Host Brad Kearns welcomes Tawnee Prazak to discuss endurance training, racing, and coaching. Tawnee is the host of the popular Endurance Planet podcast and is a personal coach to triathletes and distance runners. Tawnee comments on many of the hot topics in the endurance scene today, including:

Mark Sisson follows up his essay reading last week with an engaging discussion with host Brad Kearns about the dangers of chronic cardio, and some tips to help avoid the drawbacks of chronic exercise patterns. Brad and Mark discuss numerous real-life case studies of elite athletes in endurance sports such as ironman triathlon and long distance running, who have suffered serious heart problems. Mark and Brad mention the tragic deaths of multisport athlete Steve Larsen at age 39 (heart attack while running), and Ryan Shay (heart attack while racing the US Olympic trials marathon), along with an assortment of other high profile athletes and their ordeals.

Mark presents a compelling solution in essay form, pulling highlights from some popular follow-up blog posts on the subject. Mark mentions eating Primally, downscaling the "filler" workouts that happen between challenging "breakthrough" sessions, and realizing that interval and sprint workouts can deliver a training effect superior to long-duration workouts, while also alleviating the risks of drifting into a chronic pattern. For a good takeaway sound bite, Mark reiterates a message from a popular post about burning a total of only around 4,000 calories per week during structured exercise sessions. This is a general rule of thumb that correlates with an impressive assortment of different types of workouts that develop broad-based functional fitness, and helps protect against the excesses of chronic exercise.

Mark Sisson tries something new with this podcast episode, as he reads an essay based on one of his most popular posts ever on MarksDailyApple.com: “A Case Against Cardio.” The original post, published in June 2007, helped shed light on the concept that extreme endurance training can actually compromise health and increase disease risk. Mark published several follow up posts over the years on the topic of chronic exercise and the ways to avoid the stress and damage caused when exercise patterns drift away from optimal stress/rest balance and into the extreme category.

Mark’s essay covers the original landmark post, along with assorted commentary from follow up posts. For devoted fitness enthusiasts with passions for Crossfit, marathons, triathlons, heavy gym class participation, or even high-energy weekend warriors who are balancing exercise goals with hectic daily life, this is a very important podcast to absorb and ponder carefully how your own exercise and stress management patterns are looking these days.

Next week, Mark will continue the theme with a Chronic Cardio Part 2 podcast where he and host Brad Kearns talk about some of the real-life cases of elite athletes being stricken with serious heart problems, some of the science behind what happens to the body when it’s pushed too hard with insufficient rest, and how you can avoid these negative consequences.

Brad Kearns joins popular guest Andrew MacNaughton, founder and head coach of TheAthletesPotential.com. On his third podcast appearance, he does not disappoint, and offers an assortment of memorable tips and insights for how to train in a healthy, balanced manner.

Andrew describes how The Athletes Potential approach differs from conventional cookie cutter coaching based on workout programming and how he prefers to focus on total health and optimal lifestyle with his clients. He discusses his focus on how it’s possible to be too motivated and too driven to succeed, when patience is preferred.

Andrew and Brad agree that a major mistake endurance athletes make is to go too moderate too often. Consequently, when it’s time to actually go hard, people perform poorly because they have no reserve and insufficient fitness.

The two talk about how to overcome the excessive, obsessive training regimens that overrun the endurance world by focusing on performing well as a form of fun. He talks about his early career successes and encourages athletes to approach the sport in the right way: with an eye toward peak racing performance instead of filling logbooks, downscaling goal event distances to sync with life responsibilities, and trying to go fast instead of just surviving.

He also details a step-by-step plan to essentially take over the sport, but the microphone malfunctioned so his plans remain top secret…until perhaps the next show!

Host Brad Kearns talks with Gordo Byrn, ultra-endurance athlete, coach, and prolific writer who cranks out a current series of incredibly insightful blog posts. On his blog, he covers the prominent topics in his amazing life’s journey while emphasizing Fitness, Family & Finances. After a decade in a highly intense and successful career as a partner in a private equity firm, Gordo walked away from a seat at the “Big Boy's Table” to pursue his calling as an endurance athlete. 

Soon after his arrival onto the ultra scene, Gordo established himself as a world champion competitor, writer, popular coach, and performer of mighty endurance feats with the likes of sidekick-in-suffering Scott "The Terminator" Molina. Gordo's Ultraman World Champion title was earned in a 3-day competition consisting of a 10k swim, 90-mile bike ride on day one, 173-mile bike ride on day two, and 52-mile run on day three. He also took second at Ironman Canada at 8:29 and wrote the bestselling book, Going Long (with Joe Friel), considered by many to be the most comprehensive guide to preparing for Ironman distance events. 

Gordo goes all-in with everything he does, and today he has settled into family life in Boulder, Colorado with his wife Monica and their three young children. He writes over 100 brief and extremely thoughtful posts on his blog every year, which you can visit at coachgordo.wordpress.com. Or, you can follow him on Twitter @gordo_68. Whoever you are, and whatever your goals, Gordo's insights will inspire you and get you thinking about the big picture. 

In this episode, Mark Sisson has a discussion with Dr. Timothy Noakes of South Africa, who is an author and well-known expert in exercise physiology and human performance. As a physician, former longtime marathon runner, and co-founder of the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, Dr. Noakes has spearheaded efforts to advocate a low carb/high fat diet despite opposition in the mainstream medical community.

Host Brad Kearns talks to legendary old school pro triathlete Andrew MacNaughton. Andrew, a Canadian, was based in Los Angeles during his career on the circuit from 1986-1993. He and Kearns were training partners who both burst onto the scene in the late 1980s to compete at the highest level from seemingly nowhere. Andrew kicked off his 1987 season with seven consecutive victories, including taking down reigning Triathlete of the Year, Mike Pigg.

Known for his cycling prowess, many historians designate Andrew as arguably the finest pure climber the sport of triathlon has ever seen. Andrew amassed leads of over 10 minutes off the bike at Wildflower on a couple of occasions, led the brutally hilly 75-mile Nice World Championships bike ride by 7 minutes in T2, and torched many other bike courses—especially hilly ones—all over the globe.

After his career, Andrew became a sought-after coach with a unique, eminently  sensible, and highly practical approach to the sport. Never one to mince words, Andrew is an extremely interesting interview with numerous memorable insights offered up in this show. He has agreed to be a regular guest on the Primal Endurance podcast.

In this episode, Andrew and Brad reminisce about the old days and the many changes, including the high tech influences, that have come to the sport over the years. They also talk a bit about Tim Noakes’ Central Governor Theory—how the brain is actually the ultimate limiter of performance rather than the muscles. Enjoy the show!

Mark discusses the role of doping in professional and Olympic sport. Far from a black and white issue, Mark explains that inconsistencies in the testing procedures and random demarcation lines for what constitutes a performance enhancing substance (e.g., Gatorade enhances performance when you are thirsty!). Also discussed is how the public perception that certain athletes cheat to gain an advantage is actually a more complex cultural issue than a true morality weakness. For example, in pro cycling, recent controversies have affirmed that an athlete was virtually compelled to boost blood with doping products to have a chance at being competitive. Furthermore, the highly selective and competitive nature of elite sports compels athletes to search for every possible recovery advantage, including those that cross the line into doping offenses.

Mark explains that we might view modern pro sports as theater, where athletes are performing for the pleasure of fans, with big money on the line, and hence we will always be fighting a battle - perhaps a losing battle - against dopers who might remain a step ahead of the testing efforts. And how there is a bit of hypocrisy with society at large, where use of "performance enhancing" substances (such as caffeine or prescription drugs to treat ADHD for example) is viewed differently than an athlete trying to recover faster.

Host Brad Kearns catches up with Mark Allen, the greatest triathlete in history, who has a record six victories at the Hawaii Ironman and ten victories at the Nice, France World Long Course Championship. Today, he is a popular triathlon coach at MarkAllenCoaching.com, TV commentator, corporate speaker, author, and presenter of “Fit Soul, Fit Body” retreats with Brant Secunda, a Huichol shaman and healer.

First, Mark talks about the importance of releasing attachment to outcomes and being committed to the enjoyment and appreciation of the process. He discusses how, after a series of unfortunate setbacks, Mark’s first victory in 1989 precipitated five Ironman attempts before he retired at the top of his game at age 39.

Mark talks about balancing the pursuit of extreme endurance goals with maintaining health and how research on Heart Rate Variability has been a great breakthrough in monitoring stress and planning training.

Mark and Brad discuss the importance of sleep when training and Mark elaborates on how he was able to live a normal, laid back lifestyle once his grueling training sessions or competitive seasons were over.

Finally, they discuss how Mark has released a book called The Art of Competition, which blends stunning nature photography with inspirational quotes chosen by Mark for their significance to competitors seeking a healthy perspective and inspiration to pursue athletic goals.

Host Brad Kearns talks with Brock Armstrong (the voice of the MDA blog podcasts and a Sweetbeat ambassador/product tester) and Ronda Collier, CEO of Sweetwater Health, makers of the Sweetbeat Life iOS application. Sweetbeat Life allows for convenient Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measuring and information storage. This discussion will acquaint listeners with the basics of HRV, and proceed quickly to discuss some of the finer points of HRV’s effectiveness in monitoring stress and recovery. Heart Rate Variability is a measurement of the variation in intervals between heartbeats. More variation indicates better cardiovascular fitness and stress management, and is represented in a higher HRV number on a 1-100 scale.

Finer details of this show’s discussion include: how Low Frequency (LF) and High Frequency (HF) values correlate with sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity; techniques for how to moderate your stress response and improve your recovery through breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, and extra sleep; and a step-by-step process for how to get started in HRV monitoring (buying the proper equipment, operating the Sweetbeat Life app smoothly, and understanding how to best use the informational graphs generated by the app). This is a fantastic show to help you jump head first into the amazing health technology of Heart Rate Variability!