So a guy who was the namesake for a bogus gel is going to question someone about how many calories they claim to have consumed in a race. That’s funny.
Ironically both David Roche (Awesome Sauce) as well as I (Canaberry) were "involved" with those respective Spring Energy flavors.
We are both not with Spring Energy anymore (I personally terminated my contract after seeing so many 3rd party tests showing these products were much lower in calorie count then advertised).
If David's experience with Spring as a sponsored athlete was like mine it was merely more for "taste tasting" and "flavor development" of the specific Spring product. I honestly had no idea (or reason to believe) that Canaberry would be less than 100kcal.
The Roche's did have an association with Awesome Sauce (but again it was probably like mine as a sponsored Spring Athlete: not involved in the exact production and manufacturing and what exactly went on in the kitchen/quality control....but rather merely as marketing/promotional only). It turned out from multiple 3rd party testing that Awesome Sauce was grossly under the advertised caloric value of 180kcal/pack as many came in around 65-80kcal I believe.
do people really just eat sugary gels during a 100 mile race? what about food? what about anything salty?
When is the last time you performed anti doping drug testing at a race?
How stringent is the testing at UTMB?
A bit off topic (but since you asked):
The one and only time I was actually drug tested (up to WADA/USADA standards) at a race was after winning the 2014 World Mountain Running Champs (which was at the Pikes Peak Ascent that year). Lead team USA to gold with teammates Andy Wacker and Joe Gray!
Other than that "QUARTZ" was a total joke (imo) when it was involved with UTMB/Golden Trail Series (not actual "drug testing" but random blood samples and hair samples and not up to WADA/USADA standards imo) several years ago. I've heard the testing at Sierre-Zinal was quite lax and even in my peak years of Mountain Running and ultra-trail running I haven't seen or heard of much PED testing going on at all frankly.
I don't think now I'm ranked high enough to be in any testing pool (my Vo2max was lab measured to be 44-48 a few times in the hospital last year and I'm not placing high on the podium at the most competitive ultra-trail races obviously since 2021), but the fight (with "Pro Trail Runners") was to try to get not only race day testing (up to WADA standards and protocol), but to actually test top ranked athletes with surprise, random tests 3-8 weeks before a big competitive race.
I honestly don't know how they do testing (if at all) for top ranked runners at UTMB, but I had heard that even WS100 wasn't up to full USADA standards on some years as they brought in a 3rd party...which surprised me. I was also "3rd party tested" via the Golden Trail Series after getting 2nd to Kilian there at Pikes Peak in 2019....and that was not up to USADA/WADA standards at all imo.
To catch people we gotta do surprise, random testing in the lead up to the race (it would be too easy for one to "taper off the juice" and anticipate a race day test imo). The biggest gains in strength and stamina would happen in "superhuman" training and recovery in the months and weeks leading up to a race (while on PEDs I'd imagine)...rather than race day itself.
In my opinion top level ultra-trail running is certainly not 100% clean. But honestly it is probably more clean that road/track and cycling. There can be a lot of lucrative contracts and money and ego involved though.
“Our plan started from 3 principles: 1. I’d need to be capable of running a 13:xx 5k at altitude, or around sub-4 min mile fitness. 6-minute mile pace would need to be a jog on race day, and that all came from improving my running economy. 2. I had to get stronger to handle the unknown distance, both in terms of threshold climbing and actual muscular strength. 3. I’d have to run every step of the race, including Hope Pass”
He said his plan was to be to be around sub-4 fitness. He never claimed he could go sub 4. Or did he? Seems like there is some nitpicking going on. He wanted to be fast, so 6 minute pace was easy. Why bring up the Ali O failed test? Feels to me like Sage wants to stir the pot and then pretend at the end that he feels gracious toward the Roche’s. It comes across as disingenuous to me. FWIW, Roche’s Leadville record will be broken sooner than later and Roche himself has said he isn’t on Carpenter’s level.
Yeah, saying you wanna be at 5K fitness that's equivalent to a sub-4 mile is NOT saying you could run a sub-4 mile.
So a guy who was the namesake for a bogus gel is going to question someone about how many calories they claim to have consumed in a race. That’s funny.
Ironically both David Roche (Awesome Sauce) as well as I (Canaberry) were "involved" with those respective Spring Energy flavors.
We are both not with Spring Energy anymore (I personally terminated my contract after seeing so many 3rd party tests showing these products were much lower in calorie count then advertised).
If David's experience with Spring as a sponsored athlete was like mine it was merely more for "taste tasting" and "flavor development" of the specific Spring product. I honestly had no idea (or reason to believe) that Canaberry would be less than 100kcal.
The Roche's did have an association with Awesome Sauce (but again it was probably like mine as a sponsored Spring Athlete: not involved in the exact production and manufacturing and what exactly went on in the kitchen/quality control....but rather merely as marketing/promotional only). It turned out from multiple 3rd party testing that Awesome Sauce was grossly under the advertised caloric value of 180kcal/pack as many came in around 65-80kcal I believe.
Don’t ultra runners need sodium and not just sugar?
Jesus Sage, just listen to the SWAP podcast and you can hear every single detail of David's training, race day nutrition, etc. instead of posing silly hypotheticals. It is all out there and all public. Honestly, their podcast is one of the best places to go for ground breaking training theory and science. If you want to see the result of this training approach, just looks that the results posted by their athletes. And you can recommend lower calorie/carb counts to your runners, but that is quickly becoming out of date advice. And to the rest of the doubters, what a bunch of bloviating, fact-free basement dwellers get a life and celebrate an incredible performance based on hard work, incredibly smart training and a base that was developed over the last 15 years.
Ironically both David Roche (Awesome Sauce) as well as I (Canaberry) were "involved" with those respective Spring Energy flavors.
We are both not with Spring Energy anymore (I personally terminated my contract after seeing so many 3rd party tests showing these products were much lower in calorie count then advertised).
If David's experience with Spring as a sponsored athlete was like mine it was merely more for "taste tasting" and "flavor development" of the specific Spring product. I honestly had no idea (or reason to believe) that Canaberry would be less than 100kcal.
The Roche's did have an association with Awesome Sauce (but again it was probably like mine as a sponsored Spring Athlete: not involved in the exact production and manufacturing and what exactly went on in the kitchen/quality control....but rather merely as marketing/promotional only). It turned out from multiple 3rd party testing that Awesome Sauce was grossly under the advertised caloric value of 180kcal/pack as many came in around 65-80kcal I believe.
Don’t ultra runners need sodium and not just sugar?
He was recently on AJ W podcast. Here's a quick cliff note of his training leading up to his course record performance.
He only hit one hundred mile week.
Average 65-75 mpw.
Typical training week:
Monday off
Tuesday longer single plus strides
Wednesday usually a vo2 max workout for 15-25 minutes worth of intervals
Thursday cross training on a bike
Friday easy run with strides
Saturday longer run, sometimes with intervals at LT threshold
Sunday longer single with strides
Sage, what are your thoughts?
I wouldn't take this out of context. I think you can do a really solid 65-75mpw, with some cross training, and get good results. Some people bury themselves running more mileage. There are OTQers who basically run 70-80mpw year round. They never go 100+ but they're never doing too little. Roche is also extremely talented and has years of running good mileage + racing ultras at a high level. The take isn't that we could all replicate this. The take is that you can train smarter/not harder if you're further along into your career. Lifetime mileage will keep you plenty competitive with younger runners hitting 100mpw for the first time.
Your gripe is that he claimed to get 130-140g of carbs per hour but your math only gets to 129g? What are you doing?
You're also worked up that he said running 13:xx at altitude is AROUND sub 4 fitness? the Iaaf scoring tables rates 4:00 the same as 13:38 and Jack Daniels has it as 13:48... What are you doing?
I am extremely skeptical of Roche’s performances… he broke the Leadville record about 6 months after a serious road biking - car accident. Nearly breaks the CR at Javelina in record heat.
Lifetime mileage is fine and good, but coming off injury, 100 mile debut, and record heat. His explanation of his success is a bunch of fancy talk that amounts to “only I have figured out how to fuel and train for ultras, simply need to eat enough and not run too much and SCIENCE 🤪”
He refers to himself as a human science experiment- that much I can believe. People don’t jump from “very good but very far from elite” to “crushing 20 year old race records”. Folks are forecasting that he will break 14 at WS100, give me a break. How the whole community isn’t suspicious is beyond me. He was never in the realm of any ultra top dogs and now he’s expected to crush Walmsleys record that took 5 years and 3 attempts to whittle down? The guy is glowing
I am extremely skeptical of Roche’s performances… he broke the Leadville record about 6 months after a serious road biking - car accident. Nearly breaks the CR at Javelina in record heat.
Lifetime mileage is fine and good, but coming off injury, 100 mile debut, and record heat. His explanation of his success is a bunch of fancy talk that amounts to “only I have figured out how to fuel and train for ultras, simply need to eat enough and not run too much and SCIENCE 🤪”
He refers to himself as a human science experiment- that much I can believe. People don’t jump from “very good but very far from elite” to “crushing 20 year old race records”. Folks are forecasting that he will break 14 at WS100, give me a break. How the whole community isn’t suspicious is beyond me. He was never in the realm of any ultra top dogs and now he’s expected to crush Walmsleys record that took 5 years and 3 attempts to whittle down? The guy is glowing
In what world is he "very far from elite"? He's won multiple US Championships on the trails and has placed highly in many others.
Please at least do the absolute bare minimum amount of research.
I am extremely skeptical of Roche’s performances… he broke the Leadville record about 6 months after a serious road biking - car accident. Nearly breaks the CR at Javelina in record heat.
Lifetime mileage is fine and good, but coming off injury, 100 mile debut, and record heat. His explanation of his success is a bunch of fancy talk that amounts to “only I have figured out how to fuel and train for ultras, simply need to eat enough and not run too much and SCIENCE 🤪”
He refers to himself as a human science experiment- that much I can believe. People don’t jump from “very good but very far from elite” to “crushing 20 year old race records”. Folks are forecasting that he will break 14 at WS100, give me a break. How the whole community isn’t suspicious is beyond me. He was never in the realm of any ultra top dogs and now he’s expected to crush Walmsleys record that took 5 years and 3 attempts to whittle down? The guy is glowing
In what world is he "very far from elite"? He's won multiple US Championships on the trails and has placed highly in many others.
Please at least do the absolute bare minimum amount of research.
For years he’s been second tier, the serious ultra trail runners don’t compete in the US trail championships. Regardless of how you want to categorize his prior performance, he has catapulted past simply elite into legendary. The Leadville 100 CR has long been heralded as among the untouchable CRs. Roche smashed it in his 100 mile debut… anything is possible and “untouchable” CRs fall every year. This success at the 100 mile distance, first at high altitude then in desert heat is unprecedented to say the least. Must be the most successful 100 mile debut ever. I’m very skeptical.
For years he’s been second tier, the serious ultra trail runners don’t compete in the US trail championships. Regardless of how you want to categorize his prior performance, he has catapulted past simply elite into legendary. The Leadville 100 CR has long been heralded as among the untouchable CRs. Roche smashed it in his 100 mile debut… anything is possible and “untouchable” CRs fall every year. This success at the 100 mile distance, first at high altitude then in desert heat is unprecedented to say the least. Must be the most successful 100 mile debut ever. I’m very skeptical.
This is still just isn't untrue. Call him second tier if you want but at a certain point I feel like we're just arguing semantics. Running for US teams, winning US championships, being named sub-ultra trail runner of the year (2014) and getting sponsored by Nike checks the "Elite" boxes for me.
If we're adding qualifiers, you are correct he wasn't up against he most serious ultra guys because he was a sub-ultra when he was racing at his best previously.
And anyone calling the Leadville Record untouchable is well...out of touch. Matt Carpenter was an animal but find me one other record set two decades ago that we'd be hand wringing over being broken. I'd put money down right now Walmsley could smash it, Miller could contend with it, and Christian Allen could get it if he decided to move up. And that's just the Americans.
Where you are right is the he has very successfully and suddenly moved up in distance. I think some skepticism is valid here.
A comparison I'd make is if Chris Derrick broke the US record in the marathon next year.
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