Keep Going

What is the felt-sense? How important is it for runners to be conversant & skilled in the varieties of the feeling states we encounter in our running practice & pursuit? While this episode only scratches the surface on this topic, it does try to grapple with what we feel is a critically overlooked aspect of training & racing for runners across a variety of domains, from footwear to easy running to racing paces & effort. 
We hope you enjoy this episode. Godspeed, my friends, godspeed. 

Creators and Guests

MK
Host
Michael Krajicek
Host
Steve Sisson
Coach, podcaster, writer, runner, accidental philosopher, guide. Exploring running as soulmaking.

What is Keep Going?

Two guys - a shoe designer & a coach - talk shit about running, mostly. This podcast is our therapy & fills a critical need for human conversation in our lives. Welcome along for the ride.

Michael:

I

Steve:

mean, it's pretty much banter ban the Banterathon is

Michael:

what we pretty simple topic this week. We're gonna go around the table, and we're gonna, we're gonna talk about who we voted for, and then we're gonna say one pro and con of each particular candidate. How's that sound, Steve? Sounds terrible. Okay.

Michael:

Okay. No, this isn't a political podcast.

Steve:

I will say this is the first year, the first presidential campaign in the last two where I'm gonna vote. I haven't voted the last two out of protest because of the pathetic

Michael:

I think there'll be more, it seems to be be you know, people are okay to I don't even Who knows anymore? Do you think do you think that this affects people's running? I do. It can.

Steve:

I mean, I think people who are politically plugged in, politics hits everything. Me too. Too. For those who aren't politically plugged in, no. Because I'm not politically plugged in, so it's gonna have zero to do with me.

Michael:

Oh, yeah. I'm so not I'm consuming too much information, man.

Steve:

Yeah. I'm consuming none. I gotta get off of it. Zero. By the way, we are recording this on the Thursday prior to election Tuesday, so, that's why you're getting a little banter.

Steve:

By the time this goes out to the world, we will already know who the president next president of The United States is. Because whoever it is, they'll be

Michael:

They that Yeah. That's how I started my my run club the other day, and they looked at me like, oh, shit. And I was like, I'm joking. I'm joking with you right now.

Steve:

They're like, not you too. Not you, sir. My phone

Michael:

is on Is that a safe space?

Steve:

Yeah. I'm getting texts from random political sites and phone calls from numbers I've never seen before. How did you get my number?

Michael:

Yeah. Now you mentioned, in other in other breaking news, updates, the running event is coming up here in Austin. Always an exciting time for the running industry. Yes, it is. Oh, jeez, Louise.

Michael:

What are we gonna see next? Edible foams. It's kind of. Edible foams and battery powered

Steve:

insoles. Yeah. Let's go. It's the entire One of the things we kind of rage against is the vibe of this event.

Michael:

Yeah. It's so much fun and the people are so great, but the vibe of, like, oh man, another round of marketing, here we go. Let's bring them all for a ride.

Steve:

And I don't know if it's just I don't know, I've never been to other I guess I've been to other conventions. I've been to coaching conventions, but I've never been to a other industry convention. Yeah. But there's a huge party element to this

Michael:

Oh, it's so much fun. So many good people, you know? My favorite part is the after hours and kind of breaking it's like, you're just kind of talking shop with, you know, folks that design for New Balance or Merrill or whoever, and it's like, Dang, y'all really did it this year. And it's like, Yeah, yeah, we really did it. It's like, Yeah, that's pretty cool anyway.

Michael:

What's going on over there? It's like, I don't know, still doing our thing.

Steve:

Yep. It is. The people in the industry are amazing.

Michael:

Yeah. It's a very, very for anybody who doesn't know, the running industry is very small. I mean, very small. Just find yourself at the Materials Expo over on the East Coast or the West Coast or TRE here in Austin. You're gonna find a lot of the same folks and a lot of the same folks have been traditionally moved around in different organizations, but kinda doing their thing.

Michael:

It's a really it's a really cool event. I always learn learn a bunch from it, but I yeah. I I 'm actually gonna release two different models there under the table for everybody. I bought a very expensive industry professional pass, so I'm gonna go with my backpack. That's kind of like my thing.

Michael:

I'll go with a backpack and say, I don't have a booth, but this is what's going on. So hopefully we're on the mark. I think we are. At the end of the day though, folks are still gonna be running and they're still gonna need some shoes.

Steve:

You should do a man on the run.

Michael:

I actually, I think I am. In fact, I almost tried to get a free media badge because I think I'm warranted in going for free as a media member of Running Culture on my little 77 subscriber YouTube page, which

Steve:

is And this grandiose, mean, vastly growing podcast that we have.

Michael:

Yeah, exactly. We're part of the media, and I just We're not treated fairly. And if elected, all media professionals will get free entry into the running event here in Austin, Texas. Is that the transcontinental accent? What happened to that shit?

Michael:

Know. It's called the Transcontinental Accent, and I think it was manufactured. Antiphylactic.

Steve:

Since it's from the Since. Yeah.

Michael:

I think so, but I really wanna bring it back if that's okay with everybody. So, anyway, the running event's coming up. Holiday seasons are coming up. It's a it's a fun time for running. People have post raced.

Michael:

They're chilling. Yeah, they are. It's where I am.

Steve:

I'm I'm I have the busiest time of my year, is the last three weeks. It's just madness.

Michael:

Yeah, for sure.

Steve:

Because it's race after race after race. Because in the spring, it feels like the races sort of coalesce around just a few key weekends. Mhmm. But in this fall, it's late September. And with the tunnels and the continued chasing of the BQ, it's even earlier.

Steve:

You know, there's races in the summer. Luckily, I've got nearly everybody who's a marathoner moving away from grandmas, thank God. But it's just too hard for people locally to run train for grandmas. But, anyway, the the we have, you know, everything from Berlin all the way through CIM. Luckily, at the December the December is the last real significant race.

Steve:

But I've got a guy doing some cross country events in the Seattle area. I got people doing all kinds of crazy fun stuff. And then we got Houston, the Houston half in Florida.

Michael:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tough time to train, great time to race. Yep. If you can make it through the winter, Houston is the best bang for your buck.

Steve:

Yeah. I mean, not from our perspective. The winter is the best time to train.

Michael:

Oh, yeah. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's we already picked up our Chicago entries for next year because we both had qualifying times, and but it really and I'm about that, but it really got me thinking. I was looking at the qualifying times, and across the board, they've dropped that shit five minutes. So for anybody out there, it's like, dang, we're gonna have to really press on the gas.

Michael:

I'm just happy to be getting a little bit older so I can have that buffer.

Steve:

I think New York has stayed the same, but they were already the most They were already the most aggressive, so Is New York And you can't do a half anymore with New York, now you have to do the fulls.

Michael:

Oh, really?

Steve:

Yeah. They've taken that off the board. And then they've because they've added those seven race series and if you do all races, all seven

Michael:

ten thousand units of New York Roadrunner's coin to get into the race and a couple plane tickets that are Yeah. Oh, jeez, Louise. New York, that'll be fun one. One day, one day, I'm gonna run it. I don't care if it takes me

Steve:

Me too.

Michael:

Seven plus New York roadrunners I'm

Steve:

hoping to do it in '26, so I've got some training to

Michael:

do it. You know anything about the what is it called? The wine glass? Mhmm. Half?

Michael:

Is that

Steve:

the half?

Michael:

Know there's a full One that Meb always goes to and announces? Uh-huh. Is that is that a part of the New York Roadrunners race? I

Steve:

just I thought don't know what that is. Yeah. I don't know that about that.

Michael:

Yeah. I wanna there's different races out there. Wanna try, but but, yeah, that's our news line news desk headlines for the week of this week.

Steve:

Anything else? This is we're recording on Halloween,

Michael:

Is this freaking Halloween today?

Steve:

Damn. It's

Michael:

Halloween. Man, that's crazy. You don't

Steve:

live in a neighborhood, you live in a condo, so you probably won't get of little tracers knocking on your door.

Michael:

Did y'all celebrate it last weekend, or is it gonna be this weekend? How does that work?

Steve:

So this year, AISD, our local school district, gave kids Friday off.

Michael:

Oh, that's cool. So now they can go hard tonight.

Steve:

Yeah. My stepdaughter has me bringing a pillowcase. I'll have a second pillowcase. She's like, I'm her bag, man.

Michael:

That's good.

Steve:

She takes her big, takes her little container up to the thing, and then she comes back to me, dumps it in my bag. So she

Michael:

looks kind of like

Steve:

She doesn't look like she's greedy, but really, she's got a really greedy soul.

Michael:

Oh, that's great. A real proletariat of the trick or treaters knows how to really

Steve:

And the school that Max goes to, my stepdaughter goes to, the neighborhood that we're in is Brentwood, and it does Halloween up right because it is Brentwood, I'm sure. It's filled with kids.

Michael:

Oh, yeah.

Steve:

All You know, it's got a really good school district.

Michael:

They're really hustling over there. They know how to work. They've got full size Snickers bars.

Steve:

Yeah. They close roads. Yeah. They close down roads. And then they also have adult beverages for those who are, and DJs and all kinds of stuff for everybody.

Steve:

I used to love how it I highly recommend it if anybody's around. That's the neighborhood. Michael, there is a transition I can make from the running event to our topic today. Let's do it. One of the things that I was thinking about, and have been thinking about a lot lately, and I think we can get a pretty good episode out of this topic, are the varieties of ways we feel when we're running.

Steve:

And I'd like to start with the most obvious. Call this felt sense or feeling states. Sometimes I'll call this listening to the body. Although that's a misnomer because you're not really using your ears, although in some cases you do. I was thinking about shoes.

Steve:

Well, think about it from a lot of different perspectives, but I was thinking about it from a shoe perspective. And the experience people are having with the different kinds of shoes they're wearing, some folks are not some folks are wearing the, you know, the plated, whatever you're calling them, super shoes all the time. Some people are wearing them some of the time. And I'm wondering, and I had somebody talking to me about the experience they had while they were wearing the shoes.

Michael:

Yeah.

Steve:

And this dovetails into what I think is going on in your neck of the woods with what you do in the running event, but how much do you think you as a designer, you as a owner operator, as a customer service person, how much are you thinking about the feel that a runner has of them, of being in your shoe? You'd think it'd be the primary thing, but we talk mostly about the performance, not the way it feels. It's like people talk about the feel of the shoe in their buying process. Like, when I used to try shoes on for people, I worked at a running shoe store for years and years, was like, What feels the best? Let's lean that direction.

Steve:

But then after that, people don't really talk about how their shoes feel. So do you think about that? Are you thinking about the user experience of the felt sense of being in your shoe and the differences between your shoes? And is this something people would be talking about in a running event? Or are they just like tech tech technology technology technology?

Michael:

Yeah. I'm constantly thinking about it. And that's why I I fail as a leader in the industry constantly because because people want people Alright. Let me let me answer this. I I Okay.

Michael:

This is less of a conversation about carbon fiber plates, or nylon plates, or compressed EVA plate, whatever the shit plate is in there. I mean, you could just put a piece of, you know, just stiff forefoot, there's some elasticity to it, maybe there's not.

Steve:

The trampoline effect.

Michael:

Yeah, sure. I've become increasingly more skeptical, I'm like going back to how I felt in 2018, 2019 about carbon fiber plates. And I'm just waiting for somebody to explain it rationally to me, like, what this can do for very specific use cases, and it just seems like you can't just call a plate performance and then just umbrella it as something that people should use. It needs to be very deliberate. You need to have different speeds.

Michael:

There's a massive data chart that would surround the plate technology that I just think that companies don't have the marketing resources or the education component to truly deliver that knowledge. And it's like, what is it, how is it used, and when is it used? And I think putting those three things in there is an extremely difficult proposition when the public just seems to think that a plate is faster. Now, is it? Maybe.

Michael:

Probably. I would say maybe. Maybe a plate is fast. Does it simply mean the way your foot loads momentum, and does it dissipate, you know, that load, you know, further down the chain or up the chain, in this case, the leg? Like, does it dissipate the the energy loading closer towards the Achilles and into the knee and into the hip, into the lower back?

Michael:

Like, or without a plate, does it mean that you're dissipating that load in the metatarsals and through, like, kind of the navicular bridge and in in in the the air all the mechanics of the foot, all the glory of the foot that it was designed to do, the tendons, the ligaments, the bones, the everything. So, from what I understand, once you introduce stiffness in there, kind of one of the most logical thing that I can understand is that it dissipates the load further up the chain. And now, I can see how that would be absolutely appropriate in a race day setting when you wanna ensure that your foot doesn't get too fatigued and you wanna ward that off. Just throw that shit into the upper leg. Like, let's just get that out of here for now.

Michael:

Let's do that. But when you start to use it every day, the question becomes, like, what's the deleterious effect on the foot itself when stiffening the foot so much, you know, therefore, rendering all of the greatness of the foot useless at that point? Maybe it's useful to a certain extent, but it's definitely not natural, full range of motion. Okay. So I've been thinking a lot about that lately, and I'm I kind of just kind of At the end of that rabbit hole, I always go down, like, who cares?

Michael:

Like, they'll figure it out one day. Maybe they've already got out. Big Shoe, all these places, all the labs, all the studies, the Harvard University studies. And you see them there all the time. They're like, Do plates have a disadvantageous effect on this and this?

Michael:

What's the advantage, what's the disadvantage? They know all these things, but there's no real meta analysis of how to put this into marketing very concisely for the athlete. So just put that on a shelf for a second. Does that all make a little bit of sense?

Steve:

Yeah, I would just make the point that someone who might have a conspiratorial bent would say, maybe they don't want that either, but anyway.

Michael:

Yeah, I've talked to industry professionals that said we'd probably prefer to get away from some of this stuff, but the consumer wants it a lot because, like, we're selling 250, $300, $500 shoes based on this premise. And now I believe now, the question is, like, is it great on race day? Probably. Again, I will just air on the side of caution and say, they probably know what they're doing. And but when it comes to, like, the totality of routine, like, why are we not presenting at least some type of and we are, we're calling it max max trainer land, which is like 40 millimeters and above land, it's like a lot of cushion under the foot and they mimic the feel of a race day shoe.

Michael:

They're just a little bit more pliable and kind of are able to extract some of the the biomechanical tendencies of the foot and being more flexible and having a fuller range of motion. I think that's cool too, and Max Trainerland has become extremely rare it's it's really, really great stuff. I think it's a brand new field of of footwear design, and I love it. In fact, I'm my main product next that I hope to get to is going to be a 40 millimeter trainer, and I think it's gonna be great for long runs and everything. And my ultimate question is, where will plates fit in after that?

Michael:

Because I had a truly hard time at the Detroit Marathon deciding between a plated shoe and this new shoe that I had samples of, and I'm like, I I don't I feel like my body is tuned for a specific endeavor. I don't think that there's a disadvantage in these new samples that I had that had a piece midsole without a plate. I was like, I feel fast. Like, I did a 10 k workout and it was absolutely lightning fast. So then you go to But I opted for the race day shoe with the carbon plate.

Michael:

Would it have changed the outcome of the race? I don't know. I don't think so. I just think it would have been a different experience on the foot. And so if we loop that all the way back into well, what is feel?

Michael:

And I will probably go to I will bring the company down in flames before I sunset a classic trainer with optimal ground feel. And a lot of other companies would be calling those Speedwork shoes or 10 k shoes or whatever shoes. Like, I'm just like, that's too narrow. That's just an appropriate shoe, in my opinion, to get full range of motion out of the foot. That's your

Steve:

base training. And to

Michael:

feel the grain. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And in fact, we're going to I've discontinued the base model and I've rolled all the attributes of it, which is essentially, it's like, you know, ground feel, very lightweight for kind of like honing in on like a natural cadence and rolled that up into the daily trainer. So we made the daily trainer two like couple ounces lighter. It's got a super thin outsole, but we had to make it really, really durable.

Michael:

So it's kind of like there's there's there's a mixture of of those attributes, I think that you can achieve that. But again, like, you know, these traditional shoes, not minimalist shoes, but like 20 to 30 millimeters in stack height, you know, so to speak, I just think are completely underrated in the industry right now, and they're they're not specifically, in my opinion, for 10 k shoes. They're actually for they're for longer efforts and they kind of it's just a part of the a goji, so to speak, of, like, getting foot ready for war. And when you're ready for war, you don't care what happens to your foot. You just wanna strap it with something that's ready to go.

Michael:

And and so, I think your question about like where does feel land in all of this is, I think we're right in the middle of technology and we're right in the middle of having to ask ourselves the hard questions about being brutally honest about what we actually need and what's most advantageous for us. Again, I'm sitting here trying to explain it but all the marketing money in the world couldn't explain what I'm explaining right now. You know what I'm saying? You're not gonna have a black and white answer. I think that there is a I think that there is kind of a duty for us to understand that that that I think we're gonna I think we're gonna need come up with our own protocol for this.

Michael:

At Atreyu? Or just

Steve:

athletes in general? Yeah. So another area I'd like to explore just because you explored it on the footwear side. But, you know, my day to day pain point and or discussion point, and that's not really a pain point, it's just a discussion point and a dancing. I have to dance with this.

Steve:

Just like you're dancing with this question of feel, I have to dance with it in terms of data. Because the data is what the athlete is so focused upon. And yet, in my experience, it's like, Okay, that's great, but you're going to need to translate that to feel. Because if you don't have the ability to feel what that data is telling you, and you get I mean, I've said this once, I've said a 100 times on this podcast. We talked about it the last two episodes.

Steve:

What happens when you're in the middle of a race? And people don't have a clue. Many people still have challenges around determining being able to read content coming from their watch and relate that to the way their body is operating and feeling. And that to me is purely and simply, it is primarily, not purely and simply, just primarily a factor of not doing the work to dial in your feeling state in your training. And again, so what's happening, I find, is that people are in races and they're not able to they're uncomfortable, and they're not sure of what's going on, and then the data starts to give them information that's either incorrect, a la Chicago, or not tracking with their felt sense experience, ala what's going to happen this weekend in New York, guaranteed, the Bridges.

Steve:

Bridges and the variety of different how fast you go yes, up, how do you exactly. And the start, the weather, race starts at nine, they're going to be a little bit warmer in the day, they're not used to that. I mean, like, it there's a lot of challenges, like like we have around New York, around Boston as well. And yet people are looking for the flattest courses, the most simple routes, focusing primarily on what their watch's data tell them rather than what their feeling states are telling them. And I'm not standing here standing on my, you know, on my in my pulpit yelling and screaming because I think that this is some kind of vast conspiracy or major overlook by people.

Steve:

It's that I'm actually seeing on the ground during and post consternation, loss of understanding, frustration at the experience. And what I can say to them is this is one aspect. You do you you are beholden to the watch and the data. The data's fantastic, but when it's not aligning with your feeling state, then your nervous system is going to say, Fuck you. And you're not going to be able to turn it on.

Steve:

You're just not gonna be able to turn it on. So now now your state, your your situation at at Detroit, it was not really related to this, but it was consternation around what was going on on the uphill, on the long bridge, and then into the tunnel. And then when you came out, you were at 10 miles and you're like, Woah, woah, woah, what's going on here? You honestly were in a state where you were like, Woah, woah, what's going on here? And then you had to spend 10 more miles realizing, Oh yeah, today's not the day that I'm getting two fifty five.

Steve:

Today's the day I'm gonna just finish this thing out, enjoy it. I love your Man on the Run episode when you get to that point at, I think it was six what is it? What mile were you at? 20? And you were like, Oh God, this is hard.

Steve:

Oh God, this is hard. And then you cut off for just a second and then you come back again and you're like, Yeah, I didn't think it was going to be quite like this at And this you weren't, but you were, because you're so adept, I think because of the challenging of experiences you had in the last month prior to your race, you were able to pivot and say, It's okay. This has been This is enough. Yeah. This experience being in my body, feeling what I'm feeling, being in this beautiful place, having made a special trip with my wife for us to do this thing we love to do in a place that values the race, and your experience of it was then to be able to take advantage of it and have joy.

Steve:

Anybody who hasn't seen Michael's Man on the Run episode, you need to watch it. It's in last week's show notes. I'll toss it in this week's show notes just for shits and giggles so you can find it. But it's it's a great it's a it's an incredible combined with our pre race and post race conversations, it is a really good primer for anybody looking for what is it like to race? What is the race experience like?

Steve:

And one of the things I'm saying about this episode is, hey, I'm realizing that people are not quite ready for the variety of felt experience that occurs on race day if you're not recognizing the varieties of ways you can feel in training. So, that's shoes. That's how you'll assess how your body's feeling based on pace or efforts, right? It's also about how you feel about your experience of the race itself, which can be a purpose related sort of larger scale philosophical kind of question. Right?

Steve:

How do you feel about running in general? How do you feel about your experience of this race? How do you you know, these things we are we are having feeling experiences, we're having inner experiences, and yet we look to all these outer ways of relating to those. And I think it's really important for us to begin to categorize the varieties of inner experience and then get better at determining how we deal with those kinds of experiences, both in training and racing, a, for better performance, and b, for greater, like, greater positive experience, like what we talk about with the whole idea of mindfulness generally, which is full presence, being fully in the moment. And really, this what getting good with the felt sense is about being present, not mediated by the past and the future, but by really being where you are right then.

Steve:

And this is hard under the pressures of race day, and it has to be practiced in training. But even outside of all that, it's also the best way to train. What did you say last week? The most fun thing of all of it, really, was the training. And so then, you're not touching base with your inner experience, you made a mention this morning how nice it was to wake up this morning, have a cup of coffee, not go to practice, not have to get all your shit together, not get your gear set, get your body set, eat breakfast, blah blah blah, There's take care of all the a felt sense to that.

Steve:

And what you described was that first taste of coffee, knowing you don't have to rush out the door, you can sit back and enjoy it. I feel like that's part of training. I truly believe everything is training. So really

Michael:

being That's basically present a one to one ratio of picking what kind of shoes you wanna wear.

Steve:

That's what

Michael:

I'm saying. That's And it all falls under the category of of kind of this it's a pretty simple idea. It's when do you listen to your body and when do you listen to the data? And when do you ignore your body and when do you ignore the data? Like that's that's your quadrant system of of like intensity and and practicality because you know we have to we have to both learn how to push and and grow and fail and grow and break and grow.

Michael:

And that would be kind of there's a there's like a bucket that would involve like, ah, don't listen to that. Just go out and get it done. Go make it happen. And there's a lot of that going on. And that that would fall into like, just just go put the fast shoes on, don't think, and go crush But then there's another aspect which is like, let's go ahead and ignore the results or the symptoms of a quality session and let's just think about the felt sense.

Michael:

And that's when I think you can kind of you can opt for you can opt for kind of a more honest experience in the footwear and a more honest experience in the felt sense. Like, to me, it's about honesty. And when do you when do you turn it on, and when do you when do you tell it, like, you're just being a little bit too honest, a little too soft right now, and I'm ready to I'm ready to turn some heat on. And I think that that's the cocktail, and and that's where I say that it and that's probably why the marketing is tough on the footwear, and that's probably why the marketing is tough on a training program because there's nuances in that. And that's where I'm saying it all comes back to this, like, this this brutal honesty, this choice that we're gonna have to make with ourselves and have conversation with ourselves, like, you know, what are you what are you buying?

Michael:

What are you what are they trying to sell you? What is a coach trying to sell you? What is a footwear company trying to sell you? And what are you buying? And how much of that is is is applied to your situation?

Michael:

Like, there there's a I there's some real accountability in this, and that's why it's nuanced, I think.

Steve:

Yeah. I think that what you just described is that matrix of those four quadrants that you were just describing. Think in a lot of ways, in my view, and I'm trying to be nuanced with this, my first reaction is that's an old way of doing things. The new way of doing things, what I would argue the new way of doing things is really the oldest of the oldest, which is just being. Just doing.

Steve:

Now, I don't mean by that, you know, when you said, Don't listen to your body, just get out and do it, I think that that's an old way of doing things. I think the new way is, What is going on with that experience? Now, we sometimes don't have the time, energy to be meta like that. I think there's a meta rationality, a meta experientiality that's required by anyone who's a thinking person in order to effectively do what they need to do. Now, there's a subcategory of athlete that I work with that I call a dumb runner, and they are fantastic to work with because everything is not questioning it, they just go do it.

Steve:

And they're usually pretty present in when they're doing it, right? But that's a skill that a person has in terms of deal they're already locked in. They're already kind of what I would call they don't need the meta. But the vast majority of us, majority of us, we think a lot. And my view is if you're thinking, you need to get to the bottom of what that thinking is doing to your body and in your body, and what are you feeling about it.

Steve:

Now, it might not be appropriate at 05:15 when you need to be at practice at 05:30 and you're not feeling it. Maybe the best thing is just suck it up, buttercup, get your shoes, get rolling, get going, but you might make a couple of little mental notes. Write down something on a piece of paper. On the way there, maybe you make an audio note to yourself and said, This is what I'm feeling. I'm feeling suck.

Steve:

Just like if you went to your therapist and you're like, I don't fucking want to be here. Your therapist wants to know if you don't want to be there. Like, when you're, I don't like these shoes. I don't like the way they feel. Well, you can't do anything about it right now, but you can go reflect on it later.

Steve:

I think that this experience heightens the it definitely creates for the athletes that's not a dumb runner, gets meta, and I would say 85% or 90% of the people I work with go meta in their thinking. Okay? So you're better off maybe putting a pin in it for moment and then just saying, I'm having this experience. Let me just go get it done and focus. But I do think you need to come back to it.

Steve:

I do think this is part of what it means to learn and to grow. And I think that people don't want to fucking do this, Michael, and they don't want to do it. Why? That's why people don't want to do my mission protocol. I just had a meeting with one of my group.

Steve:

I love this crew of people. I'm doing a master class for master's runners. Right? And, you know, the the critique of my mission protocol is it takes too long. It's a legitimate critique.

Steve:

But my view is, okay, but it really will enhance your experience and give you a better performance. Mhmm. So you don't have to do it. You don't have to do this thing about feeling. But I'm just going to tell you, it shows up.

Steve:

And this is the devil at the crossroads, in my opinion. The devil at the crossroads is your own nervous system shooting you the middle fucking finger, both fingers, and usually gesticulating wildly, going, Fuck you. You have not prepared me for this because all you did was stick your shoes on and go out and do the workout and sucked up and hit the paces and that was it, and didn't reflect anything about how you were feeling. And so you just took your nervous system, shoved it in a fucking box and said, dude, I don't really need you anymore. No.

Steve:

Like, same thing with your shoes. What kind of performance are you getting from that flexible plate, from that trampoline effect? Can you sense it? Can you feel it? You'll get more from it if you can feel it.

Steve:

It'll be more valuable to you. That means that you can't wear it all the time. That means you need to wear something

Michael:

That's means need to get a why I always promote variants, not specifically in plate versus non plate, you could easily get it from

Steve:

that. A variation.

Michael:

Yes. Was talking to I think the only conversation I ever shared with Brad Hudson was one.

Steve:

The great Brad Hudson.

Michael:

Was like Hat tips, What great Brad do you got there? I was like, this shoe. And he was like, you only got one? I was like, yeah, one shoe. And he goes, athletes need variability.

Michael:

I go, right on. And I love that. I mean, that was that was just, you know, it was a cool and we talked a little bit about footwear, and and that was it. Very short conversation, and it was just a cool idea, and and and, you he's training folks at the highest level, but he's saying, like, you need variability specifically so that the foot can learn to adapt. So it's, like, just it's like seeing in half toned colors or grayscale colors when you could see the whole color spectrum.

Steve:

And the feeling state, the felt sense, is all about understanding variation and variability. Right.

Michael:

It's actually Exactly. So if you if you tie it in to the feeling states of actually what you're doing when you're using the shoes Why is a coach giving

Steve:

you five k pace, 10 k pace, doing this heart rate, that heart rate? Why are we doing all these various things? Why are we sprinting up hills? Why are we running down hills if you're running Boston? What are we doing?

Steve:

We're trying to prepare the body for what the race requires, but we're also providing it for the variation and variability. And the problem is that the models that we have these days, not the models we have, the models that we've inherited are models coming from, basically the industrial era. Mhmm. And this is a huge problem. It's still an issue in the sport of track and field.

Steve:

It's still plugging and playing, saying there's a special matrix that you can plug and play. You know another great thing that somebody reminded me that Brad Hudson said? Every training program is written in pencil, not It's in so true. Absolutely. It's written in pencil, not in

Michael:

ink. Variability. Correct. You know, the moral to this story is that is that I think we place too much of an emphasis. I don't know if you would designate it as an outlier, but an outlier session, key workout session, sessions that dictate how your race should go, while deemphasizing the linear progression of the whole plan.

Michael:

So you emphasize in the parallel universe of the actual footwear commodity, so to speak. You prioritize how good a shoe is. Good in the sense that it will bring you fast on the command performance session or day. And it will bring me there as fast as possible. And we we get extremely myopic on these these very outlying bullet points on a continuum of the whole thing.

Michael:

And I think that's one of the problems with the way it's like AI. It's like these it it the other the other day, I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this, but I'm just like so I'm not gonna use the words I said, but just a few people out there, you know, really, really folks out there creating this thing called AI in different parts of the world, and, you know, it's scaring everybody half to death that they're gonna lose their jobs and all this. It's like, it's such an outlier. It It's meaningful, it points towards something. But we still have to not discredit the fact that we're gonna wake up every day, we're gonna find a task, and we're gonna do that task, we're gonna do human stuff because that's what humans do.

Michael:

And I'm not trying to rope AI into this conversation but our ability and culture these days to get so hyper focused on the singular aspects of a certain idea and to think that nothing else matters. Nothing else matters anymore. You know, just the speed of the shoe, the time on race day, AI is gonna take everybody for a ride, and it's just like we forget that that that's like a very it's the same it's the same conversation we had last week about race results, which they are important, but they're one aspect of what paints the entire picture of the whole thing. So it's in a conversation of variability, but most importantly, I think it's in a conversation about about not discrediting the work, discrediting the work of of preparation and brainstorming ideation to, you know, iterative design on my part and just, like, getting where you where you wanna go is is only one one aspect of it. But like how you do it is is how you get there.

Michael:

I always say that, you know, huge goals are a series of tiny victories strung together. So it's like tiny victory doesn't need to be a huge goal. It doesn't need to be a got there using, you know, the best shoe, this and that. Like, it's like a weighted vest to a certain extent. It's gonna make you slower.

Michael:

It's gonna make, you know, if you're if you're into the hit workout scene, the CrossFit scene, you throw on a weighted vest, you're gonna get strong as shit. I'm sure it's gonna add a component to you that, like, slows you down. But when you when you take it off and and you go do it again, there's something very special in there and it's just an underrated idea these days.

Steve:

Let's just take that weighted vest example. What is the value of the vest? To look cool.

Michael:

I use them to look cool. I have one in the I don't have a weighted vest, but I should get one because they do look cool.

Steve:

I asked Kristen that the other day. She goes, You don't understand it's on TikTok. It's everywhere.

Michael:

Oh, is it?

Steve:

Oh, it's everywhere. Everybody's wearing ruck. It's got a patch on it. It's the ruck with weighted The ruck is all the rage. Anyway, that actually may have been a month and a half ago, that's when we talked about it, so it could be that we've

Michael:

It's moved like on the to batter's something donut. I think a batter's donut is

Steve:

What like is the batter's donut doing?

Michael:

To make you swing to to to give you a visceral component of of, of Greater challenge. It's a it's yeah, and it but it points to it points to both motivation and and

Steve:

I

Michael:

definitely think that there's a component of it that's like a trust. Like, you wanna be able to trust what you do. Wanna get up to the plate, you wanna go to that workout without the weighted vest, feeling like you've experienced what it feels like without the ailment.

Steve:

And so, let's go. So, it's all about feel.

Michael:

It's all about feel. Same thing with shoes, it's like you're using carbon plated shoes the whole time, you're not gonna get that trust when you throw them on. I don't think that it's I think if you wanna talk about feel, I think to this day, the best race I ever had was the first race is Back in the day, if you remember, for all the sneaker nerds out there like me, Nike told us that the Vaporfly was like a 100 mile shoe. And they were like, look, I think I can't remember the copy that they used in the marketing and everything. Was like but it would from what I gathered, we got those shoes, we had done the training, and when you put these shoes on, you could feel it.

Michael:

And it was like, I'm gonna go into this race, like, jacked up on shoe steroids. And and it felt like that. And when we got to the race, CIM twenty eighteen was an absolute error. It was 17, I forget which one it was. But, like, it was so much fun because you felt like that.

Michael:

You felt like, oh shit, this is great. This is like an advantage, like it's something great. But when you when you have too much of an advantage, when you don't necessarily require one during training, I'm sure that there is some type of disadvantageous It is about feel. I mean, it's about feel in two ways.

Steve:

The way it will actually physically feel and the way that your your mind thinks about that. Right? Because you mentioned with the baseball bat, They put a little

Michael:

Weighted vest, baseball bats, the donut.

Steve:

What you're doing is you're creating, a physical and psychological challenge that's greater than what you'll be experiencing in the actual race and or at bat with the hopes that you'll feel better doing what you're doing. And what I'm saying is the more you feel, the better you'll feel. So I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the weighted vest, I think great. But in order to get the real benefit of the weighted vest, you need both the physiological and the psychological benefit from it. This I call psychosomatic.

Steve:

And we are just out of convenience saying they're separate things. There's a huge problem with all of our Western approach. They are not two things. There is no such thing as a mind. Your mind is in your body.

Steve:

Your mind is an out lay play of the physical experience. Is your mind sitting it's not AI. It's not sitting in a computer. It's in your body. K?

Steve:

We're just conveniently calling it that. And you're just trying trying to maximize your experience of feeling so you can have the best result you can possibly have, which, by the way, let me remind people from the very since I started this podcast, what do I say the finish line is? The time is just a symbolic representation of a feeling state that you hope to have by crossing that finish line. The time is a symbolic representation of a feeling state. So what I'm saying here is I think everyone, anybody meta, anybody thinking, needs to put more time, energy, effort, intention, focus, and commitment to what they're feeling and working through varieties of feeling.

Steve:

So here's a couple just to throw out there. Contact, breath and the way the breath operates, pace versus feeling of effort of a pace,

Michael:

Racing.

Steve:

Nervousness.

Michael:

Yeah.

Steve:

Race How it feels to difference between a training run and a race. Should they be different? Should they

Michael:

be Two races is is more data than one race. Correct. But only if you know the data.

Steve:

And a marathon is particularly challenging because we don't get to have repeats of those, whereas a five ks can run two a week, one once a week, anyway. The your experience of what it is to run up a hill versus down a hill. I mean, you can get really meta on these things. And somebody could get lost in the weeds, or they lose the forest for the trees, right? Yes, that's true.

Steve:

But I don't think you'll ever come out of that not having gotten insight. And I just wonder, honestly, Michael, I just wonder if people don't fucking care about insight. And I'm not taught I mean, my athletes, I'm

Michael:

I don't very think they know how to record it. I don't think that there is logical, clear cut way from I think that journaling is is is great, but it's you you can appreciate the the cleanly aspect of of hard data, emotional data is way, way difficult I to get

Steve:

agree, but I do think it's not valued by our communities, it's not valued by our society. And this is why people are obsessed with AI.

Michael:

Because AI doesn't feel. I've mastered AI.

Steve:

Good. AI will never AI will never feel. Will never feel. It Yeah, I know. So that, so, anyway, I do agree with you that one of the big challenges around something like my mission protocol, which is this designed to get into your feeling states.

Steve:

It is why I do it. But the key piece to it, the key thing really to the mission protocol in my opinion, is its insistence that the athlete make an intention. So I do think, and this is a conceptual thing, right? So an intention is not a physical thing. It's barely even a psychological thing.

Steve:

It's almost like a magical thing. What is it when you intend? Right? But in my case, with this mission protocol, people have a workout, they know what the workout is, and then what I ask them to do is set a personal intention around that. Why?

Steve:

Because I know when they make the intention, in order to be able to do a debrief later, or to sense it while they're doing it in the workout itself, they're gonna have to feel it. And they're gonna come away with a clear moment where they can say, I felt x or I felt y, and they were different. And just the setting of the intention sparks the ability to be able to do it. I have an athlete that I work with who is doing the she said, It's too much time. My life is crazy.

Steve:

I can't do the mission protocol. And I said, Okay, this is your new mission protocol. You ready? Each evening before your big quality workout, you got one on a Tuesday, one early in the week, one later in the week, I just want you to set one intention around that workout. One intention.

Steve:

And just think about it before you go to bed. That's it. And then if you get a chance to think about it, make a little note, put it in your car, you know, on your windshield somewhere when you're on your way back home, how did it go? Did I reach that intention? Did I not reach that intention?

Steve:

And you know what I've just there? Double click the feeling state. Double click their sense of feeling. This is the crazy thing, though, to me. The intention is not a feeling state, but yet it is this is the part that blows my fucking mind.

Steve:

This is magic. What is going What's How does this work? What's the mechanism by which this works? It I mean, I know what somebody who's in the neuroscience space will tell me, okay? I get that.

Steve:

But why does it work so well? And why are we so oblivious? Is it the attention that we're bringing to the thing? ATTE, the attention? Or is there something about the way we make intentions that changes it.

Michael:

I think it's more complex than it sounds is because if you decide to go into a workout saying, you know, okay, let's just say that there's a workout, there's an expectation of the range of the workout, there's an idea that you completed the workout and an idea that you can fail a workout. And then you layer an intention on front of that. You can choose to intend to abide by the failure or success of the parameters and the boundaries of the workout or you can create an intention that's more like I just want to flow into this and see where it lands and then reassess if it's failure or success based ex post facto. And then but what's confusing about that is that those are there's it's like the intention to the pre intention process is almost like a fork in the road. Do you which way do you wanna go?

Michael:

Do you wanna side with a strategy that's emotional or side with a strategy that's empirical. And I think first of all, have to decide where that intention lies. Because I do think it might be a fork in the road more often than not. And a lot of people I would imagine that they create a pretty opaque intention, which is like, wanna have fun, but I need to nail this workout. And it's like, that's well, you're kinda double dipping a little bit.

Michael:

And even though that might be good intention, I don't know. I'm just saying, like, Even there's

Steve:

that's okay if they're actually feeling it.

Michael:

Well, the thing is, once you get into a workout, you know, it's I do think it's easier and fairly practical to go to assess a workout after it's done. But I think that we that we continue to assess each workout after it's done and then forget it's like a it's like we forget to make an entry of where we started, what's happening, and where it ends. But where it ends is also where the next cycle begins. It's like, you know, it's the what's the end state? How do you bring that forward?

Michael:

So I think that there is some an aspect of daisy chaining all of these things together that really kind of create the magic. But I think it's really difficult. I think it's difficult because I think I think most people out there would probably assess a race after it's done. Very few people would probably place the importance of a I'm actually probably a little bit atypical. It's like, I place the most importance of a race on how I feel going into it, not how I feel after it's done at this point in my life.

Michael:

I've rearranged it. So my most important aspect is how I feel starting a race. I don't know why, but I like that. I like I like I that. To me, that's a more fun way of looking at things.

Michael:

And after the race, it's just kind of a data point, and then I take that into the next starting line. Does that make sense? A 100%. So, like, how do you wanna train based off of how you finished? How do you wanna start based off of how you finished?

Michael:

And I don't think that like, even on Strava, for example, or the way that you download data, you always get your data kind of after. You get to review your data after. But to review your workout before it even happens is pretty taboo. I mean, it's And that's an intention.

Steve:

Well, I would call that first step the brief. Frequently for people, it's pre done. Mhmm. Right? If you're in a training program, the brief's already been written.

Steve:

And that's why it's taboo. Because it's, you know, I do have some The guys that I'm working with in this master class, two of them are really working hard on self coaching, and they're using different models. One's using a Norwegian model, and the other one is using a heart rate model, HAD model. And it's really interesting hearing their their experiences. They're they're working hard on their because they're creating their own workouts.

Steve:

Their brief is like, the intentionality is not as important for them because they wrote the brief. They wrote the workout. They know what they're intending to get out of that workout. But the vast majority of people that are being coached, they're using that brief as the end all be all, not realizing that the athlete needs to bring their intention to it in order extract the greatest value out of the workout itself.

Michael:

I guess what I'm saying is in a crazy world, could you create a brand around coaching that was judging the success of your race or your workout or your training before you even start. It's a wild philosophy, but if you could train an athlete to be fulfilled with their intention even prior to the event itself, then you can just be fluid about what happens and everything else is

Steve:

a positive or negative symptom of that quality. I mean, that is a beautiful sentiment. And in fact, people who know me and have worked with me all through the early aughts know my byline was my responsibility is providing you with a quality starting line experience. But I've changed that, Michael, because that's not what people think about after when it's all over. Wonderful sentiment, sentiment, but at the end of the day, fucking that and a bag of fucking tea will get

Michael:

you

Steve:

nothing. Honestly, at the end of the day, I wish athletes did have that experience, even now,

Michael:

what my I think they can.

Steve:

I think they can too, but even now, I still think that even the starting line experience is missing the point. And I hope you don't take this as a criticism of you. I think the reason why you're hopeful, why you can put that focus on the starting line experience is because you're already so good at being present in the moment and really truly living the race experience as it's going on without layering in advance expectations, requirements must have happened in order to feel good at the finish line. So for you, you're like, hey, if I prepared effectively enough to feel good at the starting line, and I'm already just going to dance at the edge of whatever I've got during the race itself, the race result's going to take care of itself, and I would say that is really, really optimal. I would prefer you, honestly, to say, Oh, that startling experience, I hope I feel really good about that.

Steve:

You know why? Because that means I'm gonna have a much better experience of dancing on the edge in the race, and really getting into the micro details.

Michael:

Yeah, and then think about, like, the advantage in something like that would be you actually start the next training cycle at the start line of Yes. Your next So it's like it's like, okay, this is done, the race is about to start, and the next training cycle begins and it starts with a race, and then it starts with a D train, and then we're gonna get ready to go again, then it ends at the next one after that. I think that if you're in it for the long run, and you're in it for an experience, I actually think that's a super healthy hack. You know, it may be a hack.

Steve:

It's actually the way the physiology works.

Michael:

Right. Then you can just get the data. I'm saying de emphasize the training of this season on the race, but actually use the race as an emphasis on training on the next season. If you could pull that shit off, man, then you kind of reverse the way everything is implemented.

Steve:

I would just subtly shift the way you're talking about it to because of this many years of experience and having been in those psychic wars for all of my life, both as an athlete and a coach, I would say there's something dangerous about that model as it's adopted, although I would adopt it immediately for every athlete I possibly could just to get them started. But I do think that could also become its own little problem because I think at the end of the day, the really important thing is what it feels like to race. So, in essence, we could say there's an overlap.

Michael:

There's an overlap. I was gonna say there's a clear overlap and that's what's special.

Steve:

But the highlight is the actual race itself. And I think that the way nervous system works, most people are feeling such high levels of distress prior to the race because of expectations, because of this needing to get this result to feel good about themselves and all these other things. The reason why I've hammered hard for so long about how much suffering a goal time provides for people is because they cannot have a positive experience of the race itself. And that is a, what are we fucking training for then? Yes, we're training to train, but we do still give these fucking companies tons of money to close roads so we can go run these races, and they're miserable, and we don't enjoy them, and we're just hoping to extract some finished result from it.

Steve:

That's the idea of like, I'm gonna make millions of dollars so I can die within my bank account. What the fuck? I'm gonna get all this fitness just so I can I mean, it doesn't So I do see what you're saying about that? I do think it's really, really helpful to shift that, right? Which is why for years it was a statement.

Steve:

My job is to provide you with a good starting line experience. But over the last four to five years since I started Telos, I shifted away from that and said, No, I'm responsible for your finish line experience. But that's because I'm taking everything into account, which is why I hurt when my athletes fail. I don't hurt because I care about the time. I hurt because I know they suffered unnecessarily.

Steve:

Even a time when I miss by five minutes or ten minutes could be a great joy. Could be a great and not just something to learn. I'm not saying a learning experience, but literally beautiful.

Michael:

I think Yeah. I think it The one thing, is that being a coach, you don't have You may have your own coach, and I'd probably recommend it to anybody. You know, always have somebody on top of you that kind of is able to motivate you. And it reminds me a story of my brother who's a CEO of his own company, and they're in the financial fintech industry and, you know, they're they do pretty big business and one of their products became, like, illegal, deemed by by the Fed. It's like a checking account issue that kinda was like, dang, everything they've been working on for ten years is now like out of compliance or whatever it was.

Michael:

And so he called he called the chairman, and it's a great story and I always remember it. And he goes, you know, they don't know what to do here. You know, they they've done it again. We've we've been regulated out of everything that we've worked for for ten years trying to support community banks and, you know, the all this stuff. And the chairman just I from what from what my brother says, was just like very short sentence, he said, what a great opportunity there is to show or to show him what's next.

Michael:

And then he hung up the phone, and it was like, damn, that's cool. He just hung up on him. He goes I think he even said, like he was like, awesome. What a great opportunity that lies ahead that you can show them what's next. Bam!

Michael:

He hung up the phone and he called me and he was like, That was the most balling thing that anybody's ever said because I'm sitting here telling him we're dead in the water and he's telling me, Embrace it! Just kinda, That's awesome! So my question to you is, would say, feelings aside, yeah, you feel hurt, you feel pain that an athlete didn't get what they want, but there might be a component that's hell yes. What a great opportunity for us to crush it.

Steve:

Honestly, I know there's going to be a better feeling state later on. I know that. But problem is some people miss it. And don't even mean in the moment.

Michael:

But my question is why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't my brother be like, all right, let's just hang him up?

Steve:

No, your brother So what happens is it would have been different in this analogy, think, it's how your brother would have read that statement. Mhmm. Could read it as opportunity or read it as adapt or die. Yeah, for sure. And those are the same thing, but they come from a very different frame of mind.

Steve:

Sure. Adapt or die is, I feel like I'm going to die. And eventually I'll adapt, whereas opportunity is like, Oh, what's next? And so I think that I, yes, I always see it as what's next, but I feel So let me describe my suffering a little bit better. Let me use a different way to describe it.

Steve:

My suffering is for their suffering, not mine. My suffering is for their unnecessary suffering. That They could have taken that experience of bleeding from the nipples, legs are just cramping mercilessly and can't find the finish line. And if they deselected goal time, they would realize that this is a story that they'll be able to tell for the rest of their lives that's so amazing and how much They will more often talk about the absolute suffer fest that they've been through, but they don't get to feel the beauty of it in the moment. They're like, oh, this is so I fucking would say

Michael:

that they do because you know they're on the drip. It's not a day later that they're signing up for another fucking race, and you know how it goes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Deep down inside, everybody knows the game, And you yeah, emotions are everything, but underneath all of it is the game.

Michael:

It's like, yeah, you're all playing.

Steve:

Yeah. I think also I privilege the being present, and not everybody does. So that's just a disposition. I've had it, I think, most of my life. I wasn't able to articulate it the way I can articulate it now, but I know other people don't feel that way, and so I it's hard for me.

Steve:

I think this is the big problem that happens in, you know, folks who are trying to become enlightened. They can't they suddenly can't see how a lack of enlightenment would be valuable. Like, to me, I'm like, I don't care about enlightenment. But I understand why somebody does So to me, it's like many athletes don't care about having a good experience. They want that goal time.

Michael:

Just to like, there is an underlying commitment too. There is you know, I said in the last the last recording we did is that I think I even used the word maturity and it's not maturity. It's like if you commit fully to the process of what's next and you have decided that running will remain a part of your commitment until further notice, I think that there what we what we eventually learn after two, three, five, ten, twenty races is that is that the it is it's a very fluid process, and I think that's where I was trying to articulate, like, the de emphasis of time is it's not a de emphasis of that particular attribute. It's just there's there's more of a spotlight put on the how and the why instead of what we have done. And I think that once you get to that point in running, it's a privilege.

Michael:

And I think that they're it's a growing sport. And even in the footwear, it's like, you know, how many people walk into a running store and they're just like, I want a great running shoe. And I used to get that question, like, all the time. Like, hey. Just give me what's the best running shoe you have?

Michael:

And I was like, that is such a bizarre question to me. It's so bizarre. Was like, your feet?

Steve:

I mean, I'm a pizza, but if somebody asked me what the best pizza was, you'd be like, well, of all, we've gotta decide

Michael:

to know.

Steve:

Then we've gotta decide what you like.

Michael:

It's such an interesting question, but I can appreciate the idea I can appreciate where folks like that are coming from. It's commitment. There's beautiful commitment like I need great shit, I need a great place, I need a great group, I need a great race, I need all this great stuff. And I think that as you progress down that road you start to go, Damn, you know, there's a little bit more to it. Veteran status and maybe there's more to the longevity than there is.

Michael:

I think that's also a choice. It's like, how far do you want to take this thing? You want to take it really, really far? You wanna take this into your sixties, your seventies, your your 90? What was the guy?

Michael:

He ran Berlin. He was like he was like 90, 89 years old or something? I

Steve:

mean,

Michael:

do you wanna take it that far?

Steve:

I mean, there's a woman who broke the 1,500 meter world record for a 95 year old, and you're like, well, yeah, I didn't know there was anybody doing it. Yeah. But no, but she trained really fucking hard, it was a big thing, and that was what and it's the coolest thing in the world.

Michael:

Yeah. I mean, and, you know, it's I I think that same person who asked, like, what's a great shoe? They may go check that box and do their thing, and they may go sign up for a CrossFit gym. That's cool too. What's the best CrossFit shoe?

Michael:

That's cool. It's awesome. No problems there. It's just like where we place what's the best cricket ball racket? I don't know.

Michael:

There's something I said maturity in the last and it's not that. It's reevaluating the commitment, reevaluating what our position is, becoming brutally honest about what we need and how we're gonna do it, and getting kind of viscerally honest about that. That's it, man. And then there is I don't think you can separate the feeling state from the empirical data. I think that they're one in the same.

Michael:

And that's why I think whatever you choose, if you want to evaluate your race before or after, it's not like one is right or wrong. I just think that from a tactical standpoint, you know, consider where you're evaluating your race. Is it before or after? Because I can tell you, for me, it used to be after. Now it's before.

Michael:

And I don't know why. Don't know when that happened. It was like a mudslide. It just happens over time. And eventually, it happened and I didn't want to admit it to myself.

Michael:

And now I'm admitting it to myself. Maybe I'm bullshitting myself, maybe it's after, who knows? The point is, you know, is that there are options. You know, there are different feeling states we can have going into it.

Steve:

I will say though, there is a best chew. There is. It's the Daily Trainer 1.2.

Michael:

I agree.

Steve:

Just just saying I

Michael:

agree completely.

Steve:

Just like a New York style cheese pizza is literally the very best pizza ever in the most beautiful world. I'm just saying There's that. I put those two things on the same category. Oh,

Michael:

shit. Is there a best shoe? Yes. Yes.

Steve:

Well, we ranged all over everywhere, Michael. That was beautiful. Was

Michael:

a think wonderful conversation. That there's a lot here and it's like everything else in the world. We can't minimize meandering conversations because maybe we didn't give people a hard and fast on what they need to take away from this but I'm under the impression that people, the more thought provoking ideas and of landing on our own truth is To land on your own truth, you're going to have to feel it.

Steve:

Yeah. So then we're winning. Agreed. That's my main point, if you're feeling it, you're winning. Whatever it is.

Steve:

That's good. Better than not feeling. Because then you're dead.

Michael:

I agree. Y'all, enjoy. Godspeed. We'll get you next week.

Steve:

Week. Although we're probably gonna have to take a little bit of a break for Thanksgiving, Christmas. You know, we usually have to miss a few things because people are popping about, but

Michael:

Thanksgiving will be off. Yep.

Steve:

I don't know what the Christmas day looks like. Think it's like a Tuesday or something, but Is it? I don't know. Sure. But we'll

Michael:

see. Gotta think about my shipping schedules.

Steve:

Sorry. Oh, shit.

Michael:

Black Friday.

Steve:

Oh, God.

Michael:

Make me wanna kinda throw up in my mouth a little bit, but, you know, there's that.

Steve:

All that revenue.

Michael:

Y'all have a

Steve:

good one.