Zach Bitter: Don't Put All Your Goals in One Basket - R4R 253

Joining this episode is Zach Bitter, an ultra-marathoner, endurance athlete, and coach. We dive into human performance during long stretches of endurance sports, how to wrap our heads around discomfort and touch distances, and the science behind gear like arm sleeves and their benefits doing long ultras. Zach is the 100 Mile World Record Holder (11 hours 19 minutes 13 seconds), 12 Hour World Record Holder(104.88miles), has 9th Fastest Time Recorded on the JFK 50 Mile Course, and is a three time National Champion (50mile x2 and 100km). We deep dive into the inner mind of Zach and how he is able to take extremely long distance races and break them down into manageable training plans and mindset training. In this episode we cover…

• Different types of fatigue: mental and physical
• Training for a road race vs trail race and how pacing works with each, as well differences in recovery for each.
• How your body handles hard surfaces during road races compared to the uneven terrain of trails and how your body mechanics are different.
• Training cycles throughout the seasons (from extreme cold to extreme heat) and how you transition between them and begin anew with each season.
• Training gear- learning about shoes like Altras which have zero drop and toe boxes, to hearing about how arm sleeves generate a cooling effect (for hot runs) and a warming effect (for cold runs)

Resources: Human Performance Outliers Podcast Zach Bitter Website Zach's Instagram Thank you to Momentous, Tracksmith, and Picky Bars for sponsoring this episode.

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Thank you to Zach, we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the show.