why does David Roche keep banging on about being in sub-4 at altitude shape?

I have a buddy who was an incredibly gifted runner who decided to give SWAP/David a chance a few years ago. Dude was lighting up the local scene before he started getting coached by David. He told me about the training plan he was given, and said he didn’t feel like SWAP took his previous training into account and just gave him some copy pasted schedule. I saw it and agreed, but he stuck with it for a couple of months until things went south.

Here’s the thing that made him fire David — my friend was starting to feel unusual pain using the new plan. Told David about it and that he wanted to reach out to his doctor to get it checked out. The response he had was something like, “just run through it” followed by, and I remember this distinctly and saw a screen shot of the convo, “doctors don’t know running, I do.” Buddy went to the doctor anyway and it was a fracture.

I still can’t believe the arrogance. That’s some really bad coaching. 0/10. Would not recommend.

Is there a way you could post the screenshot on here? This is hilarious. If they are going to cheat on a video game what else are they willing to cheat on?

Yep, David is the authority on everything. He loves to spit Megan’s credentials (who only went to medical school FYI) but then conveniently sh!ts on others credentials. People keep asking why we are piling on him, this is a great example why.

I'm not much of a Reddit user, but it makes sense that there is a lot more support for the Roche's there. The blind support is interesting to witness, and from what I've seen very few of them have any real experience with the Roche's in real life beyond chatting with them at a race, so the fandom is based on their online presence. How that is appealing to anyone is truly beyond me. Listening to David while Megan is running or riding is one of the most over the top, strange, psychotic things that one can experience. If I acted like that towards my wife I'd be suffocated in my sleep by a sweaty towel. How dare I poo-poo a supportive husband? Well, I poo-poo it. Hard. It's the most insincere, performative nonsense I've seen. Do they spend any time together? Whenever they talk it seems like they haven't seen each other since their last video opportunity. I've only heard about 5 minutes of one podcast, but their interaction there was of a couple who never spends time together, as well.

Claude/Most-Definitely-Not-David - I have been shown a few of your recent videos on Strava, and I have noticed the cleanliness of your equipment appears rather dodgy. For example, the same drippy-white-slobbery loogie looking thing has been making it's way down one of the support legs of the treadmill. Similar substances seem to be on your Zwift frame. Maybe clean that stuff up from time to time -- just looking out for your family's health.

Reading through these reddit posts, I am pretty sure the bulk of David's fans are the type of middle aged women who volunteer at races to be "part of the community" but never actually run. You know the type.

I'm not an ultrarunner, but how prestigious is a win at Leadville 100? I looked at the recent mens winners and it didn't exactly seem packed with top-tier ultrarunners like WSER or UTMB.

lol

A win at Leadville is not a big deal on its own, but the course record by Matt Carpenter stood for like 20 years and attained mythical / untouchable status over time. Several big name trail runners have tried and failed to take it, so David taking it was kind of a big deal.

That said, there are probably 10-20 other guys in America alone that also could have done it if they had decided to run Leadville. Maybe even Courtney Dauwalter or Katie Schide could have beaten it tbh (they've both landed among the men's top 10 at Western States).

“I know there are people that put in the work. BUT IT REALLY NARROWS THE F***ING FUNNEL.”

what the fvck does that mean?

it's noteworthy (and a historic race) for sure, but it's not a competitive field for the most part. I'd say most years the top 5-10 competitive runners are not there on the men's side, maybe even fewer on the women's side. I mean David beat a couple masters times for his CR, which i suppose is telling as well.

I’m not sure how to do that but anyone with Zwift can login and see the data. Megan is riding at 135 watts and in the corner of the screen it says 3 w/kg which means she is riding at 99lbs. Similarly David is riding at 264 watts and it says 4.6 w/kg which puts him at 125lbs. There’s no way to hide this data from the screen.

I'd add that most/all golden ticket races are more competitive than LT100

Consider this. In 2018 Rob Krar won it only like 25 minutes slower than David but was 2 hours ahead of 2nd. Rob had been battling injuries for several years and had placed top 20 in the Leadville 100 bike race a week prior and on a whim decided to give the run a go.

Its also worth mentioning Jim Walmsley entered Leadville but was not selected. The organizers don't exactly care about attracting elite competition. As much as that CR was considered sort of legendary it would have been broken long ago if there was much competition there as WSER or UTMB.

This may be true but the 1st, 2nd and 5th place finishes from last summer's Leadville have since earned Golden Tickets to this years Western States. Leadville is not as competitive as Western States or UTMB, but is more competitive than most other 100 mile races in the US. Hardrock will usually have a higher level on the podium but 5-10 at Leadville and Hardrock are pretty comparable. The Hardrock CR is also held by a masters runner.

This might be true some years but not consistently. Just look at 2018 Rob Krar 0 competition and was quite literally racing himself. Thats not really so with HR where there is at least a few more actual elite ultrarunners including attracting more international competition.

That's kind of the vibe I got. With Hard Rock and Western States taking place in a 6-week window before Leadville, and UTMB shortly after, there's not much meat on the bone leftover for Leadville.

Also, the 50 fastest times ever run at WSER are held by 36 different men. 10 of them have raced Leadville. Obviously, none have run as fast as Roche there. I'm not defending him, just trying to put his performance into perspective.

Correction! Courtney has one of the top 50 times ever at WSER.

Say what you want about David’s treadmill workouts, but his Leadville CR is definitely an outstanding performance