Yeah, I would say most potent legal option available. Minus non responders.

Drug _(if taken in excess)?_ Not a stimulant, you know, like some teas can stimulate healing effects on the body? Just thinking here?

Thanks for checking it out! Even for longer ultras like backyard events, I still like a speed work phase, so that is a good thing to consider along side the zone 2 work. I like short intervals targeting VO2max and long intervals targeting lactate threshold. I did a podcast serious that goes over a bunch of this stuff, including how I like to structure speed work if interested. The can be found here: zachbitter.com/endurance-training-series

Thanks!

It is a clip from the full episode linked in the description if interested. We talk about it in the first part of the ep.

thanks for checking it out!

Thanks for checking it out!

Full Episode: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKqxfGiKZrWpors Episode Details: zachbitter.com/hpo-episode-407

@@ZachBitterUltraawesome, loving the content! 🙏🏻

@@TonyGarbanzo appreciate you checking it out!

Haha, Justin has actually been asked to audition for some roles as a Viking.

It would be so cool if he does Comrades!

It is a mint chocolate flavor electrolyte so blends well. Not sure the fruity flavors would be so well :)

@@ZachBitterUltraMint chocolate flavour ? Sounds good to me Zach !

Glad you liked it!

Haha, I'll take that gig! :)

It can be. It also assumes precision on finishing time forecast, which gets more and more murky the longer the race is compared to what you can do in training. It is a lot easier to forecast the potential finishing time for shorter endurance events.

@@ZachBitterUltra I'm always very confident in my pacing. Maybe I didn't realize that was a part in my success with caffeine.

@@Simco_ I believe the bigger question is how are you determining the number to build the pacing from. I believe it is much less clear that anyone is accurate comparatively to shorter endurance events. For example, if I wanted to run 12 hours flat for 100 miles, I could just pace for 12 hours exactly and it wouldn't be too difficult to hit the target on a controlled track like this one. But if I target a PR, I can't afford to go out at 12 hour finishing pace and likely achieve that goal. Finishing time for 100 miles is going to be a larger range of potential, so if large caffeine doses early makes the aggressive end of that range more approachable, but ultimately proves too fast, you can get yourself out too fast. It is also worth looking at historic data here. If you look at 100 mile finishing times and splits, you will find it is very rare to find negative or even even splits. Most are great than a 10 percent positive split. If the majority of people are positive splitting by this large of a margin, lower perceived effort to its maximum isn't necessarily going to be advantageous, especially for steep terrain courses where splits can be wildly different at the same intensity.

@@ZachBitterUltra I mean, isn't making spreadsheets from the past 3 years of a race's finishers and determining which of those runners historically match your finish times and pacing by going through all their histories just like...part of the reason we run? :) I found caffeine to help me a lot but I may just be in a minority who arrives to a race in a place that I can take advantage of it. Maybe someone at my intensity isn't as close to the sun as you and that matters, too.

@@Simco_sure, you can do all those things, but it will still be relatively wide ranging compared to to shorter endurance events where you have much better prediction data. My suspicion is that one of the main reasons people like ultras is because of the less predictable nature of finishing times. There is a curiosity to the unknown. Doing as much as possible to better predict is wise, but there is way more to learn about the accuracy of such practices for 100 miles. It’s just the nature of the distance and how tested it is versus Olympic distance events. You can take what we are discussing here for example, caffeine. What we know about its impact and dosages at 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 of the way into 100 mile is less predictable than what we know about its impact before the start of a 5km or marathon. Much easier to test frequently in race specific environments and durations while training and in studies. It is also worth noting that if you build a pacing chart off a dataset of other people who are almost certainly pacing relatively poor compared to other endurance sports, it will only go so far. Look at the pacing breakdown of most 100 mile finishers and compare that to the split variance of well executed marathon finishes. We have a lot to learn about pacing in 100 miles and are no where near what is commonly excepted for Olympic distance.

It’s good practice! I have had success with self massage on calf area for taking some stress of achilles as well.

@@ZachBitterUltra do you know much about it? Ive only just started self-massaging so im figuring it out as i go. It would be a good video.

Glad you liked it! You will get it. Happy training!

SFuels Race+ was the product. They have a new one called Zone 5 as well.