SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Hello and welcome to Running with Problems. My name is John Eisen.

SPEAKER_03: 0:14

And I'm Miranda Williamson.

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Running with Problems is a podcast about runners and the problems they inevitably face. Today on the podcast, we have someone with problems.

SPEAKER_03: 0:24

Dave Schivel. We're very excited to drop this episode. We've been looking forward to it for a while. We recorded it in 2025 and get to drop it now for you all today.

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

It's very exciting. But before we get to that, Miranda, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03: 0:39

I'm doing wonderful. We had a great weekend on Catalina Island.

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

Yes. Uh who won?

SPEAKER_03: 0:46

I did.

SPEAKER_00: 0:49

You beat me in the Avalon 50 mile race.

SPEAKER_03: 0:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

But it was beautiful. Did you have a good time?

SPEAKER_03: 0:54

I had a great time. I ran with my two girlfriends, Corianne and McKinsey. Um, those of you who listen to the pod regularly have heard both those names before. Those are my training partners. We spent a lot of Saturday runs running together. And it was magical to be able to run this race with them step for step and cross the finish line, holding hands, all three of us.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18

Oh, cute.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19

Yeah. How was your day out there?

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

It was nice. It was beautiful. I enjoyed it. Had a good time. Remembered why I like ultra running.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28

Good. Then mission successful. I saw you at a couple aid stations. You were pretty close.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33

I saw you leaving aid stations as I would come in. So I guess I saw you a little more than you saw me. That's not creepy at all.

SPEAKER_03: 1:41

That's hot.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42

Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

Every step you take. Anyway, that's honestly creepy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:51

That is a creepy song. If you ever listen to the lyrics, so creepy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54

I'll be watching you. Oh gross. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_03: 1:58

Um I always like to talk about the problems because this is running with problems. Um and one section that was really tough was this long, grindy section in the middle, the race. You have to run through the middle of the island. Not the middle of the race, middle of the island, towards the end of the race. And it's just a slight uphill. And I was reminded. Yeah. And I was reminded of a really important lesson. Just that your mind is really powerful and a really strong tool in ultra running. Is your mind the slave or the master? What John is referring to for the listeners who do not know. Sorry for the problematic language. Yes. And the yoga teacher was quite strange and he kept saying, uh, pay attention. Pay attention to what I'm saying. Your mind is a better slave than it is a master. I couldn't disagree with him more. Your mind is very good to be in charge, but um, you want to make sure you have control of it and know what you're doing with it. So, so, anyways, on this grindy section, I was struggling and wanted to walk. And the girls were like, nope, keep running, keep running. They were moving well. And so I I used my mind to focus my energy on just moving forward at 1230 miles. Just keep going at that 1230 pace. Keep going. You have it in your body. You just need to remember that you're strong and you can do it. And guess what? I did it.

SPEAKER_00: 3:48

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_03: 3:49

Thank you. How was that section for you?

SPEAKER_00: 3:51

Awful. I don't know. It's just a grind. Every, every race has a grindy section. This is that one. You know, it's miles of slight uphill on a road exposed in the heat. I think every race has that.

SPEAKER_03: 4:05

Yeah, the Vickers, as we call it.

SPEAKER_00: 4:07

Well, Vickers is like that last climb you didn't want to do, right? Like that's the Vickers of the race. Uh like, yeah, I don't know. I guess this is the Vickers of Avalon, that middle ranch road. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:22

It is.

SPEAKER_00: 4:22

It's like you're overheated, you're done. You just want to get to the last downhill, but there's one more climb.

SPEAKER_03: 4:28

One more Vickers.

SPEAKER_00: 4:30

Definitely. So, how about Dave?

SPEAKER_03: 4:33

I cannot express to the ultrarunning community enough how valuable this podcast was to record, how important Dave's story is to add to all of the stories that we have about ultrarunning experiences. Overtraining is a real um a real challenge that ultrarunners in our community face.

SPEAKER_00: 4:57

As ultrarunners, we are constantly pushing the limits of our bodies and our minds. Dave's story reminds us that as we push our perceived limits, we have to be careful for our true limits. The limits of the our body's ability to handle stress and recover completely is not infinite. Despite the fact that we live in this space where pushing that boundary is what we talk about as good. It's what we celebrate, is what we look in at look in at for others, right? Look at we look at somebody who's pushing their boundaries and we're like, wow, I want to do that. That's what this sport is about. I think that's amazing. And I don't want to downplay that, but I do want to talk about the other side of this coin, which is what happens when you push your body too far too long, too many years in a row. And what happens is devastating to those runners that experience it. Uh, Dave's story is important to share, and I hope y'all will uh give him the space to share it. We should provide a content warning.

SPEAKER_03: 6:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 6:14

As we close the episode today, we're gonna say bye as we normally do. And then there's gonna be a short musical break, and then another story will continue on the podcast. You don't have to switch anything. It's just at the end of the podcast, there is another 15, 20 minute story. And then uh we want to provide a content warning for that story, essentially.

SPEAKER_03: 6:35

Yes. Trigger warning for blood, injury, intense medical condition.

SPEAKER_00: 6:41

Uh male sexual organs are involved.

SPEAKER_03: 6:45

Yes. I highly recommend you listen to that story. Uh, however, if you are squeamish, you may just want to skip it. And that's totally fine. Most of the content that is the meat of what Dave experienced is before that.

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

And uh is probably not appropriate for uh uh children uh below uh who haven't had the birds and the bees talk.

SPEAKER_03: 7:11

Not a not appropriate for young ears.

SPEAKER_00: 7:14

Uh so with that said, um, we're gonna get straight into this. Uh Dave Scheibel's story is incredible. I was on the edge of the seat of my seat recording it. Uh I hope you all enjoy, well, maybe not enjoy, but uh hear what he has to say. I think it's important to talk about.

SPEAKER_03: 7:31

Absolutely. Enjoy. All right. Dave, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 7:45

Thanks for having me. I'm honored to be here.

SPEAKER_03: 7:47

So the idea to have you on the pod first came about when we were chatting at Dark Divide.

SPEAKER_00: 7:56

Yes, yes. Deep in the forest on an unmarked road.

SPEAKER_03: 8:01

Yes, what is that, mile 25 aid station? After you you had decided to pull from the race. Um, you weren't feeling it. You had just come back from Switzerland.

SPEAKER_01: 8:13

Yeah, literally like the day before I'd gotten back from Switzerland. I was supposed to be running plane, but with that being canceled, I I jumped into Dark Divide and audit mark, but it was it was a mess, and I shouldn't have even started the race.

SPEAKER_03: 8:32

But you did.

SPEAKER_01: 8:33

I did, and and quickly decided it was a mistake and I should be done.

SPEAKER_00: 8:38

So I mean, you really experienced probably the 25 best miles on that course.

SPEAKER_01: 8:44

Yeah, one thing I regret is like it sounds like those big old growth trees were pretty spectacular.

SPEAKER_00: 8:50

So I mean at 2 a.m., everything and nothing is spectacular at the same time. But yeah, uh, trees are pretty big down there.

SPEAKER_03: 9:00

And I noticed, so I noticed at that aid station that your wife was very concerned about you. She was like, Have you been drinking enough? Have you been eating enough? Well, she was just very attentive to whether or not you were taking care of yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 9:15

She's been she's seen me in some pretty dark places in hundreds. She actually uh, so we got married um a little over 10 years ago, and we had wrote our own vows, and one of her vows was that she'd crew me at one hundred-mile race per year. Oh, that's what we have. Is it really?

unknown: 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:35

You get one.

SPEAKER_03: 9:36

You get one.

SPEAKER_00: 9:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 9:39

I love that. Um, and that's where we started talking about this article that you participated in on over-training syndrome.

SPEAKER_01: 9:48

Yeah. Yeah, it was rough. Uh, but uh, but really happy to get more information out there on something that I think is not well understood and underdiagnosed. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:01

How many years have you been ultra running by the time this over prior to overtraining syndrome? Like where are you at in your ultra running and running in general?

SPEAKER_01: 10:12

Yeah, so I started, I think my first 50-mile race was like 2014, and then my first hundred was 2015 at Run Rabbit. And then uh Yeah, and then a lot after that, and then I um started having the symptoms. I wasn't diagnosed for a while, but I started having the symptoms of OTS in late 2019.

SPEAKER_03: 10:40

How did it first present?

SPEAKER_01: 10:43

So I was uh actually lucky enough to spend the summer of 2019 in Colorado in an RV.

SPEAKER_00: 10:50

And that sounds nice.

SPEAKER_01: 10:52

Yeah, it was pretty great, uh, leading up to High Lonesome that year. And um overall training was going great. I there was like some weird stuff. Um I wasn't sleeping as well as I normally did. I had some fantastic workouts, but also some that just went more sideways than usual. Um and so like a few concerning things, but you know, I was in constant contact with my coach, and um we thought everything would go well. I had I like I there was a half marathon trail race I ran in Colorado and won and set a course record. So I was doing some of the running um of my career there, but um yeah, some something was off that summer. Um and High Lonesome went okay. I I like most of my hundreds, I I struggled a lot in the middle of it and then kind of rallied at the end. Um but uh went okay. Um but yeah, the the first symptoms were really like poor sleep, um, maybe a little bit of brain fog. Um yeah, really not, you know, pretty general symptoms.

SPEAKER_03: 12:07

And when you were struggling in the middle of that high lonesome, were those struggles normal struggles?

SPEAKER_01: 12:14

Or I think I think I'd chronically, like looking back now with all the latest research, I think I'd chronically underfueled in all my hundreds.

SPEAKER_00: 12:23

Oh I mean, everyone's realizing that, right?

SPEAKER_01: 12:25

Yeah, I think I've probably averaged like a hundred calories an hour or something.

SPEAKER_00: 12:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

Oh God, that's low. Yeah. The most I've ever done, and it was the only race I did well in, was like 200 calories an hour.

SPEAKER_03: 12:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 12:42

Yeah. Realizing you need to feel more is sort of an awakening we all get to have. It's like a second rebirth in ultra running. It's like, oh, if I feel better, I just run better. It's great.

SPEAKER_03: 12:54

Okay. Tell me about this duration of time from the time of onset symptoms to when you took a dive.

SPEAKER_01: 13:00

Yeah. So I got back from High Lonesome, had spent the summer at altitude, got back to Seattle, and symptoms really started to hit then. And it was, it was not consistent. Like I'd have, like honestly, some of my best like easy runs where I'd be running like 530-minute miles and stuff like that. And I just felt like I was like, I'd probably blood doped from all the time at altitude and felt amazing. And then um, I'd go out for another easy run. And the first symptom that really hit was just like sweating an abnormal amount to the point where I just felt like I was like sweat was pouring off of me. I weighed myself one time before and after like an hour easy run, and I lost seven pounds of sweat. Oh my God. So just like incredible amount of sweating. And then it very quickly progressed from there to just feeling dizzy um on my runs. Um, so I knew that was not good. Um, so I was talking to my coach about that. Um, but kind of on one of the days I was feeling great, I signed up for another hundred.

SPEAKER_03: 14:10

As one does. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 14:11

Yeah, it's not familiar. Yeah, I signed up for the um Flagstaff to Grand Canyon uh 100.

SPEAKER_03: 14:19

And she's oh my god, that sounds a beautiful.

SPEAKER_01: 14:22

Yeah. Uh, but I started having like I went there two weeks before the race to kind of reacclimate, and I started getting really dizzy, like crazy heart palpitations and stuff like that. So most of those two weeks I I did like an extreme taper and like just chilled to try to let my body feel better. And then during the race, I could like barely stand up. I was so dizzy. I felt like I was like falling off the side of the trail. Um and so I stopped at like 40 miles into the race.

SPEAKER_00: 14:54

And um it's easy to attribute things that go wrong in a hundred to the hundred, right? Like, I mean, even dizziness, which sounds like something you shouldn't have, you could be like, well, maybe it was extra hot. Maybe it was like it's easy to be like off or something like that, right? That's a race thing. It's not, yeah, it's not something in me. Did were you were you slowly realizing there was something very wrong, or were you still in this period of just like, no, no, no, I'll push through it?

SPEAKER_01: 15:25

I I think I was still thinking I pushed through it, but it did convince me I needed to see a doctor at that point. So I should have seen one before that, but um, getting back to Seattle after that race, I went and started all kinds of tests. They didn't really find much. They found my iron was slightly low, so you know, took some supplements and quickly corrected that. But I started all kinds of tests, like saw a cardiologist, a hematologist, like all these different doctors. Uh, did a VO2 max test, all this stuff, trying to figure it out. And we couldn't figure out anything. And this was like over months going from you know, fall uh into like November, December of 2019 at this point. And uh my symptoms kind of got progressively worse from there. Um I had a week of severe vertigo where I tried to like get out of bed and I like ran into the wall because uh felt like it was like to the side or uh like I just really extreme dizziness outside of running. Um I let's see what else I started.

SPEAKER_03: 16:36

And also what, you know what in reading the article, I mean, the one there weren't a lot of like there weren't a whole lot of through lines between all the case studies, but the one thing that tripped me out was that they peep the first results of like going to the doctors was like, nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. So it was reminded me of dementia in that way, where they have to rule out everything else before they can get a diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01: 17:01

Well, yeah, I mean, that's a key thing about overtraining syndrome syndrome. There's no positive test they can run to say, do you have overtraining syndrome? It's a diagnosis of exclusion. So basically, once they've ruled everything else out and they think you might have been training too much, then they can diagnose overtraining syndrome.

SPEAKER_03: 17:20

Yeah. And between the three case studies, like the training load was different between all three humans.

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

So that I think that's a key one with mine, is actually like overall, I wasn't training an extreme amount. I mean, I was, you know, running 100 plus mile weeks, but I'd done that historically. I think the only thing different was um maybe the intensity of my some of my easy runs. I was running too hard on, you know, all the time. Um, so the from an overall stress perspective, I think that was higher. And then I think there were some under underlying health issues that made my body unable to adapt to that kind of training load. I'd kind of at least been close to in the historically. Um, but we can get into that.

SPEAKER_00: 18:08

Um so like even in a situation where you're training at a consistent level, you're not increasing training, yeah. Um OTS can still pop up because your body can change off from under you.

SPEAKER_01: 18:21

Yeah, I think I think a key thing to keep in mind is that it's like really overtraining syndrome is your body's response to stress. So normally we're doing training to apply a stress to our body, and then we adapt to that stress. But any number of things can happen to cause you unable to be unable to adapt to that stress, right? Um, so I think I had some underlying health issues that that did that. I think like Mike Wolf, uh another participant in the study, like his was probably more purely just training load related, where he was just Yeah, he had a lot more than you training load.

SPEAKER_03: 19:00

Yeah. And then the um the female athlete in the study, she was eating hardly anything.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

Yep. Yeah, so that's kind of like they can they refer to it now as red S or relative energy deficiency in sport. But um, a lot of female athletes, but it can also be male athletes, have experienced that. And that can initially be diagnosed as red S, but if you uh have that for a long time, then it can lead to overtraining syndrome.

SPEAKER_03: 19:29

Red S. Can you explain that a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01: 19:31

I read S study, but I'm still like to support the training that you're doing. Ah.

unknown: 19:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

You're not getting enough calories to adapt to it.

SPEAKER_03: 19:39

Red why is it called red S? Do you know?

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

Relative energy deficiency in sport.

SPEAKER_03: 19:44

Oh. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 19:50

Yeah. So that was actually one of my low points was like seeing all these doctors. It was right after my um vertigo. I I went and saw a doctor. I'd done All kinds of tests. Um, and I remember having this conversation with uh the doctor who seemed to take a real interest in me and in making sure I could get healthy. But we had we sat down and had this conversation, and um he was just, you know, I was like, what else can we do? Are there other tests we can run? And he was like, Dave, you're perfectly healthy. He's like, There's nothing else we can do. So I like kind of left that appointment feeling like I was at a dead end and like I didn't feel healthy. I knew something was wrong with me. There are all these like different issues I was having, but the doctors kind of looked at them as each individual things and wouldn't consider them all as like, you know, here I am as somebody that's like been healthy all my life. I've like only gone to the doctor for a flu or something. And now I've got like, you know, vertigo and dizziness while I'm running and the success of sweating. Um, I started migraines around that time. I'd never had a migraine before in my life. And I started getting migraines at post-exercise. So um, yeah, just debilitating migraines. And I'd like go for a run, get back, and then be in bed for days with the migraine. So migraines are no joke. Yeah, horrible. I can't imagine. Um thankfully I don't have them anymore, but it was it was horrible.

SPEAKER_00: 21:23

Yeah, I got them as a kid. If you have like a day or two, just go down. Oh, it's bad. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:32

So um, so yeah, I kind of stopped seeing the doctors there. I actually had a conversation with uh Caleb, kind of telling him what was going on. And he was like, hey, why don't you talk to Mike Wolf? Um, this sounds like overtraining syndrome to me. And I I'd of course brought that up to my coach and doctors, but they all kind of blew it off. My coach, his main question was um, if I still had like uh sexual desire and if I was still getting like morning erections and everything. And from that perspective, I felt like everything was normal at the time. Um, later I started having issues with that, but at that point in time, everything was working normally. So um so I talked to Mike Wolf and kind of explained all my symptoms. And he's like, Yeah, this sounds like over-training syndrome to me. And he gave me his doctor that diagnosed him, uh, Dr. Amrine. And I I called him and we had a conversation. He agreed and he put me in touch with Dr. Harmon at University of Washington Medical Center. Um, and I started seeing her. And this is now uh early 2020. So how long since when you can't go to hospitals?

SPEAKER_00: 22:49

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 22:51

But how long had it been since the onset of symptoms? That's one another thing that tripped me out is the length of time. It's like a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

Totally. So so symptoms kind of started, you know, the summer of 2019. So maybe a little bit before high lonesome, started progressing after high lonesome, I'd say significantly more. So kind of August 2019. So now we're into like January, February of uh 2020 when I'm starting to see uh Dr. Harmon. And she started, she had a bunch of um ideas. She considered red S for me. Uh, but I'd actually been, you know, continuously backing off on training. Um, every, every time I worked out at this point, like if I did a workout run, then it like set me back. I'd get a migraine, I'd be in bed, and then I'd like kind of start trying to build back up, and then I'd do another another workout when I felt like I was doing okay, and it set me back again.

SPEAKER_03: 23:50

So frustrating.

SPEAKER_01: 23:52

Super, super frustrating. My coach, I had talked to my coach about maybe stopping, but he was encouraging me to keep going. Um, so I think it was maybe March of 2020 when I I cut out running completely and exercise completely.

SPEAKER_00: 24:08

What a great time to cut out your main source of enjoyment.

SPEAKER_03: 24:12

I hope you took up drinking or something, Dave. I see all the whiskey bottles in the background. You have you have no shortage of alcohol.

SPEAKER_01: 24:21

Well, we ruled out red S because I was gaining gaining weight. Okay, all right. That's not good. Yeah, yeah. But she also considered some weird form of um POTS, which is postural, orthostatic, tachycardia syndrome, something like that.

SPEAKER_03: 24:38

And you were tested for Lyme disease too, right?

SPEAKER_01: 24:40

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 24:42

I mean, all kinds of it does have it can present similarly to OTS. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:49

So um yeah, but we ended up like over probably the next six months, you know, redid more um uh VO2 Max. And surprisingly, I actually didn't get the results of them, but my VO2 Max actually didn't decline um during this time. So even though I wasn't really training, like I guess my oxygen uptake was was the same.

SPEAKER_00: 25:13

Like I couldn't run as fast, but I was like your body's oxygen efficiency and like everything that goes into VO2 Max, that's everything from like you know, your whole respiratory system and your cardiovascular system to be able to output what you're getting in, all of that is working fine. But when you work out, cortisol levels go crazy and your body goes haywired. Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 25:36

Yeah. So um, so we were kind of hitting dead ends with Dr. Harmon, and I was doing my own research by this point on the side and trying to, you know, read all these journal articles and try to figure out what might be going on. And I had a hypothesis at the time that maybe it was hormone related. Um, I thought maybe aldosterone based on things I'd read was an issue. And so I asked Dr. Harmon if if she could do hormone testing, and she referred me to she actually recommended against it initially. She was very, very supportive, to be clear, but she she thought we'd kind of go down a big dead end by by going that route, but agreed to it. So she referred me to endocrinology at University of Washington, and uh they got the test results back, and they're like the endocrinologist was like, Oh yeah, you're um you have hypogonadic hypogenadism, um, basically low testosterone. Uh he's like, you need to go on testosterone replacement like now and you're gonna be on the on it the rest of your life. Uh and I was like, oh, you excited though?

SPEAKER_03: 26:45

Were you like, okay, now I have some answers?

SPEAKER_01: 26:47

I mean, this is the first test that found something, right? It is, it is. Um, well, he also at the same time did diagnose overtraining syndrome. He he hypothesized that you know the overtraining syndrome probably caused the low T.

SPEAKER_03: 27:04

Oh.

SPEAKER_01: 27:05

Um, but in his experience, once it's at the levels that I was, you can't come back from it. Um so I agreed to try it. So I tried two months of self-injected testosterone. Um, and honestly, it made me feel horrible. I hated it. Um, it didn't really help. There were moments where I felt better. Um, but overall, I think what happened with me is I think personally I'm I don't feel good if I have really low, really high testosterone or really low testosterone. And the injections basically like pump you up like way over what's natural for a couple of days, and then you drop off. Uh, you might hit the normal range for a day or two, and then you're back to low by the time you get your next injection.

SPEAKER_00: 27:56

You're just constantly in the cycle.

SPEAKER_01: 27:58

Yeah, yeah. So I was like, and my wife hated it. I was like angry for no reason, and like, yeah, uh, yeah, it was not myself. So I I stopped after the two months, and we had talked about, you know, other options like patches or or other things that might have less of that kind of spike and drop off. But I had kind of decided that I wanted to try um not using testosterone and see if more rest um might um might bring my levels back naturally, even though he recommended against it.

SPEAKER_00: 28:33

So at this point, you've been through you know at least around a year of tests. You have found like, okay, I have something wrong, but fixing it isn't helping. And you're somewhat sure that it is related to training, uh, from your conversation with Mike Wolf and his doctor.

SPEAKER_02: 28:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:53

And so okay, so I'm just trying to summarize for myself. So at this point in the story, you're like, all right, well, what if I just like rest and actually give myself grace to not run and do anything?

SPEAKER_01: 29:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:06

So how did that go?

SPEAKER_01: 29:08

Well, I I so I'd started that kind of March of 2020, and this is now I think September of 2020 by the time I I tried the testosterone. Um, so I hadn't been running for for quite a while, anyways. Um, and I was like, well, maybe just more rest and we'll see how it goes. Um and honestly, that it I went really badly downhill after that. Um even further down the hill. Uh so um starting in early 2021, um, like January of 2021, I my body was just really falling apart at that point. I was um like I'd bump the wall and my skin would break open and like wounds wouldn't heal. And I just felt like I couldn't think straight. Like I had horrible brain fog. I felt like I'd lost.

SPEAKER_03: 30:05

That was a common experience for most people with OTS that brain fog.

SPEAKER_00: 30:11

Yeah.

unknown: 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:12

Well, your brain takes so much energy to run. Normally, if your body's not like, I guess, getting the right nutrients to the right places. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 30:21

I couldn't, like I had, and actually this this started earlier, but temperature sensitivity. Like I could, I basically I was comfortable in like 67 to 69 degrees. Anything hotter, I felt horrible. Anything colder, I was freezing.

SPEAKER_00: 30:35

I I need a like a very stabilize your own temperature as well. Yeah, totally. It's kind of like a fever.

unknown: 30:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:42

So you're living daily.

SPEAKER_01: 30:44

Oh my god. Um and then early 2021, I had some serious complications. I had, I think in between January, February, March, I had seven emergency room visits, three emergency surgeries. Um unrelated, some of them unrelated to each other. Like it was a really difficult.

SPEAKER_03: 31:07

But your body's just not healing, showing signs of just like not recovering properly.

SPEAKER_01: 31:13

Yeah. And so in the middle of that, I I kind of became suicidal. Um, and actually, I started a bullet journal of like my mood every day. And it of course it was like horrible every like seven days a week. And um I decided that if I had if I wasn't better in three months, I was gonna take my life.

SPEAKER_03: 31:34

Um my gosh.

SPEAKER_01: 31:36

Yeah. So it's intense. Thankfully, at that same time, I started seeing a naturopathic doctor. Um one of my thoughts, the reason I started that was because I thought I could get additional testing um to see what was going on.

SPEAKER_03: 31:52

And what's going on in the rest of your life at this time? Before we get into that, are you like functioning? Are you working? Are you functioning as a father, as a husband?

SPEAKER_01: 32:02

Yeah, yeah. Um so I have to back up a little bit. When this whole thing started, I was actually on a sabbatical, um, you know, living my best life on an RV in Colorado. Um and then when I couldn't run as much, I had decided to go back to work. So I actually started back to work in early 2020. And um, so I had a great job that was very supportive of me through some of these complications, especially like the emergency room visits and the surgeries. Like I ended up having to take some time away from work for those things. Um, they were supportive. Um, and it was a job that I was excited about, um, although I felt like I wasn't performing my best because of my brain fog and everything. Yeah. Um, but generally that was good. My wife was very supportive, although I'm sure frustrated with, you know, everything I'd been going through. And, you know, I wasn't my best self for sure through all of this. Um tried to be there for my kids. My kids are grown, so I think that probably helped that I didn't have young kids at home. Yeah. Um, but yeah, um, yeah, what definitely was not my best self through this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 33:18

So then you started seeing this natural path.

SPEAKER_01: 33:20

Yeah, yeah. And so she she suggested, and at this point I was ready to try anything to feel better. She she suggested I go on a daily testosterone lotion to kind of um, you know, not give high spikes to my testosterone, but basically find a middle ground that I could maintain daily. Um, and then she also did testing on my gut and found a couple issues uh that I think um were pivotal. So I had uh H. pylori infection in my gut and a candida overgrowth. The H. pylori is something like a Western doctor would find and treat potentially. The candida is something that um in in my talking to doctors, they don't um they don't tend to look for it or treat it because it's they don't really trust the testing methods. Uh they can get false positives or false negatives. So they they kind of ignore it as an issue. Um but I think based on what I've learned, I think it's it's a pretty significant issue. So we kind of treated all three of those things at the same time. Um so back then I wasn't quite sure what was making me feel better, but it was a pretty drastic improvement once I started treating all three of those. I felt much better than I did on the testosterone shots. Um started feeling like myself again, brain fog started clearing. Um, I didn't have like the anger issues I did on the testosterone shots, all of that. So um I actually my first run back was July of 2021. I uh was a legacy runner runner at High Lonesome. So I started the race. Uh it was actually after not training for like a like I had basically hadn't run in like two years. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03: 35:14

Okay. Uh what was that? Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01: 35:17

Caleb and I had talked about it ahead of time, and there wasn't a full full field starting that year. So I felt okay, like I wasn't taking someone else's place. And uh the the agreement was that I'd run to the first aid station and stop there. So that's what I did.

SPEAKER_03: 35:34

I love that. Yeah. That was your first run back.

SPEAKER_01: 35:37

It was, yeah. And then that kind of thing. That must have been, I mean, I mean, I guess.

SPEAKER_03: 35:42

What an epic run back, though.

SPEAKER_01: 35:44

Yeah, yeah. I was so excited. I felt, I mean, it was hard. Of course, like my heart rate was like thresholds because I was running slow the whole time, but um, but it felt amazing to be running for the first time after so long, and I felt like I was on my way back. Um but recovery was not smooth. Like I didn't continue that trajectory, unfortunately. I think I learned a lot through this. I basically had to learn how to listen to my body and like really back off on intensity um and run easy, like really ridiculously easy most of the time. Um, and that took me a probably another year to really uh get pounded into my head that every time I tried to run hard, I'd I'd kind of backslide. And then uh uh that's kind of what got me set on the path. Currently, I like I do tons of vert, but part of the reason for that is that if I'm climbing up a street, steep mountain, like I can go slower and feel okay about it. If I'm running on a flat road, I like I want to run fast.

SPEAKER_03: 36:50

Um, those five something minute miles.

unknown: 36:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 36:55

That's why I see you on mailbox all the time. That's right. So that's my local mountain that I've just can you know done more and more over the years.

SPEAKER_00: 37:03

And mailbox is a ridiculous peak. It's like 4,000 feet and less than two miles. Two and a half miles, yes. Okay, it's two and a half.

SPEAKER_01: 37:11

All right, all right, it's two and a half miles. The main part of the climb is like 2,000 feet a mile. Um, so pretty steep. Um bear, but two of them.

SPEAKER_03: 37:21

And how did you get involved in participating in this article?

SPEAKER_01: 37:26

So as I was like going through my recovery, uh, a friend of mine asked and said he had an acquaintance that was had been diagnosed with overtraining syndrome. This is Susan, and she he had told her about me and she wanted to talk to me. And he was like, hey, can I give her your number? And I was like, Yeah, of course. So uh we chatted um and I kind of counseled her through her initial recovery. And she's actually a medical writer, so we were talking a lot about how we wished that there was more information out on this, and so we agreed we should, there should be like some type of case series uh article on our cases. So we actually started writing it, and then I looped in Mike Wolf uh to be a part of it as well. And then we we took kind of our our draft article and chopped it around. Our our our key doctor we wanted to publish it uh was Dr. Krayer. He'd done some prior research and articles, journal articles on overtraining syndrome. And he agreed to kind of take our our cases. And of course, he completely rewrote it. It's his our article, uh, to be clear. But uh, but um yeah, we're very thankful that he he took it on and and published it and in the British Medical Journal.

SPEAKER_03: 38:45

So Yeah. Um I read this article and just there's so much in there that I think is really valuable to ultra running community. I think we're such a sport where we um start glorifying over training, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 39:05

Totally. It is true, yeah. Like we we deify the people that do the most uh classically in the sport.

SPEAKER_03: 39:15

Yeah, and um so uh little uh out there about this. Yeah and what so many things surprised me in the article, but what I really liked about it is that it gave a like a solution, the phases of recovery, which I'd love to talk a little bit about the phases of recovery and how it applied to you. And they're lengthy times when we're talking about like injuries and recovery.

SPEAKER_01: 39:42

It is, yeah. I mean, so and I'll probably butcher it, but then I'll try to paraphrase the way Dr. Krayer describes this because I he's spent so much time around this and spent so much time studying it that he he describes it in much simpler and more straightforward terms. Than I've read or seen other places. And so he kind of describes it as like a cycle of, you know, maybe, you know, functional overreaching in your training, where you're you're applying a large amount of stress, but your body's adapting to it, right? And you're you might choose key times to do that in your in your training load, uh your training season. Um and then if you overdo that or do too much of it, you can have non-functional overreaching where you're um you know your body's not responding to that stress. And the way he described over-training syndrome is basically you're you're you're doing non-functional overreach for a year. Um basically you're you're applying stresses to your body, whether that those be training stresses or life stresses or any kind of stress, but basically where your body's unable to adapt to um to that stress, and it becomes a chronic condition where your body, rather than adapting positively, it's deteriorating from the stress.

SPEAKER_00: 41:07

That is like the exact opposite that you want to happen with training. Totally, yeah. And how do you now looking back, can you would you be able to identify that that's happening in your body today?

SPEAKER_01: 41:27

Um yeah, well, I mean, I think my training wasn't great. Like I I ran, and I I feel like this is like everybody hears this, but I was running my my easy runs too too hard.

SPEAKER_00: 41:40

Yeah, nobody knows what that means. Because it's all it's all it's all based on you, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 41:46

So well, I think there are key, well, there's uh objective and subjective measures to to quantify this. Um and we we provide some of those in the in the getting healthy portion of the article. But I think these are things that you can apply while you're healthy too, right? And like Garmin gives you some of these things, or Koros does, like tracking your daily heart rate variability and your resting heart rate and looking for you know bad trends in that data and then making adjustments to fix it. But I think the biggest thing is getting to know yourself. And I think myself and a lot of runners and ultra runners in general, like my perspective used to be like I kind of kept my running and the rest of my life separate. And as long as my runs went okay, I ignored everything else. And like I wanted, I always felt like more is better. Like if I can train harder. Like I remember when I was first looking for a coach, I wanted a coach that like yell at me on the track and be like, go harder. Go harder.

SPEAKER_00: 42:48

We were just we just had an interview with uh our PT Michael Morrison, and he was talking a lot about this idea called meds, which essentially just means like the other stresses in your life affect your ability to cope with running stress. And I exclaimed in that podcast of like, oh, but I don't like to do that. I like to keep them separate. I want to train as hard as possible, and then the rest of the life just happens, right? And you you have the same idea. Like it's very common for us to just disassociate the two, but I mean they all exist too.

SPEAKER_01: 43:18

It's all stress, right? Your body is adapting to stress, so it doesn't really know the difference. Um, and I think what I've found, like I'm in the best shape of my life. I think my I'm still impacted by OTS and I have to be careful with some things, but but outside of that, I am in the best shape of my life at 50 years old, like post-over-training syndrome. So I think like if you learn to listen to your body and like adjust when your body sends you signals, whether those are objective or subjective, like I think you can actually train better.

SPEAKER_03: 43:53

I would love to talk a little bit about that because that wasn't the case for all of the athletes in the case study. Like you came back and then um the female athlete, she did not.

SPEAKER_01: 44:09

Well, she's early. So she read the article like very early in her process. So it's just there was more time with me. I hope that Sue and she she is working out and doing things, um and but she's early in the process, right? Um, I think she didn't catch it earlier, which is gonna help her hopefully progress more quickly than I did.

SPEAKER_03: 44:30

Um she had some different symptoms too. Maybe we can talk about that a little bit. She she experienced um incontinent incontinence through exercise, which was not one of the symptoms that you experienced. But she also had the same brain fog, um not inability to sleep well, some of those, and um some of the more um mental um what would you think?

SPEAKER_01: 45:00

Depression has got to be very common with it because I mean, yeah, it sucks in general. And then, you know, it a lot of times it's causing hormone issues and everything. So um I know Mike talks about, you know, he he was certainly in, you know, struggled with depression at the time he had overtraining syndrome as well. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:21

I mean it's gotta be very difficult to lose to lose your primary sport.

SPEAKER_03: 45:28

But I don't think it's just that. It seems to be more like like you mentioned like the hormone imbalances, like there it it's people who haven't experienced depression before suddenly are experiencing depression.

unknown: 45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:43

And we had uh when we had um Justin Simtek Did I say it right?

SPEAKER_00: 45:48

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_03: 45:49

Yeah, when we had him talking about overtraining syndrome, he had mild psychosis.

SPEAKER_00: 45:55

Yeah, he actually had uh this disassociation of his own body parts. He thought his hand was other people's hands. It was not his hand. Wow. Like his his body was like basically saying the rest of your body is not this, like a very a crazy mental symptom you know, produced by the same syndrome, right? Like cortisol and and your brain just not uh handling the stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 46:21

Yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised with anything with this, honestly, because it's yeah, it screws you up so horribly.

SPEAKER_00: 46:27

So yeah, I mean it can resent as anything. Yes, it's untestable. Yeah, but it can come on when you're not increasing training load. How I guess if you could how would how would you tell somebody who might think out there that like, oh, I wonder if this is happening to me. What should they look for? What should they test for? Who should they go see? I don't know. Like like how do we how do how do we make the turnaround faster than what you had your two years?

SPEAKER_01: 47:02

Yeah, well, I think um I think in it I've always been kind of a metrics person. So um I think as talk technology has improved, we have like the it's easy to get your heart rate variability, resting heart rate, things like that. Like I'm sure if I had been tracking those at the time, I would have seen them going haywire. And but my mentality back then would probably would have probably been to ignore them and keep training hard as long as I could still run, right? Um, so I don't think that would have changed it, but I it should have. Um uh I think if we can approach running with that kind of a mentality where like it and Killian talks about this in his his book, um Training for the Uphill Athlete, like like training and running is about health, right? And to be that your best athlete, you have to be healthy. So that includes like, how are you sleeping? How are you eating, all those things that I tried to ignore and now I've integrated. Um, and yeah, it takes extra work and might be a pain, but like it, it it really is important in getting the most out of yourself. And especially like we're we're asking a lot of our bodies um in in these events and in the training in general. Um, so I think yeah, listening to all that, there was stuff my wife used to tell me that I ignored, like that uh like after in this time, like after I get back from a run, my horse would, my voice would be hoarse. Um and I'd be like, oh, I'm fine.

SPEAKER_00: 48:36

But that's what you told me at Dark Divide.

unknown: 48:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:39

Like John, John, you're you sound hoarse. You're probably dehydrated.

SPEAKER_01: 48:43

Yeah, that's what I've come to learn. So I don't know. I'm just paying more attention to my body and like when things don't feel right, I really try to dig into what might be causing it and looking for patterns and and all of that. I've just I've been, you know, better at identifying those things. And I like I can't what I one thing I've realized about myself is I can't have a coach. Um, I feel like a failure if I can't complete the training plan the way they have it written. Like I know I can ask, like say, hey, I don't feel great today. Can we shift this workout later? But it makes me feel bad. Um, and that's that's not healthy for me. So I have a training background, so I'm able to like just kind of roll with it every day and and be like, today I feel like doing this. And I haven't done a workout in a while, so maybe I should do a workout if I feel good. Um but I keep it way more open-ended, and I think that just allows me to get more out of my body by doing things when it's ready for it.

SPEAKER_00: 49:41

Would you say that's the major um treatment that you've done? Like aside from many like uh topical lotions? Yeah, just just really listening to your body.

SPEAKER_01: 49:55

And like that's the biggest change. Listening to my body, making adjustments. Like I'll I've driven to a trailhead before and uh you know, 45 minutes from my house, gotten there, gotten out of the car, and been like, ah, actually, I'm not feeling it today, and turned around and driven back home. Like I've gotten just really in tune with my body and like open to adjusting at any point.

SPEAKER_03: 50:21

Yeah, I think that's so important and not talked about enough in our sport. It's just like, let's let's not push through all the adversities. We just had a uh guest not too long ago that was like, I'll crawl across the finish line with a broken leg. And I was like, ooh, is this healthy? Should we be promoting this?

SPEAKER_01: 50:42

Yeah, yeah. To be clear, I think you can push your body. Like I still do. Like I'm I'm doing ridiculous training. I I'm training like an average of over 20 hours a week this year. There's been weeks of close to 40 hours of training. Wow. And I'm almost at 1.5 million feet of earth for the year. Like a lot.

SPEAKER_03: 51:07

Yeah, you ask a lot of your body still. Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 51:11

But doing it in a way that, you know, that matches what your body can provide in that moment that it can provide it. Totally.

SPEAKER_01: 51:18

Yeah. Yeah. And choosing like for me, and I think this is actually a difference post-OTS, and this is true of Mike as well, um, where neither of us feel like we can push as hard as we used to before overtraining syndrome. I actually haven't talked to anybody who's had overtraining syndrome who feels like they're the same athlete they were before. And for both of us, that's that's what it is. The difference is we can't like push as hard. Um I can push hard. Like if I have a huge base, I can push hard briefly, but um, but I have to keep it kind of in check.

SPEAKER_00: 51:55

So those days of the 5kPR are probably.

SPEAKER_01: 51:58

Yeah, probably probably over. That's okay, though.

SPEAKER_00: 52:02

That's okay. I one thing we may have glossed over, I want to touch on, is the distance. Like, how long did it take you to come back to running uh 100 milers, which seems to be your thing. I don't know if it really is. But from that, like you saw this uh naturopath in early 2021. How long from then? And you started to turn it around, how long till you were able to finish 100?

SPEAKER_01: 52:32

Good training in 2022. Um, High Lonesome was again my kind of target race for that year. Unfortunately, I got COVID right before it. Um I tested negative, uh, I think it was the day before the race. So I went ahead and started, which was a mistake, of course. Uh, I hadn't learned to listen to my body yet at that point. Um it's a process.

SPEAKER_02: 52:59

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 53:00

So I'd say it was kind of after that high lonesome over the next year where I I really learned to listen to my body. I didn't, I like leaned more into more vert, um, which I feel like just works well for my body. Listening to Scott Johnson, I think there's a lot about like uh muscular endurance that has to do with that. But um but the 2023 High Lonesome was my best hundred ever. Um it was my first hundred back and my best hundred ever. Um just wow great.

SPEAKER_02: 53:31

Um that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 53:34

I I was happy, like having a blast the entire day. I thought like I was my my main concern was that I was annoying because I was so happy. I just felt like so grateful to be there when I thought like at certainly many times during this, I thought I'd never be able to run again, much less run a hundred. And um yeah, ran under 24 hours, you know, podium finite. Um, so felt great. I think sub-24 at Hyla's pretty, pretty darn good. Especially for my age.

SPEAKER_03: 54:10

Uh I want to make sure we don't skip over anything in the article that you wanted to touch on because that I really enjoyed reading that article and I thought it was really valuable.

SPEAKER_01: 54:21

Yeah, I think well, I part of the reason we wanted to put it out there is just like to show both that there's similarities across the three cases and that there's just vast differences. And so for people who think that they might have it, like I think it can be helpful to read and just like read these case studies of like how it presented in these three different people.

SPEAKER_03: 54:42

And um and it presented differently even in the other individual we had on the podcast who talked about it. So now you have three case studies that we'll share with our listeners, and the fourth, the podcast we did with Justin.

SPEAKER_01: 54:58

There you go. Yeah, and then you know, the we tried to put together a kind of a return to running program, as you were mentioning.

SPEAKER_03: 55:06

Yes, the three phases.

SPEAKER_01: 55:08

Yeah, and so a lot of that is like listening to your body, like looking at heart rate variability and you know, choosing when to run based on that. So it's a lot of the stuff that I'm talking about, but um, but yeah, it kind of gives a uh uh prescription for how to apply that. Um and I think you could you could read that even as someone that doesn't have overtraining syndrome and start to apply it to your own running as well, um, to to help to avoid you know even getting started down that path.

SPEAKER_03: 55:42

Yeah. Well, Dave, what's next for you with your running?

SPEAKER_01: 55:47

Yeah, so hundreds are I'm sure I'll run more hundreds, but they've become less of a focus for me. Um I I broke my ankle, unfortunately, shortly after the high loathsome uh 2023 where I had a a blast. I was in Norway and uh and and yeah, broke it badly. Uh so got a bunch of hardware added to my ankle. Um and took it that bad. What's that?

SPEAKER_03: 56:17

That bad where you had to have screws in there.

SPEAKER_01: 56:20

Yeah, like I I was running down a trail and it broke and my it was like literally sticking out sideways for my my foot was sticking out sideways from my leg. No. Oh, this makes me very uncomfortable. I had to crawl to the trailhead and like get help.

SPEAKER_00: 56:37

Oh man. You were running alone. I was alone, yeah. Yeah. Uh oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 56:47

Did you have to get airlifted out of there?

SPEAKER_01: 56:49

What's that? No, no. I crawled and and then got some people to help me at the trailhead uh to get an ambulance, three hours of ambulance rides, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 57:01

Wow. These are great. I mean, this could be a whole nother story for running with problems.

SPEAKER_00: 57:05

You are you are an ideal guest for the bunch of things the wrong way. I'll I'll say that.

SPEAKER_03: 57:11

Dave, um, I can't believe we're at an hour already. I could talk to you probably for another hour. Um, this article just, I mean, it really blew my mind. So I really want everyone listening to go read this article for themselves. Because honestly, I feel like we barely scratched the surface with it.

SPEAKER_00: 57:32

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03: 57:33

Um, we like to end our podcast by asking you to share a piece of advice with our listeners.

SPEAKER_01: 57:39

Yeah. So I I think it's kind of uh reiterating a little bit of what we talked about, but listen to your body, learn to listen to your body. I think as runners, it's one of the best things you can do for both your performance and your long-term health. And then also like question the experts. Like, especially in this sport, like nobody's actually an expert. They might be an expert in themselves, but there's so much we don't know. Um, there's so much that that doctors don't know about your health. Like, do your own research. You're an end of one, like believe yourself over anyone else, uh, your coach, your doctor, or whatever.

SPEAKER_03: 58:19

Um yeah, that has been something that I've consistently found through guests that we've had with unique medical situations. Sammy, Chris McBride, some of these folks who have unique medical conditions and they want to run 100 milers, doctors just don't know what to do with them.

SPEAKER_00: 58:40

Most doctors be like, Well, you just stop running, you'd be all right. It's like, well, probably get depressed.

SPEAKER_02: 58:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:48

Thank you so much, Dave, for uh being on the podcast sharing your story. And uh listeners, if you guys, if anybody else is uh feeling like they might have overtraining sit there, feel free to reach out and we'll connect you. And thanks for listening. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 59:07

So I read this article and in the article, and I actually um the story in the article and I actually copied it. Um I didn't know it was you yet because I didn't know who which one of the case studies you was you. And then I sent it to my friends and I was like, we have to avoid overtraining syndrome. This could happen to you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 59:28

Oh my gosh, yeah. No, the craziest story. So my wife, I drive her crazy because I tell like everybody the story. I think it's the best story. It's a little bit embarrassing, I guess. But um, okay, so this was like in the worst part of my symptoms for overtraining, where I was like bumping into walls and my skin was breaking. Um, I was like having sexual impacts from like the low testosterone at this point. Like my sex drive wasn't as high. Uh, my rate. Direction quality wasn't as great. Like I was not in a good place. Um but and I and I like to set the scene here because I feel like you've got to be able to picture the scene in your mind because it's like burned into my mind just because of how crazy it is. So I set the scene, but it I think it can make it sound like there's some fault on my wife. So I want to make sure there's no fault. It's nothing to do with with her. Like this is meet my broken body, uh, you know, uh falling apart in the process of falling apart. But um, yeah, it has nothing to do with her, but other than that she was unfortunately present for it. Present for it, yeah. Okay. So with that, um, so we were having sex in early January of 2021. She was on top, and and she kind of was writing in like something hit a little bit wrong, but like not painful or anything like that. And so she kept going, and like I was like, uh things seem a little wet. I'm like looking down and it there's blood down there, and I'm like, is she on her period? And she's I I like look up at her and she's I can tell a little confused too. And so she like backs off and gets off my my dick, and like it's there sticking straight up with like a fountain of blood spraying into the air, like just a solid stream of blood. Oh both of us were like in shock, of course. Like, I'm just getting like painted in blood, like our beds covered in blood on our wall, like around our bed, like everything is covered in blood.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:52

That is not something you expect to see.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:54

I can't no like my initial thought was like, I'm gonna run out of blood. Like, this is so much blood. I don't I only have so much. So I like grab it to like try and like stop. Yeah, you're trying to stop the bleeding. Stop the bleeding. And it kind of does. Like, I'm able to stop the bleeding by like squeezing it. And I'm like, we both like jump out of bed and we're like, what do we do? And like, we're like, we got to go to the hospital, right? And we where we live in Seattle, like I'm like, it's gonna take longer for an ambulance to get here and then drive me back. I'm like, let's just go ourselves. You can drive me. And so quickly jump in the shower because we're just like doused in blood and like rinse off while I'm holding on to my dick, like swapping hands carefully. And like she helps me get some sweats on as I like swap hands, and then right before we leave, I'm like, we have to take a picture of this because they're not gonna believe like how much their blood this is. So we like took a picture of the bed and then jumped in the car and started going to the hospital. And uh, I started kind of losing consciousness in the car. Yeah, you lost all that blood. Right. But I'm like trying to stay conscious enough not to lose grip on my drug because I'm like afraid if I let go, it's just gonna start spraying out again. Um, so we get to the the hospital and she runs in and like is yelling, but my husband's like bleeding profusely, and they come out and get me. And of course, it looks like I have no blood on me at this point. But we get back there, we describe what happened, they get an IV in, and I start, you know, regaining consciousness. And um, and they're like, you know, can you try and let go? And so I do, and it's not really bleeding, like maybe a few drips, but like not bleeding anymore, thankfully. And they're like, Well, can you urinate? So I tried that and had some blood in it, but not bad. Um, and so they, of course, got their on-call urologist in. They couldn't quite figure out what was going on. They they did a CT scan with contrast where they like sprayed contrast up my dick basically to see if it was like entering my system anywhere it shouldn't be. Um, and that came back clear. Like there, it didn't look like there were any holes where there shouldn't be a hole. Um, and so they it was like really late at night, probably three in the morning at this point. And they were like, well, like you've kind of got two choices at this point. We can do exploratory surgery and like re-circumcise you and like dissect your penis to try and figure out what's going on. Or they're like, you can go home and then come back uh in a couple days and we'll do a scope and put a camera out there. Yeah, I think this the one without the exploratory surgery, probably. Yeah, I was like, okay. I think doctors are really good at making these, like, like they know what they want you to pick and they make it really clear which one is the right answer. Um, so we went home and like it's still like dripping blood here and there, but not much. So I like had shorts on and stuck a towel in my shorts and we went to sleep and woke up like four or five hours later and um like opened up the covers and there's just a pile like pool of blood with like so much blood that there's like blood clots on the bed. It was disgusting. This is our guest room because we couldn't go back to our our bedroom. So you've ruined all the beds in your head, all over the house. So we go back to the hospital, of course, and they're like, Yeah, um, we'll definitely need to uh do surgery. So this is during COVID, so they um they didn't have uh my my wife couldn't be in the hospital, so she had to like wait in the car, and they're like, it should be like a half hour surgery or something. Sure. Yeah. Uh but like five hours later uh came out of it, and they figured it out. Thankfully, there was no long-term impact. But basically what happened it was a uh penile fracture, which is there's like three erection tubes that fill with blood when you get an erection. And I'm probably butchering the explanation, but right, they make it hard with the blood. You get a penile fracture, one of those ruptures, and typically there's a bunch of internal bleeding. Uh, but in my case, um, it at the same point that it ruptured, it also uh ruptured the urethra. So it basically just sprayed out rather than being internal. So in some ways it was better than a normal nail fracture. It also happened like way closer to the tip. That's why the contrast didn't work. Um and uh yeah, so they did surgery and you know, stitched everything back up and um thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:08

Man, you were having a rough, rough year, Dave.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:14

No wonder you were depressed.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:16

Yeah, actually, the worst part of it, the the it wasn't painful, but the the surgery uh one one they had to do the breathing tube, like I had to be fully knocked out with surgery, like that was kind of painful afterwards, like my throat. And then um I had a catheter for like two weeks, and that was horrible. Um if you ever have a as a guy have a catheter, you need lube on the catheter because if you get like an erection at night without lube, it's like the worst thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:46

Oh my god, and you can't really control that, it's like all in your head.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:50

Oh Jesus.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:52

Well, there's some there's some extra running tips for y'all, right? Get lube on your catheters everyone.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:59

Yep. Oh my god. And then and then it didn't actually end there. So sex for for six weeks, and I and kind of gotten back to sex, like so it was like seven weeks after that, and then I got a kidney stone.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:15

And that was related to the OTS, likely, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:19

They well, yeah, they're not sure. I mean, doc doctors will be like, oh, these are all separate incidents or whatever. Oh, another one of the athletes had kidney stone. Right. Um, but it was like I had all kinds of complications with the kidney stone, so ended up needing multiple surgeries for that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:36

And yeah, it was not you gotta pass that, doesn't that come out through the penis as well?

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:41

If they don't do surgery, yeah, if they don't do surgery, which actually would have been better, but I I mean I had stitches inside my urethra, so I was pretty worried about it. Oh my god. But uh, but in my case, it got stuck um in between the the kidney and the um uh bladder. So they had to first they tried to do surgery to take it out from there, but they couldn't get it out. So they stuck in a stint, and I had to have a stint to like stretch things out for a couple weeks. Um, and then my body rejected the stint, so I had like blood clots and back up into my kidney, and so it was on like super high-powered uh pain medication. That was the most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life, I will say. So anytime you're nothing to it. I I had morphine and it was like I'm still like 10 out of 10 pain. Uh so they gave me this stuff dilatid or hydromorphone. That is like the best drug ever.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:43

No wonder when you got back to running hilo, you were just like, this is great. Yeah, arguing with this all day.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:53

This pain doesn't touch me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:58

Yeah. So, anyways, that's the story.