YouSaid · the spoken record

Zach Bitter

lines on the record: 227
first: 2021-07-29
most recent: 2021-07-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Required to elicit a growth response has already occurred, and just to do more is just going to require more recovery time to get back and do it again.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not going to quit. And then you put yourself in a position to have that day where you push through more times than you ever have before and you just redefine what you're capable of. And then once I think you do that, you start looking at those earlier lessons as lessons. Were they failures on paper at the time? Probably. But can you pull things from them to learn as to like, well, where is your actual threshold? Where is the limit actually for you? And then kind of start redefining that stuff. So I think like the never equipmentality can be good in certain situations, but I don't think it's necessarily like a holistic thing where you need to be in something where it's never quit, always do more. Because then you end up in a situation where you find this like margin of diminishing returns, especially when it comes to training and workouts and things like that where there are times where often there are times where you want to actually quit a little bit before you would have to because the stress that was”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Why did this time I able to be mentally more strong and kind of push through those extra opportunities to quit when I wasn't before? And it can be easy to look back and say and live kind of like retroactively in the sense where you're like regretting, well, why did I drop out of those races? Why did I do this wrong there and that? I just think that's where you have to kind of catch yourself and say, no, those things happen to me in order to put me in a position where I decided, well, this time I'm not going to quit.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Describe perfectly that quit pops up in your head maybe a little sooner the next time or maybe a little bit before. And I've certainly had these experiences in my career as well. What happens, I think, if you stick with it again, I think it is important to assess whether you really want to be doing what you're doing. If you start recognizing that about yourself in a certain activity where it's like, I think I might be pulling the plug early on some of this stuff, I think you just need to kind of get into a position where you just at that point, you need to make a decision, do I want to keep doing this? If the answer is yes, you hold yourself accountable to not quitting. And eventually what will happen is you'll find yourself in a position where I'll use Ultramarathons, for example, where you're just clicking on all cylinders for that day. And you still get those scenarios where doubt creeps in your mind. You have these low points. But for whatever reason, when those low points come, you're able to push through them better than you would have in the past. And then you push through maybe two or three more than you did after you had quit the time before. Then it's accountability time, right? Because then you have to look back at that and say, well,”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a really interesting thing. And I think it actually resonates with a lot of Ultra Marathon runners because there seems to be a trend when you have someone who's been in the sport for a long time where there's a point where they start the sport, right? And they're like super excited about everything. Everything's new. It's very easy not to quit because you're like, oh, this is the first time I've ever run a 50 case. The first time I've ever run a 50 miles, the first time I've ever run 100 case, the first time I've ever run 100 miles and so on and so forth. When you're doing that for the first time, I think there's a heightened motivation to not quit because you don't want your first attempt to be a failure. And then you get a little further along and you start reflecting on the landscape and all the opportunities that are out there. And you find yourself quitting on an event. And there does seem to be a trend where once you do that once, now all of a sudden like you, like you.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I know I'd enjoy all of them. So at a certain point, though, you have to say, okay, which one is going to be the most meaningful for me? And if the answer keeps coming back to saying, like, yes, this is still the most meaningful to me out of that hundred things that I could otherwise be doing, then I know that I'm in it for the right reason. Then I just need to identify some of the things like, well, why did this one take the top spot out of the hundred things that I could have picked from? Keeping like a list of those in your head so that when you get to that point where you start saying, why am I doing this? Why am I here? You just have those kind of ready loaded in your head to say, well, I already took inventory on that before I started this. And I knew this voice was going to come at some point, whether it's early, middle, or late. And then you just remind yourself kind of what you were thinking when you had a little more of a level head.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Someone like yourself who is very much into a variety of different things, it can be easy probably to overextend and get, I mean, I'm a very curious person. So there's like a hundred things I would love to do if I wasn't doing what I'm doing.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Last four months, the entire reason why I was doing it, the countless hours I spent in there. So I think I just try to reposition it of like I'm in a bad place right now maybe in my head or I'm not I'm hitting a low point here But I'm 99% of the way towards the goal I set out four months ago when I add in all the work I did leading up to that So I think it's important to ask yourself why because I mean, there are times when you're doing something and you ask yourself why and you don't have a good reason And then maybe it is advantageous to step back and really reflect on that and decide, is this something I actually want to invest time and energy into?”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To my general broader picture. So when I decide to do a race or an event or something like that, it's often four or six months out ahead of time. You're planning to like kind of do a series of workouts and a flow of things where you're going through the process of getting fit, getting ready, preparing for the specifics of the day and all that stuff. And then you get to the race itself or the event itself. And it's very easy to look at that and think that's an isolation. Like I'm going to run 12 hours today or I'm going to run 100 miles today or whatever it ends up being. And it's a lot easier to quit when you think to yourself, I'm 40 miles into 100 mile race. You know, that's just a 40 mile run, which sounds kind of silly to most people, but in perspective, when we're talking about the ultra marathon running community, you know, it's a lot easier just to say like, well, you know, I'll scrap this 40 miles and try again. It's a lot harder to say I'm going to scrap the entire life.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think a lot of times when the quitting voice kind of comes in, what it does is it kind of just comes in with the added disadvantage, I guess, in this situation of being kind of a narrow scoped view where you're looking at like what it's doing to you in the moment or how you're feeling in the moment versus how are you feeling about the whole process. So one thing that I started doing in 2019, and I think I don't think it's necessarily seasons in 2019 that I had had to that date, it was part of it was I started, I think putting a little more emphasis on the big picture versus putting emphasis on like, this is one opportunity or one day of work. And this is one emotional kind of flare up. But how does that actually really?”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're probably going to be able to kind of pull from both of those if they're able to sit down and kind of assess which one's going to work better in which situation.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just training and even nutrition to a degree where, like, some folks, they just want to be like kind of like drilled. They want to be like yelled at and said, like, get going, get doing this. And that helps and that motivates them. That helps them stay accountable. Other people need some softer love with it where it's like, you know, this isn't necessarily your fault. You were put in this environment that kind of created an atmosphere of lethargy and maybe poor nutritional choices and things like that. And like, so, but it's correctable. So we need to step away from that and we need to kind of start heading in the direction that we know is going to bear fruit down the road. And that person may respond better to that. So I think both those guys have great value with their approaches. They're just probably polar ends of the spectrum. And I think most people are probably going to benefit like anything, right? You get a polarizing ones and those are going to work great for the polarizing people, but then most people are going to foot somewhere in the middle.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know if I feel quite right now. Should I maybe pull back on the pace? And I think that little subtle voice is best approached with a subtle positive voice where it's more like, okay, well, let's think this through here for a second. You're 40 miles into 100 mile race. You spent four months preparing for it. You know from the workouts you did that you're ready for this, there really isn't any real reason for you to slow down or to fall off your goal or your pace or reassess what you're doing. Let's just give this another mile or two and then we can reassess if we need to in order to kind of figure out if I'm doing the right things or not. And I think like in that situation, you definitely probably want to lean more towards the Sam Harris approach with that because there's really no reason to, it's almost like the same thing you see with like.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's a really good question. It's probably unique to the individual. I wouldn't argue that David is finding success with his approach. Some may argue it's an extreme version. Sam has obviously thought about these things and really probably I see those guys as kind of two ends of the spectrum in just the way that they kind of come across in general where like David's like really at you kind of high energy and Sam's kind of this calming soft presence and he's just going to slowly methodically lay it all out there and I think there's value in both of those. I think most people are probably going to get a benefit from pulling some from each. I mean, there's times where I need a kick in the ass and then it's like have the strong zact tell the weak zact to get moving. But there's also times where, you know, it's just like, you know, a subtle voice entering my head about.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What they'll call it in the alternative community, the end of the race, just to say you got that full experience, you experienced the highs, the lows, the full thing, the starting, the crossing the finish line, that release of emotion when you're done and all that stuff. So that when you go back to do it again, you have like a template to build off of and you know, or you just have some data to pull from about how your mind's going to work as well as your body so that you can start practicing, well, what do I have to do to kind of keep my mind from spiraling in a negative direction? Or how do I catch some positive momentum and kind of keep sending it that way and things like that. And that just, I think you just add to that over a career of running them or a series of running them. And it sharpens. It's kind of like any sport with that where, you know, you always have this balance between the youthfulness that you may have earlier in your career versus the wise intelligence that you have maybe near the end of your career.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Still, you know, everything's going well at this point in time. You get a little further along in the race and you're starting to feel a bit of the fatigue, maybe a little bit of self-doubt creeps in. You start asking yourself, well, you know, maybe I should have done one more long run or did I not quite taper long enough? And those things can kind of spiral into a negative way. And if you let it keep going, it keeps going all the way to like, why am I here? Why am I doing this? This is stupid all the way to like, there's another one of these two weeks from now. I'm going to drop out of this one and sign up for that one instead. And then you just find yourself in the exact same situation. So you kind of have to go through the process, I think. It's why I think there's kind of a, I wouldn't say it's a rule of thumb necessarily, but something I think is fairly valuable is if you do a hundred mile or the first time, make sure you get it done, even if it means like death marching.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You've lived multiple lives or full life maybe as a way to say it in that one time period. So it's like it's almost like a similar experience in a long period of time in a very condensed period of time. And I think that's just a weird mental process to reflect upon. And that's what kind of draws people back to it. But I mean, it's a battle too because if you're looking at it from a performance standpoint versus an experience, you obviously want to minimize the negative mindset stuff. You want to try to keep those emotions and those thought processes at a low. And I think when you can keep yourself from letting those thoughts creep in, you end up having better races. And it can spiral in either direction. I notice there's kind of like this scenario that occurs where in the beginning like a negative thing creeps in your mind. It's like super easy just to slap it down. So they like get out of here. You know, I did the training. I'm fit. I'm feeling fresh.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Check them out at betterhelp.coms. That's better help.com slash lex. This is Alex Friedman podcast and here is my conversation with Zach Bitter. Where does your mind go when you're running an ultra marathon? Are there a lot of positive thoughts, negative thoughts, demons, inspirational things? Maybe no thoughts at all? Yeah, that's the really interesting part of the sport, I think, because you can essentially what it is when we're looking at like the 100 mile distance or anything that's like all day long is you're going to have the full range of the full spectrum of emotions of mental processes, both kind of positive.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Episode is sponsored by BetterHelp spelled H-E-L-P Help. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed professional therapist in under forty eight hours. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of podcasts, so I'm also a big fan of talk therapy. I think talking sort of communication between two human beings, or perhaps between a human and an AI system, is a really good way to dive deep inside the mind and explore the dark parts, the dreams, the whole thing, the mess of the human condition, from childhood to today, to expectations of the future to your contemplation of your immortality, the whole thing, I think talking is one of the ways to bring it to the surface and to understand yourself. So I'm definitely a fan of tools like BetterHelp, which make the whole thing easy, private, affordable, available worldwide.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Run like a half a mile, that's enough. So go to try noom.com slash legs and fill out the quick survey. That's all you have to do. Also, try not to have an existential crisis while filling it out, which is what I had some of the questions that kind of big picture questions. Just answer them directly. Go to trynoom.com slash lex.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This episode is brought to you by Noom N O M, which is a behavior and habit changing system that helps you get fit and lose weight. Go to triNoom. comtake a short survey about yourself and it'll generate a custom program for you. This includes helping you find why you want to do it. That's a very important question. It will help you find the small goals along the way and it'll guide you ten minutes a day to better habits. I think forming long term habits is everything. I've been forming the habit of running and exercising every day recently, sort of getting back on the ball. That is such a pain when you have to decide every single day whether you're going to run or not. Every single day you run, for me that means at least five minutes of running. Like I never literally run for five minutes, but that's enough if I just come out there.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The cooking, sitting under the stars, looking at the fire, just thinking about the whole cycle of life. You should definitely check out that episode as we talk about cooking, as we talk about regenerative farming, as we talk about the ethical treatment of animals. Anyway, you can order Belcampus sustainably raised meats to be delivered straight to your door using code lex at bellcampo.com slash lex for 20% off for first-time customers. That's code lex at bellcampo.com slash lex.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Animals grazed on open pastures and seasonal grasses resulting in meat that is higher in nutrients and healthy fats. Bel Campo has been the best meat I've ever eaten at home. I've been basically eating Bell Campo ground beef like one pack is one pound so I eat two of those a day and has been incredible. It tastes incredible. As I talk about with Anya Fernald in a previous podcast, it's represents humane treatment of animals. I mean, it was an incredible experience for me to visit the farm, to talk to Agna, to see the animals graze in the open pasture, but also to see the whole process, to see the slaughterhouse, to see the butchering.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've been actually reading excerpts from the ancient Stoics. I like the crisp minimalist rawness of the way they think about life. Everybody tries to understand what is the meaning of this whole thing, and they do so kind of with a different style, with different ideas. But it all comes back to the same place. We all die. Which is why you should go to ladderlife.com slash lex to see if you are instantly approved, that's ladder spelled L A D E Rife. com slash Lex once again for the seats in the back that's ladderlife dot com slash lexo farms whose mission is to deliver meat you can feel good about meat that is good for you good for the animals and good for the planet”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As usual, I'll do a few minutes of As now, Noah's in the middle, I think those get in the way of the conversation. I give you timestamps, so if you skip, please still check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. I hope you don't skip because I do try to make these interesting. But anyway, if you buy the stuff from the sponsors, I hope you'll find value in it just as I have. This show is sponsored by Ladder. I often meditate on my mortality, often talk about it. I think this is both honest and clarifying for who I am and what I want to do in life. If you have others in your life you love and you do the same, you should consider getting life insurance. How is that for a stoic inspired pitch for life insurance? A little every month in case something happens to you and the ones you love will be protected.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That has always been difficult for me, but I love it because it is difficult. The hardest part is I'm left alone with my thoughts for one or two hours. Some thoughts are dark, like thinking about mortality, my own and that of others. Some are self critical like personal weaknesses or dreams not realized. Some are simply human feelings of loneliness, personal and existential. And yet there are the moments during a run when all that fades and I'm left empty of negative thoughts and full of appreciation for the beauty of experience, of nature, life, the whole thing. This is why I returned to running shape, but to face myself and to run through it. That's why I am inspired by people like Zack and by Devaggins and others like them who seek to find the limits of their body and mind.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The following is a conversation with Zack Bitter, Ultra Marathon Runner and Coach who held multiple world records in the one hundred mile run and other ultra endurance events. He is currently training for a run across America which for now is planned for September this year. Like many of the things Zach has done in the past, this is a big, fascinating challenge. Quick mention of our sponsors latter Velcampo, Noom, and BetterHelp. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that Zach has been advising and coaching me on my own, running journey. I want to mention that Zack sent me some running shoes from Ultra, which I think is a company that sponsors him. When I put those shoes on, I feel like Zack is watching me, and I get that extra motivation to make him proud. And by that, I mean I want to put a lot of miles on those shoes.”
2021-07-29 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #205 – Zach Bitter: Ultramarathon Running · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source