Stop Living in the Gray Zone — The 80/20 Rule for Training and Life | Matt Fitzgerald

Ageless Athlete Recording - Matt Fitzgerald
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Kush: [00:00:00] 

Matt: when runners get stuck in the moderate intensity rut, is that they're always a little tired, and they don't actually know it, It's... getting one less hour of sleep than you actually need every night. If, that's all you know you can function and, you'll basically feel fine. You won't know better. You won't know how much better you would feel and function until you start getting that extra hour 



Speaker: That is Matt's Fitzgerald, and I think that idea lands far beyond running because a lot of us are living some version of that moderate intensity rut. We are not falling apart, but we are not exactly fresh either. We are training, working, parenting, answering messages, trying to stay fit, trying to stay relevant, trying to keep up, and somewhere along the way, being a little too tired all the time starts to feel like normal.

Matt has spent his career helping athletes understand this better. He is one of the most thoughtful [00:01:00] and prolific writers in endurance sports, the author of 80/20 Running, 80/20 Triathlon, and How Bad Do You Want It? And many other books that have shaped how athletes think about training, nutrition, pacing, and the mental side of performance.

And his latest book, Dying to Run: An Athlete's Quest for One More Finish, may be his most personal one yet. In it, Matt writes about getting COVID early in the pandemic, developing long COVID, losing the ability to run for years, and then choosing to chase one more finish line, a 100-kilometer ultramarathon in the desert.

On paper, it looked irrational, but for Matt, it was not just about running. It was about identity, agency, unfinished business, and taking back authorship of his life. So yes, this is a reader service episode. You will learn why easy days need to be truly easy, why most athletes train too hard too often, how do you think about [00:02:00] 80/20 rule, and why recovery matters more than many of us want to admit.

But we will start with Matt's own journey, and this is a deeper conversation about risk, meaning ambition, and what happens when the life that once defined you is no longer available in the same way I did open up a, business called Dream Run Camp which is a, year-round fantasy retreat for adult runners. So it's based on an experience I had here in Flagstaff in, in 2017 when I was able to convince Ben Rosario, the founder and then head coach of the Hoka Northern Arizona elite professional running team, to allow me to kinda tag along and embed myself with the team as a 46-year-old amateur runner.

Matt: Just had this incredible fake pro runner experience for 13 weeks. And being who I [00:03:00] am, wrote a book about it. and then just thought about wouldn't it be cool if I could make a version of this experience available to other runners? And that eventually became Dream Run Camp, and it had to be in Flagstaff 'cause that's, where I'd had my experience.

And there's no better place to be a runner, 

Kush: wow. I have been around Arizona, and I've driven through it. I have rock climbed right on the outskirts, but I did not realize that- Flagstaff would be such a captivating place- 

To, spend time as a runner. Matt You have written a lot of books. You coach athletes. Now you run this Dream Camp or Dream Run Camp. You're also known for innovations in training with 80/20. Yeah, so you do multiple things, but if I had to understand that thread that ties it all [00:04:00] together With you as a person what is that? 

Matt: Couple things.

Like one is yeah, I think there's a lot of accident and chance involved in anyone's career path. And that's, true for me as well. if, things had, if I'd grown up in a different place or had different parents I the same me could be doing some very different things.

But two things that I think were going to flavor my path regardless of the accidental factors. One I'm, wired for creativity, so I, live to create. I've been doing it since I was a small child, and I cannot stop. I was nine years old when I declared to my parents that I was going to be a writer w- when I grew up and never wavered at any point that was my path and that was what I was going to do.

I just happened to also develop a passion for running. And a couple years after college, the two came together and writing about running ever [00:05:00] since. And then more broadly like I, I'm just I'm a person of intense passions when I, like something, I love something.

And there's a term called hyper fixation. That's it's common to a lot of people with, like autism and HDH- ADHD, and like other various forms of what they call neurodivergence now. But it's a tendency to just become obsessively dedicated to whatever it is you fall in love with.

So that's just part of my makeup, too. Like I'm I'm just all in on whatever it is that I'm most passionate about. I bring-- writing obviously isn't the only thing I do. It's the one thing you could never take away from me. But, even in, in something like coaching, I, take a creative approach to it.

Like I, view training as a creative process and for, others it's a little bit more paint by numbers. It's "Oh, we have it all figured out, and you just have to do X, Y, Z, and inputs, outputs. You get the results." That to me is not how it [00:06:00] happens in the real world at all, and it really is...

Training is creative problem solving. It's there, there is a unique pathway to fulfillment of potential for each individual athlete, and the, specific nature of that path remains to be discovered for each athlete. So yeah, we're all humans and there are certain principles that apply universally.

But to, reach your full potential as a, as an athlete you, y- you have to create or discover your, unique formula. And so I take that same creative approach to even something that most people wouldn't consider a creative enterprise as well. So you know, the three lines through everything I do, even like the entrepreneurship, are creativity and passion 

Kush: M- Matt, that's remarkable.

At nine years old, you had this strong conviction to become a writer. Not typical. And you have taken this all the way and you've written multiple [00:07:00] books. Okay, here's a fun question. Are you a writer first or an athlete first? 

Matt: Writer, that's an easy one. 

Kush: And, okay. Yeah. And if you could do only one thing, would it be writing or running?

Matt: It, would be writing I, lost the ability to run for a few years. I got a, very bad case of COVID-19 before the pandemic was even a pandemic, and I basically never recovered. And the, acute illness turned into a chronic illness and and it was life-changing f- for me.

I, I tried to run through it for a while 'cause that's what I do, but this was, like, a different beast. My body was just in dire distress, like 35 different symptoms is what I got to before I lost count. And and so yeah, for three years, I, I didn't run a step basically. And, so I've already lived that.

I I, have lived with writing and, no [00:08:00] running and, that's very much the way I would prefer it. For a while I had to... cognitive impairment, severe neurological symptoms. So for a while, like I had to actually stop. I had to basically retire. I couldn't do desk work anymore.

I couldn't write a training plan. But even then as I was more or less like housebound I would still write in my head. Y- like there is simply no off switch for that that, that wiring. It's, the only thing that kept me from utter despair when it was really bad, is that I could still write a poem in my head even though I couldn't actually move or do anything.

Wow, that sounds really challenging. And yes, I've heard of cases of long COVID even in my family, but you might have... Did you go through a particularly severe strain of long COVID? 

Matt: Yeah, I was I, was infected in February 2020. It was- 

Kush: Oh, super early. Yeah. 

Right when it started.

Wow. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, got infected run- How did you get it? [00:09:00] Running a marathon. Yeah. Oh. I went to Atlanta. They were having the Olympic trials marathon there. And I went out. I was invited there. So I've just paid to show up, but I watched the Olympic trials and then I ran the, regular Atlanta marathon the next day, and then flew back home to California and was symptomatic four or five days after I got home.

Yeah. 

Kush: Wow. That sounds insane because you, got home and you were sick, and maybe this is, you know- A fair bit before people had even started understanding what COVID is.

I remember I was in the middle of travels myself, and it was only maybe March or April that it started hitting the headlines. 

And then people started the investigations and analysis. So how sh- how jarring was it? Can you talk about what you felt like coming home and suddenly getting afflicted by what some might think would be just a cold, maybe worse, the [00:10:00] common flu, but sounds like it was hurting you a lot more than that.

Matt: Yeah. I really think of them as two different illnesses. The acute viral infection and then the, chronic illness, which has more of an autoimmune flavor to it. So the acute illness even that I had my share of colds and flus. And early on it's hard to remember just how things- Yeah

were back then, but early on, I assumed it was a cold or flu. I knew COVID was out there, but it was still thought of as like something in China that was making it, its way here. And it was only when as I went through the illness and realized One of the first clues was that I had these false recoveries.

previously with colds and flus, other viruses, when I started to improve I, kept improving until I was symptom-free. There was, one recovery. With, COVID-19 I was like sick for a week, and then started to feel better, and I thought, "Here I go. I'm on my way."

And [00:11:00] then the bottom would drop out again, and I was, like, back in bed. And that happened I think maybe three times. And I actually broke a rib coughing or, at least tore cartilage in my ribs. It was, like, indescribably painful. Not just the injury itself, but I still was having these half-hour-long violent coughing fits twice a day, almost like you could set your watch to them.

it, was bad. But then I did, Eventually, one of those false recoveries was a- an actual recovery, so I thought. And I was, so I was sick for a month. It was weird because I had absolutely crushed the Atlanta Marathon. I, was 48 about to turn 49, finished 14th overall out of 2,200 runners.

Ran a 246 on an incredibly challenging course. I was this high fitness-wise, and then a, month of nothing. And so when I was able to run again, everyone else at this point is complaining about how there are no races. All the races were canceled. I was just happy I could run again. And I [00:12:00] thought, I beat the virus.

I, I'm back." And that appeared to be the case for about six months. I actually... I had, in hindsight, there were a couple clues that something was still lurking i- inside me. I had little hints of neuropathy in my lower legs. But I got I really felt like I got all my fitness back in six months. I was riding high, and only then, and so we're now we're, in October of 2020.

That's when the weird, creepy- chronic symptoms started to creep in and I just started to unravel. But because of that six-month gap, I did not connect the two. And we'd had, really we had a really bad wildfire season. I was still in California then, and there w- we had terrible air quality for a couple weeks straight, and it was right around that time that I started to unravel.

And I thought, "Oh, maybe I just inhaled a lot of particulates," and which is actually a thing i- you know. But over time I, realized, as I learned there was more in the news about long [00:13:00] COVID and I my symptoms just kept lining up in an uncanny way. And so e- eventually I, self-diagnosed long COVID

Kush: Wow. Matt coughs can be brutal. Let me just start there. Yeah. And even a moderate cough can be so painful. 

I feel that there is a lot of learning here for the rest of us. And the part that I am very curious about is movement and running and writing seems like a very central part of your identity. 

And many people relate. I, know I do. If I get really sick with something and I can't even do basic movement, it becomes very difficult.

So can you take us back into those days and talk about coping mechanisms, and you talk about h- how creativity is part of your DNA. So talk about how you were able to work through that. 

Matt: The [00:14:00] way I'm wired psychologically I'm I'm, stoical by nature.

I am also fatalistic by nature. So very early on when I ha- developed the chronic symptoms they were just so different from... I, felt bad in a weird way that was just wholly different from any bad feeling I had ever experienced before, especially what's known now as post-exertional m- malaise.

'Cause when people hear malaise, they think fatigue, and it's not that. They often happen together, but they're two distinct symptoms. Like malaise is more like you feel like you've been poisoned. It's just kinda like this everywhere and nowhere icky, toxic feeling that i- is hard to describe. And and I didn't even have a name for it at that point.

I just felt, I felt awful in, in a completely novel way. And just something about my makeup told me like, "Dude, this could be permanent." I just had an intuition like [00:15:00] you, you could be... They're, calling it long haulers for a reason. Like this could be permanent. And so I, in terms of coping, getting to your question, my instinct was to, yeah, I wanted to try to get better but what could I really do?

It, there was like not much. There was no cure. There was not really not much known about it. There were no obvious effective treatments. People were throwing lots of different stuff at it, but you have to be selective. You can't try everything. How, 

Kush: what was it doing to you on a day-to-day basis?

I'm curious. Were you, trying to read doing what other people were doing? Maybe watch a lot of shows. but how were you able to find sanity, find peace, find some comfort during those long, dark days? 

Matt: Yeah. Y- I, tried to cha-- So I, was working out two hours a day, like every day during 

Kush: the- How were you able to work out 

Matt: being that sick? No, that, that stopped. I'm saying like that was- Oh ... That was, my routine until I got [00:16:00] sick. I didn't stop a- I didn't stop all at once.

I, I just kept taking a step back and a step back, and my health kept getting worse and worse until eventually I just shut down all forms of exercise. But that that opened up two hours in my day. And what do I do with those two hours? I'm, just gonna work more you know?

I'm not a television watcher and, I wasn't even in the mood for it anyway. That's the thing, like often there were times when I, really couldn't really concentrate on anything. I, would just lie on a, sofa staring at the ceiling. I would wake up in the morning and I would try to stay in bed as long as I could 'cause like consciousness, like being conscious was just a curse.

It was like being in solitary confinement. Like I couldn't... I w- I was awake, but I could not do anything. I could watch TV, but it was just irritating. Like I, I didn't like the sound and I didn't like... I, couldn't really concentrate. So I would just stare at the ceiling and, my wife and I would go to a, park and just sit on a bench [00:17:00] watching ducks I would I would take very long baths in the middle of the day. But mostly I would just I would stay in bed as long as I could in the morning until I was sure I could not wring any more sleep out of my body, and then I would just wait 16 hours until I was tired again. And in the early evening, I would just be watching the clock just like praying for drowsiness to come knock me unconscious and rescue me from the, curse of being awake.

So it was just like a, just a great emptiness. There was really nothing I could do other than just run it back again the next day. 

Kush: Incredible, Matt 

were there any periods maybe when things were at their darkest what kept hope going that something was around the corner that you would get better? 

Matt: Nothing really. I'm, not big on hope anyway.

Hope doesn't make sense to me because it it's like the stoics were down on hope c- because they're down on any sort of external dependency. [00:18:00] As, as soon as your mood depends on things you can't control, you're in trouble. So I, I didn't... I networked with a lot of other h- long haulers, and they were just living for hope.

And they just seemed more frantic and desperate than I was. Like, I was really focused on controlling what I could. So you know I, was trying to, and this is what I was starting to say earlier my instinct was like, "I need to be okay the way I am." And there's a term I learned in, the middle of all this called biographical suspension.

It's when people develop a chronic illness, they act- they just put their life on pause so that they can frantically search, devote their lives to trying to recover. And I thought that was strategically not a good way to go just because there was no cure. There was nothing that even seemed to work for a lot of people.

So like, why am I gonna put my whole life on pause and just be in this like frantic I need to be better now state when there really was no reason to believe that [00:19:00] I w- I was going to get better. I was definitely trying things, and I definitely wanted to get better, but I was not actively hoping to get better.

I was actively working on being okay as I was. Like, that, that was my focus, and that, really ultimately le- led to the decision to move to Flagstaff and start Dream Run Camp. I was trying to think of a way out for a long time, and the best thing I could come up with in terms of being okay, like sick and miserable, was to pivot towards service.

Which was not something I had a lot of experience with, honestly. I- I've just been like a solitary creator just I coach remotely, I write books. Just my older brother nicknamed me Project Matt at one point. I- I'm very I'm, like very self-focused. But during the pandemic, I had a friend who hosted like traditional weekend, long weekend adult running camps, and even though I was sick, I would go to them and coach.

And every time I went to one of his camps, I felt better. And after like it happened three times, it was like a clear [00:20:00] pattern, and I told my friend Jake- Oh, 

Kush: so you were able to go to those camps even while being sick? You had recovered to some degree to be able to travel Is that correct or- 

Matt: Yes. It's, j- the, thing is, like I, I wasn't I wasn't, like paralyzed.

I wasn't receiving dialysis or tethered to an oxygen tank. Like i- if I had to, like I could suck it up and do something. Like I would just f- I wouldn't feel like it. It would take a huge toll on me but I could, do stuff. Y- you know what I mean? That's, the nature of some of these chronic illnesses.

Like you're, just like really tired and malaise-y and your brain is buzzing. But you can like you can choose your moments to power through something. I wasn't in a wheelchair. Y- you know what I mean? Like the first camp, like I almost didn't go. Like the day before the camp I, was just in a really rough state and just like the thought of driving to an airport and going through security and wearing a mask on a plane I'm just like, "I am not sure I, can do this."

But I just [00:21:00] felt a responsibility to my friend and I just went. And I remember like we had an all staff meeting the evening before the camp started, and I didn't even sit at the table with the other coaches. I, was lying down on a chaise lounge just in a corner of the same room 'cause I couldn't even really sit up.

So yeah, I went to the camp. Yeah. But that's the state I was in. But at, the end of those three days, I w- I felt much better. I went from not even really being able to sit up to I remember jogging next to a runner who was running a marathon there just to give them encouragement. And so that happened three times and I thought, "There's something to this."

Like I, told my friend Jake I'm not sure if I feel better or I just don't know how bad I feel when I'm in this environment." And he, jokingly said, "You should just live inside a running camp that never ends. You would be effectively cured." And I took that to heart. I'm like, "You're right.

I should live inside a running camp that never ends." "And I'm, going to [00:22:00] create it." And so that, that was the genesis. So like that, was my way of coping. I, felt like this is something I can do even if I can't run, even if I don't feel good. and just pay it forward and, like I said, like pivot toward service. So it had always been all about Matt up to that point, and this is my- I flipped it 180 degrees and it was not at all about Matt at Dream Run Camp. 

Kush: Matt, that is powerful. 

So even if it was a- all about Matt, and by that it sounds like it was Matt operating in your private place and providing, let's say, remote services through books, through coaching. But this was now Matt being in a public place and being with people and being part of that energy. And I'm just curious if, joining these runners, these aspirants in person, if that accelerated your [00:23:00] healing in some way.

Can you, speak about that experience? 

Matt: Yes. It, it was definitely the right move. once the camp was... It just about killed me to, to... I was m- moving buying a house, like starting a business, and this w- it was all...

I hired people for certain things, like to build a website, but it was all me. And, I was still very sick trying to get this business off the ground. But when it opened and people were coming and the vision was real, I realized, I've done the right thing. Th- this, is doing exactly what I wanted it to do.

It did not heal me. I, I remained very unwell for the first, Was it two, yeah no the, first full year. I only started to improve when I came up on around the three-year anniversary of developing the chronic illness. And I think that it was at that point I, started to accept that I was actually never going to recover.

There's one thing to think it in your [00:24:00] head, but, like when, your body decides... The analogy I'm I make is wh- when I was 14 years old, I blew out my knee playing soccer, and I had reconstructive surgery and then this is back in the mid-'80s, so the recovery from a third-degree ACL tear is n- it wasn't what it is now.

It was like, "Oh," it was a year. And so I was wearing a full-length leg brace for many months. And it, I had- it was on for so long that I started, it was in my dreams. So when I slept at night and I saw myself in my dreams, I had a leg brace on because I think my body had decided it's part of your body now.

And I think something happened, s- similar happened with, long COVID. Just intellectually, I didn't know if I was gonna recover or not, but after about three years, I think my body decided you're not. And, when that sort of bone-deep acceptance of my poor health sunk in, 'cause I, had dreamed the whole time, ever since I stopped running, I dreamed of making a [00:25:00] comeback.

But I wanted the Disney version where I would beat the illness and then come back because I had unfinished business. I, had a hard time accepting that I hadn't known my last race was my last race. And I'd also DNF'd the longest race I had ever attempted, a 100-kilometer trail race, right before I got sick, and that didn't sit well with me.

So on New Year's Eve, this is like the very tail end of 2023 I signed up for a 100-kilometer trail ultramarathon even though I hadn't run in three years and, could not run to, the best of my knowledge. But, 

Kush: Can we- Yeah. Can we stop there for a second? Now this is a really interesting turn in the story because, Matt, you have built this career talking about intelligent training, patience, sustainable effort, and really maybe not overcooking the body.

And in your book, you set out to [00:26:00] run this 100K. And- You still had unresolved long COVID. So it seems like a contradiction. Can you help us make sense of that? 

Matt: Yes. Yeah I think they are, there are two separate matters at play. One is, why do you run? What does it do for you? The other is to the extent that you run for performance, you should do things the most effective way. The 80/20 methodology and, the stuff I'm known for when I'm writing about methodology is it's about balance and not overdoing it and all this kind of stuff.

But that is a separate matter from why are we even doing this? And optimizing performance is, it's not the whole thing, that's... even for me chasing performance was just an excuse to stretch my mind and body beyond known [00:27:00] limits. That is, why I ran, because I wanted to...

It was Project Matt all over again. I wanted to stretch myself further than I ever had before. 

Kush: yes, running as part of your identity, it's so important, right? So that's just freedom, that's joy, that's movement, that's therapy, and let's say I feel that.

running 100K race seems a l- a little bit more than just running for identity and therapy. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. But it was like, it was y- you know- It's complicated. But I wanted to do something that that was crazy. That...

I wanted to do something that was not definitely impossible, but that was almost impossible. And possibly impossible. I was going to find out. But I just wanted to I'm a risk-taker. that, that, is who I am. Like, I... in the, myth of Icarus and Daedalus, where we're all supposed to tut-tut at Icarus for his hubris in flying [00:28:00] too close to the sun I'm a fan of Icarus.

crashing into the sea- ... and dying was a small price to pay for almost touching the sun. You know what I mean? I f- I feel bad for Daedalus for playing it safe at s- lesser heights. Boring. That- that's not me. I, like I would much rather burn out than rust. I, just want to freaking go for it i- in life. that's why I've written 40 books, because I'm like, "I've got 80 years on this planet, and I am going to go full speed for 80 years." that, that is me. That's why I've just been a hardcore endurance athlete.

It explains my marriage. It explains my entrepreneurship my travels everything. I just want to squeeze every last drop of richness out of life i, i- in the time that I have. Death doesn't scare me. Suffering doesn't scare me. Aiming too low and achieving my mark scares me. But even y- [00:29:00] despite all of that I, was trapped in the same paradigm for three years.

My thinking was only a lunatic would try to run 100 kilometers with, long COVID. I, thought it just didn't seem... You can't do that. You have to be healthy to run. That was my tacit assumption. And it was only when I got to that crossroads where I realized "Matt the Disney version of the story you want is not going to happen."

So I still had the burden of un- unfinished business. I still needed closure. And then the question was, like, do you just let go and move on? Or do you do it anyway? Do you break out of the paradigm that says you have to be healthy to run? And I just decided to, go for it. A- and again, m- not again, but my mindset was I ended up actually finishing the race.

I I told people, I f- I, I told my friends and family I, "I give myself a 10% chance of making it to the start line." Never mind the finish line. Y- [00:30:00] that's what I thought my odds were, and I actually ended up making it, not only to the start line, but to the finish. But I'm almost- I'm almost disappointed that I did finish because that wasn't the point.

when I woke up on New Year's morning, New Year's Day, having done this insane thing, paid $500 to sign up for a race like I had absolutely no business training for, m- my life was better the next morning. I had already won. It didn't matter. I knew it was gonna be the hardest thing I ever did. I assumed I would fail.

But I was, taking control of my narrative. Like I, was going back to living my life the way I wanted to, and it didn't matter how much it hurt. It didn't matter how badly or publicly I failed. I announced my intention to run this race in The New York Times. So the whole world knew.

Not the whole world, but I I was not just gonna fail, I was gonna fail very publicly. All of that was fine 'cause like I when I woke up the next morning [00:31:00] with this goal in front of me, which is why I wanted to chase big goals always, 'cause like just the feeling of urgency and that sense of anticipation you have when, you've put a big goal out there and you're not ready for it yet and you've got to like really work to be ready, like I was back in that anticipatory state of mind that That had m- been the key to my happiness until I got sick. So it didn't really matter what happened on day two or three or the rest. I had won just by making that commitment. 

Kush: Making that commitment, putting the money in and announcing that, and I feel like there's this deep lesson here on why is it that taking that first step is so important in really any crazy endeavor?

What do you think? 

Matt: You quickly find yourself trading in cliches when, you, when you- but it really it, it is about the journey. Like for me it is about a way of li- like the finish line is just an excuse to run. That is [00:32:00] all it is, a- and it's just about setting up the conditions that allow you to, take that first step.

and, then you see it's about this. My, my mantra for that, race was the goal is not to finish the race, it's to experience it. And I was going to just be here now doing this and let the finish line come to me if it chose to. The irony is, and this is where I got started, you asked about recovery, and nothing about operating Dream Run Camp helped me recover.

I only started to improve health-wise when I started training for the ultramarathon. So it was when, like... And any expert, any medical expert on long COVID and related conditions will tell you the stupidest thing you could possibly do as a sufferer of this illness is try to train for an ultramarathon.

it's like, it is like the, number one guaranteed contraindicated, if you if you wanna make your symptoms 10 times worse this is what [00:33:00] you do. But that is actually not what happened. I actually started to improve when I did the stupidest thing anyone with, long COVID could do.

My, my term for it is the high bar effect where you just if your goal is to survive, you're gonna do just enough. But if you're willing to jeopardize your survival in a bid to thrive, Icarus then you try a lot harder. You actually discover how much m- harder you could have been trying all along, and that's what happened with, me.

The most effective treatment for long COVID is what they call pacing, which is exactly what it sounds like. runners know all about pacing. It with, chronic fatigue a- and malaise, it's like a macro pacing. You're, just trying to balance exertion and rest in a way that allows you it keeps you from going over the tipping point.

So I had to just get to three-dimensional chess, Jedi-level pacing in order to try to gain fitness. you know, aerobic exercise is exposure to a toxin if you have long [00:34:00] COVID. 

Kush: Now, so Matt maybe, okay, a zoom out moment here. You are a coach and an educator, and you admit yourself that doing something like this is ill-advised.

So who are you writing this book for, and what do you want us to take away from it? 

Matt: Yeah. I am I am the way I am, but I'm also I've never been one to tell people how to live their lives. But I know how to live mine and I I'm 55 years old.

I have plenty of experience of people looking at me like I have got two heads because of the risks I take. I, want people to not just dismiss... I, don't want people to just write me off as crazy because I'm a happy person. This is working out for me. Like risking it all repeatedly to just stretch my capabilities in body, mind, and spirit has...

I could die tomorrow and I have no regrets y- you know, because the there's, nothing that I wanted to do [00:35:00] that I allowed fear to stop me from, doing. So I think there's, even though it is, it's risky and if we had time I could list the times it hasn't worked 

Kush: out.

Matt: The times I've crashed an- and burned but that's just all part of it. Y- you don't even regret that 'cause you still have a heck of a time crash landing. and so I just want people just to, I'm not preaching in this book. I'm just telling the story.

Here's what I did and I want, my story to get people to challenge their own assumptions about risk and playing it safe and, tho- those kinds of questions. And then you do it, do, you do with it what you will. But y- you once you've seen it, you can't unsee just the incredible journey I was able to experience because I didn't let fear stop me from doing something I wanted to do.

And I I just, I see it all the time [00:36:00] in the athletes I coach or the people I mentor, I see what a tragic limiter fear can be i- in the lives of everyday people. And it doesn't mean everyone's gotta do crazy stuff but I think, and it's very common. One of the themes in this book is thinking like a dying person, which I started to do.

Long COVID is not a terminal illness, but I liken it to being 30% dead all the time. So you shift into that short-timer's mindset. And the psychology of people, of dying people is interesting because there are some very common regrets that come up. And two of them at the very top of the list in terms of people, things people regret when they're dying.

One is not helping more people while they had the chance, and I, had that regret without even knowing it until I started Dream Run Camp. And the other one is not, taking more risks just letting fear stop them from doing things that they really wanted to do but they were afraid of [00:37:00] failure or struggle or whatever it was.

Kush: That part resonates strongly, Matt, because yes if you don't try, you will never know, and that's the worst I think regret that anybody may have because maybe we come to a point in our lives when we actually cannot try anymore. Yes. So then, it becomes this thing where we kept pushing things out, and now we don't have that opportunity.

Matt: Right. 

Kush: I wanna spend maybe just a couple of minutes on the race itself because, yeah, I'm still just daunted by your experience a little bit. So Matt, take us to that morning. Okay, you signed up for that race, and you in some ways you felt you have already won. You set out that intention. It lightened your life in some way.

But here you are at the starting line, and again, this is not a run around the park or even a run to a hill and back This is 100 kilometers. I just want listeners to kinda get their heads wrapped around. [00:38:00] This is 100 kilometers. That can take hours upon hours to finish. You are now at the starting line.

What's going through your head? What's going through your body? 

Matt: It was also 99 degrees that day, 

Kush: What race is this? Where, are you? 

Matt: It's the Javelina 100. 

Kush: Okay. 

Matt: It's in the Sonoran Desert in the Phoenix Valley. And it's in late October. This is not 

Kush: at a, this is not like a high elevation.

This is, No ... you're down there. It's- Yeah ... 

Matt: low elevation. it's not the most challenging 100K out there, except when it's 99 degrees. the... It was like the, DNF rate was over 50% year. 

Kush: Wow. And so is this early morning? Like I, They're trying to get people out at crack of dawn just to get some good 

Matt: weather?

Yeah the 100 mile, so they have a 100 mile option. That starts at 6:00 AM. The 100K starts at 7:00. But we were all uncomfortably warm within three hours, y- but in terms of, like, how I felt, it was like I w- I was, consciously reflecting on how I felt while I was on the starting line, so as, so I can tell you the prepotent [00:39:00] emotion that I was feeling was gratitude.

Just powerful waves of, gratitude I didn't think I would ever be standing on a s- on, a start line a- again. And, just as I put it in the book, like in a slightly different version of my life, like I was at home s- sitting in a van at a trailhead waiting for people who were able-bodied enough to run to finish running just another day at Dream Run Camp.

But here I was about to attempt the most chal- challenging physical feat of my life. But I just felt so grateful that- ' cause I was there by choice. And it just seemed it just seemed like a, like a gift. And then eagerness was the second. Right under gratitude was eagerness 'cause I wanted to be...

I didn't wanna be preparing for the race anymore, I wanted to be doing it because I knew it was gonna just be an unforgettable... I like intense [00:40:00] experiences and I knew it was going to be almost like a life, and death level o- of intensity. And that's like a drug for me.

And I, was very eager to... I, was like, "Let's get this... Let's... Let's get the show on the road," was my attitude. I couldn't wait to get started. 

Kush: But how were you... Actually maybe, this might help for us to understand. You have been an athlete all your life, but you also got really sick, so I'm guessing you were not able to prepare for this race the normal way.

Like, how did you prepare? Again- Yeah ... you can have all the ambition and the excitement, but you can't really think of completing 100K off the couch. Yeah. Or maybe for some people can, maybe you can, but at least not with a compromised body. 

Matt: Yeah. I was without question the least physically prepared person of the 1,400 runners com- competing the two distances.

I started off with walking a little bit of walking, and things actually did go better than expected early on. I [00:41:00] was pulling every lever, y- available to try to- Just create a body that could handle just the minimum preparation to, be able to go the distance. And I started off with a little walking and that went okay, so I did a, little more and a little more.

I didn't run a step until six or seven weeks into the process, and then it was just the tiniest... It's hard to, for people to understand. All runners have come back from injuries. The level of caution you have to apply when you're, trying running with, long COVID, 'cause, you, can, do what seems like an absurdly minimal dose of running and then be bedridden for weeks afterwards.

It was just like you're over a cliff, there was no sign, and it was like "What, the hell just happened?" and I had been burned in past occasions just a little, just a little tiny bit was way too much. So I w- I was nervous when I... But the walking had gone well. I walked 40 miles in a week.

So that's six miles a day o- of walking is what I built up to. And I was, [00:42:00] like, losing weight 'cause I had gained a lot of weight when I was sedentary. I was feeling better. I was dealing with more malaise than I would feel if I weren't pushing it, but that was just baked in.

But then a little running became a little bit more running, and then the bottom did actually drop out in the summer. So I went f- for seven weeks when, everyone else participating in the Javelina 100 was doing their peak training, I was bedridden again. I had gone over the cliff and and so for seven weeks I didn't even walk, and I lost everything I had gained in, coming before.

And when... I, called it the loss period. And when I came out the other side of the loss period and I felt like I could try at least walking again, I had 63 days for the race. So I basically started over with my training with 63 days before the race, from zero. 

Kush: Were you, Matt, were you relying on maybe somebody else's- assistance to coach you through this?

Did maybe being able to monitor your, health [00:43:00] using technology? I, think many of us find ourselves in that position, right? When we're trying to find that line where we are not feeling fully fit, but we still want to be able to go and do our- 

Matt: Yeah ... 

Kush: our sport both for, fitness but also therapy.

Yeah. And yeah, I just wanna understand from your, own experience building up to this. 

Matt: Yes. I was part of a, or I was the subject of a, scientific case study. One of the advantages of announcing what I was gonna do in The New York Times is that a lot of people saw it and people reached out to me with words of encouragement.

Some people tried to talk me out of it. But a medical researcher reached out to me and said "Hey, this is an incredible opportunity for science," because you could never design a prospective study that would have people with long COVID training for an ultramarathon. It would never pass the ethics re- review.

But, but- ... since I had chosen to do it by my own volition, they said, "Hey can we monitor you?" So i- it was this [00:44:00] guy Andrew Hart- 

Kush: They were like, "Wait a second. You are crazy. We are not gonna pay you a gazillion bucks for it. Let's confirm this. You are doing this out of your own volition." Yeah. "And if you're doing that can we help study you?"

Matt: Yes. Yep. So they It, wasn't there was nothing really invasive done. I did a couple of VO2 max and lactate threshold tests. I was monitoring HRV daily. I was doing lung function testing daily. And also just monitoring subjective, particularly malaise. They have me d- develop my own kind of six point malaise, post-exertional malaise scale, and I was tracking that daily alongside activity, which actually was very helpful.

I, I talked about trying to Take that pacing technique to the next level. A- and that really helped, so I could start to see, l- connect cause and effect in terms of, training stimulus and, like, how I felt and, how I functioned, so I could really try to thread the needle.

'Cause I was trying to do as much as I could get away with, but not an i- not an [00:45:00] inch more. So, I did have some guidance there, but I was mostly self-guided. And, I'll say on the coaching piece, I would never have... A, nobody could have coached me through this. And B, I wouldn't have allowed anyone to coach me through it, just because, it wasn't just risky, it was dangerous what I was doing.

And I just don't think that would've been fair to any coach. to put that... If something really terrible had happened, that person any self-respecting coach I know would have carried a burden, a sense of responsibility, even if it wasn't their fault. And I didn't want to put any coach...

I, know some great coaches, and I didn't wanna put any of them in that position. I was, gonna coach myself. Plus, it's just, there's no playbook. 

Kush: What was the most difficult moment in that race for you, again, running 100 kilometers through the desert with persistent long COVID?

Matt: Yeah. Fortunately I had some sense of what I was in for because of [00:46:00] three weeks before Javelina, I ran the Flagstaff Marathon. So this is my first race of any kind in 1,860 days. And I did it really just as a, like a test of the viability of going through with Javelina. So I've run a lot of marathons.

The Flagstaff Marathon is by far the hardest marathon I've ever run. It's, it starts at 8,000 feet has 2,400 feet of elevation gain. It's all trail. It's brutal. It was actually hot that day e- even up here. And I, didn't know what I was experiencing during the race. I, looked it up afterwards.

It's called autonomic hyperactivity, which is a kind of shock state that can actually, it can be fatal. It's it's where your, nerv- like other shock states, like, where your, nervous system percei- it overreacts to a perceived threat. And with long COVID that's what's going, that's what post-exertional malaise is.

It's like you run a mile, your body thinks you ran a marathon. [00:47:00] You run a marathon, your body thinks you just killed yourself. So at halfway through that race, I started to hyperventilate and my entire left leg went numb from the toes all the way up into the buttock. I had to look down to even know my foot was touching the ground.

And I could not, and my heart was pinned at 180 beats per minute, which is max for me, and I was walking. And I, felt like I was desperately o- overheating and and I was able to finish the Flagstaff Marathon, and like I said, afterward I went to my computer and did some Googling.

What, was that? What just happened to me? And I found out it was autonomic hyperactivity. And then during the, And I should mention, so wrapped up in long COVID is dysautonomia, which is a dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. And that, there's a lot that comes with that, like erratic heart rate.

And also you lose the ability to thermoregulate properly, so- I was a sitting duck out there like n- 99-degree high temperature, [00:48:00] completely exposed out there for hours and hours, and my body was not capable of, thermoregulating the way the healthy runners on to my left and right.

It was hard for everyone, but I was severely compromised in that regard. So I had, during the race I had two full-blown episodes of autonomic hyperactivity where it's just, again like hyperventilating. Heart rate pinned at absolute maximum, even at a walk. You feel like it, you're experiencing hypoth- hyperthermia, though I doubt I was actu- actually hyperthermic.

It's just, again, it's like that overreaction. Th- I was alone for the first episode, and I just was able to come out the other side of it. My best friend, my, my childhood, m- the co-captain of the, my high school cross-country team and best friend from the 1980s, Mike, came out. He paced me in my last lap, and wisely he carried a satcom device with him just in case there was a medical emergency out there.

And he was a great pacer. He stayed positive [00:49:00] he kept a poker face. It was about me. wasn't about him. But he told me afterwards "I almost used it." " I," " I thought I was gonna have to have you helicoptered o- off the race course." So you asked what the hardest moment was.

That was it. just like you feel like you've just completely lost control of your body a- and there's nothing you can do to get it back. And I wasn't gonna quit. I told everyone "You can make me quit. I'm not going to quit." So all I knew was that I was just going to take the next step until I couldn't.

And fortunately this, that second episode and by far the worst episode of hyper- autonomic hyperactivity happened late in the afternoon. And just as I got to the top of the, biggest climb, the sun started to set, and it started to cool just a little bit, and I got to an aid station in the, in, just in the nick of time.

And my ner- And that's the thing about this, it's like a switch in your nervous system. So it can go in two direct dir- directions. Both times I came out of that shock state, it was almost instantaneous. And I [00:50:00] was r- I was running again. I ran the last 10 miles of that race.

I looked at my watch at one point. I was walking 23 minutes per mile, which is very slow. But that was as fast as I could go. And then an hour later I'm running nine-minute miles for the last 10 miles o- of the race. So I told people it's, like I had two bad races and three good races all in one race.

But I finished- Wow ... all the good races. 

Kush: Full journey. Full journey. No so powerful. Again, congratulations on completing this, in many ways otherworldly achievement, completing an ultra run, especially with sickness. You've written this powerful book, 

Everybody please go preorder this excellent book. 

And excited for the book to be out there yeah, we'll put links in the show notes where people can preorder.

Matt, I wanna pivot and talk a little bit about what you've known for . It's [00:51:00] 80/20 training. So somebody who has never read your book doesn't know what it is about, What is the basic idea? 

Matt: Yeah 80/20, it's not the Pareto principle, which is the more familiar business world 80/20 concept.

It just happens to be the same ratio. So 80/20 is an intensity balance. And it's shorthand for the idea that if you're in any kind of endurance athlete you will gain the most fitness if you spend about 80% of your weekly exercise time at low intensity, and the remaining 20%, give or take at moderate to high intensity, which is counterintuitive because low intensity, it's still exercise.

But it's it's the, lowest intensity band that still qualifies as a, an intensity stimulus. And about 0% of runners naturally go out if they're self-guided, will actually run at this [00:52:00] point. Almost everyone almost always is at moderate intensity, which is not the same thing as low.

And it's just it's, counterintuitive. I think that's a big reason nobody just... Unless they have a good coach who knows better they're just gonna The idea is ' cause low intensity feels comfortable. And, we tend to think if it feels comfortable, it can't be doing me any good.

But it turns out science says otherwise. That's actually not the case, that low intensity exercise does make you fitter, but it's also so gentle that you can handle an almost infinite am- amount of it. So it's like a, gift that keeps on giving. Not that any one intensity is better than another you need all of them.

high intensity isn't just a concentration of low intensity. The different intensities provide separate benefits that are not they overlap to some degree. But low intensity exercise makes you better at fat burning. High intensity does not.

High intensity exercise increases VO2 max in a way through mechanisms that low intensity [00:53:00] exercise does not. So they're all very complementary. So th- the question isn't which in- which intensity is best, and then I'm just only going to do the best intensity. It's they're all good. You need all of them.

And the only question is what's the right way to balance low, moderate, and high? And then it does become much more commonsensical. Low intensity a little bit doesn't go very far, but you can handle a lot. So that should be the base of the pyramid, right? You can, handle more and benefit from more low intensity, so you just wanna be spending more of your minutes there.

Whereas high intensity, a little goes a long way. You don't have to do very much at all to get some benefit. But more than a little high intensity exercise will break you , or at least it, leads to a dead end pretty quickly. So you absolutely need high intensity in the mix, but it shouldn't be the bulk of your minutes because it just doesn't add up.

So you put all that together and you end up with that 80/20 intensity balance 

Kush: And I'm also hearing that there is a place for that, right? Because if you're [00:54:00] planning for a big performance event, let's say the Olympics, and you need to peak for a very specific time duration- Yeah ... then one is allowed to do more or recommended to do more linear- Yeah ... periodization.

But in everyday training- 

Matt: You can still, do a nonlinear approach and plenty of people do. So you know that, that, linear approach, it used to be in the '60s and '70s, it's all anyone did. And then people started to experiment a little more, especially as ultra-endurance, ultra-distance racing became more professionalized.

The, idea of a peak like a perfectly timed like pinnacle of fitness doesn't really apply in like the ultra realm or maybe even in Ironman distance triathlon racing, where a lot of those athletes, th- what works best for them is what I call like an always almost ready approach.

So th- they'll do an 80- like a well-rounded training program, and then they'll start to build it up to [00:55:00] the highest sustainable training load. So it's a lot of training, a lot of hard training, but it is sustainable. You know what I mean? They can just they can keep... It's the, if they went any higher, it would not be.

So they're, like, finding that line where they're very fit, but they're not quite ready to race, and that gives you a lot of flexibility c- 'cause you're always almost ready, and then all you have to do is like sharpen up for a race, do the race, take a break, and then you go back to that, that always almost ready level.

So y- that, and that's really a nonlinear approach, and it, can work. It, works really well for college cross-country teams or whatever, where you're, like, racing every Saturday for 12 weeks or whatever. So it, it's i- and this is also what the research shows, is that there's actually more than one way to skin a cat.

With the 80/20 intensity balance, n- that's not really the case. There, there aren't really outliers who do better at a 50/50 or a 100/0. Pretty much everyone needs to [00:56:00] be pretty close. Not that there's any magic in round numbers, but pretty close to 80/20 is good for everyone.

The the different ways of periodizing your your base build peak, it seems like as long as you're within certain parameters, take your pick. there's, you can do the linear, you can do the nonlinear, and there's different ways you could do each of those and still basically get the same results.

Kush: In fact I've read about Kenyan runners, for example, the elite of the elites when it comes to long-distance running, and I believe that their normal running pace, everyday training is really, slow.

Which, again seems counterintuitive because you see them actually run in performance, they are so blazingly fast. What is- What is low density? Like how slow? Because I, feel like a lot of us don't really grasp that. I think even in like my sport idea is to build capacity, I think same as running, and one is asked to climb at a level which one can continue for a long time. [00:57:00] Is it like similar? Like how does ... Like I feel like I do that sometimes, and then I'll, I, I get bored and I'm like, "Oh my God, this is like getting me nowhere."

So then I start like trying to push myself to fa- So I think we train ourselves to go to some kind of failure. Yeah. how does one get out of that mentality? What is a simple way one can like really internalize that, hey, easy has to mean easy? 

Matt: Yeah. The, all intense- First of all, e- exercise intensities are intellectual constructs.

Like we, we don't find them in our bodies. We, use them to explain what's going on in our bodies. So you know, those, that's why there are all these competing like intensity systems because God has no opinion o- on them. So you can put the boundaries between low, moderate, and high wherever you want.

But there is there's really ... And, for y- for years even physiologists debated what is really high intensity or whatever. But now there is pretty much a consensus, Take low intensity. So there's gonna be a lower and an upper [00:58:00] boundary. Lower below the lower boundary it doesn't really count as an exercise stimulus.

So you and I sitting here talking to each other are burning more calories than we will be when we're sleeping t- tonight, y- you know what I mean? So is that exercise? No. Basically you have to be about, above about 55 if you're not well-conditioned, maybe 55% of your maximum heart rate.

That would be, you need to be above that threshold for it to be providing a stimulus that's gonna increase your aerobic fitness. If you're already pretty fit, it's gonna be more like 60% o- of maximum heart rate would be the lower boundary. And then the upper boundary is set at what, what's known as the first ventilatory threshold or, VT1.

And what's going on there is y- all, movement starts in your brain, and your body is very efficient and very lazy. So if, you're, say, just jogging very easily at 60% of your maximum heart rate, your brain is gonna be [00:59:00] preferentially activating type one or slow twitch muscle fibers because they are very energy efficient.

So your body just wants to use as little muscle mass as possible to get the job done. But if you start speeding up, so you start off at a very easy jog and then you kinda wind it up a little bit, your brain is gonna have to become more active to bring more muscle fibers online to meet the demand of the increasing pace.

And eventually you're around maybe six- maybe 75% of your maximum heart rate. You're gonna get to a point when, where you're basically already activating all of your slow twitch muscle fibers, those very fuel efficient ones and your brain now needs to start bringing fast twitch type two fibers online, which it really doesn't wanna use unless it has to because they're gas guzzlers.

And it's also just more taxing on your nervous system to have to, be able... It's like a, jockey on a horse. After the Preakness Stakes, the jockey's [01:00:00] tired too . They're working. The horse isn't gonna run unless the the jockey's doing something. Your brain is working hard to, get your body to do what you want it to do.

when runners get stuck in the moderate intensity rut, is that they're always a little tired, and they don't actually know it, It's... getting one less hour of sleep than you actually need every night. If, that's all you know you can function and, you'll basically feel fine. You won't know better. You won't know how much better you would feel and function until you start getting that extra h- hour of sleep.

So that's what happens wh- when runners get stuck in the moderate intensity rut, is that they're always a little tired, and they don't actually know it, and that kind of chronic burden of not fully processed fatigue ends up inhibiting their ability to absorb the next stimulus. So even though technically they're training harder, their body, Doing the training isn't what counts. It's like your body needs to adapt to it. And if you're g- like, disciplined, you know [01:01:00] where that threshold is, and you're able to stay below it when you want to you're actually making the training a little bit easier. But your body's absorbing more of the training, so you're getting fitter.

Kush: Matt, that metaphor lands because, yes, that sleep one lands so well. 

Matt: Oh. 

Kush: If somebody, does not have access or is not using a heart rate monitor or a- another device to inform them- Whether they are at the correct pace. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Kush: Is there maybe like a, way to gauge one's own reaction to that stimulus?

And again, let's say running or cycling, one of the ways I've heard this being described, like I, I'm guessing this is similar to training in zone one or maybe zone two, is that if you can hold a normal conversation, then you're probably in the right place. 

Matt: Yep. 

Kush: Is that, is that correct? Is there another way to also be more accurate with gauging the right level of intensity for that easy part of your training?

Matt: Yep. [01:02:00] Yeah, the talk test i- is pretty reliable. There's also, depends a little bit on morphology, but a nose breathing test. If you can just jog with your mouth closed and breathe through your nose that's a pretty good indicator that you are at low intensity. You can do a perceived effort scale, like one to 10.

VT1, and all of this stuff has been studied, like VT1 falls around four on a one to 10 scale. If, it's supposed to be a low intensity easy run at no, point, even on a hill during that run should you rate your RPE above four o- on a one to 10 scale. The subjective measures are fine.

I, would say that there is value in getting some kind of objective testing done to find where your threshold is, because that allows you to calibrate the subjective to the objective. Let's just say your VT1 is in fact 75% of maximum heart rate. Do not use a one size fits none formula for [01:03:00] determining your maximum heart rate, because they're BS.

You need to know your actual maximum heart rate. But that's not that hard. If you ever do high intensity intervals just see the highest heart rate that your device records, and maybe add a couple beats to that and use that as your maximum heart rate. You can do a, lactate threshold test or, whatever.

You can even back into it through perf- performances. So if you run 5Ks and 10Ks, you can use actually the data from your races, 'cause those are, like, maximal efforts to estimate what percentage of your 5K pace is, your VT1. So there's a vari- variety of ways that you can get a pretty good read on, on objectively where your VT1 is.

And then when you go out and exercise at that heart rate or pace you're wide awake, you feel what you're feeling and, now you have this global sense of what it feels like to be exercising at low intensity. And once you've imprinted that it's partly your breathing, it's partly just your [01:04:00] overall perception of effort.

And then you sort, you just imprint that subjectivity. 'Cause someone like me I started running competitively w- in 1983 when I was 11. I don't need any data to tell me where I'm at lo- And, everyone can get there, but you do have to go, through some... 'Cause it's so easy to BS yourself.

honestly, like if you if, you don't if you don't put some kind of rigor to it you're gonna BS yourself, and you're gonna think you're on board with 80/20 a- and you're not. So it's just worth going through that process. But it's almost counting calories.

It's like it can be useful as an audit. Do you really wanna count calories for the rest of your life? If you're more or less eating the same way every day it's redundant, right? So same thing with your training. Once you've gone through that calibration and like, how you should be feeling when you're low intensity, then you can just go by feel from there with maybe occasional objective audits using data.

Kush: Matt, and I think what I'm also sensing is that people don't go easy enough, and they should, but people [01:05:00] also don't go hard enough, right? And I think trying hard is hard. It's difficult to find that. So- What can you advise us on how we can really tap into that try hard? And I sense that this is true across sports.

This is not just running. This is, could be cycling, swimming, surfing. People think they're trying hard- Yeah ... but they haven't really pushed themselves to that frontier. 

Matt: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, it's it- it's an acquired taste. But you can acquire it. That, that was me. I was a major head case as a high school runner.

I did not like the kind of suffering I had to endure in order to, win, races. And the way I got through that was, like, actually making it an explicit goal. C- 'cause a lot of runners, you ask them " Hey, how would you rate your mental toughness your, ability to to endure the discomfort of really [01:06:00] pushing yourself as an athlete?"

And most runners are gonna say, "I'm okay, but I, could be better. Like I'm... There, there's work to do." In fact, I've done this survey on social media and, very few runners appropriately rate themselves as the toughest. So most runners will admit "Yeah, I could definitely, I could work on this."

And then you ask them, "Okay, what are you doing currently? You- you've just said you could work on it. What is the work that you're doing?" And it's crickets. They're not, doing anything. They're just vaguely hoping it improves, and that's not going to happen. So for me, the game changer was just that became an explicit goal.

We all have performance goals and fitness goals, right? I'm gonna run 50 kilometers next week. I'm gonna break four hours for a marathon. Whatever it is we're good at making those kinds of goals explicit. But how about working on a limiter? Guess what?

If you acquired more of a taste for the unique brand of discomfort we experience a- as [01:07:00] athletes, you would perform better. So make that a goal. And so that you can actually say y- "Yes, this is something I am working on." And you can do that in a variety of ways. As a coach, I do this all the time, and it really is just a version of exposure therapy.

You, you find where, the athlete is now. ' y- you can give any athlete a high intensity interval session that they can tolerate. It might be just like very short intervals like, tiny doses o- of high intensity. It's let's do five times 20 seconds hard uphill.

It's over with in a blink of an eye. Even if you don't love those 20 seconds it's not like you're nervous beforehand, and it's not like you're dry heaving afterwards. Like it's, a tolerable dose. So you just find where the threshold is for the athlete, and then you just take them one step beyond it so that it is actually a little bit more of a mental challenge just because they're li- so you take those 20 second hill reps and you make them 25 second hill reps.

So they're like, they're [01:08:00] sitting with their discomfort a little bit longer. Sure. Yeah, but if you just like do... Not to cast aspersions on David Goggins, but if you've, if you- If you go full David Goggins on them and just be tough now, that probably isn't gonna work. That, that's exactly why psychologists don't do exposure therapy that way.

Like it's increments. So that's make it an explicit goal and then, don't challenge yourself, but don't overwhelm yourself. Just keep trying to take one step deeper into the pain cave and you'll get there over time. 

Kush: Yes, It's gradual and yes, it's the incremental approach, and patience is so important in any big endeavors.

You have written this excellent book, Matt, 80/20, and we can't talk about the entire book in one sitting, but I encourage everybody to go out there and look for this book because I think you talk about it extensively. I actually do have one last question on this, and this was just going through my head as you were talking [01:09:00] about it.

I feel like in modern life there is this version of, always on we're always trying to be busy and doing something, answering emails, doing some work around the house, where it's neither low intensity or high intensity. You're a thoughtful person, so I'm just curious if that ever crossed your mind that,

we need to be practicing this version of 80/20 just to be just honestly more effective and functional as human beings. 

Matt: Yeah.... It was really eye-opening for me when getting back to long COVID and I, was looking at, okay, what levers can I pull to, to manage this better?

And I learned that pacing is the, frontline treatment for long COVID, and it's exactly that. I, make a distinction between micro pacing, which is how you get through a half marathon, and macro pacing, which is what you're doing over 24 hours or over, over a week, but it, still matters.

We all have finite resources as, organisms and You're pulling, you're drawing from the [01:10:00] same no matter what you're doing. It's conducting or being on the interviewee end of a podcast interview drawing on, resources, right? But I think it is like- It's different for each individual.

So I think a lot of us are just, yeah, like you said like always on to our detriment. So maybe we're not doing... Maybe we're not even putting the best of ourselves into anything we're doing because there's this this competition for, finite resources. more recently I learned about this concept called the undoing effect which made sense to me 'cause like I've always been someone who is always on.

Like I, hate relaxing, I hate not working, I hate vacations. Like I always want, I always wanna be doing something that feels productive almost always to me. And I thought am I compromising my recovery?" Because I'll, go out for a four-hour run and then come home, shower, eat, and I'm jamming on my computer the rest of the day, and everyone else is napping and scrolling on [01:11:00] their, phones.

But what the undoing effect shows is like, one of the most powerful ways to recover is to have fun and to, indulge things that that you're, are, you're passionate about. So we tend to associate recovery with doing nothing, and actually some of the most powerful forms of recovery are simply other ways of doing something.

Now if you're trying to recover from a four-hour r- run by chopping wood, that's not complementary. So like it probably has to be like non- non-physical or, not too physical i- in nature. So for me, like it I, already knew that I, that what I was doing was working for me a- and I wasn't...

Y- like I was the guy who gets out of bed the next day after the four-hour run and I'm ready to go. It's "What's wrong with the rest of you who are like napping and scrolling on your phones? I'm fine." So like I knew it was working for me, but this concept of the undoing effect explained why I was actually refilling my bucket in, from, a different source by like just having p- experiencing positive [01:12:00] emotions by indulging in my passion.

So everyone's different. Like I I know, people who just like they need like true downtime. They, need to vegetate. They need to be in their hammock, whatever it is. Or they need to focus and try and not... Learn to say no a- and learn to like just have fewer balls in the air or, plates spinning in their lives.

So look at your own situation. Like the answer to your question is yes, like macro pacing matters. If you want to do... If you want to put your very best into one thing, then you can't be doing so many other things that, you know, that they're taking away from the thing that you, where you really want to shine.

But the, like the recipe just looks different for each person, and I think you got to just find what b- what works best for you a- as I have done. 

Kush: [01:13:00] [01:14:00] [01:15:00]