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When I heard Glenn Livingston’s story, I was immediately struck by the similarities to those of David and so many others I know from the Warriors group and elsewhere. This native of the same area of Long Island that I grew up in, like so many young people I coach, felt that as an athlete he could eat anything he wanted to because he would burn it off at the next workout. What occurred next was the inevitable massive weight gain and the doctor’s pronouncement that he would not live much longer on the path he was on. Very familiar story. Glenn spent years as a psychologist counseling overweight clients and as a CEO for a firm consulting many Fortune 500 food industry companies, which gave him inside knowledge of how the food industry perpetuates the bad habits it has created. Not satisfied with the bingeing and overeating solutions that were available, he researched the subject in a study with 40,000 individuals that gave him unique insights into these maladies of modern-day life. That launched Never Binge Again, a site with resources to help people combat these problems and develop a healthier relationship with eating and nutrition. Glenn has written numerous books and workbooks on the subject, including "Never Binge Again: Stop Overeating and Binge Eating and Reprogram Yourself to Think Like a Permanently Thin Person...on the Food Plan of Your Choice!" He has been featured on dozens of media outlets like the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, the Chicago Sun Times, the NY Daily News, ABC, and CBS Radio. He’s got a lot of free stuff on his web site, neverbingeagain.com, that I would highly encourage you check out if this is a battle you wage. I have also watched several of his YouTube videos which I recommend as well. This is an extremely worthwhile episode to listen to whether you fight these battles or not, but especially if you do.  It’s just as important to check out his rich array of web site resources.  Again, neverbingeagain.com

Glenn Livingston
[email protected]
www.neverbingeagain.com
Facebook
Instagram @livingstonglenn
Never Binge Again podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc.
YouTube @neverbingeagain4474
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/drglennlivingston

Bill Stahl
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Happy New Year, everyone! Returning to the Hive is the always fun breakout star of ultrarunning, Annie Hughes.  We spoke with her in 2021 after she became, at age 23, the youngest-ever winner of the Leadville Trail 100. And she was a local resident to boot!  Annie ramped up her racing and success even more in 2022, capturing four more titles and many course records, all with the guidance of her trusty friend Olga. Included among them was a huge win at the Cocodona 250 in Arizona, which she describes as a series of course mishaps, sleep follies, and rattlesnakes, yet was a resounding victory. I’m sure you’ll be entertained to hear what it takes to not only finish 250 miles, but to place highly as well. We cover a lot of areas during our high-spirited chat, including her plans for this coming year, with her keystone race being the Hardrock 100, and her insane plans for her 25th birthday in March, topping even her 24-hour run in Leadville for her 24th birthday. Annie is so much fun to talk with and as long as we did, we probably could have carried on for much longer – maybe for 250 miles!

Annie Hughes
Instagram @annie.a.hughes

Bill Stahl
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Following my running the LT100 in August, I went through two weeks of extreme fatigue, I was exhausted at times following doing only household chores.  I had an ok week after that, and then I was set back for another two weeks after receiving shots I needed for my trip to Africa.  Even after that, I have often struggled to feel energy on runs, frequently feeling out of breath either at the very start or later in runs. I’ve had thoughts that maybe I was experiencing so-called long-Covid. Some people suggested I get a blood test. I didn’t really know where to turn for that, and more importantly, who would competently analyze and interpret the results for me. Then through Robbie Balenger I became aware of Ixcela, a company started by two biochemists, whose goal is to help people live and perform better by assessing their health using a simple finger pinprick blood test and providing feedback in the areas of gastrointestinal fitness, immune fitness, emotional balance, cognitive acuity, and energetic efficiency, and then providing tailored recommendations to help them achieve their goals. Our guest today is one of those founders and the CEO, Erika Angle, who discusses the science and its benefits to us. Ixcela and I have agreed to have me to do a live test of sorts. I’ve provided them a blood sample and then had my first meeting with my really awesome Ixcela Performance Registered Dietitian, Shelby. I’m going to follow Shelby’s recommendations, which include adding certain foods to my diet, as well as a couple of supplements. She and I will have frequent check-ins and then after 90 days, I’ll complete another blood test to see if my markers have improved, and more importantly, whether subjectively I feel better. This should be a lot of fun, and hopefully informative for you as well. Ixcela is also offering the WASP family a free 15-minute consultation with one of their nutritionists, and a 10% discount if you decide you’d like to use their services to try to improve your performance and overall health. Go to https://qrco.de/bdZsae to set an appointment, and if ordering, use the code SUPERMAN10 to get your discount.

Ixcela
www.ixcela.com
[email protected]
781-538-6614
Facebook and YouTube @ixcela
Instagram @ixcelaperformance
Twitter.com/ixcelawellness

Bill Stahl
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It’s our annual holiday tradition: Gary Stotler and I presenting Sober F*cking Christmas. Gary has had quite a journey in 2022, so we chat about both of our career’s twisting roads and what’s coming up for the holidays, including Gary’s own food struggles during the holidays and how he solves them. Of course, we pay tribute to David Clark, who recorded the first Sober F*cking Christmas, with some of the things that he enlightened us with, and carry that forward with our always insightful advice for some things you can do to make this a great holiday season for everyone. Enjoy, and Merry Sober F*cking Christmas and Holidays to all WASP listeners!

Gary Stotler
garystotler.com
Facebook Gary Stotler
Instagram @garysellsdenver
Find his latest book, "Success is Spelled Action" on Amazon

Bill Stahl
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We often talk about rebounding on the WASP. It may not be much harder than this since we spoke earlier in 2022 about Holocaust survivor Lili Berliner. Today we talk with Rick Townsend, whose lovely daughter Lauren was one of 12 students murdered at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Rick is the president of the Columbine Memorial Foundation, which maintains the beautiful memorial in Clement Park adjacent to the school. It’s a place that allows quiet reflection and healing, and does a fantastic job of remembering the innocent lives lost. I met Rick, along with former Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis, in September at the Dave Sanders Invitational cross country meet, named after the heroic teacher and coach who died protecting his students. Both Rick and Frank impressed me with their passion and devotion to the memorial and to remembering the victims and supporting the entire Columbine community. I’ve always been awed that Mr. DeAngelis stayed on as principal until kids who were in kindergarten at the time had eventually graduated from Columbine, spending almost 35 years at the school. To this day, he remains the person who the media seek out following yet another school tragedy, and one of the first to reach out to those stricken communities. I hope you will appreciate this poignant and inspirational conversation, and consider helping the Columbine Memorial Foundation, which as Rick explains, has many expenses related to upkeep, weather the elements, updated the lighting system, and more. Columbinememorial.org has the story, pictures, and an opportunity to donate.

Rick and I mention here the inspiring documentary 13 Families: Life After Columbine, which is a very moving tribute to the 13 beautiful souls lost that day.  I will send the DVD copy that Rick gave to me to the first person who contacts me at one of the addresses below.  If you are not the first responder, it is also available on Amazon.

Rick Townsend
Columbinememorial.org
[email protected]
Facebook Columbine Memorial Foundation

Bill Stahl
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I’m excited to present the second WASP appearance by Dan Herman, who trains and counsels athletes out of Dan Herman Performance in New Jersey. Like we did a year ago, Dan and I have a fun and timely chat to keep you focused on your training and nutrition goals through the holidays and into next year. Dan is an amazingly insightful guy who’s had his own amazing journey. He was 375 pounds with an unhealthy relationship with food and a broken self-image. Add in an inoperable spinal tumor that made it nearly impossible to move. Like David, he illogically bought a pair of running shoes and ran a few seconds at a time. Eventually of course he kept improving and lost nearly half of his weight. Go back and listen to his WASP episode #183 from Jan. 5, 2022 if you didn’t catch him already. I hope you’ll get some good advice and nuggets out of this episode with a really cool guy who’s dedicated himself to helping others.

Coach Dan Herman and Dan Herman Performance:
www.danhermanperformance.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
Facebook Dan Herman Performance
Instagram @coachdanhermancpt and #danhermanperformance
#TogetherWeRise
YouTube Dan Herman Performance

Bill Stahl
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As most of you know, the typical response in our medical system to your injury is first medication, sometimes physical therapy, then maybe injections, and finally surgery. In the previous episode, Sammie Lewis and I touched on some of the more advanced modalities available should you get injured. The problem can often be that if you need one of these, good luck getting our health insurance system to help you pay for it. Or that your traditional doctor has no idea about these, or worse, dismisses them as unproven, often because they are untrained on them. Interestingly, many so-called traditional medical providers are now bringing in specialists to perform these procedures like platelet rich plasma, or PRP. I have brought in today two experts in helping you navigate the medical jungle, Drs. Vas Eliopoulos and Khoshal Latifzai, of Rocky Mountain Regenerative Medicine of Boulder, CO. Both men came out of this traditional medical system, but after seeing how much they were limited by its rigid structure, including the decades it can take for new drugs and therapies to get through the regulatory process to reach the open market, they became experts in finding alternative solutions to help patients live, look, and perform better longer. They provide some excellent perspectives on the state of the health insurance industry and the medical industry complex, and what you should likely do to ensure that you are not at their mercy when you actually need medical care. Especially preventative care, which standard medicine isn’t trained or incentivized to address. Please pay acute attention to our discussion about stem cell therapy, and hormone and peptide therapies to avoid surgeries like ACL repair and knee replacement. I’m sure you will gain a lot of great insights from these medical experts in this very educational episode.

Rocky Mountain Regenerative Medicine
Dr. Vas Eliopoulos
Dr. Khoshal Latifzai
rmrm.com
Facebook Rocky Mountain Regenerative Medicine
Instagram @rmrmboulder
YouTube @rockymountainregenerativem1413

Bill Stahl
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As I’ve mentioned, I’m a huge believer that if you want to keep working out without interruption, you must address your muscle imbalances and your overall balance, and in many instances work on your mobility, flexibility, and overall strength. These efforts should be happening year-round, but in particular we often have more opportunity to do so in the winter. So I thought it would be most appropriate to bring into the Hive Sammie Lewis, a prehab, rehab, and strength coach with Golden Endurance from right here in Golden CO. Sammie and her fellow coaches bring a holistic approach to training those aspects and provides her thoughts here for getting the most bang for your buck when dealing with health insurance for your injury rehab. Sammie and I also have some interesting discussions about the most important exercises endurance athletes can do, including plyometrics and ones for activating your glutes when you run, something many of us hear about, but few really know how to do. Then we delve into the pluses and minuses of modalities like PRP, orthovisc, blood flow restriction therapy, dry needling, cupping, e-stim, and icing. This episode is very informative for any athlete. There are probably a few areas that you have experienced or investigated, and perhaps something new, like I had never heard of blood flow restriction therapy, so I hope you find something useful to keep moving your athletic career forward.

Sammie Lewis
[email protected]
www.golden-endurance.com
Instagram @golden.endurance

Bill Stahl
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With Thanksgiving around the corner, our focus is on family, so who better to bring onto the WASP than the creator of the Leadville family herself, Merilee Maupin? While Ken Chlouber and his rugged miner face and dressed in classic Western attire appears on the Leadville Race Series Web site and posters, Merilee, as co-founder with Ken, was the force behind creating the Leadville Family that gets runners and bikers returning to Leadville summer after summer. It is deeply heartfelt when she says Welcome Home to Leadville. And it’s the goal of every runner who starts the race to receive the coveted hug from Merilee upon crossing the finish line, metaphorically returning home. The founding of the Leadville Trail 100 is well-chronicled. The mine was closed and once-booming Leadville crashed, suddenly having the highest unemployment in the nation. Residents fled in droves. Ken had this crazy idea to save the town by staging a 100-mile race at 10,200-foot elevation. Not only did it stick, but it thrived and then grew into a series of running and biking races from 10K on up that is now owned by Life Time Fitness. In the early days, Merilee and Ken did almost everything themselves, including handwriting all of the race documents, and marking and picking up the course, a task that took several days.

I got to meet with Merilee at their office that you’ve probably passed many times on Leadville’s main drag and didn’t even realize was there. The old house’s interior is decorated with dozens of Ken’s hunting trophies as well as momentos of past races. I got to visit with Ken in the adjacent garage where he is restoring his gorgeous old Corvette and where his Harley resides. Even though Merilee co-founded the LT100 way back in 1983, she is still as fired up as ever about what the race and the Leadville Legacy Foundation do for the community, and its impact on every runner who challenges themself to cross the finish line. I think you will enjoy this chat with truly one of the pioneers of the sport, someone who is gracious and passionate, and is as tough as anyone in the tough town of Leadville.

Merilee Maupin
[email protected]

Bill Stahl
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I hope you caught last week Kelly Thrush’s jaw-dropping story of nearly drinking himself to death, how a liver transplant saved his life despite that he hadn’t yet gotten sober, and waking up from that surgery feeling gratitude for the efforts of so many to give him another shot at life. Kelly has grabbed that opportunity by the proverbial horns. He describes in this second part getting sober and losing weight, discovering hiking, running, and ultramarathoning, his Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to rim hike, by the way, all while eating plant-based, his upcoming goals, and some of the ways he is positively impacting the world helping kids, and the recovery and transplant communities. I have no doubt you will leave this episode as impressed and inspired by Kelly as I was when I first met and ran with him at the American Heroes Run.

Kelly Thrush
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Instagram @just__keep__going_

Bill Stahl
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