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

He loves trigger warning worthy visuals in his videos. If his ankle was really as swollen as in the pic from Grindstone, he would've videoed it.

Just watched the video and the whole interaction with David and Megan looked very performative and staged. David has a tendency to talk out of both sides of his mouth. It’s almost like he feels bad about lying so he has to kind but not quite tell the truth in the same sentence. It’s part of why he’s so confusing to listen to. My take is that he didn’t want to keep racing because he knew he couldn’t catch Eli (which he admitted to) but also didn’t want to come across to his YouTube fan club as a dropout so he had to come up with the ankle thing to save face. I still call BS on the ankle photo but it really doesn’t change much either way.

for a disinterested 3rd party, you sure are seriously engaged in defense of David. In other news Allie O has an injury now :(

we're definitely not getting crazy enough for umm, no... come on guys!

I just watched it, and I agree that their interaction seemed totally performative. Megan isn’t a mind-reader. She was tipped off by someone who saw it or knew about it. Another idea is that they had agreed to say it was an ankle injury if he got too far behind the leaders. (I’m not asserting this as true!) But she certainly didn’t just guess.

However, I will say that a recently humbled David is 10x more tolerable than his usual self. Why can’t he be more like that in his podcast and videos? He wasn’t so over the top and desperate to share how elite he is. More likable. Maybe embrace that side of yourself more, David. You don’t need to be the world’s best to be respected.

Only humbled for so long though. Apparently he’s one of the 7 runners chosen for Unbreakable 2. That’s such a slap in the face to the original.

Not so strange, he definitely has the capacity for a top 5 finish

The original wasn’t about 4 runners trying to finish top 5. It was 4 of the best at the top of their game, each with a legitimate shot to stand at the top of the podium.

This seems like a few runners who could win (or who have won) plus one or two who are really good at marketing themselves.

Unfortunately, marketing is more important than anything else these days. If you can market yourself and market the movie for money and publicity for the event and film makers. Cash always wins. Love you all.

This adds a fair amount of pressure on him with less control of his image etc. (despite now saying he won't win). i'm guessing he DNFs at Michigan Bluff or Forest hill if he's not in the mix.

The Roche finally did an actual track workout outside!

But it was windy so he didn't take any actual splits on his 600meter intervals.

When questioned in the comments he said:

"No splits taken, just running on vibes :) I suggest that for solo track workouts in the wind for trail runners especially, since my exact splits don't matter!"

Not sure if he even put his Garmin on a track mode as the raw GPS data can impress people more with a faster pace over added distance, but it appears he paused it a lot during the workout as the total elapsed time vs actual run time has almost a 14-minute difference.

I wonder if this will be a Youtube filmed video for the FEEDZ? Probably not though because that would be too real and we could tell the actual paces that he was running.

Also some Trump references no less.

You left off the last part of his comment "It can make the track so much more fun." I don't think he was having fun out there...

If you look at his HR data, you can see he paused his watch after the 4th rep, the 8th rep, and the 12th rep. It's a vertical line down. Drops 30bpm in 5 seconds, then 37bpm, then 39bpm, despite apparently doing a jog recovery. The other reps show what it's supposed to look like.

Love how it's a windy day so he does 600's and 200's, which enable him to disproportionately run with the wind.

And maybe I'm giving the GPS data too much credit, but the start of each rep is consistently where you'd expect it to be on the track, so it seems reliable. But his pace drops off at 550m for the 600m reps and at 150m for the 200m reps (halfway through the curve of the track). HR data supports this -- it either starts to drop a little in the last 50m or flattens out when it should still be going up. So I'm pretty sure he wasn't even running 600's and 200's.

Dude totally botched this workout. Tapped out of every rep when the headwind hit on the final curve. Took extra rests. Last rep was the slowest. Great top speeds when running with the wind for the first 100m of the 150's though! He might be able to go sub 2:00 in the 800m and score some points for his high school team.

Wasn't David supposed to race the Gorge 100km this weekend?

So he's already now a DNF and DNS to his original posted race schedule. Western States 100 up next? Then Leadville 100, then Javelina 100 and then the TBD "World Record Attempt"...

It does look like he went on a 50-mile bike ride with his wife today however. And outside and not on Zwift!

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"2024 was about shooting my shot at a big record that felt deeply improbable. 2025 is about going all-in on a season of dreams that seems totally impossible.

No regrets, no defense mechanisms, no secrets. All grit and carbs.

Whether you’re here to cheer for wins or epic fails, thank you for caring. This season is for the people who haven’t found trail running yet—I want to use my short time in the arena as an athlete to support the growth of a sport full of love, inclusion, openness, and kindness.
Put those heart hands up I love you all!

April 12: Gorge 100k
June 28: Western States 100
August 16: Leadville 100
October 25: Javelina 100
December: World Record attempt 50-100 miles TBD"

He’s blaming it on his ankle again, but in classic David double-speak, his ankle is also “totally fine”. Seems like a great candidate for a film titled “unbreakable”…

Was it his ankle or his ego that was sore? Huzzah.

Concerning the ankle, Maybe in Unbreakable 2, Roche will play the titular character Mr. Glass from the other film called Unbreakable directed by M. Night Shyamalan, whose bones are extremely brittle?

We all know runners get stress fractures all the damn time given they don't eat right, so it tracks for a crossover. Roche did promise to SHOCK THE WORLD and this would be pretty wild.

Image:www.sj-r.com/gcdn/authoring/2019/01/16...

Anyone else sensing that he may already be mailing it in for Western States? As in, David has now seen just how well the top contenders are running. He’s accomplished the “all eyes on me” goal with two video series, so now a top 10-15 finish will be perfectly fine.

I think David underestimated what it was going to take to win WSER. Adam would have beaten him by 5-10 minutes at Gorge Waterfalls Sunday. With so many top runners in peak shape right now, this year’s race is going to be one for the ages. There’s no ducking competition or hoping to line up against the elite B team.