"Want To Be A Stud At Running?" With: Lucas Garrett, Founder Of Landsharks Running Company

Welcome to The Anchor Point Podcast episode 115 with Lucas Garrett, founder of Landsharks Running Company.

In this episode, Lucas shares some important running tips and tricks, such as proper recovery, the importance of sleep, why supplements and PEDs are dumb, and how to become an overall better runner. Lucas was a football player who wanted to learn how to run faster but was told he didn't need to learn to run because he was an offensive lineman. Despite this, Lucas is determined to prove them wrong. He lost 60 pounds, joined his junior college track team, and ran the 1500 and 800. After junior college, he started competing in triathlons and working on all three disciplines. Lucas' passion for running grew as he discovered he could compete and loved learning new things about the sport. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology, went into the fire service, working up and down the state of California, and eventually landed his dream job at the Lodi Fire Department.

But Lucas still wanted something more, so he began reading books by top running experts like Jack Daniels, Matt Fitzgerald, Ben Bergeron, Alex Hutchinson, Brad Hudson, Timothy Galley, Steve Magness, and Ryan Hall. The podcast episode with Ryan Hall ignited a fire in Lucas to become a marathoner and running coach. Join us in this episode to learn more about Lucas' journey and how he founded Landsharks Running Company to help others achieve their running goals. Whether you're a seasoned runner or just starting, Lucas' story will inspire you not to give up and to make it through the fire season un-injured and an overall better runner!

If you want to get ahold of Lucas for either some one on one, or group coaching - Be sure to check out the following links:

Website: https://www.landsharksrunningco.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/landsharksrunningco/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/landsharksrunningco

Be sure to hit him up!

Y'all know the drill:

Stay safe, stay savage... Peace!

The Anchor Point Podcast is supported by the following amazing folks:

Mystery RanchNeed badass packs? Then look no further than Mystery Ranch!https://www.mysteryranch.com

Hotshot BreweryWanna pick up our Anchor Point Podcast merch or need killer coffee? Hit up Hotshot Brewery!!!https://www.hotshotbrewing.com

Not sponsors of The Anchor Point Podcast, but great organizations:

The Wildland Firefighter FoundationAnd, as always, please consider supporting this great nonprofit organization - The Wildland Firefighter Foundation!https://wffoundation.org

The A.W.E.Wanna get some history and knowledge on Wildland Fire? Hit up The Smokey Generation!http://wildfire-experience.org

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"Want To Be A Stud At Running?" With: Lucas Garrett, Founder Of Landsharks Running Company

This episode is going to be brought to you by Mystery Ranch, built for the mission. If you haven’t been rocking a Mystery Ranch fire line pack, that sucks. I don’t want to know what your back feels like. If you want to get the best, most well-built, and good warranty, that is Mystery Ranch. Go over to www.MysteryRanch.com and get on that good fire line pack. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, you might go and check out the Backbone Series. Why do I ask this of you? You can go over to the Backbone Series and they are accepting some new submissions for the Backbone Series Scholarship Program.

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The show is also going to be brought to you by our premiere coffee sponsor, and that is going to be none other than Hot Shot Brewery. It is kick-ass Coffee for a kick-ass cause. A portion of the proceeds will always go back to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. If you are not into coffee or you don’t drink coffee, which you are probably a monster if you don’t, they have a ton of other stuff like all the tools of the trade to get your mornings started right and tons of Wildland Firefighter-themed apparel.

If you want to find out more, go over to www.HotshotBrewing.com and check out their full line of Kick Ass Coffee, all the tools of the trade to get your morning started off right, and all that kick-ass Wildland Firefighter-themed apparel. It is a good cause that they support ripping some funds over there for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.

I got to give a quick little shout-out to my buddy Booze at The A.S.S. Movement. That stands for the Anti-Service Shitting Movement. Homie is a firefighter up there in AK and he is doing the good deed of spreading poo-burying propaganda across the globe. I don’t know about everybody out there that is reading, but I hate it when I see a surface turd or someone doesn’t clean up their wreckage and leaves behind their human excrement, and it is disgusting. That needs to stop.

Not only is he one of my close homies, but we also work together on some other projects. He also got a good mission and it all started from humble beginnings, which you can ask him all about. If you head over to www.TheFireWild.com and check out the A.S.S. Movement, use the code AnchorPointASS10 at checkout. You can save 10% off your entire order through the A.S.S. Movement.

I’m a huge supporter of theirs and I believe in what they are doing now. They don’t pay me for doing these ads. I just believe in their cause. Go over to www.WildFire-Experience.org and check it out. You may know them as the Smokey Generation. What do they do? It is a catalog of Wildland Firefighting stories dating all the way back to the 1940s. It is a digital history lesson from our peers in the field and some of those legendary figures that we call superintendents, Hot Shots, and operators. All of that stuff is located at The American Wildfire Experience and the Smokey Generation. They are all linked to each other.

Go over there and check it out. While you are at it, check out the Smokey Generation Grant program that they are doing because it is awesome. They are giving away $500 grants to those folks that are telling the story of wild and fire. Time is limited on this one. If you have a kick-ass organization out there, keep it up.

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Looks like things are starting to heat up a little bit. It is warming up, not heating up. We will see what happens. I hope everybody is doing well. They are geared up and ready for the season. This episode is going to be dedicated all to running. Why is this coming out in April 2023? If you are on a crew, a helitack module, or a Wildland firefighter in general, I bet your ass is running. With that, we are going to try and explain how to run properly. Running was one of my favorite pastimes back when I was a firefighter. If you learn how to get good at it and explore the paying cave in peace, you are going to be a much better runner. That is what it is.

We are going to have Land Sharks Running Company on the show. It is a gentleman by the name of Lucas Garrett. We are going to go over injury avoidance and some recipes for avoiding shin splints and hammies. We are going to talk about recovery and running optimization, like your stance, pace, footwear, and form. We are going to talk about nutrition, the importance of rest, and optimizing that threshold of the pain cave. Without further ado, I like to introduce my good friend, Lucas Garrett. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Good. How are you doing?

Excellent. I’m busy, which is a good thing. I have a new day job and we are crushing it. What about you?

Lots of awesome things are happening. We are busy where it is a good kind of busy. I’m thankful to be busy. I’m excited for one day when it is not busy and I can take a deep breath, but at the same time, I like getting after it. It is nice.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your background? How did you get into the running coaching world? How did you start your company? Take it away.

When I was in high school, I was an offensive lineman. I was a bigger dude. I wanted to be faster so I went to the track and asked the coach, “Can I run?” He said, “No, you are too big to run.” I remember the feeling I had when he did that. I was like, “That stinks.” I dropped 60 pounds when I got into junior college. I started running. I got into the triathlon club. I did this whole thing. I got my Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology. I fell in love with how the body moved.

I stopped pursuing that and went into the fire service. I worked in the fire service for six and a half years. Calfire for three and then I worked for the City of Lodi Fire Department for about three and half years. I resigned and did this full-time, pursuing a passion for helping people move and motivating them through movement. That is a little backstory about it.

You got a passion project going. You moved out of the fire but you have done both structure and wildland. You are familiar with how much we run.

You run a lot in the beginning and do not run as much as you should or want to.

It is important that we have a discussion like this and have a professional who is educated in the context of this subject of running on the show at this particular time of year because everybody is starting to come on for the season. Everybody is probably getting their ass kicked, doing hell week, and it is not going to stop until the end of the season. You might have some recovery but then you have to train for next year. With that, let’s talk about what you specialize in with Land Sharks.

Anywhere from elite to off the couch is where I specialize. I have an equation or a theory that I believe produces results. My result is trying to get you to the start line healthy and happy. As long as I can do those things plus being injured free, that is a bonus for me. I don’t think people realize how hard it is to train extremely hard and get to the start line injury free without any problems. My goal is to have a relationship with my client in such a way that we can work to accomplish that goal together.

Do you take the more one-on-one approach and optimize each individual, or do you do group?

I do both. Everyone called it the benefit of having a one-on-one coach versus a plan out there. A plan is great, but everybody is different. Having that one-on-one coach isn’t helping you be a better runner. They are having a relationship with you. That relationship understands that you have kids and a job. They understand that life stress has happened. That one-on-one is valuable and important, but we don’t need to take for granted the fact that moving at a decent pace sometimes is going to be the best thing for you. It is all that in general.

Sometimes moving at a decent pace is the best thing for you.

You mentioned running without injury and injury avoidance. I know everybody is terrified of getting injured, especially if you are a Wildland, structure firefighter or any firefighter, or someone who relies on their body to do their job. It doesn’t matter if you are a construction worker or a cop. Firefighters are all body-driven industries. We work with our hands and legs. We rely on our bodies. I know a lot of people out there have to suffer from injuries. What is your recipe for identifying potential injuries? Is it pacing? Is it listening to your body?

The most basic way to do that is to listen to your body and know the difference between, “I have a tight calf. When I run, it feels like someone is stabbing me in the calf.” You are listening to your body in that way. The best way to do it is to have a plan and achieve that plan but prioritize rest. Steve Magness is a famous running coach and author. He has a cool couple of books called Do Hard Things and Peak Performance. In those books, he stresses stress plus rest equals growth.

A lot of times, I like to remind my athletes that if we want our biceps to get bigger, we are going to do some bicep curls. We are going to break apart that muscle, but it is not going to get bigger, better, or stronger unless we give it rest. When I have talked to other coaches, he is expressing the importance of what a professional athlete maybe be versus an everyday person like me might be. The professional athlete gets paid to recover. We naturally don’t get paid to recover.

I might use going to work as my recovery or going and doing something with my kids or yard work as my recovery when you might have a professional athlete who is doing the sauna, the ice bath, and the compression shorts rolling out, stretching, and doing all these things. If you want to relate the professional athlete to a firefighter, the biggest thing is that firefighters are professional athletes. You need to prioritize that rest and do those things appropriately to help you with injury prevention. We can dive into that for a long time, but that is a blanket statement.

Flood the airways with all of the knowledge because recovery is one of those things that is overlooked, especially in the tactical athlete. I know some people love that term. Some people hate it. Some people are indifferent to the term tactical athlete, but I don’t know what else to call Wildland Firefighters or firefighters in general besides tactical athletes or professional athletes. Let’s go down to the deep end of recovery. Take it away.

Sleep is where you start. You brought it to the point when we first started talking about how is hell week now. Everyone is getting their ass kicked and doing all these things. I’m not saying slow down. I’m saying, “Beat your operators. Be the first person to volunteer for all the things that you are going to be doing. At the same time, when you are done with the fuel that you put in your body and the type of food that you are eating, you take it for granted. The rest, water, and hydration are valuable and important.

A lot of times, when we are doing these things, we always look for that quick fix or supplement. Someone was like, “I want to take ZMA and creatine. I want to do this and that.” If we prioritize sleep, sleep is where a lot of stuff is produced. You are getting your actual HGH, Human Growth Hormone, produced in that first part of your sleep.

Sleep is when you produce more human growth hormone.

If you prioritize sleep, it is like taking steroids. If you want to take steroids, go to sleep, prioritize it, have a routine, and do these things. Make sure you are not drinking water too late or close to bed because you are going to be up peeing all night. Make sure you are stopping having caffeine intake. When I was on probation, I was having two bangs a day. I didn’t sleep. It was terrible. I would have a bang in the morning because we didn’t sleep all night. We were up all night.

I got to be the first person to wake up and be in there making sure the coffee was made, the dishes were done, and everything was clean. We run and train all day. I had a captain who would have an energy drink at 3:00 in the afternoon. He wouldn’t go to bed until 2:00 in the morning. I would be the last one up. It was a vicious cycle. Every fatigue you can think of I had. Finding a way to prioritize sleep is going to be the best way to do that.

Sleep is at the top then food, nutrition, and hydration. How are you doing that? It is by eating real food more often and eating sometimes more than you think you need to eat and replenishing the stuff you are using. I would have snacks in my pocket. When I would be working, I would take a second and throw stuff in my mouth and eat so that I could work longer. You are ultimately using that as a fuel source. Doing that and making sure you are hydrated.

I know that in Cal Fire, I don’t know about other workplaces, but they are always drinking three waters to every Gatorade. Make sure that you are not getting overdone. There is a lot. That is a huge ticket item. My biggest thing for recovery is sleep and nutrition. We can go down another road about a bunch of other stuff but I will stop there.

Keep it going. That is important stuff because I was a huge proponent of targeted recovery when I was in the fire industry, especially when I was on the Doyle on my engine crew. We have developed a PT program out there. People weren’t getting hurt. That is a telltale sign of what is effective in the long run. As long as people aren’t f***** up during the time that they are trying to recover or train to be optimized in the jobs, that is successful in my book. What else do we have in the recovery frame?

Let’s talk about the actual work that you are doing. I was a coach at a CrossFit gym. Some of those high-intensity interval training workouts are good if you are working for a short period of time and you need to do some stuff right afterward. We do salvage and overhaul. We would fight a fire for fifteen minutes. The actual work started pool ceiling doing all these things.

Running Tips: High-intensity interval training workouts are good if you work for a short period, but you need to do some stuff afterward.

If you didn’t have that ability to go bust to the wall and have this moderate state, you would have to fill out your BA or your bottle all the time. You would be worthless if you were on the side of a hill and you were scratching a line or you were doing something. You got knocked out because you were maybe using something a little too hard to scratch the line long or on the chainsaw for too long, and you went through three tanks of gas, and you have too much pride.

Your captain has to call on the radio like, “Firefighter Garrett is down. We can’t do this stuff.” The type of training that we’re doing is important. Where I nerd out is this Zone 2 thing that a lot of people like to talk about, but they don’t necessarily understand why they are doing Zone 2. It gives you this huge pool that you can pull energy systems from by using what you are producing in this anaerobic area. It is using it as a fuel source. You are prolonging your ability to work.

What we are doing in the fire service is you are trying to find the best way and the longest way to work. If we can find the energy systems and the fuel source that does that, we are going to be better firefighters. People are going to want to work with you because you are able to work for a long period of time and recover fast. Prioritizing recovery but also knowing that the types of training that you are doing is going to help you be a better individual on the fire line, fire scene, or wherever else you are going to be.

Those two different pathways are aerobic pathways.

Aerobic and anaerobic.

What I’m trying to get is those energy pathways are three primary ones. That short burst of energy is going to your weightlifting. You are going for one rep max. That is going to be the fastest release and the easiest to recover.

It is not the easiest to recover. If I were going to implement them on a training plan, I might give you a 10 to 12-second burst for a 100-meter sprint, but I’m going to give you a long period of recovery because it takes a lot longer to get that fuel source ready to go.

What about that second one?

In my eyes, I’m looking at running. We are looking at 800 and below. What people don’t understand is whenever you are using any fuel source, you are going to use all three fuel sources. Even though you are trying to prioritize one field source, you are going to use another one. What I find important is that you are not implementing it in a way that is your way to do it in running or firefighting.

I pulled these books out of my backpack because, at the moment, they are going over all this stuff. I don’t know if I’m allowed. This book is in a condition who reads. I’m a runner. I’m not fighting anybody. There are different coaching methodologies that you need to know and they are all going to tell you these things that are going to give you information. I don’t know everything but there are people out there that know a lot more than I do, but I can get that information in and try to regurgitate it. You were talking about creatine phosphate, glycolytic, and oxidative.

I don’t remember. It has been a long time since my CrossFit level one.

When you are using different fuel sources, they are all going to be integrated into one. Over time, you are going to go through all of them. When I’m doing any training plan or training thing, you can find ways to have a 20 or 10-second bout, but I’m going to have a longer bit of rest that I can fully get that regenerated to go again. If I’m going to do oxidative, which is the longer one where we are breathing it in and we are getting that CO2 out.

Those different types of exercises are what I value. Having more of that and better functioning ability on your capillary density and you have your mitochondria function, you are going to be able to use that oxygen and lactate that is produced in a different type of energy system as a fuel source. It is crazy how it all works out and how your body uses these things. Have you heard of lactic acid being a bad thing?

Now that I understand a bit of baseline science behind the utility of lactic acid, it has changed my perceptions, but everybody, me included, still has that perception of lactic acid being directly correlated to soreness. You got to work the lactic acid out of your muscles. If you want to get into that, explain that.

That is my favorite thing to talk about. When I ran cross country or track at my junior college, we would talk about the lactic acid buildup. We were trying to do all these things. If you have hydrogen molecules in there, that is what’s causing the acidity. Lactate is a good source of fuel. They are trying to figure out all these things and finding new ways that lactate is a good thing. You are using it as a fuel source. You can take it in with pyruvate and do all these cool things, how it breaks down and gets funneled back into this factory called the mitochondria produced, backed out, and you can use it as an ATP so you can have another muscle contraction.

What I’m trying to do in my type of training philosophy in the fire service, triathletes, or runners is find a way to be the most or the best functioning athlete for a longer period of time. We are trying to build from that pool. I want you to have such a vast variety of fuel to pool from that you can work for a long period of time.

There is someone way smarter than me. His name’s Chris Hinshaw. I don’t know if you know Chris Hinshaw from Aerobic Capacity. He is a big CrossFit endurance guy. He had a good analogy for it. He did a little gun. In the middle, he had a fast-twitch muscle. Around that fast twitch muscle, you only had 30 slow twitch muscles around that one fast twitch and there is me on the other hand. I’m over here and I have a fast twitch in the middle but I only have 2 or 3 slow twitch muscles.

Let’s say we start working in the field and I’m starting to use a chainsaw. If I go through the two slow-twitch muscle fibers that I’m thinking about, I go back to regenerate from that slow twitch. I can’t do it. If I go into my fast-twitch, I’m done. I’m fatigued in my T-Rex. You get those cramps from T-Rex for too long. I’m sitting there and I can’t do it anymore. You, on the other hand, are on your third tank of gas work in the chainsaw and the man in the middle is mofo. You are going to town on it and you are like, “How is this guy able to do this?” It is because you have these slow twitch muscles. You have them and they are around this fast twitch. If you are going around, you are going slow twitch and back around.

By the time you get back to your 29th to 30th slow twitch, you are able to use that fuel source that you have been producing again. You are not going to get to that fast twitch yet. You are not going to get gassed out so you are able to do these things for a longer period of time. You saw this in CrossFit athletes. They would be good for 2 or 3 minutes. You would put them in a 15 to 20-minute workout and they are done. I was like, “What are you doing?” If they had done some different types of training like sitting on a bike for 45 minutes at 200 watts at a lower heart rate or these other things like going for a slow, easy jog but going for a slow jog not being that competitive person that they might be because they are in CrossFit.

They are doing these other things where they are like, “I’m going to beat everybody.” If we change the mindset and framework of these training plans, we can make them better individuals, not only on the fire line but in life. That is when we are getting people to be firefighters. I don’t know how long you have been a firefighter but it is not the first year and second year. It is trying to get to the 30th year happy and healthy. You can maintain that relationship later after you are done and continue to do whatever you love after you retire. We went down deep into that one. That is my passion.

We can become better individuals if we change the mindset and framework of our training plans.

It is good to have that eye-opening discussion, especially with a lot of people that are getting into their next season of fire because it is not about what is in front of you. You are 25 or 20 and out and not having a f**** up rotator cuff or blown-out knees. We can become prone to injury because of the constant go. We are not good at recovery, but at the same time, we don’t quit because we are competitive. That CrossFit competition, especially along the lines of crew life, is a real thing.

I’m undefeated up any hill in California with my crew or anyone in Cal Fire. That was my plan of fame. I was the first up the hill every single time. No one beat me because I would die or beat them up the hill. That was my thought process. I had given a little seminar at a local Cal Fire camp in the Ponderosa crew. If you are out there, it’s fantastic work and another level. They are the tip of the spear. They are doing awesome stuff, but they brought me in to talk about these things to help them so that they can produce the best crew out there. They are not the best for the first fifteen minutes. They are the best for the whole 24-hour shift that they are on or whatever shift they are on.

I was going through all my pictures because I was putting together a slideshow for them. I found a picture of my old crew from Riverside. I worked at Riverside for about a year. I had a solid crew. That was my first season ever. I had amazing senior firemen and good firemen that I was coming up with. One of them in the picture that I found was Kelly Wong. A year after this picture was taken, he was killed during training. The picture that I was looking at and he was in it, a year later, the next picture I found is me at his funeral. It shows you that the person next to you, you might not know if they are going to be there the next year. I want to start with that.

What I want to say to that crew that is getting after it is one, I will tell you not to be competitive and not to be the first person up the hill because that is something you should strive for. I would not let my operators, chief, and captain beat me up the hill. That is a good thing to try to do and be the best you can be. I would always be the first person to volunteer because I wanted to be the person who was getting after it and going. I will never tell anybody not to do that.

What I am telling people to do is if we are going to have a method of training of 80/20. For 80% of the time, we are going to be doing easy, moderate stuff to lower heart rate training, and 20% of the time, we are getting after it and making that a competition where you are trying to be the best and fastest. Don’t do that every single day. That 80% of the time, let’s find a different target for you to do that. Let’s find who can stay on a bike and hold watts of 200 at a lower heart rate for the longest period of time without falling off and getting their heart rate up.

I’m going to be better aerobically gifted because I planned out that way and changed the target of my workout to do that, but I’m still winning because I was able to do it for a longer period of time. If you and I were on the bike next to each other and you were able to hold the 200 watts, keep a heart rate of 148, and you are able to do that for an hour, and I can hold 200 watts and do it for 30 minutes, now my heart rate is through the roof, you beat me. You are the better athlete in that scenario.

Let’s change the framework of our competition. If we are always getting our asses kicked, we are always doing these things continuously. We are not allowing ourselves to fully recover. We are going to be adrenal fatigue, completely wrecked, and in a bad mood. Our sex drive is going to be off. Our hormones are going to be all messed up. You want to be that person that comes home to your kids. You are feeling ready to go. You are a good father, a spouse, and a partner so you don’t do it for that. You do it for the other part. I don’t know if that answers your question.

The thing I was trying to allude to was that we embrace a suffering culture. I understand the utility of being able to suffer through some gnarly crap and be able to still put out work under austere environments. That’s sometimes trying to be replicated in training in PT programs but I think that there’s a better way to do it. What are your thoughts on that?

Steve Magness has a book called Do Hard Things. In this book, he quotes a story about a football camp where this coach took his crew to this camp. They went with 70 people. They came back with 25 people. A few years later, they ended up winning the state championship. They attributed winning that state championship or the national championship to that hard football camp. Do you remember the Titans? They were like, “Blue is no longer tired nor thirsty.” It is their whole line. That culture is in high school football. It is also in the fire service but they attributed it to that hard football camp.

When they come back to it, they found out that the only people that made it through that football camp that were still involved were only three. The people that were good were the freshmen who didn’t even go to the football camp. The people that didn’t make it from the football camp were all Americans. They ended up being professional athletes. The football camp itself wasn’t the thing. It was the timing of everything. They miscalculated this whole thing because they thought it was this one hard freak like, “I’m going to grind you to the bone,” camp when it wasn’t that and it hindered their experience, but that’s where this culture started.

In the fire service, I was told that their goal was to make me quit every single day, if that was a goal, because they wanted me to earn their respect. I 100% agree with it because your life is on the line. You don’t want someone that is going to be there to say, “I don’t want to do this anymore. It is too hot.” You don’t want that person behind you. You need to know and prioritize that as I’m doing those things and that culture that’s in there to be a bigger person and know that maybe that isn’t the best way to produce firefighters. There are other ways we can make that a better individual and firefighter.

If you look at it as an individual, that person will be able to work more. They are going to be there on the line because they are not going to be injured. They are going to be healthier. Their mental status is going to be great. They are not going to break down in stressful situations because we took a step back and looked at the bigger picture of this person’s career for a long period of time. I feel like I’m going around your question without answering it exactly.

I’m trying to get into the next topic with that conversation of preventing injuries, especially if you are a leader on the crew. If you are squatty, the crew boss, or the superintendent, you can even lead from the bottom on this one if you are a regular firefighter, the lowest of the organizational chain. Reading the room is important as far as preventing injury.

Not every two individuals are going to be the same. It is not a one size fits all PT program. We need to be aware of that. As far as reading the room, what are some tips and tricks that you have for the leadership out there to identify like, “My crew is dragging ass. Are we overworking them? Are we under-recovering them?” What are we doing here?

Humility is a big one. That is in everything that you do. I will never say that I know everything. If I do, don’t listen to me. If anyone ever tells anybody that they know everything, they are wrong because there is always another way. They might be right, but there is another way that someone else might be right as well. In that framework is humility. A prime example is someone had contacted me and said, “I cannot last that long on these runs. I’m getting wrecked by these kids. What is wrong?” I talked to this person and I said, “Let’s see what you are doing. What do your runs look like?” He goes, “I run three miles every day at a seven-minute mile pace.” I read a book by Matt Fitzgerald called 80/20.

In this book, he talked about running a 7-minute mile, 3 miles every single day, and not getting any better. There are two different stresses that we are trying to hit. I’m going off on the topic. Let’s talk about answering your question. The humility of a captain and understanding their version might have worked for the 2019 group, but this group is a little bit different. We need to mold and find a way to make this group better. A good leader would be able to admit or take a step back and see that there’s a difference in quality or in training methodology that is going to help progress their crew.

It’s not a bad kid. It’s a bad parent. If you take it the same way, you can’t get mad at the child for being a jerk. It’s probably because of their parents. If you look at a captain, lieutenant, or any cadre that’s out there, if they’re able to ask for help and maybe an area that they don’t specialize in, they are going to have a better crew. If I don’t know too much about ropes or heavy rescue, I’m going to bring in someone good at ropes in heavy rescue. I can learn and also my crew can learn.

If I’m not a great Wildland, I would learn from the best Wildland out there. I might not be good at wildland but be good at structure. You got to find where you’re good and not good and be humble enough to ask for help. That’s my advice for people out there. What I like to lead by example is to admit and be real with the people. Let them know or understand, “I don’t know the answer, but I will do everything I can to find it for you. We can find it together. Let’s learn about this together.”

That is a two-way street. The firefighter gets into this never quit culture, which is admirable. It’s great. It’s what keeps us alive and together in shitty situations. However, you have to have a discussion with yourself. I have been guilty of injuring people during PT. I’ve given somebody wrapped when I kicked myself in the goddamn head every day for it.

It was a blind spot for me with that whole situation. They never quit no matter what it was. They were built to never fail. It was a woman. She was one of the best firefighters ever. She kicked wholesale during the whole PT program but she got injured because I had that blind spot that she could keep going and I wasn’t reading the room.

What you alluded to was that you were doing something hard and you knew that your crew would be a never quit mentality. When we do that as a cadre, a captain, or whatever rank you are to understand and know that she was that type of individual that was going to be like, “I will die before I let you take me off of this hill.” She probably has something to prove so she is going to get it and get after it.

Now that you’ve experienced, understood, and learned that, you could go back to that same situation. We can look at the type of training that you were doing at that time or the workout I was doing. We are running up these hills, scratching lines, cutting lines, and doing this. We could still get benefits from the load focus or the training focus. Instead of being like, “I’m going to do as many 100-meter repeats versus I’m going to run a 400 at the exact same pace within 1 or 2 seconds 20 times.” It is changing the load focus or the training focus of the goal of the workout.

It is going to be the difference of doing that. Being a good leader and captain, it’s understanding where to grab your athletes or crew to lead them to that one spot. That is what a good coach is. A good coach knows that. I might have one athlete that could do fourteen hours a week of training. He is a financial advisor. He is doing all these crazy things. He has two children and works out for fifteen hours a week on top of all these other things. I have another athlete that only works out an hour and a half total a week. They are still getting better. They are just at different levels.

A lot of things related to running. You talked about it earlier and hinted at it but running directly translates your hiking ability, weightlifting ability, and mental fortitude. All these things revolve around each other. It’s not one specialty thing. It’s all of it put together.

A good balance is going to produce the best athletes. Being aware of that balance is something people don’t know. From an outside perspective, a balance in one area might be great versus another area.

The balance is key. You are good at running, but what else can you do to throw into the mix?

You talk about what you are doing when you are throwing the philosophy. Are you doing cross-body movements? I coach a kid’s running club. In that running club, a lot of kids can only go forward. Not a lot of them could go backward. We are doing lateral movements. We are doing plyometrics, broad jumps, and single-leg isolation at such a young age. We’re developing these skills in a fun way like playing tag, lateral tag, or doing these things that are going to make them better individuals later in life. Doing that and being aware of those things are important.

Let’s get back to the injury thing. A lot of people out there are concerned about shin splints. That is the number one thing out there I want to say as far as running. Would you say it’s an injury or deficiency?

It is 100% deficiency. It would be a strength problem or progression. It is a load going too fast, too soon, or too much volume over a short amount of time so there are stress fractures that happen, which is shin splints. I had all of them. My number one question is, “How do I get rid of shin splints?” I’ll say, “I start with your feet.” The first thing I would talk about is that I’m not an Instagram influencer watching the sunrise, taking a video of myself with my shirt off, looking down at my feet, and grounding in the Earth. If that is what you are into, fantastic. I am telling you to take your shoes off every once in a while, grab the grass, and see what that feels like.

I’m trying to make my children athletes so that they can pay for their college and I can save some money. By doing that, I take them to parks. We run barefoot and play tack. I’m grounding them. I’m getting them to use the muscles inside their feet. It’s a fire coach who was paid to coach the fire academy I was in. He had us run sprints barefoot on this football field. My feet had never been sorer in my life.

Starting there, knowing that there are muscles and everything in there that are connecting to your shins. The reason why you are doing that is you are trying to get this muscle or bone to straighten out. You are trying to get all these stability muscles in there. They are over-activating you. You’re doing it too fast and stressing them out. You’re doing this stuff. You haven’t been doing mobility, strength works with a band, dorsiflex, and all these things to get your feet ready for it and then you start increasing.

When I was eighteen, I was able to run 40 miles a week. Now I’m 28, I’m trying to run 40 miles a week. I was like, “I have done that when I was a kid. I could do that now. I’m a man.” Understanding that you’re not where you used to be and you have to build right back up to that. Understanding that you can’t go from 0 to 100. You have to gradually go up. That is why a coach is important because they are going to hold you back when you need to be held back. They are going to lift you when you are feeling down. I get a lot of problems with these when I’m doing crazy stuff with different kinds of athletes. I’m like, “What originated this?” They said, “I was running 10 miles a week. Now I’m running 40 miles a week.”

You and I talked about shoes. Once your feet are established, you develop strength in your feet, calf, and shins and you’re doing all these things. You grounded yourself. You are doing mobility and strength work but you still have this problem. You are like, “What is it?” You look down at your shoes and they are from 2008. You are like, “I have had these same Nike.” There is a life of a shoe. I’m not saying this shoe goes out at parties every Friday night. I’m saying that the life expectancy of the shoe is anywhere from about 200 to 400 depending on the type of foam and durability that you have in these shoes.

If you look at these shoes and you start seeing wear and tear in the foam and the rubber on the bottom or you don’t even see smoothness, that is time for new shoes. You can go to Fleet Feet or other shoe stores that will legitimately scan your foot. They are trained to look at how your foot goes on the ground on the Earth and feels all this stuff. They will give you a list of 4 or 5 shoes that will fit your foot appropriately. There are different types of foam, coverage, laces, rubber on the back, stability, neutral, and all these different shoes.

I have people come up to me and say, “My Achilles is busted. My heel hurts.” I’m like, “What were you doing?” He was like, “I’m training for a marathon. I was in New Balance.” I was like, “What was the drop on that?” They will be like, “What’s a drop?” I’ll be like, “The distance from the foam on this bottom part to this front part is eight millimeters.” They are like, “I got these shoes and they have a wide toe box.” I’m like, “That is a zero drop.”

You went running 40 to 50 miles a week and an 8-millimeter drop shoe and now you went to a zero drop shoe. You strain your cap. I’m not saying that a zero-drop shoe is bad. I’m saying going from 8 to 0 is bad. Go from 8 to 6 to 4, then maybe do a zero. Once you see the shin splint’s progression, it relates to everything. If you want to lose weight and you go from losing 30 pounds, now you lost it. You are like, “I weigh 33 pounds heavier.” You’re going on this up-and-down Oprah Winfrey diet because you didn’t do it gradually. Everything in life takes a long, slow progression. It is simple, hard work, and hard to sell.

That is a good point because a lot of people don’t want to admit that there is no fast track. There is no fast, easy way. There are no shortcuts when it comes to your personal fitness. Take Ronnie Coleman for instance. He is busted now. The dude is broke off. However, he was an Olympian champion. He was the goat of weightlifting. He dedicated his entire fricking life to that. Granted, he had some performance enhancers on board the entire time, but still, that was his thing. He still had taken the dedication to do it. Rome wasn’t built in a day. What do you have to say about pacing on that one and setting realistic expectations and not beating the s*** out of yourself or not progressing tomorrow?

We were talking about the lower heart rate training. We talked about the MAF Method or VT, Ventilatory Threshold. They are like, “How often should we retest? When should we see results?” I said, “The MAF Method is you take 180 minus your age and you plus or minus five based on previous running experience shapeness, injury, and sickness. You can do all that stuff.” 180 minus my age pushed me to 145 and then I add five because I’m in okay shape. I’m around 150. That is where my heart rate is when I want to be in Zone 2.

Another way to tell if you don’t have a heart rate monitor is if you and I are going on a run and we are talking to each other. I’m sitting there and saying breathlessly, “This Zone 2 training is awesome.” I’m not in Zone 2. I should be able to have this conversation with you and do this at a different type of ventilatory threshold. Starting there and understanding that pace is what I should do 80% of the time. I should be doing these types of workouts where I can do that and have a nice job. I’m going to see the adaptation that I’m looking for. I’m going to see an increase in capillaries, density, and function in my mitochondria, which are those little factories that we are going to take in and use that energy source.

In pacing, I want to say, “Don’t necessarily think about where you were when you were eighteen.” If I tried to run as fast as I did and recover as fast as I did when I was eighteen, I would have a stroke and die. Understanding that it is going to take time. A prime example is I was looking for an easy remedy. I had this grouping of about twenty weeds in my yard. You are like, “What are you talking about weeds in the yard for running?” I called my buddy who is good at yard stuff. I’m like, “How the heck do I get rid of this stuff? I can’t figure it out.” Maybe he has some fertilizer that works. He goes, “You got to pull all the weeds out in that area. That will get rid of him.” I’m like, “There is got to be an easier way.” He said no. I pulled the weeds out and then they came back but it was a little bit smaller.

A week later, I pulled the weeds out and it’s smaller. Now I have zero weeds in my yard. I was like, “This is the perfect example of trying to find an easy pill when the hard thing for a slow amount of time is the correct answer.” The analogy I like to use is we talked about that 7-minute mile or maybe they said a 9-minute mile. Let’s say you go for a run right now and you think running a nine-minute mile is slow. I put a heart rate monitor on you. You are running a nine-minute mile, but your heart rate is at 162. I’m thinking to myself a nine-minute mile for him right now is not the right stimulus we are looking for. We are going to change it to a 10, 11, or 12.

Even a walk, run until we get this under control for 3 weeks or 2 months progression. When I started this whole 150, I was running nine 30-minute miles. I was keeping a 152 heart rate. Two and a half years later, I was running 650 miles. I was keeping a sub-150 heart rate. After two and a half years of doing this adaptation, I saw results. Knowing that it’s going to be a long period of time before you get to see these things is a hard thing to think about and swallow because it takes a long time. It’s adaptation. When you are looking at this decision you are making, it might seem super small, but over a long time, that 1% is going to add up to astronomical amounts so be okay with that.

You get the compounding interest gig going on after a while. You’re investing in yourself when it comes to doing the right thing, threshold training, pacing, loading, frequency, and all that s*** that goes into fitness and physical fitness. You need to do it the right way or else, you are not going to get any gains or you will plateau or get injured.

When you talk about plateau or getting injured, I get people that get after it every day. They are like, “My legs hurt. I’m achy. I can’t do this.” I look at them and they are not losing any weight. They’re staying at the same pace. I look at what the stuff they’re doing. They’re going to a gym. They try hard and get after it. They feel great. They’re lying on the floor and they do it again the next day.

They are chronically fatigued and overtrained. I tuned in to one of your episodes. If people are reading, there is an episode. He is a doctor. He was talking about all the school stuff, the signs of fatigue, and chronic fatigue. If you have any one of those symptoms, you need to re-look at your training load and focus and understand the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you trying to be the best now or are you trying to be the best for a lifetime? That is the thing.

Over-training goes into injury proneness. It exposes you to injury. The shin splints are the baseline. That is the quintessential go-to for running deficiencies. That could stem into something else, especially when it is combined with overtraining and under-recovery. We work into things like hamstring injuries and stuff that can mess you up, especially if you go hiking all summer and decide to do sprint work. You are ass off the couch going into some hardcore stuff. I don’t think we are aware of that. What do you have to say about that?

There is a prime example. I won’t say what department it was, but there was a captain who was racing a probationary in a 100-meter sprint. This captain was fast, but he is also older. They went and raced. He was winning and going to get probationary. He is going to show him what’s up. He pulls a hamstring and devastates him. He is out of work. With all my athletes, we do a progression of drills and strides. You said, “You have been hiking. You are trying during your off-season and going to do sprints.” You go from hiking moderate stuff to, like, “I’m going to get these sprints.” If you don’t do the appropriate warm-up or build up to progression and activate the muscles you are trying to activate, you are going to get injured.

When people ask me about changing their form or gait, I don’t necessarily try to manipulate their body into the correct position. I’m looking at different ways to trick them so their body naturally does it on their own in ways that trick them. It is a terrible way to say it but I’m having them land and do these drills so that their foot is landing in the right spot and their stride is doing this thing.

I have them run and do these drills. We go together and we work on these strides. These strides connected our brains to our bodies so we are activating the right muscles. These drills are prepping you to do these things appropriately. When I implement you into these strides, I’m not putting your cold muscles into these things. I’m not doing static stretches before I have you sprint. I’m having you do these dynamic drills that are going to 1) Get your brain connected to your body so you get the right muscles going and 2) We are connected and doing it appropriately. We are not getting after it.

The second one or the next thing to trick people is we can put ourselves at a slant. If we are running up the hill and if we are doing hill sprints, people think, “I’m going to get more injured doing hill sprints.” You’re going to be at an advantage by doing hill sprints versus on a straight because you’re putting yourself in the correct position. You’re building the strength and durability of your muscles. I’m trying to produce what I call good pieces of Tupperware. That piece of Tupperware that you put into the dishwasher comes back out and you can use it again without it being warped.

Running Tips: Hill sprints will build the strength and durability of your muscles.

I like to say my athletes are good, glad Tupperware. They are happy, healthy, and durable. In doing that, you got to do the drills and strides. You can’t go from hiking to sprinting. I wrote a workout for a coach at a gym. I was doing this. He was trying to get faster and saw progression. He started feeling good. He was like, “I’m going to get after it.” I wrote these 150-meter repeats and he was doing these repeats. The third one is he pulled his hamstring. I remember saying like, “This is a hamstring destroyer. You need to do the drills and strides. You need to warm up. This is a slow jog for at least fifteen minutes before. Do these drills and strides, and do the 150s.” I even do a workout before the 150s to trick them to warm up before they do the 150s.

He texts me, and he goes, “Do I ha to pull the hamstring?” I said, “Did you do your drills and strides? Did you do the warmup?” He texted me. It took away and the bubbles are there as he was going. He said yes, but it took him a long time to say it. I saw him the next day. He was walking all funny. I’m like, “Did you do the drills and strides? He goes, “No.” I go, “That is why.” I think I answered a question about being better at those things. To prevent those injuries, you have to do the right things to appropriately warm you up and not go from, “I’m not going to do an all-out sprint.”

Strides are important. If you don’t know what strides are, Google and YouTube them. There are a million different videos out there. I want you to do strides 2 to 3 times a week. You do that for any bit of your program. Whenever I have an athlete, every other week we are doing hill sprints. We are starting from 4 to 6 hill sprints. We are building ourselves up to ten hill sprints. We are doing the same thing with strides. I do strides for every race, for every big workout, and I’m doing a run at the end when I’m trying to progress them into an actual workout. There is a bunch of different stuff. If you want to be a better runner, learn how to do strides.

Since we are onto the warmups and the optimization thing, let’s go into the optimization portion of running. You mentioned the critical importance of working up, warming up, and pacing yourself appropriately to get the desired physiological output. What about things we are constantly focused on, maybe not as important as the warmups and the progressions? What about stance? Is there anything that you could do to optimize your stance? You said earlier that you don’t focus on correcting postures and stances, but is there anything you do work on in that context stance-wise?

The critical importance of working up, warming up, and pacing yourself appropriately, is to get the desired physiological output.

When you say stance, I think of core. A lot of cross-like core stuff. Bird dogs do these different types of things where you are activating your core planks. I have a good friend of mine. If I didn’t say that everything starts in the core, they would say that I’m a terrible person. Everything starts in a core. In CrossFit, it is core to extremity movement. That is why the Turkish get-up is awesome. I love that. My athlete would always be like, “Do you ever going to grab a remote off the floor and do a Turkish get-up?” I said, “No, but when you do grab the remote off the floor, your core is going to be engaged because of that Turkish get-up.” I look at the core. Are you hunched over? Do you have pain in your lower back because you are hunched over toward the end of the run?

You are like, “Why does my lower back hurt?” I had an athlete ask me that. I said, “Let’s look at your core. Your core is weak. We have glute activation.” I was told by a physical therapist I’m all cast and no ass. It was a polite way of saying, “I didn’t activate my glutes.” I get a band and put it above my knees. I’m doing all these glute activations. I’m doing that before and after my runs. Sometimes I do it before bed. I do it before I do squats because it is like a stripe. I’m connecting my brain to my body. I want my glute to activate and not my calf.

I’m looking at different types of things, like vertical oscillation. If I’m running and I see this person going up and down like this on the horizon, I know that they are jumping up and coming back down. That is extra low or extra force over a period of time of a race. That is going to cause injury over time. We are looking at that vertical oscillation.

When you get into the weeds, you’re looking at the ground contact time. How long of their feet on the ground? Is one foot on the ground longer than the other foot? That is going to be a sign of a weakness that is going to cause something. Another thing that we’re looking for is single-leg isolation. I used to skateboard. I’m a terrible skateboarder but I had a skateboard. I couldn’t move my foot. If you look at what’s your stronger foot, it is probably your lead skateboard foot or your scooter foot. That foot is going to be stronger because you are moving the front of your skateboard to turn with that actual foot. When I do single-leg isolation stuff, my left leg is stronger than my right leg.

Identifying those things and as a coach from an outsider’s perspective, I can look at drills. I can look at you doing our warmups together. Before we even talk about or do any of these types of workouts, I can see and point out these things. Where I look at form or stance is I’m putting you through these little secret drills. I’m identifying problems that I could find a solution to with a different type of training stimulus. Maybe it’s a strength training, core isolation, or upper body weakness. My right foot pronates more than my left foot so we’re developing those things and turning those muscles on before we do a workout to get you going.

What about a variety of workouts like the things that correlate well with running? You mentioned Turkish getups and isolation stuff like pistols earlier. If you sit there and run all the time, you are going to plateau or get injured. What are some of the other things like the secondary and tertiary components that we could throw into the optimization of running?

There is cross-training when you are jumping on a bike and doing these things. If I have someone with shin splits or that’s having a problem with something, I might put them on the bike. I can still get the same stimulus out of them that I’m trying to produce from a threshold run than I could if I knew more about them on the bike.

A strength training program. I’m making sure that the intensity is appropriate to what they are doing. Ryan Hall is a fantastic runner. He is the fastest American half marathoner and marathoner. He went from an Olympian 130-pound individual to a 190 to a 200-pound beast of a man. He did that. He realized that when he was running, and he was only running all the time, he didn’t prioritize strength training and how important that is for durability. When you’re 30, your peak bone density is. When I was 32, I went and got my bone density scanned to see where I stayed or where I was.

Several years from now, I can get my bone density scan done again and see how much I have gone down. You peak at 30 years old through your bone density. Plyometrics, strength training, doing squats, and being under a load are going to make you stronger. You hold onto it or go down. That is why when you see older people that fall out of their bed or they break their hips, once they break their hip, they are going to die a lot faster because they weren’t able to move appropriately.

You will become stronger with strength training, squats, and being under a load.

I used to go on calls and we go to convalescent homes. In the convalescent homes, a lady fell out of her bed. She was weak that she choked herself to death because she couldn’t get out of bed. It’s an insane amount of stuff that if we can instill appropriate strength training protocols for runners, firefighters, the elderly, and the young, we are going to make them more resilient in the time of need. I would call it off-the-floor programming. I want people of all ages. It increases testosterone. Everyone wants to take supplements for testosterone. I’m going to be TRT. Lift some weights, prioritize sleep, eat real food, and be hydrated and you are going to get some awesome results.

I love the hex bar deadlifts of Ryan Hall. For hex bar deadlifts, I get a bunch of athletes on that. I have two of them at my gym. We’re doing hex bar deadlifts pretty often. It changes the load, the way that you do that, and the polling location. I have a lot more control. Older and younger individuals can do it. We are going to learn the proper form of deadlifting.

You had said balance and understanding that in running, there are different paces of running that cause different adaptations that you are looking for. Having the correct balance of not going moderate all the time to doing some slow stuff and fast stuff sometimes above your capacity and well below your capacity. You’re going to have a better increase in ability over time if you do it that way versus doing the same thing moderately all the time.

Athletes are competitive and they do 730 every day. If you offer a variety of fast and slow, you’re going to see a difference and different types of running programs. I’m going to be offering a core routine, cycling, and strength routine where we are doing single-leg isolation. We’re going to be doing it on a little bike and it is elliptical. I don’t know what it’s called. I’m going to get crap for that but you’re doing the same movement as you are elliptical and it’s propelling the wheels.

It is almost like a skier but it’s an elliptical bike. It moves on the road. I forget what they called.

When you’re on that thing, it is almost simulating the same movement but there is no impact. We have pool running and aerobics. We have all these things that are offering this stuff. You see people on treadmills. They will be running like the bottom half of them will be underneath this thing that is making them lighter. They can build up to holding their own weight on it. With running incorporated into fire service, a good one is swimming. You’re learning how to use your muscles with less oxygen. You’re building adaptation you might need as you’re holding your breath.

When you’re running, it’s a rhythm with your breathing. It’s the same thing if you’ve ever swam. Every third stroke, I’m going to take a brebuilding adaptation that you mightath. I have to hold my breath for the rest of the time because if I don’t, I’m going to swallow water. I use machines, the biker, the skier, and a rower. I call myself a machine maniac. I will do all the machines. I love it. I do that for threshold training. I also sit on a rower for over an hour rowing slowly. It depends on what adaptation I’m looking for.

In fire service, swimming will help you learn how to use your muscles with less oxygen to build the adaptation you need to hold your breath.

Rower is one of the most underrated pieces of equipment that you could have. I hate assault bikes but they still provide their usefulness.

I was talking to a physical therapist in my office. I like to record the conversations because it helps me retain information. It’s what you do right now but you make it public. I do it for selfish reasons so that I can understand what they’re saying because it takes me a while to regurgitate or take what they’re saying and make it make sense in my head.

One of the things is he might have someone that he can get on the assault bike and do the assault bike for about 10 seconds on and 50 seconds off. It is only about a ten-minute workout. He has 30 minutes with this person. He is going to do about ten minutes of a warmup. He’s going to do this crazy ten-minute workout where I’m getting my heart rate super high, and then I’m going to do a ten-minute cooldown, and that’s it. He got the same result that he would’ve done if he had been with this person for an hour at a consistent thing. The assault bike is an asshole.

What about the nutrition thing? There are a lot of fad diets out there. There is paleo. I’ve done paleo before. There’s carnivore. There is eat what you’re craving diet. There’s all that shit out there. As far as what has worked for the majority, I know it’s not a one size fits all thing. In unning and training, it’s not one size fits all, but as far as nutrition, what are we looking for? What’s it like working for the athletes that you’re training?

I want to start off by saying I’m not a nutrition specialist. The most information I get is from people way smarter than me. I have a friend who’s a stellar human being, an individual, and she is top-notch. She’s where I get the majority of my information from. We talk to her about supplements and nutrition. This is a boring answer. It is listening to your body and understanding to eat more real food more often. I was stealing candy from all my kids and cousins. I was eating sugar galore. My wife and I felt like we had drunk the night before when we woke up on Monday.

I went and worked out on Wednesday three days later and I was still feeling the effects of all that sugar that I had. Being aware of the type of food you are putting into your body is the first thing. Understanding that eating more real food is better. There is a lady in the CrossFit world. I forget what she does, but she does this challenge called the 800-gram challenge, which challenges you not to take food out of your diet but to add food in. Adding the food in, it’s having you add 800 grams of vegetables and fruit. It’s a cool way to think about it because if I start saying, “I can’t have chocolate versus I need to have this fruit and vegetable, I’m not going to have time or going to be hungry for that chocolate.” It is a different mindset.

Running Tips: Eating more real food is better.

The way that I like to do it is I take all the crap out of my covers. If there are Oreos, I’ll eat a whole stack. I’ll eat a whole thing. Runners feel like, “I ran 80 miles a day. I can eat whatever I want.” That is this mindset. We have this problem of like, “I’m going to replenish it with crappy food.” After 80 miles run, I will down to chocolate milk. That is my go-to for my athletes or anyone in the fire service. I put them in my lunchbox, I had them, and I would have chocolate milk after every hard workout possible.

The ratio that you’re looking for of all that stuff is fantastic. If anyone wants to sponsor me, that’s a chocolate milk foundation at my gym. I’m going to have a refrigerator full of chocolate milk for all the post-run activities. People don’t like to hear that. Look at a plate of food. Make sure that you are eating that plate of food and that it looks bright and colorful. Make sure that the meat on there is sometimes fish, steak, and chicken. You are eating real food that is there and not eating an in-and-out burger all the time.

I eat a lot of frozen peas. A staple in my house for dinner is going to be beef, peas, and some vegetables or starch or maybe sweet potatoes. That is what I’m going for. I’m eating a bunch of food before every big workout. I’m eating a half cup of dried oats. It is about a full cup. I’m doing peanut butter, honey, and cranberries. I have orange juice.

I eat a certain amount of food that has been able to fuel me for an entire workout. I use this analogy with my athletes. I said, “Would you ever go on a road trip without having any gas in your gas tank?” They would be like, “No because I’m going to have to get the fuel right away.” We practice our race day nutrition months in advance. The coffee, the hydration, the water, and the food that we’re having, we don’t want to get to the start line and then crap in our pants. We didn’t want to get to the start line, and 2 miles in, we have to take a pee and we lost 30 to 40 seconds.

Being able to identify the things that you are doing and eating and putting in your mouth is not as hard as people make it. They’re like, “I want to have 2,100 calories. My macros are going to be 30 to 40.” I’m not necessarily worried about that. Are you eating ice cream at night? Are you drinking wine at night? Are you eating your kids’ snacks? Are you eating because you’re stressed or because you’re bored? Once you have all that under control, we can work on maybe a caloric deficit. After we get that figured out and you feel like you’re able to work out, we’re going to change the macronutrients and go that route. I don’t have a prescription for each person. It’s individually based on how they act and respond. If carbs are okay, eat them.  

There are lot of BS out there, but if it works for them, then it is not BS. I got my own pre-run, pre-workout meal thing. I try and stay away from BS supplements. There was a point where I was taking pre-workout stuff like the hyper-caffeinated and have lots of BCAs in them. I have come to find out that I perform better without that s***. As far as the supplementation, let’s get into that topic. I know there’s a lot of witchcraft and broscience out there. I know you are not a nutritionist or anything like that, but what are your thoughts or opinions on supplementation?

I’ve taken almost every supplement under the sun. I was looking for that quick fix. I talked to my friend who has done this for a living. I said, “I want to take this supplement.” She said, “Okay.” She was a nutritionist for the Men’s USA Olympic volleyball team. She was a nutritionist and exercise physiologist for the military. She goes and studies the military and the types of food. She worked in the San Francisco giants nutrition. She says, “Lucas, these athletes are paid. They don’t take any supplements. They eat real food more often. Why don’t you get paid? Are you paying money for something that may or may not make you better when you could eat real food and prioritize sleep?”

That is where I start. I start with all my athletes. When they ask about supplements, I say, “We are going to look at your sleep. Once your sleep is figured out and you still have a deficiency, we are going to get blood work done. If you’re taking a multivitamin or supplement and you’ve never done any blood work to identify that and you might have a deficiency in that area, you might be peeing and pooping out money.”

My wife and I were working out hard. She goes, “I need some supplements.” I said, “Let’s do some research on it. Let’s figure it out. Let’s go get your blood test.” She goes and gets a blood test. She goes to the doctor and the doctor says, “You are doing great. You have no deficiencies. Everything is on point. All your stuff is optimized.” We were about to spend money on something for her because we thought that would help her recover faster and do these things.

She was already eating well. She wasn’t drinking. She had great hydration. She was prioritizing sleep, and all of her markers were fantastic. I like to think of it that way. If we are going to take supplements, let’s be honest and realistic about it. Why are you taking the supplement? You want to be better faster, and you’re looking for a shortcut. Look yourself in the mirror and say like, “Stop. Are you taking the right steps to do these things? Have there been enough research to be done that shows that this supplement is doing something for you?”

If we’re going to take supplements, let's be honest and realistic with it.

Creatine is the number one tested subject out there. There are articles. Educate yourself on why you are taking this. Is this something you need? Is this something you are missing? Zinc Magnesium Aspartate or ZMA. I used to be told to take that in the fire service. Am I deficient in those things? Are those things going to help me do that? Do I need to drink a glass of milk or eat real food? What other supplements are out there? There is TRT, Testosterone Replacement Therapy. That is a huge one. Maybe in a different area of the fire service were talking about it a lot.

If you look at what is going on with their sleeping habits, their sleeping habits are terrible. They are getting woken up in the middle of the night to go do these things. The Wildland is sleeping on the side of the hill. They are digging their own place to sleep. They are getting terrible sleep. They are cold. They are too hot. They are inhaling all this stuff. Do you want to take TRT to get testosterone therapy if we find a way to make our sleep a little bit better? We see maybe some of the same results without doing that.

We introduce TRT and we look great. We’re thin, look good, and jacked, but you’re stuck on that for the remainder of your life. I’m 40 years old and I still have another 40 years to live. I’m going to be sticking a needle or doing whatever stuff I’m going to do. I have a not-fun answer for supplements. If you think you need them, you maybe don’t. If you are still taking care of all those things like sleep, nutrition, and hydration, and you still feel like you need them, get a blood test.

If you get a blood test, you are prioritizing sleep, you’re doing all these things, and it says you’re deficient in something, work on that. Maybe you are deficient in magnesium. It’s not necessarily magnesium that you are deficient in. It might be the pathway that gets the magnesium into that system. Be educated on the reasons why you’re going to be doing these things. Is it worth that 1% being better when other things are the base level that is going to make you 10% better?

The whole topic of TRT is huge in fire service, military cops, and professional athletes. Is it needed? I understand the utility behind it, especially the Wildland folks out there, like the fed crews or whoever is out there pounded dirt every summer for eight months out of the year. I could understand the utility behind certain supplements like protein powders or athletic greens. I’m throwing something out there. Something that is going to give you a little bit more nutrition because nutrition is not readily available when you are 300 miles away from the closest town and in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service. It’s not going to happen. Even in travel status, you are eating sh**** gas station food.

I lived at Strawberry Uncrustable. It was a chief on the fire line. If I didn’t have a Strawberry Uncrustable, I would arm wrestle anybody for Uncrustable. The amount of calories that are in the fire line meals is insane. That is what you have to do to make it through those things where you are working for 24 hours. In Cal Fire, we work 24 hours and have 24 hours off. You are working for almost 28 hours because you are on the line from 8:00 to 8:00 the next morning, but you are driving an hour and a half to base camp. You are sitting there, cleaning your rig, refueling, and restocking everything.

You are going to go into the meal line. You are going to eat all the meals. You are going to be doing all these things. By the time you get an hour to your hotel that you might get because it is a Cal Fire, it’s a state fire, it’s not a Fed fire, you are going to get 12 hours, maybe 10. You go there, rest, and try to hang out. All of a sudden, you wake up. It is 4:00. You are like, “I got to do that all over again.” Your 24-hour on, 24-hour off turns into 36 of whatever else that equals. It doesn’t equal. I understand the frustrations of those quick things like athletic greens and all those supplements that have been tested and tried to intrude.

To help you get those nutrients that you need are important and I understand some out there are better than others. Knowing the ingredients of what is in there versus what the marketing tells you it does for you. Is it a good marketing tool like Liquid Death, the water out of a can? That’s a good marketing tool because it’s water in a can. I fell into Liquid Death. It is water in a can. The story behind Liquid Death is he was a marketing genius. He had some outlandish marketing ideas. He did a good job. There is nothing else like it. If you find it, that is great. I wish I could find a way to do that too. If they sponsor your show, Liquid Death would be everywhere. I would put one up there. They are all over the place.

The whole supplement thing and the marketing strategy are important. Know what is going on in your body because there is a lot of broscience behind a lot of this crap out there. There are no two ways around it unless you’re going to talk to a professional.

Even if you talk to a professional, you look at the way that these studies are done. There is an intermittent fasting study that was done. They did the hour window between 8:00 and 2:00. They went and found out why they did that type of study. It is because the lab was open from 8:00 to 2:00. That is why they did it at that time. There were great benefits from it, but that is why they chose that hour window. We have someone that is preaching, “It has to be this. It has to be that.” It was because of the way that the lab was funded that they could be open at that time. That is why they chose those hour marks for the mice they tested it on.

It is not a bad thing. I love articles. Whenever I talk to anybody, I try to get an article about different types of training and stimulus. I get sent articles all the time. I read them. I don’t understand about 70% of them. That is when I ask my friends that are way smarter than me, and they help explain it to me. That is how I learn. I constantly challenge myself with new ways to think about it. I’ll be the first to admit that, “I told you something wrong. I learned something way better.” I used to tell some of my athletes that they should have a gram of protein per pound of body weight. If you weigh 200 pounds, you will have 200 grams of protein. I have come to find out that that might not be necessary. That might be too much protein.

I have made those mistakes where I have said those kinds of things. This goes back full circle to understanding to be a good leader, cadre, or captain. Understand that maybe you were giving it wrong at one point, but there are other ways to do it. This way might be better to do that. That is a fantastic way. That is why I have a hard time giving exact macronutrients because it’s all dependent on the person.

I do good with salt. My pre-workout meal would be two hours before I knew I was going to work out. I would eat some oatmeal with some dried cranberries and a scoop of protein powder in it. Maybe some peanut butter if I didn’t have that or something else with some protein in there. Forty-five minutes before my run, if I was doing something that was intense, I would eat a handful of gummy bears or fruit snacks. That work for me.

That is the instant sugar that you talk about. You have these bodybuilders that are eating Skittles while they are lifting weights. It is the same thing that they are doing. The important is that over time, you find something that works for you and that gets you the most out of your workout. You can replenish yourself. You can not only do this workout now, but you can do it again. That is a good thing to know and to do.

You need the science behind it. You need to work with something, especially if you are an endurance athlete, which every Wildland firefighter or firefighter is to some degree. If you are doing ultra-marathons and stuff like that, it is important to have a coach like yourself and not only a running coach but a nutrition coach, a movement coach, a whatever coach. You are getting the right tools to be competitive and successful at that.

Running Tips: It's important to have a coach. Get the right tools to be competitive and successful at that.

You have people that specialize in these things that are nutritionists. This is what they do for a living. They went to college, studied it, worked in hospitals, and saw it work on the elderly and athletes. They might specialize in that. They are going to have that. I was willing to pay money for a running coach. I had a great running coach, but I wasn’t willing to spend money on a nutritionist or a nutrition coach when I probably would have seen more rewards from a nutrition coach. That is what I wasn’t prioritizing at that time, and to know that you need these things. It is important that you brought it up. Kudos to you.

The last thing on a topic I want to talk about is the mental component of running. Everybody out there and I have been guilty of this too. It is physical, but until this day, any hard-ass workout or hard run or any of that stuff, anything difficult is going to be primarily a mental game. Let’s talk about the pain cave on the last little subject that we have here. Let’s go down the rabbit hole on this one because I’m fascinated by it.

The pain cave is a deep, dark, scary place that people go to often. How you regulate it is being familiar with it. There is no other way to get familiar with what the pain cave is like unless you are in it. Go there, do those things, and see what it’s like because sometimes you can go further than you think. Your body has these mechanisms in its brain that will stop you before your energy level or whatever fuel source you have is going to run out. Technically, your brain is stopping you, not your ability and endurance. Sometimes it is your mental status. No offense to David Goggins. He’s fantastic, hardworking, and the hardest MOFO.

People read David Goggin’s book or they read a motivational thing about the hard stuff. They train for a half marathon. They get blown out and get injured. They do these things, and they are like, “I can’t figure out what is going on.” David Goggins is fantastic. What is his marriage life like? What is his relationship with his children like? What is his mental state like? We have to weigh those things. David Goggins is a hard MOFO that can run forever and duct tape his ankles together, but when he comes home to his wife, is his wife happy or his relationship with his kid is okay? There is got to be a balance. This is all across everything with nutrition, training, and mental capacity.

You have to find a balance where you are doing these things, and that resorts back to your why. You always need to identify why you are doing the things you are doing. This is a good thing for David Goggins. You are not going to be motivated all the time. Every podcast that you listen to will say like, “Motivation buzz is dumb.” I get it. It is not there all the time. I don’t want to wake up at 4:00 every morning. I look at my watch and I get up. I do it not because I’m motivated but because that is the time that I have before my kids wake up so I can be there and present during my kid’s breakfast.

You look at Jocko. You do these things in leadership, giving in these pain caves. They are not motivated. They are disciplined. That is something we can take from those people is that discipline is key. You need to be disciplined to overcome a lot of the adversities that you are going to have. Discipline is going to lead you the way.

You need discipline to overcome a lot of the adversities that you will have.

I was the most confident I have ever been when I was the most disciplined in my training, my nutrition, and everything. It wasn’t because I looked the best. It was because I was disciplined in the decisions that I was making. I love the pain cave. I have three rules, but one of them is to get comfortable where others are uncomfortable. I knew that going up a hill, as soon as my legs hurt, the guy or gal next to me’s legs were hurting as bad as I would and I would trick my brain. That is when I would start trying hard. I used that to my advantage.

On the other side of that, if you go into the pain cave, you are going to get injured. You are going to do all these things to get you. The longer you are in the pain cave, the more risk you are going to have risk worse reward, but it callouses your mind. There is a picture of me on an assault bike from the last event I did. There are 25 calories on this bike. It is in the middle of this 30-minute workout. I’m doing it and there is a picture that the photographer took.

It is a picture of me. I look like in the zone. In the next picture, it looked like I was crying and Jesus was telling me to step up. I was dying. You could see I was in the pain cave. The first picture was me comfortable. The next picture was me seeing death and realizing that I was as close as I had ever been. It was uncomfortable. That was a bad spot to be in, but I was there and I still survived. I didn’t die. I love that picture because, in one picture, I look focused and in the zone. In the next picture, I look like my son after I took away candy from him. It was funny to see the drastic difference, and that’s the true pain cave. I love the pain cave. It is a great place.

One of the things that tie directly into the pain cave is overcoming adversity. If you get injured or bonk on a marathon that you have been training for 6 or 8 months, that takes a hit to your ego. To say that we don’t have an ego in the fight with any physical fitness, careers, or any component of our life is utter BS. We all have an ego. When you take an ass whooping, that ego takes an injury. As far as recovering from adversity in the pain caves in relation to that, what do we get in that component of the mental game?

I had this talk with an athlete not too long ago. It’s funny that you said the marathon thing. In the last marathon I did, I had this audacious goal and I failed tremendously. I had these big aspirations that I thought if I hit this one time, it would give me credit in this running field or the world. I was so far off. I knew at mile 13 that I was not going to hit anywhere close to what I was going to do. I had flown all the way to Iowa to do this marathon. I was not going to not finish the marathon.

There are a couple of things that came from this. The one is you never know who is watching. There is a picture of me. It is on my slideshow of me laying down on the ground, almost throwing a fit because I didn’t hit the goal that I wanted to hit. Guess who was looking at me? My son. When he doesn’t hit his goal, what do you think he does? He throws a fit because I was his leader and his example and how I responded to adversity is how he responded to adversity.

Remember that people are always watching. That is in the fire service. That is in life. When you see something at your firehouse or on the fire camp and there is a piece of trash, pick that piece of trash up because you have pride. You have pride in your camp, but you also have pride in yourself that you’re not going to walk by something. You’re going to move the trash can when you’re mopping the bathrooms or the barracks because you know that underneath that trash can needs to be mopped. Don’t mop around it. Mop underneath it.

People are always watching. I was talking to one of my athletes about it. He also had a race and he bombed it. He did terrible. I was able because I bombed this race prior to relate to him on such a level that only the two of us understood. It’s because we had both done the same thing. I’d failed. Failure is fantastic. Failure is the key and necessity to life. You need to fail and learn from it. You learn so much from adversity that you need to do that. It makes you appreciate the way that when you do achieve your goal, you can celebrate and give yourself a pat on the back.

You learn so much from the adversity that you need to do that. It makes you appreciate the way that when you do achieve your goal.

We do a golden egg. This is not related, but at Easter, we searched for a golden egg. There is one egg. My son is five and he has never found it. He gets sad because he is super competitive and I can’t figure out why. My wife and I were talking about how important it is for him not to get it because when he does get it, it is going to mean so much to him. That is for everything.

If that’s your dream job and the goal time of your marathon, doing well in a CrossFit event, or doing well in whatever sports or math, you need to fail for you to understand. As soon as you are doing those types of things, you are going to appreciate it so much more. I don’t know how else to explain it but it means so much to you. You need to fail often to understand it. That is also in the pain cave. You need to be in the pain cave often to understand it and see that place of mental fortitude.

It is like that Joe Rogan episode when he was talking with Steve Ronella about their hunt in Alaska. It was pissing rain, freezing, effing cold. They were out there for a week. They were finally successful. I don’t even know if they were successful on their hunt, but they come back to this rundown lodge that has bedbugs. There is a point in the podcast where he talks about taking a shower after being cold for that long. It is those little things that we take for granted. After we’ve been in the pain cave for so long, it feels like you are a brand new person. There is a lot to be said about the failure and the pain cave and what it can provide to you only as an athlete but as a human.

The life lessons that you learned in those situations are unmatchable in any way whatsoever. I wanted to say a couple of things. I was reading through your website. I don’t know if it was your mission statement or more about you. It was talking about how you are trying to highlight the stories and the career opportunities, spread awareness of fire prevention, and educate the public on the struggle and achievements of mental health and the fire service.

I wanted to take a moment to commend you for what you are doing because a lot of people don’t necessarily give credit when credit is due. By you being vocal, doing these things, and bringing awareness, you are educating people by bringing someone like me on that might not be a hardcore Wildland firefighter. You are going to bring some of my audience here that might tune into this show that is going to know about the struggles that the Wildland firefighters have. The spread of awareness about fire prevention and how the things that they can do can help them help you and save houses across the United States.

There are a lot of times that people don’t understand what people in the fire service are. Even though they are tough and brave and do these things, they struggle and need help. That person got robbed because they have too much pride to admit that they need help. Mental awareness and being mentally strong don’t mean that you hide things. It means you are vulnerable enough to talk about it in a way that makes other people realize that they are not alone. You have done a great job of letting firefighters and people in whatever aspect of life know that they are not alone and they have help. There’s a community out there.

Mental awareness and being mentally strong don't mean that you hide things. It means you're vulnerable enough to talk about it in a way that makes other people realize that they're not alone.

I’m a big believer in community. The Land Sharks running code is a huge community. We motivate through movement, but our community lets people know that we’re there for them, and we have a symbol, and it is called Fins Up. We put this little thing on our heads. We’re like a shark. I couldn’t do it without you, but you deserve a Fins up because of what you are doing and the things that you’re bringing awareness to because it is making a difference.

Continue doing what you are doing. This is fantastic. The people that tune into this share it and spread it because there are many different facets of life and mental health that need to be addressed. That could be addressed by talking, physical activity, sleep, and the type of food they are eating. If they do those things, there can be better individuals for the rest of their life. Fins up. That is what I want to say to you.

I’m arguably one of the world’s worst people at taking compliments, but I appreciate it. It is important to highlight these stories like yours and share what you have to offer the community because that is what it’s all about. As long as we affect one person out there and it’s something that was said between you and I, other show, or any other people that have been on the show, as long as they help one person let them know that they’re not alone or they are not struggling is a win in my book.

Keep grinding. That’s great.

I appreciate the hell out of you. We are going to the end of the show here. I want to give you the opportunity to give some shout-outs to some homies, heroes, and mentors. Where we can find you? Book some running seminars for our crews.

If you’re reading this, you helped shape and mold me into the individual that I am. I don’t need to say any names. You know who you are. If you are a captain that I’ve had in the past, I’ve had captains that have been great role models and examples of what to do. I’ve also had some captains of role models of what not to do. Bad captains are equally as good as good captains because you can learn what not to do and to do. Everybody knows who they are.

The people in the fire service, in general, are a family. I’m a family-oriented person. It’s family first and fitness for me. I consider everybody in the fire service my family. Anybody that’s tuning into this that needs help and wants to talk about stuff, you can find me on LandSharksRunningCo.com. It is our website. You can also find us on Instagram. There is a blue and white symbol. My phone number is out there on those different items. If you want to call, text, or email me, feel free. I’m on my computer and my email constantly. That’s how I generally communicate with people.

We are in fifteen schools for a fourth through sixth-grade running club and we are called the Junior Land Sharks. That is a proud moment of mine that we’re motivating kids to get off iPads. That is a problem that we have. Our topic was respect and our topic the week before was goals and being oriented. We did a topic about making a hard decision.

We need to implement and teach young children these different types of standards so that they are used to them when they get into the fire service or these trades. We need more mechanics, plumbers, and people to do these wonderful things. If we teach them and instill it at a younger age, we are going to be doing that. If you are interested, I offered a seminar to a local Cal Fire camp. They enjoyed it because we talked about all these things.

We get into the weeds. We do a little bit of nerd stuff. We get into different types of running philosophies and training methodologies. We even did drills and strides. We put them through a little pace workout to help them understand and show, “We don’t understand pace as much as we think we do so that is something you can do.” All those things you can find on our website or on our Instagram. Shout out to homies. Thanks to Downtown, our DT loss, for letting me use their offices here to do this show. Thank you.

Lucas, thank you for being on the show. I appreciate the hell out of your expertise and the knowledge that you are sharing with the global fire community. I appreciate the hell out of it because people need to know this stuff.

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate everything that this offers. To talk about it is an enjoyment for me. If anyone wants to talk, I talk too much. You have to tell me to shut up sometimes

Lucas, thank you so much. Fins up. We will catch you guys on the next one. Thank you for reading.

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There we go, ladies and gentlemen. Another episode of the show is in the books with my good friend Lucas Garrett from Land Sharks Running Company. Luke, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your expertise and knowledge in the field of running. That was awesome. There was a lot of good information in there, especially with the injury avoidance, running optimization, nutrition, and rest part. The pain cave is a place you got to explore on your own, but I hope the stuff that we are talking about helps you explore that pain cave a little bit better.

Speaking of running, on April 22nd, 2023, Tahoe Hot Shots are doing their annual hotshot half marathon. If you want to go over there and support a good cause, it’s a fundraiser for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Go over there and do your damnedest. It’s a badass trail run. Unfortunately, I will not be able to go. I got to go to Sacramento the next day. Sorry about that but thanks for the invite.

If you feel like getting your ass kicked by some gnarly half marathon trail run, now is your opportunity. Go check it out on the old Graham. They are floating around there somewhere. Speaking of running, if you want to get a hold of Lucas, go and check out his Instagram. That is for everybody. I hope everybody is doing good. A lot of events coming up. There was one, the Hotshot-up Volleyball Tournament. We are waiting to hear back from those guys to see how it went. Thank you so much for throwing that event.

In June 2023, we have the Bass Fishing Tournament. The fundraiser goes for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation on that one. Get out there pre-season, have some fun, and mingle with some homies and families. It is awesome. Keep doing these community events. They kick ass. It is for all of you. I hope you are doing well. The season is right around the corner. Hopefully, we can go into that and not get injured like our buddy Lucas was saying. Not blowing out your homie because you are not doing the right stuff.

Listen to his words. He got some good advice. I hope everybody is doing well. Shout out to our sponsors. We got Mystery Ranch. They make the damn best packs in the wildland firefighting game. Go over to www.MysteryRanch.com and check out their full line of load-bearing essentials. We got Hotshot Brewery. Kick-ass coffee for a kick-ass cause and a portion of proceeds always goes back to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Go over to www.HotShotbrewing.com and check it out.

We got the A.S.S. Movement. Go over to www.TheFireWild.com and you can save 10% on your entire order by entering the code AnchorPointASS 10 at checkout. Last but not least, we got the American Wildfire Experience. It is awesome. They also house the Smokey Generation. If you want one of those grants, go over to www.WildFire-Experience.org and check it out. You all know the drill. Stay safe. Stay savage. Peace.

Important Links

• Mystery Ranch

• Backbone Series

• Hot Shot Brewery

• Wildland Firefighter Foundation

• The A.S.S. Movement

• The American Wildfire Experience

• Land Sharks Running Company

• Do Hard Things

• Peak Performance

• Aerobic Capacity

• 80/20

• Instagram – Land Sharks Running Company

• https://www.Facebook.com/LandSharksRunningCo