a brilliant hire. Beyond that, I'm just piggybacking off of somebody else's brilliant mind, but I thought that was pretty cool. Maybe that's hopeful I don't know what comes from that, but but I see a change.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah maybe see a change. So yeah, so it'd be interesting to see where it goes, but it definitely was. There was just such a weird vibe. That interview was sort of the nail in the coffin that that I'm drawing blank that the old CEO. Yeah, man, it's already out of my mind. That's how I already put it out, but like I saw it out of mind, you hear that. Do you hear that in my head? Can you hear my head? Oh, that's the funeral in my head that's like yeah, you're going.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, so, um, uh, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's interesting, a lot of cool things to come, so but then and now you got the Iron man and you got PTO, which is now T 100. So some it's not confusing there, but it's not quite. I thought it was going to be the same and what's your understanding of that.
Dr. Marion Herring:I don't really know. I mean, I understand that we've all been been waiting, waiting, waiting for PTO to come out with their race series and it was intriguing this 100 mile distance because it's less running and and you know they were going to. They were going to build this huge series and um for age groupers. Our only option in the States, I think it's Vegas. I don't know about you, I don't have much interest going back to Vegas, um, and there's, it's all of the world and and, and then there's an age group series where you can race a bunch of races and qualify and get numbers and stuff. But it's not.
Dr. Marion Herring:it's not intriguing to me yet I think it has to change, change a little bit but you know, we'll see, and I think Iron man, I think Iron man has to change. I think the PTO is going to involve going to evolve and it's I think the endurance communities is going to benefit from those two competing. Easy job, yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:Well, it's already improved because Iron Man's now stepped up. What they've been harassed about, which is adding more money for the pros, which they've done, which is funny, I mean, I get it, it's business, but I love how they're like no, look at what we're doing. I'm like you're dude, you were forced to do that finally. So PTO did it. But you know, you and I were both waiting for okay race schedule and then they were going to say it by the end of October, we're going to know. And then November came in, now November, Okay, by the first of the year, and then then it came to like by the end of the first month of the first of the year and then they, they announced it and they rebranded to T 100, which I don't think anything was wrong with PTO, but the T 100. And then they announced races and it's great that it's all over the world, but it's also all over the world and it didn't have this sort of like, maybe the sex appeal that I thought it would for for racing, and it just seemed more events than than something. That was like a challenge. So I was a little bit bummed about that.
Dr. Rob Green:But and then interesting part too, was like you have to race. If you're going to be a PTO athlete, you have to do the first five of the seven events, and those go from Miami to Singapore, to California, to London, to Ibiza. Pro athlete, pro athlete, yeah. So that's sort of like traveling. So now you, you're either going to pick one or the other. Either you've either got to go T 100 or you've got to do Iron man. They force that issue, they force that issue, and so you got to pick your, your poison and some of the older, and once T 100, you got these ITU guys coming in. I mean, if you're really looking to make money, and you got to travel to Singapore and you got to travel to London, you got to travel to Ibiza, yeah, so it's. It was a bit of a letdown when it all sort of came out. I was like it's almost like a Formula one Formula one race series without the, without the money behind it.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, and we, we both waited, thinking that was going to help define our year. Yeah, and I read that email and all I could, all I could hear in my head, was wah, wah wah, wah, if I really I don't have much. I mean, I've been to Vegas, I've raced in, I've raced in Vegas. I've had no problem with Vegas, but I just, you know, it's it's point in my life. I'm not going to go to Vegas to race, I'm just not going to do it.
Dr. Rob Green:Dude. Do you know what I think of? Solaris is literally that same music played in my head as soon as I read it too.
Dr. Marion Herring:We heard so much alike where I was like wah wah, yeah, so they're like, okay, well, let's, let's figure it out. Yeah, so then, you know, it's truly exciting right now because we're starting to head toward the Olympics, right, yeah, the summer Olympics. So we've seen the US marathon trials. You know, woman O'Keeffe I know nothing about her on her debut one, yeah, crazy, and the amazing thing, I don't know the numbers exactly, but she ran at miles 21, 22, a five, 20 something to separate herself from the field and she's never run a marathon before.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, that's courage, dude. It's wild Sometimes. Ignorance is bliss man.
Dr. Marion Herring:Sometimes you just don't know she looks so good, yeah, she looks so happy out there running, yeah. And then the men's trials. I don't know if you watched it. It was two, two new training partners who were one, two, yeah, and they were, they were, they were coming down the chute and then one guy just stopped and let the other guy come forward and win, yeah. So I don't know what their, their training situation is, but so, so, so I didn't know their names at all. So, and then swimming trials. I don't know if you, I don't know if you, watched the world championships this last week. Everybody's ridiculously fast.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:I mean, you know some of those some times and how close they are and it's a different world from when I swim.
Dr. Rob Green:You know it's funny, it's exciting.
Dr. Marion Herring:I didn't.
Dr. Rob Green:I didn't really pay much attention to it at all. Only thing I saw was like Ledecky lost for the first time. You're like, wait what? And to somebody who's younger, because Ledecky wasn't just winning, she was winning by a lot. So to have somebody else, which is, I think, kind of cool, not only to like, you know, hey, somebody's the challenger, but if she has somebody to push her, now that it's going to make her lift even more so. So like where, where are those two ladies going to take swimming? And finally, somebody's got with Ledecky to push her Right. And and you need that, you need that because it's easy to like, it's. It's easy to like just leave a little bit on the table when somebody's not right on your back. So, and I don't know, I honestly I didn't take a deep dive. I don't know much more than that other than just the clickbait of like, hey, ledecky lost for the first time. You're like whoa, wait what? And so I thought that was kind of cool.
Dr. Marion Herring:And I think it's, I think it's very, very exciting as we, as we move into, um, uh oh, the Olympics, because that is truly the greatest sports event of all times. Yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:And, you know, a sidebar, a big shout out to Kira DeMondo and we should be hoping to have her as an interview here in the somewhat near future. She's just an exceptional runner, but even beyond that, like an exceptional human. And she was in the trials and she broke the American Women's Marathon record. It was broken just by a little bit after, but not by much, and she was in the trials and she has just had such a great trajectory and you know she's a favorite going into it and rightfully so, and earned it. And I mean it's funny, it's one of the things to say that like she really deserved to have the day, because we don't deserve anything. Nothing's granted or given to you. That's the beauty of this and she'd be the first to say it. But she really was there and she really had kind of earned the right to represent American Olympics and it just would have been just icing on the cake for her and just heat and challenge. And how many times we all had a race that we put all our pennies in the basket and, for whatever reason, you know it didn't go exactly to match the fitness that we had. And she had one of those days and, boy, she was in the mix all the way up to about mile 1820. And then it was, it was hot and it just and she was shutting down and can you imagine that sort of shutting down and watching it fade a little bit? And you know she's got a great support network with her family and she's just got a great mentality. But I caught up with her afterwards too and you know her headspace is just amazing Because I was the first and I'll say this and she won't say it, but I will say it Like I don't know if you saw.
Dr. Rob Green:It's in Orlando they moved the start time to 11 am, right, right, in Florida, and it is for TV purposes, which I sort of get that. But like, as we know, as Ironman athletes, starting a marathon at 11 am is completely different than starting a marathon at 7 am, absolutely. And you know that heat, it's sneaky hot, right, it's very sneaky hot. And you know you're trying to get people at their best, to have the best performance, not have it be dictated by sort of conditions. And it was. It was no excuse, it's explanations, there's heat and it was a bummer and even before going into it.
Dr. Rob Green:Now, even to her credit, and I'm not making excuses for it, but I'm saying what happened. But even beforehand and talking to her afterwards, she's like everybody started 11 Rob, I was like, well, I know, but like it's like there's, and you can see that with Sarah Hall, I was just bummed to see that they let TV dictate. You know the way that they run and the way that they race, and so a big shout out to her. She's, she's just exceptional, An exceptional career and she will continue to have a career. So when I saw her, you know what my first question was what's?
Dr. Rob Green:next Dude what are you going to do? You got all this fitness, yeah. Like, how many times do we had a bad race and be like? You got to find something? Yeah, you got to use all that fitness because you had tapered for this. You didn't be able to execute what you're intrinsically able, so you're at least that fitness is there. You got to find a few things to smash, yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:So I don't know if you watch the trials real time, but you know, I was always. I was watching mile two, three, four I come back to it, mile six, seven, eight. And what amazed me about her was her courage. Dude, she charged to the front. Yeah, she courageously ran at the front. Yeah, she did. Yeah, I mean, she didn't tuck in. She's like I'm going to use everybody else's weakness against us. That girl, she charged to the front, yeah. So if you ever want your little girls, even little boys, to watch courage and action, you watch the Olympic trials this year because she was one of the favorites and she got a lot of pre-race hype, but she ran with such courage.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah dude, and then seeing her step off at 20, knowing she was suffering, even, speaks more to her courage, because at 13, she was still surging in front.
Dr. Rob Green:Unbelievable man. She wasn't sitting in, no, no, she came to play True courage yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:And so us and our lame amateur status. I was laughing because one of our statements we kind of banter back and forth is all out the first 5K to give yourself a chance, which is stupid and ironman. Yeah, but that's all I can think about.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:Holy crap, she's all out the first 5K to give yourself a chance, but running with courage. So you folks with kids in that athletic mentality, have them watch the trials and understand that she stepped off at 20 because she wasn't having a great day, but the courage she ran with over that point was unbelievable.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, dude, I totally agree. Remember the book and she embodied it, stan Beecham's mindset. Yeah, if you ever want a great book, and it transcends sport but it's beautiful for sport. It's just a deep book, it's mindset by Stan Beecham and toeing the line. And toeing the line knowing that, like I'm here and I'm here to play, I'm here to win.
Dr. Rob Green:And she showed that we went to do, she went all in. We went to Virginia's USATF awards and she was a keynote. We had one of our athletes winning a long course award and Kira was keynote speaker and man, I almost cried, you know she was. She's so honest and she's so approachable and she's running around here on the track and I have more people that come in and go. Yeah, I saw Kira and she was cheering me on while she was like running stupid fast. But that's just the type of person she is. You know.
Dr. Rob Green:The interesting part was she's like my superpower is I'm not afraid to fail. She's like I came out of college. I was a collegiate runner, you know. I tried to pursue running. I had some injuries and so I stepped away from it and she had a really successful, has a really successful real estate career. She's got an incredible family. You know Anthony's incredible. Her kids are incredible. So she had this amazing life. She just got back into running and then she got back into running to her trajectory to start to take back off and look at her now. But she always said that I'm not afraid. I know what failure looks like and I didn't, I didn't kill me, right, and I look at all the great things. So, like when I told the line, I'm not afraid of failing because I know what it looks like and I know it's okay and that's my superpower. So when she gets out there she'll put it on the line and she just plays loose and you see it in her running, you see it in her results and while this race didn't go perfectly forward and there were some challenges, like she, she bounces back from it, she's on to the next thing and then you know that's got to hurt and she still takes it and moves on. But no, she toes the line with no feel or failure and she represents.
Dr. Rob Green:I find her to be one of the most inspirational human beings. I mean, she's got every right to have an ego and she's the one with the. She's got the smallest ego in the room, even though she, she's the best that America's got around. So big prop secure. You give us so much inspiration. We look forward to having you on the podcast and, man, it's. It's fun to watch you from the sideline, even though you can be a bit blurry at times because you go so darn fast. So that's great. Yeah, so that was, that was pretty cool. So, boy, maybe we should take a bigger gap between podcasts because there's lots of current events to cover Part of it. Yeah, podcast we want to share with you really how we approach this season.
Dr. Rob Green:You know I'll give it a little bit of context and then chime in and stop me at any time, but you know, at the end of last year, we sort of didn't know where to go. We didn't you know Iron Man's and flux Kona's not really a lure as much anymore. Pto wasn't out there, and I don't know about you, but I was just, I was just lost. I really sort of didn't. I didn't, I was directionless and I'm a life, I'm a lifetime athlete.
Dr. Rob Green:I do this stuff to to stay healthy, to stay sane, and so I don't. I don't need to have races or else I won't do this. However, I need a carrot stick out there. I need to be in a direction, and I sort of just felt like I was driving around and aimlessly so, and I I'm used to I mean gosh for the last 10 plus years knew exactly what I was doing, how I was going to do it, what the next goal was. So I was in a routine, so to be out of the routine through me for a significant, significant spiral as far as like, what am I doing? And so we needed to find purpose. We needed to find that, that that fun, that direction with it, and and I think maybe you were like that too and then what we're going to try to cover today is well, how did we approach it?
Dr. Rob Green:How did we find something that we wanted to do? Because maybe you found yourself there, maybe you've had times where you know it's not so much. Don't do what you think you're supposed to do, do what you want to do. And if your honesty is a self and if you don't know what to do, well, how do you? How do you navigate that? Because I think, I think we navigated that really pretty well and we went in with like zero idea of where that was going to end us. So I thought maybe on this podcast? We would. We would share a little bit about that, but that was my context going into it. How about you? What was? What was sort of your context going into it?
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, so you know 2022, we finished a year with two Iron Man's back to back pretty close, yeah, Right, and we both got to Trombone. And then Kona, kona, right, we got to go to Kona and I horrendous day at Kona and I left Kona thinking, wow, I, that definitely shortened my life, right, and I was not good.
Dr. Marion Herring:Thawing up on that truck at mile 18 was just you know not great, it was a fantastic trip because you guys were there and my girls were there and it's fantastic, but really led up Left a really bad taste in my mouth and so literally very bad, especially that that never mind the bile Definitely bile. So I left 2022 thinking I'm not going to do Iron man, where the last six years my primary goal has been to qualify for Kona. Or do do an Iron man somewhere.
Dr. Rob Green:Six years, that's like 10 years We've been 2014.
Dr. Marion Herring:16.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, well, 2014 we did Kona. So like I think we've always sort of yeah, you're right, it's been a long time, man, we've all, we've all been, you know, we, we get to.
Dr. Marion Herring:We get to November. We have a nice off season couple of weeks, I think. Okay, now here's our, here's our qualification race and here we're going to try to make Kona. Sometimes it works and sometimes it didn't. Well, so we went into 2023 thinking I do not want to do Iron man, I'm not sure I want to do triathlon.
Dr. Marion Herring:So it was that mindset that set up a pretty, not a great year and I stepped off the course at happy you know, not so happy valley it was not so happy valley and then my dad you know, my dad passed and my head's just been in a tailspin and I got this idea that one run a marathon to honor him. And I was in fantastic shape but I ruptured my calf playing, playing pickle balls, pickle balls. I was hurt. So then I my mindset was terrible. So it's taken me three months to decide what I want to do and I thought I was fine just day to day. And I had a coach and he was he's a very knowledgeable guy and he was writing a plan.
Dr. Marion Herring:But you know, without a plan, without that character talking about, it's hard to guide and if you go back to the concept of you have to have an objective, whatever your objective is, and you have to have a strategy to get to that that objective. And if you don't have an objective, it's hard to have a strategy. If you don't have to have that strategy, your tactics are going to be pointless. Right, and if your point is to exercise every day and to be fit and healthy and happy, great, but we're kind of past that, right. I mean, we, we, we set goals to challenge ourselves and those goals can be longterm goals. Those goals can be short term goals.
Dr. Marion Herring:It was, I mean, for December and January. I was riding, I was running out, swimming, swimming a little bit, not very much, and I was trying to roll a little bit, but just felt pointless, right. So you're not talking on the phone a lot, and we, we, we needed an ultimate goal, longterm goal or goals, and then we could pick short term goals. So for me, I think it was 2022, it set the course for 23,. Which set wait, wait, wait, wait. It set the course of this past fall just being pointless.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it's. We were there and we were like, well, what, what do we? And then, next thing you do you're doing reactive things and sort of they don't have. You know, you said something in there that is so true. You need to have an objective. But I would even take a step back behind that too and be like an objective that you truly want to do, not an objective. So a lot of times, we think, okay, I gotta set a goal, because this is what I got to do, this is what I want to do. And I would say in 2023, we sort of did that. I don't know about you. I set goals in 2023 that weren't necessarily super excited, like they didn't, they weren't boring, they were, they were sort of fun, but I didn't. I didn't have like a like a genuine desire to do it.
Dr. Marion Herring:It was just a placeholder.
Dr. Rob Green:No, it was a placeholder. It was like, uh, that was me sort of thing, yeah, but we had, we had raised Iron man for so many years, and many years of two and, like I said, 2022, two back to back ending one on getting cooked on the surface of the sun, which has got to be accounted for, but several years of multiple Iron man. And what people don't realize is not only the training, but then the you know, the race day and then the mental battery. There's a lot to be said for the mental fatigue. So I think I think it was good to have a bit of a natural break and I think, you know, but for that year, it sort of doesn't bring us to where we are now. But but it was just.
Dr. Rob Green:Last year was like a year where there were just placeholders, and then you got to the fall and it was like that weird silence that you had cause. You're like what do you say? What do we do? And then we, we hit winter and I don't know about you, but I'm like why don't I want to do that year again? Right, it's not that it was a bad year, but, like I'd, I'd like to have a little bit more purpose behind it. So when I picked the objective this year and we hadn't picked it yet, does it excite me, does it challenge me? Is it something I really want to do? Um, and so we needed to work on that and I didn't have answers to that and we had phone calls, but when we sort of talked about, the phone call really didn't go in, going okay, I'm gonna. How many times have we? How many times have we? I think we've both done this. I've certainly done my fair share. We've been like hey, so uh, so uh, thinking about sign up for this race, and you only say it just entice the other person because and they know you're going to do it. So, next thing, you know you're signed up for it because you're excited about it. Then you're excited about it because the other person's excited about it, and so that's the great thing about having training partners.
Dr. Rob Green:But, um, but this, this sort of like, this, this boardroom meeting of like, what are we going to do for the year Really had no, no hidden motive behind it about dude, what, what are we going to do? Let's not replicate 2023. And what are we going to learn from it? And you had a, you had a. You know your, your dad's an amazing human being and had an integral part of your life and the pain that goes behind that. That always leaves a void. But how do we heal and make it, make it meaningful, how can we find something? And and so I think that there were some really meaningful things that helped guide us, and I think he helped guide us to what we're doing overall.
Dr. Rob Green:So so I would say, as you find that objective and it doesn't have to be as deep as something like that find the objective that that excites you. So, if you really are finding yourself in a spot where you just sort of don't know what to do, sit back, reflect and and maybe that means finding a different distance, maybe it's finding a different sport, maybe it's finding something else. But like we do this stuff for fun, man, at the end of the day, we are not paying our mortgage on race results, thank God, but we're doing this for fun. I think so many people and I see us a lot we get stuck in what we think we're supposed to do and people start to not like it as much, and that's not the relationship I want with the sport. Right, I want to have something that that challenges me, that keeps me happy, keeps me sane, keeps me a better person. So yeah, as you find that objective, find what excites you and we'll share with you sort of how we found it. But but yeah, man, no 2023 again.
Dr. Marion Herring:You have to enjoy what you do every day. Yeah, you have to. I've got a guy that I work with. He's. He's a young guy and he sells shoulder implants and he is tremendously excited about ultra running yeah, loves it, and you can see it in his eyes. Yeah, he loves it. He's all about it. Yeah, and he's so excited about gains and he's been interested in using UCan. He ran holiday. I just got a text on him. He ran holiday at Lake yesterday and he had a great day. He used UCan.
Dr. Marion Herring:So his excitement about his growth and growth and development is palpable, right? So, ryan, he goes about his day. He's a, he's a, he's an excellent professional, but he's truly excited about this, the second part of his life, and how he can get better and better. He's been listening to podcasts and he's a. He's been learning, learning, learning, but he has his growth on this trajectory. He ran holiday at Lake yesterday. He said he felt fantastic. But just he, he loves it. And even though we you and I have been in the sport a lot longer, we, we, we should have that same puppy dog mentality or we were running trails. It's like sticking your head out of the car. You know what's went in your ears.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:You should love it. Yeah, and we were talking on our trail run this morning. We get too caught up in the data. Yeah, I saw a reel I was wasting time looking at reels and that somebody was asking this woman. However run went, she said well, and she went through all of her data points her cadence, her pace and her heart. And they said how'd the run go? And she said well, and she went through her, her, her data points. Again, the guy said no, did you have fun? I don't know. My watch doesn't tell me if I had fun. Well, that's crap.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, we do it for fun.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, dude, and you shouldn't have to have a watch, you shouldn't have to have to have to have somebody else to tell you, man, you did good. Yeah, you're going to know if you had fun. So this needs to be fun day to day.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:But you and I most people are some men people are cursed by having to have a long term objective. Yeah, so, as we can look at the strategy, how to get there, Because once we have that we can develop day to day tactics. That gives us some motivation to run trails and gives us some motivations to get up at 5am and ride your trainer pointlessly.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, right so.
Dr. Marion Herring:I think long term objectives are key and we've done a podcast on goal setting. You know, you have that long term scary goal and we've set long term scary goals, and then you have to have short term stair step goals to get there. And so, with that in mind, you and I had several phone conversations what was our long term goal going to be? And then what are some short term checks we can go through to get there?
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, makes me think of Victor Frankel's amazing book Man's Search for Meeting Right, and what it really came down to is purpose, right, right, you got to have purpose and so the purpose drives us. But that was funny, we said that this morning too about the because we run this beautiful trails all along downtown Richmond along the river, and it made you realize that, like how was it run, how was the river? And you was like what river? All I saw was my watch. I was looking at my watch and my metrics and my pace.
Dr. Marion Herring:We ran nine, thirty face, but I was able to stay in zone two. Yeah, you're a dumbass, yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:Or around, or somebody's watch didn't upload and it didn't go into training peaks and they're bummed out all day long because it didn't go and we're like, why, like it still counts. It's a rat, like not to say that go without metrics. It's good to have them and look at it. But look around, man, enjoy it. We do this stuff for fun. So like, yeah, man, I mean, don't forget to have, don't forget to have fun and observe it. But yeah, that, when you said that, I thought that was, I thought that was hilarious and very, very insightful.
Dr. Marion Herring:So we had this call and we both, we both kind of struggled, because I think a lot of the struggle we were waiting on to see what PTO was going to do yeah, you know, ironman hadn't really put out all of their red, their races yet and we hadn't really decided. So it's part of the indecision came with these race companies. We depend on or we're being, I think, in decisive and waiting on that. So that kind of causes a little bit of a little bit of a little bit as well.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, yeah, and we've got the luxury too of kinetic multi-sports. So kinetic we talk about that all the time on the podcast and big shout out to Greg and kinetic multi-sports they put on incredible events. So we've got local events to do so and those are fun. Man, I love that there's local racing getting up going, but it's also nice to tack on something that complements that as well. So, like, like, what's the sort of big A race event that you're going to kind of get ramped up for? You know, that's when you get to wear your tux, right, you're kind of like that's, you're dressed up and got to party a little bit, and so we still have those. So I think that those helped a little bit. But again, what excited us? So how did that? What do you remember about that phone call? What did we do?
Dr. Marion Herring:So I've been doing a lot of thinking about stuff. Had to honor my dad.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:Right, and so my first marathon attempt to honor my dad. It ended up in a pickleball injury, so that failed miserably.
Dr. Rob Green:And so I think he was telling you you wanted to do something different. I wanted to do something, yeah. That was your dad, your dad's stranger calf, and was like, no, not that one, there's something else. There's something else.
Dr. Marion Herring:And so I went to visit my mom and she was. She has all this stuff and my dad all this stuff and he has all of his old race t-shirts. Those are incredible, incredible. So I was going through his race t-shirts and in 1978, 79 and 80, he, he, he ran Marine, marine Corps marathon. Every year he ran Boston. You know, you know, you know several years, and that's great. Marathons are great, but it just didn't like you know, no excitement.
Dr. Rob Green:Pause for one second because those were amazing. You pulled out t-shirts from 89, 79 from an in pristine condition, like they came off the shelf Right. That was like that belongs in a museum. Those were amazing, man. Those were amazing. So, and then to see he didn't have a shirt or two, he had two cartons full of like some incredible I mean, it just made you realize boxes of them.
Dr. Marion Herring:And I'll remind people that he ran much faster than I'll ever, ever, ever. So the thinking you're going to, you're going to go, go, go, go, run as fast as he did.
Dr. Rob Green:He set the standard.
Dr. Marion Herring:But then started, started really thinking about you know, this year to make it make it, make it special, one do something very different. So I found this one t-shirt.
Dr. Rob Green:Oh, you're pulling it up. Oh, you're pulling it up. Oh, we should give a picture of this up. This one is better on top and it's called shut in Ridge Run. Oh, dude, it's got the graph, so obviously can't see it on podcasts. It's got the graph of the course and is is circle up, circle up, circle up, triangle up.
Dr. Marion Herring:So it's all uphill 5,000 feet of elevation and if you look at the t-shirt it's 1980. That's awesome. So I did. I did some research on the on this run.
Dr. Rob Green:With 5,000 feet, like 18 miles right yeah, so 1980 was the first year they had it.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, and in every year year since that that point they've had this race. It's the first November of the month, you. So the shut in trail is the trail that the built more estate family built from their big house in Asheville to their hunting hunting cabin on top of Mount Pisgah. Yeah, so the shut in trail is a trail that goes from Asheville to top Mount Pisgah. So it's 5,000 feet. But because of the way the parkway has changed, it can be 18 miles, it can be 22 miles. You don't, don't, don't know. So I'm putting that.
Dr. Rob Green:You didn't tell me that. I thought, I thought there was a, I thought it was a certainty, it was a need to know. Cause I I need others to suffer with me, so I've committed I'm in.
Dr. Marion Herring:If you read the website carefully, it says it might be 18. It might be 21. We don't really know so, but so, so, so, truly a scary thing you and I have. I haven't done a really run like that at 5,000 feet and have that, have that, that, that, that, that, that that set in last week in November and having a stair step to that, trying to run a Boston, Boston qualifying time at Lake Erie, Right. So my fall is going to be a little bit more run focused than than triathlon focused. So that was a true objective that set my year, yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, you know it was fun too. So, as we sort of joke about it, it's some of the best humor, is truth, right? So going back to your trail running guy who, like, who was excited and sort of had that feeling, like if you were to tell me, okay, rob, you're going to go do a racing and run 18 miles uphill, I'd be like no, that does not sound like something I want to do. But to have, like, your great training partner excited about it and to have a deeper meaning, I couldn't be more excited to do this race and to sign up for it. Now you can be like Moose, you got me into this. Wait, what Bastard. But I'm, but I'm excited about it, man.
Dr. Rob Green:And so that anchored our back half of the year, right, and that had deep, meaningful purpose, right. And and boy, that that sort of got the the party started a little bit. But I guess what I'm trying to get to in a in a bad way or a slow way, is that, like, you excited me about it, right. So reach out to your training partners what excites them and through osmosis, right, a lot of times you get excited and then, if you can go together, that camaraderie, like I think I'm an endurance athlete. I love running, I love swimming, I love swim bike running. But what's kept me in the sport more than anything else is the people right, is is the camaraderie right, the locker room mentality that we have along with it. And and so your, your excitement, your inspiration and your father's inspiration has gotten me excited about a race that is ironic, that I'm excited about. Gravity is not my best friend.
Dr. Marion Herring:This is scary it is man 5,000 feet and it probably the last two miles is horrendous yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, sweet, sign me up.
Dr. Marion Herring:But that's that but. But that race is going to have, you know, have true meaning, right. But you're exactly right when you say surround yourself with like-minded people.
Dr. Marion Herring:So, it's exciting for me, for for Ryan to to be in my my surgery world, but he's truly excited about his fitness and he thinks he wants to come at you, which is great. Yeah, you know more than Mary, I, I, I now have a PA. I'm I'm Chris, who's excited about you know, doing doing halves and you're racing his family's in a race and his son is super fast. So if you surround your people with like-minded people and your your, your sideline discussion is on zone two or racing hard or stupid mistakes you made. That's awesome. Yeah, because those people can, can hold, hold you accountable and we know, you know. Once you and I decided, hey, we have this goal, you know goals, we, we, we can call on Wednesday and say do you get it done? Nope, well, start, start again tomorrow. Totally, yeah, you get, get, get, get back on.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, there's a something I heard a long time ago and I just thought it was beautiful Find, get around people who double your highs and half your lows, right, right, if you can get around people like that, people who will celebrate with you and you'll celebrate with them and and lift them up, right, if you have something low, they'll try to have that They'll try to. Hey, no big deal, it's not optimal but like, here's what you can do with it and you can move forward and it's great to be around people like that. If you find yourself around people who are always sort of bringing things down right or minimizing the the accomplishments of somebody else, those people sort of suck to be around. Right, and you have control, your choice. Life is finite, man, your choice, it's totally your choice.
Dr. Rob Green:No one gets out of this life alive, man, we don't right, and it's it's finite and it's going far too quick as I see it now. Now, I don't have time to be around people who are like that. So, like, as you look around, reach out to the people that that do that for you. And if you look around and you don't find many people that do it and you find the opposite, start redefining the people that you want to be around, right, because that's man that excites me. I'm thrilled about that. You're people you've run into have excited you about other ones. You've excited this guy to go to a race that like he didn't even know about. Yeah, why? Because, dude.
Dr. Marion Herring:I want to be a part of that. I didn't even know about Tostar, my dad's short man.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, dude, I'm even, is that? Look at my race calendar. Now too, I'm even more hyped up for it than I was by talking about it. So that anchored it right. So that was like a no brainer. Okay, what if that's the no brainer and that's what we want to do, then we've got to be logical at the same time about what we want to do, like where do, where does things fit? So then the question becomes okay, well, multi sport, run focus. What do we want to do?
Dr. Marion Herring:And so, yeah, so that phone call went, that was the ultimate end of year for me, yeah, right. And then you start talking about about that strategy, how to get there, and we, we both, both, both love multi sport. Yeah, and it is healthy to multi sport. Yeah, it is not healthy to run, run, run, run, because you and I know very well run is a major issue of injury. Yeah, ryan, if you run all the time and don't do everything, you're going to get hurt, yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:And if you can't, if you can't run, it's not great. But we're lucky because we have multi sport and do that multi sport, we can create goals. So I said I said this ridiculous run goal in in in November and you sheepishly asked how about we go back to unhappy valley?
Dr. Rob Green:unhappy valley oh.
Dr. Marion Herring:Stop the podcast. I don't know if I continue this happy value.
Dr. Rob Green:It's the best place. For those you don't know, this Penn State my wife and I are all month. That's the Penn State is. The is happy Valley because it's nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. 50,000 college kids it's amazing, it's the best. So it's happy Valley. You had an unhappy day, all right, but I would like for you to go back in and experience a very happy Valley experience finishing in the stadium.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yes, so I am now on to go back to happy, to go back to unhappy Valley to recreate a happy Valley experience. I would have never done that without.
Dr. Rob Green:Enticement and dude, you will go back and you will feel great. So we were talking about this today too, and how many of us have had bad races and and just for whatever reasons? If you've ever gone back and I've had a few venues like this if you ever gone back to the same venue and and had what we'd like to think of is like slaying some demons, to kind of like put something to the rest. When you go back and do the race, it's actually really quite great, unless it's Iron man Chattanooga. Never go back to Iron man Chattanooga, but um, it's actually quite great because when you, when you're starting to get tired and you're starting to like you really have to dig deep, you can also remember hey, I don't feel horrible like I did last year. It could be worse. I could have my head in the in the trash can right now and I don't, so that I don't feel so bad. So, happy Valley man, you're gonna feel fantastic for it.
Dr. Marion Herring:That's a great place to race, right? Yeah, we. So what, once you set those two a type events? Yeah, that's what we're, that's what we're gonna work toward now. What's your strike? You know what's your strategy to get there? Yeah, and I'm I'm pretty I mean, I'm pretty grateful that I have 15 to 16 years of data on Training peaks so I can go back and look at the mistakes I've made and I feel like I have always overrun in the winter.
Dr. Marion Herring:So I come out out of winter and I've written, I've done a lot of quality bike stuff. I'm run, I'm super fit in April and May and by the end of the summer and by the fall I've probably Bump Falling off a little bit, yeah, so as you're making your plans for the year, you have to look at what you've done right and what you've done wrong. And I think one of the things that I've done wrong every year as I've run too much in in the spring and I've always fallen off in my strength training stuff. So one thing I'm really trying to do is not run too much now and and we're going to strength stuff and then hopefully I'll keep doing the strength stuff for a long term.
Dr. Rob Green:No, yeah, as we get older, I mean the mobility is so huge. Strength and strength for a runner which we've had other podcasts about it, so not just general strength as much as targeted strength to make sure you're getting the most out of it. But they become super important, right, and we tend to neglect them. We make a kind of a joke in clinic all the time of like, you know, I'm an endurance guy and other people are string people and if you give weights to an endurance guy, I'll turn into an aerobic exercise, and if I give running to a strength guy, they'll make it an anaerobic exercise. So we sort of have that gravitating.
Dr. Rob Green:But you need enough strength to help you do the things that you want to be able to do. You don't have to train the house down, but but it becomes so vital that we don't. And that's another guess that we're looking to have a On the podcast. We've got a really great strength and conditioning and we that's our expertise too but another the author of strength for cyclists, who will come on and give perspective on how we need to approach his endurance athletes. But it's gosh, it's so important and how many years that take us to appreciate that.
Dr. Marion Herring:And I don't know how many of you have read Peter tea, his new book. You know, one of the most important things in health span, which is how long you live well Versus lifespan, which is how long you live, is strength. Yeah, so you need that zone to ability, but you also need Strength, right. You also also need that high VO2 max, yeah, right. So there's. There's three concepts, if you focus on it. There's steady state, there is the O2 max, work and their strength. Yeah, and we're not talking about qualifying for coming, we're not talking about being able to run some 18 or 22.
Dr. Rob Green:My oh yeah uphill, right.
Dr. Marion Herring:We're talking about health span, yeah, right, and so all those. So in the past, as I've gotten into Ironman training you just for sheer Timing, I've always stuck when strengthening stuff because I don't have time. I did have time if I ran less or road less, but I just didn't do it.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, and so worth it. And you know what we hear a lot of. Two is you know, just like you alluded to. Well, I do Ironman, I do a lot of. I'm a cyclist, I'm a runner, I'm super strong. Go, okay, next time you go for your hour run, do 10 body weight squats every 10 minutes and tell me how your legs feel the next day, because you don't have that kind of strength like you got enough leg strength to do your long course work. Yeah, but it's. Don't confuse that with, like leg strength. We get that with walkers and runners all the time. They think their legs must be strong and reality is like no, they're really what endurance learn, do you see, with Jack legs? Yeah, it's, it's a robot. You need enough strength to do the aerobic exercise? Yeah, but don't confuse that with strength training.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, don't so we wrote a blog two years ago. It's it's available on the webcast of don't be an Ironman right, but because it for most of us, when we're in our peak Ironman fitness, if we're two weeks out from going to Kona Kona and have a good day, we're fragile, yeah right.
Dr. Marion Herring:Our immune system stinks. Yeah, our weight is down to to an unhealthy healthy level and we're fantastic going straight ahead for a long period of time as a certain in a limited range of motion, right. But if you try to bend over and pick up the kids or if you have to have to sidestep on something, your sagittal plane when we have to, means your ability to work side to side is terrible, yeah, so if you're over, if so, as you work and as you're working these goals, it needs to be a overall fitness and this is a long answer for you know.
Dr. Marion Herring:You know, maybe a long run for a short slide is do your strength training, do your VO to max training and and do your zone to train. So We've set two goals one run, one going back to unhappy Valley, and then and then, and then. These Strategy to get there will be. Are there other races we want to put in there?
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, it's fun, yeah. And one of the thoughts was like, do we do Ironman this year? I don't know about you, but I Just didn't have as much excitement about doing it. I just don't. I, if I do what I think I'm supposed to do, then, yeah, we do it every year. It's been every year for since 2005. But but, honestly, like I think, I think my, my, my desires change, at least for this year. So if I'm honest with myself, the answer is no. So I, I poise that to you when are you with Ironman?
Dr. Rob Green:No, no, no that's a firm answer.
Dr. Marion Herring:And I mean I just I've checked that box for a while. I'm not I'm not saying I wouldn't go back there, but it's a firm no, and you know I love you guys. I mean in the in. Even if you said we're going to Texas and we're going to Mount Tremblanc, I would have to say Sherpa, I'd love to be a Sherpa. Yeah, I just my head can't wrap around that right now.
Dr. Rob Green:Well, we've had goals, right, we've had goals with Ironman and had a lure and it was fun and it's still fun and I would at some point come back to it possibly. But the goals have been accomplished, right, we've accomplished the goal. So now is the goal is like I just want to keep doing it and keep doing it, like I'm time to make the doughnuts, time to make the doughnuts, like I don't have a goal to accomplish, that I sounds. I don't mean to make a sound, it's difficult, that I haven't accomplished already. I need to move on to something else, which is okay and that's a healthy thing.
Dr. Rob Green:I would argue that maybe Iron man helped me, sort of you, open some space to some other things and rather than go for a six plus hour bike ride and run afterwards, I'll go for a three hour bike ride, and now I'm not as like toasted to be able to go coach my kids soccer games and things like that. So just in my phase of life now I've got some friends that are like, just like crazy excited about Iron man, and that's when I get excited for the coach athletes getting to Iron man. I'm so excited about it for them, and so that excitement is there. I'd love it. I love the long course, I love the challenge. I've got deep respect for it, but from a day to day, from the physical challenges of it, I've got other things that I'd like to explore, and the cool part is it seemed like you were in the same spot too.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah. So use your friends around you, right, yeah, yeah. And if they're not, if they're not like mine, if they're new friends, Dude, seriously.
Dr. Rob Green:I mean, how many times you get, how many times you like think you could try to help somebody out and you hang out and you're like, every time I leave I feel crappy, drain, I feel exhausted, drain. So, yeah, get around like-minded people. So if we don't have long course drive, long, well, long course athlete, what are we going to do? So how about a marathon? Why don't we do a marathon? Marathon's easy. If you do a marathon, you only need to bring your shoes Right, right, you only need your bike and all your crazy nutrition and, like, your hydration and your swim gear and your wetsuit and your goggles and all your. You bring shoes and a run belt.
Dr. Marion Herring:But marathon is intimidating Cause it hurts, Dude it's two or three days it hurts and we race Ironman. It's like, oh, you ran 26.2 miles off, a 2.4 mile swim and 120 mile bike ride. That's awesome.
Dr. Rob Green:It's a different ball game running a flat start marathon Dude if you gut yourself out on a marathon, and the amount of pain and suffering on a marathon is legit.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:Dude, it's. So you know the amount of recovery time it takes from an Ironman and from a marathon are pretty much similar, if not a little bit more from the, and the reason being is like a good Ironman marathon, the one where you've really run well and you've paced yourself well is about 20 to 30 minutes off your fresh marathon time and it's a grind. But it's a different. It's a long day. You've swam a bike before. In a marathon you're running 20 to 30 minutes faster. That damage to the muscle system is significantly higher at the faster pace. So that's why it's grueling, it's. And I'm a true advocate of like. Especially when people we do long courts, we're like what's the hardest distance? Ironman must be the hardest distance. I'm a true advocate of like. Whatever distance you're doing is the hardest distance. If you're doing it right is the hardest distance, you're all in. You're all in man. So yeah, marathon's a bit of a different piece, but boy, it would be fun. We haven't gone to Boston for a while, wouldn't it be fun to go back to Boston? And if we want to go back to Boston, I'd rather prefer to go back to Boston next year rather than qualify and race and wait like a year and a half two years to where it feels like forever away.
Dr. Rob Green:So up, popped up. It's not far away from my hometown, eerie Marathon my kind of weather it's in September. It's a nice, solid venue around Prescott Island. It's flat, it's fast, it's not that hard to get to you, especially when you don't have to use a bike box and all your swim stuff and everything. And it was about eight weeks away from the shut-in ridge run so we can actually recover smartly from it and then just have like a little bit of a buildup into it. It could fit time-wise. It's a good 12 weeks after 70.3. So it seemed to fit in. What were your thoughts on it?
Dr. Marion Herring:I think it has perfect, because we were looking for marathons to try to qualify for Boston, because that's a new long-term goal and it just seemed to fit.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah. So now if we've got three races, they sort of check the box. This is what I thought was cool and excited me. You've got a 70.3. It's a multi-sport, it's a challenge, it's an Ironman feel, and that is really exciting. That's the springtime and then, boy, it'd be really pretty fun to go back to Boston again. We've got enough time.
Dr. Rob Green:Summer's here in Virginia, it gets silly hot, so to not have to do a bunch of bricks and run in the heat. If we can just do it early in the morning, let's train for a marathon and then we end it with the deepest meaning race. It's a great challenge. So now we got three A races that have different meanings Multi-sport to challenges for what we love, or multi-sport athletes Marathon. That is an ultra challenge that we could chase time and then try to qualify for Boston, and then a really epic adventure that's gonna have a tribute to a great man that is just so inspiring. So those are three key things. I don't know about you. I started to get excited when we started to pencil those in. And what do we go from there?
Dr. Marion Herring:Now you gotta find a strategy, yeah, how to get there. And we're very, very, very lucky locally because we can use kinetic multi-sport to practice racing, because I don't know about you, but when you don't race for a while and you go, put your tucks on and your aerial helmet, you definitely lose skills on how to get on and off the bike and nutrition and all that stuff.
Dr. Rob Green:Boy. Covid really taught me that we took a lot for granted. Man, that first racing after COVID, you were like apparently I had a lot of skill that I had forgotten about. A lot went into that.
Dr. Marion Herring:But it's fun to race locally. It's fun to race and sleep in your own bed. There's a great town out there, so I don't care how fast you are, You're gonna have people that they're gonna race Courses are challenging. If you look at, in my opinion, one of the most challenging half Ironman courses is the Connecticut Run Dude. I love that race. That is brutal.
Dr. Marion Herring:That damn lollipop. Going down at the hill is brutal. So we're a little bit lucky because it has some local races. What I didn't realize was my PPA showed me that there's a Cal, there's a California Tritrathalon series. That's similar venues, just different dates here in Richmond. So apparently they live out there part time and live out here. There's all kinds of races, so you can find races to test your limits, to practice racing as you develop to this next goal.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, and so we go to those sites and then you start to look at races, that sort of excite you. And then what are the build-ups? So if we've got a half Ironman and we wanna do the end of June, june 30th, what are some of the races we can do? And we pick something in April, we pick something in May, we pick something in early June. Yeah, training races but also some solid workouts.
Dr. Rob Green:Like racing is an underutilized thing. A lot of times we put all our eggs in one basket and we forget that, like racing. Number one is fun. Number two it helps you with the skill of learning to race and having those race jitters, those race fives. Number three it's an awesome workout, dude, it's an awesome workout and it's another chance to like develop the skill of pacing. But there's just nothing like being out there and we forget that. And you can have your C races, which C race doesn't mean you put in a C effort, it just means you're not tapering down so you're tired for it. So your result as you go to races and people like it's my C race, it's a training race, because everybody wants to let you know that like that's an excuse. It's an excuse, exactly right, it's an excuse. You're toeing the line.
Dr. Rob Green:It is what it is, but you got a number on dude, you got a number on and you're here, but at the end of the day, well, I could have run faster, but I'm training through it and be like, no, we're here to have fun, but use it as a training race. Have fun and enjoy it, man. And I mean, how many times have we said that I miss those days of when we would just like go and race and drive home. We'd be home by like 10 am and it'll be fun to get back to some of those days, but those plugged in really nicely, building up and timing really matters. So like, if you're gonna look at those races, find something that works, but like have them weeks away from what you're looking to accomplish.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, the other issue is, as we get older, is you can go to the well, and I think that's one thing. Racing, I think that's one thing. If you race short course, meaning sprint or Olympic triathlon, you go to the well and you go deep to the well. So it teaches you tolerance to maximum heart rate or maximum maximum effort. So you get true fitness on that and there's a fitness game from that. But you can't bounce right back and go all in on Monday. So part of that is all in effort. But then having to have them to do this, but our knowledge to take two weeks off or not two weeks off, two to three days off or active recovery, yeah, so it's got to fit.
Dr. Rob Green:It's got to fit, and for all athletes, especially if you get older. But gosh, when you do this, when you're older you realize that you should have been smarter when you're younger. Is like we view rest as a four letter word, like it's a bad thing. And there's a simple formula, right, stress plus rest equals success. And if you don't actively, inactive recovery is better than just passive recovery. But if you don't recover right when you train, you're weaker, you're less than what you were, and if you don't give your body some space to repair and regenerate, you go back up. So it's not this linear line of progression. So, yeah, not enough people, and not only physically. But we were talking about this too.
Dr. Rob Green:Don't forget to account for the mental battery, right? I think mental fatigue is much more damaging than the physical fatigue and it's invisible and we tend to overlook it and we just sort of grind through. And one of the best ways to know is, if you've decoupled right and you've consistently, you're putting in a certain level of effort and you're getting slightly less output. If your output is less than your input relative to what you expect, and it's trending that direction. Most athletes, what do they do? They work harder. I'm losing my fitness. Well, if you're training consistently, you're decoupling like that. Give yourself some space. Give yourself five active, easy days. You'd be surprised what happens. But yeah, man, not only physically but mentally, train and recover, but don't forget going to the well comes at a cost, a lie or something to dig out of it, and you'll get faster by doing less Right.
Dr. Marion Herring:And I think in another aspect, if you are having a hard time making goals, you're probably mentally fried. Yeah, if you've been trained through the winter and you've been going every day and you're really you know, you're just having a hard time setting up something that excites you. Check your mental battery. Yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:Now, you know it's funny, I never thought. Well, as you say, that it makes me realize. I think that might have been why I had a hard time earlier in the year trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was just tired Me too, I was just tired and I'm like nothing excites me, man, right, right, you know I'm going to train them and do some, but I don't want them to do it, and I think my mental battery. I view it like a iPhone, right, you can, iphone's fantastic. When it's down to 5%, that thing's going to shut off. It doesn't matter how hard you push the power button. Yeah, that's it, right, so like you got to have an account for that, and you know that's a great point, man, if you can't find it, just relax, take a step back, let your body recover and it'll come. Yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:And there's no and there's no. No hurry. If you don't have a goal right now and you don't really want a goal, then don't have a goal. Yeah, take downtime and do something. Yeah, and use that time with your family or use that time with work or focus on something different, and when you get excited about it again, then set a long-term goal and then set a short-term goal to get there and then develop the tactics to get there.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, so this conversation you and I had about training, a calendar for 2024, happened, what, probably two or three weeks ago, I would say, and we had been talking on that note. We had been talking about like what are we going to do? What are we going to do? We had been talking about that for a few months, quite honestly, but we never had the phone conversation about it because I think we both sort of weren't in a position to actually have that conversation. We didn't know Mentally.
Dr. Marion Herring:We weren't ready.
Dr. Rob Green:Mentally we weren't ready. So, even though we wanted to, we were smart enough and I would say that that's a big credit to us. And I would say the athletic maturity is I like to think about it which is, as we just get wiser with what we do, about allowing that space to occur and being okay with it, right, yeah, and then it finally came at the right time where I mean I'm excited. I look at it and I look at that schedule and I'm excited about it. I'm not overwhelmed by it, I'm not like sort of looking at it, just going, yeah, okay, that just seems like something I would normally do, looks like my normal thing. I go oh, those are intriguing to me and they're diversified, it's gonna take some work to get there.
Dr. Rob Green:It's gonna take some work to get there and that work's gonna change, and I think that's really cool and who's to say that things don't change from what we penciled in? But I feel really comfortable that that makes a lot of sense as far as like a good, healthy buildup, right. But it also gives me like happiness to think about it and to think that it's gonna end with a race with such that deep meaning and everything is just icing on the cake on top of it all. So, no, I don't know if this is helpful or not, but that's how we approached it. We really had no idea.
Dr. Marion Herring:But then so you've got those steps right, you've done the long term, you've done the short term, you have these fun little local races and then you get down to the granular nature of it. Then what and I think that for me, was one of the most important parts of the conversation was what does that mean? Monday to Sunday? Yeah Right, so if we're gonna focus on multi-sport first, with your work schedule and my work schedule, can we coordinate that enough and have some holding each other accountable enough to make it work? So talking through the specifics and everybody's specifics is gonna be different. What are you doing on Monday? What are you doing on Tuesday? What are you doing on Wednesday? We mean that whole week, knowing that if you're multi-sport training, you need swim training and you need bike training and you need run training for specific efficiency of that event.
Dr. Marion Herring:But for me, I know every single winter I overrun, so I'm trying to run as well. That works, I don't know. I'm sure try it and see. Need time for strength training. So how do you work that in Monday to Sunday? So you've got this long range goal, you have these short term interim goals. But then how do you get there? And I would argue with anybody. It's not heroics on your weekend brick, it's consistency. So if you're consistent day to day, week to week, and you do a thoughtful build in each of the swim, bike run lifting, that's what's gonna give you success. Not look at me. This weekend I raced on Zwift and ran 5K off the bike fast.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, you know you asked me a question. I don't know if you had motive behind it other than just sort of asking the honest question. There's always motive. Yeah, there is. You are sly guy, but you said what's gonna keep you accountable?
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah.
Dr. Rob Green:And I was like, well, I've committed. And then I thought within a second later I was like you, you. So we had sat down and our schedules are not tremendously different there's a little subtle nuances, but for us and you can find your way we really sat down and we mapped out the tactics, like you said. We had the okay, what's a week look like. And then here's where we would do, like Sunday, we do our trail runs, we'll do on Saturday, we do maybe a pacing bike, but like here's where I do my hard run, here's where I do my hard bike, here's where I would do my study runs, here's where I do my swims. And then we also looked at and said, okay, well, we would do lifting here and we would do lifting here. And we even changed that a little bit just because we started to think critically together about, hey, what tissues need to be ready for what days.
Dr. Rob Green:And so we mapped out just like, essentially a just a overview outline, didn't get into the nuances of like, well, what would that hard run be? But it's much as just saying, okay, here's the quality one run, here's the study runs, here's the quality bike. And so that way now, like we, and it's been kind of fun, man. It's a good sort of connection. What you got today, how'd it go? Did you do it? You asked me this week I missed a swim. This week, work out a hold of me. And I said, for a hundred different excuses I could give you, today was a miss, and the next day you're like well, today doesn't have to be a miss.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, that's okay. So the accountability of it.
Dr. Rob Green:But what's happened to me is usually I've missed one and it's spiraled out to where I'm like you know what, I've got things I gotta do, I'll catch up with it. So, like the accountability was to check in, to check in with you and for you to check in with me and I can give you the same to give me and give a lovingly harassment when it needs it, double the highs and half the lows, and that's pretty fun. So that worked for us and it did sort of align. So whether you can find somebody to do some of the workouts with or somebody to share the journey with and then create some accountability to one another, yeah, so I thought that was really cool. So when you asked me, you said what's gonna keep me accountable? Well, you are, and hopefully I can keep you accountable.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yep, exactly. But as you lay this out, and hopefully you've got somebody to talk to, if you have a coach, great. If you don't, that's great. I've recently separated from my coach because we weren't seeing eye to eye. Not because he was a fantastic coach, he just his ideals and goals were different than my ideals and goals, and it's all about me. Yeah, dude, it's all about me.
Dr. Rob Green:Not enough people realize you can hire and fire whoever you want, whenever you want. Right, right, exactly.
Dr. Marion Herring:And so I think, I think what you have to do, I think you have to be realistic with what makes you happy. Realistically, set goals that scare you a little bit, and then they've got a way to get there.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, yeah, not totally man. And on the coaching side of it, I can't help but advise. I mean, there's just nothing like having somebody help you along the way. We've done this for so long. We know our body so well. You know, sometimes it's nice just to have delegated out. But if you can find somebody I mean, and maybe you might be in a place where you don't know other people that want to do what you do find a coach that resonates with you and find somebody who will share that passion, right, doesn't just give you the X's and O's, but really has that passion for you. There's ways to find that, but, as you said, it is about you, right, it's about you. Don't forget to advocate for yourself. Are you having fun? Are you getting what you want from it? Because if you're not, like we said, we're not paying the mortgage. Like, make sure it's fun. So if you've got training partners that get that out of you, great. If you don't, you can. You know, it's always great. There's just nothing like having a coach to help you along the way.
Dr. Rob Green:And another thing is is like reach out to like communities, whether it's a local tri club or local groups. They can be intimidating at first Master swim group. Master swim groups, it's so, and what a bad name for it because it's masters, because, yeah, but by masters to the it's not a bad name for the name of it. I mean bad name to what goes along with the barrier of entry. Somebody who's going to swimmer is like I've got to be a master to be there and be like no, it's the most welcome. You'll find the most welcoming people if you can overcome that intimidation factor. So like reach out to groups and with nowadays, with online sometimes online forums and different things like that, so find it. It's about you have fun with this.
Dr. Marion Herring:Get something.
Dr. Rob Green:Build a community. There's lots of different ways to be able to build that community, but you're lucky enough to have training partners that share like same like mindset, and we've shared a lot together and you know it's funny, you become deeper friends with those of you that you sweat together. So yeah, make sure it's about you find what works, but but find it.
Dr. Marion Herring:Yeah, so I would start. I would get a plain white piece of paper right. Write down what you think your goals are, Make sure you have a timeline to get there and then figure out what the day to day is going to be. And if you miss a day to day, who cares? Yeah, Go to the next day, but don't get. Don't get, don't get thrown off and be. Be be off for weeks. Yeah, but keep it realistic. It's fun, it's fitness is both of you. It's fun. As soon as you say I have to do something, you're not in the right mindset.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, that's one of my favorite moosisms, man, anytime you hear somebody say I've got, I have to do something, I always replace it. Anytime I say that moos stops me right away you get to do it and you're like, you know what I do. I'm grateful for the fact that, like, I've got the opportunity to do the things even the things that you know challenge me that I may not want to do. I'm lucky to do it. So, yeah, no, totally man. So there's so many different ways to do this. There's so many different ways. But if you come back and just keep it simple, right, Keep it by the kiss method, just keep it simple. Sit down, get a sheet of paper, find, find something that's what do you want to do, what excites you, what's your why? Yeah, explore that, right. And then, what do you really want to do? Right, and maybe write some things down. It's in pencil, not pen, so that way, just purge things down on paper. Sometimes, just doing that, you, you'll figure out what really sort of resonates with you, maybe even come back to it, maybe even just purge it down, come back to it a week later, a day later, and then start to figure out what you want to do and then build around that Right, and just make sure it's it's something that you want to do, and then use the resources around you, whether it's a coach, whether it's your friends, whether it's your training partner hey, don't forget your spouse.
Dr. Rob Green:They sometimes, especially with this stuff, like you want to do it. Check with them. Hey, I'm thinking about this, would you want it? Maybe they're excited about it, right? Hey, we're going to go do this. Would you want to go? I'm not going back there, I don't want to do that. Or, hey, I want to train for Iron man again, I want to do it again. It's been 20 years of doing it and they look at you and go hey, just how, about one year where we don't do it? Maybe, maybe, maybe it's important to ask around and and find the balance. Maybe maybe they're asking for you to connect a little bit more in life. But, but use all the resources around you and find your way, but make sure it's. Make sure it's fun.
Dr. Marion Herring:Lessons from the Knuckleheads. So this is one of my favorite parts of the podcast. We've had lessons from Knuckleheads since we started and the goal with these is to to share with you mistakes we made, have made so you might not make those mistakes, but make your life a little easier. And we we talked about you know, you know, you know planning of the year and consistency. And something came to mind over the last four or six weeks I think it would be a great lessons from Knuckleheads. So those of you that are trying to swim in the winter right, you swim, you swim to swim.
Dr. Marion Herring:If you leave your suit in the car, it's sub 25 degrees and you go into the swim session and your suit is frozen or cold, you're trying to put that suit in. So several times over the last four or six weeks, I usually leave my suit in my car. That shit's been frozen. Now I know there is a. There is a movement out there where everybody's in the cold plunge and people in the cold plunge and they're doing it and the more and that's great. It's sub 50 degrees and you get in that cold pool and you get in.
Dr. Marion Herring:I hate cold, I hate cold water. I'll never do a cold punch or the morning. But what I started doing instead of cold plunging is freezing my baby suit in my car and then when I go to the wine and put that on, it's a cold punch, it is fricking, miserable To the vitals, cold punches and vitals. So my lessons from Knucklehead is when you get out of the pool, get all the water out of your suit and make sure you take your suit inside. So when you come out and then you leave it in your car, it's not frozen, solid when you got it, good when you got to put it on.
Dr. Rob Green:Oh, that's hilarious Lessons from Knucklehead. What kind of sounds do you make in the locker room when it's six in the morning?
Dr. Marion Herring:It's a high pitch sound and I'm telling you and there might be some squirming and moving around and but and instead of, if you don't want to spend 2000, it's $2,000 on a cold plunge tub, just leave your suit in the car during the winter and go put that thing on.
Dr. Rob Green:That's a. That's a. That's a great lesson. But I can't help but think of the guy that's sitting in the locker room, sort of just away from you, looking over going. That guy just fixed my knee, like last week. What is wrong with him? What, what?
Dr. Marion Herring:My suit's frozen. I left it in my car. That isn't has Knucklehead moved. So if you can, when you get done swimming, if you can wring the water out of your suit and you take it in your house so it's nice and nice and warm when you put it in, you won't, won't suffer. Or if you like the cold plunge idea, you can leave it in your car and and let it freeze. Not promise you You're not going to get that. Four to six seconds. You may have gone all the way underwater in the cold plunge. You're going to get a good two or three minutes until you get in the pool.
Dr. Rob Green:Well, that thing's going to be frozen, oh, into a cold pool on top of it, all Right. Well, here we are giving you lessons for life. All right, that was. That was pretty good, man. I'm I'm not sure what we accomplished, but I think we accomplished something. I think it was more to share like honestly, like where we were and how we navigate. We've been doing this for a really, really long time and you know you would think we would have answers to like exactly what we want to do, and reality is we don't, and maybe how we navigate it. You can steal from what maybe works for you or or not. But yeah, it's just sort of a glimpse of of how we came up with 2024.
Dr. Marion Herring:I think it, I think it did accomplish something, because we were both kind of kind of, I don't know, pump, pump, pump, pump, pump Is it? You know, trying to exercise every day without a long-term plan?
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah.
Dr. Marion Herring:And so as your goals change, then your, your objectives are going to change. And how do you make a, make a plan to hopefully successfully get to that objective? Yeah, and if you don't reach that objective, go back to Kier Amato's courage of having the courage to be all in, yeah, race in the front, yeah, and it's all out the first five K to give yourself a chance, yeah. So you and I have shown we didn't know what we were doing do multiple phone calls, multiple trail runs. We now know we're going, yeah, and now we're all in yeah, and hopefully we'll show Kier's courage to leave from the front.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, no, I agree with you, man. Yeah, so I, I just pretty cool and and I'm excited right, I've sent you a couple of messages too and be like hey, do you feel like you got a little bit of a North Star? Absolutely yeah, me too.
Dr. Rob Green:You know, it's a bit scary it, but that's what you, I want, right, you got to have that. You don't have it, then where's growth happen? Right, right, if you don't have something that challenge you, then you know, I love it. I had a coach that used to say, all the time you're either getting better or you're getting worse. Nobody's going to say I say we start every practice, you're either getting better today or getting worse. Your choice. You go to practice and you would.
Dr. Rob Green:And it resonated with me, just because it's so true, nothing stays the same. So, like, if you don't have something that sort of challenge you, I don't think that I'm growing and you know it's no fun to decay. So, yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's great, you know. On a side note, you know something I forgot to bring up. I wish I would have done it earlier. So if those of you that made it to this far in the podcast, you know, a little thing happened today that I thought was really powerful. We were, we were finished up on our trail run and we come across this bridge Beautiful bridge, by the way.
Dr. Rob Green:Beautiful bridge, man, the sun, the sun is risen, it's beautiful, especially winter time. You, the cold water, um, but we're going across this bridge and, um, and you were running back to me. You were out in front of where I was. You were running back to me and I was like, oh wait, going for a lap too. You're like I'm going to pick up the garbage. And I was like garbage, what garbage? And I saw I just turned around and fall. I'm not going to let you go that way.
Dr. Rob Green:Amigo, finished the run, I'm going to let you run further than I did. Uh, so I started following you and then I noticed on that bridge that I ran across, didn't even notice. I'm in my own little world. There's a McDonald's bag, there's an empty beer can, there's, uh, some fast food stuff not a ton, but enough to go and you picked it up and I contributed to one little thing.
Dr. Rob Green:But you, you picked it up and you brought back and you threw it away in the trash and I was like, man, what a, what a great thing to do when you're on a trail runner. You're out running and there's garbage. Don't be like me, who was naive at all, and I just didn't even notice it. I just honestly didn't. I wasn't like I saw it and let it go by. I just was in my little bubble. And then when you came back and you picked it up and it was like that makes such a huge difference and it didn't take any effort. We actually got better quality out of it. We ran an extra eight minutes to go do it and cool down and, uh, I just thought that was incredible that you did that. So, um, I would challenge anybody that's on a run and if you see something like that, do a moose and turn around and pick, pick up around you.
Dr. Marion Herring:You can't expect others to do what you think is right.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, and.
Dr. Marion Herring:I I'll be honest, I ran by the garbage and it took me. I mean, I was, I was ready for the run for the run. For the run for the run be over, yeah, but if you run run by by the garbage, you have to expect it to be there the next time.
Dr. Rob Green:Yeah, right, it reminds me of that. Uh, fable, there's a kid walking along the ocean and there was starfish all over the ocean, right. And he picks up a starfish and he throws it in the ocean. And he walks down and picks up another one, he throws the ocean and the old man next to him goes what are you doing? He's like I'm saving the starfish. He's like look around, like, what difference are you making? And he picked up a starfish and he threw it in the ocean. And he said I made a difference to that one. Like that one. Like there's trash all over and it's easy to not do it, but like, what difference did it make? It made a difference to that. It didn't go in the river, it just picked up around you. So, like it. I thought that was one of the coolest things, that, um, I've seen it a while and I was like man, I, I, I could do more of that. So next time you're around, look around, you, make, make. I mean, we're lucky to have these beautiful trails Appreciate your environment.
Dr. Rob Green:So appreciate your environment, man, and and don't throw your trash out, even if it's a goo. Right, these are. This is like probably cars going by, but like if you've got a goo packet and you're going to just toss it in the woods, don't do that. Put it in your pocket and just like throw it out wherever you go. So let's, let's try to like clean up after ourselves, and this environment's beautiful. So do a little part goes a long way, and I thought you did a great job with that today. So, um, I wanted to share that and maybe inspire others to to follow your lead. Happy 2004, 2004. And, as we always follow your lead, what are we doing when we get to a hill?
Dr. Marion Herring:We go uphill for 5,000 feet at the top of Mount Piska.
Dr. Rob Green:Always Welcome back, man Cheers.