Episode 176
"Sleep Like a Pro: The Truth About Cooling Blankets and Your Recovery" and How One Guy's Trash is Another's Treasure": Recycling Shoes
In this episode:
In a world where our running shoes are often treated like disposable fashion items, Stuart Jenkins, CEO of Blumaca, is on a mission to change the narrative. With a background in competitive running that once led him to the Olympic trials, he’s now tackling the issue of foam waste in footwear with a sense of urgency that’s downright inspiring. After uncovering the shocking amount of foam waste generated by shoe manufacturing – enough to produce billions of insoles – he decided to repurpose that foam into high-quality, sustainable products. This episode isn't just a feel-good story; it's a wake-up call about our consumption patterns. Jenkins shares his journey from an aspiring Olympian to an entrepreneur who’s not just talking about sustainability but actively making strides to improve it. He discusses the innovative processes Blumaca employs to ensure that the foam waste is transformed into products that not only last longer but also perform better than the standard insoles we’re used to tossing aside after a few runs. The irony? The very material we think of as trash is becoming a crucial component in high-performance footwear. And if you’ve ever wondered what happens to those old shoes piling up in your closet, Jenkins has some insight that might just inspire you to rethink your recycling efforts.
Segments:
[13:17]- Medical Mailbag:
[40:15]- Interview: Stuart Jenkins
Links
Information can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10DyAp2F4b8vG0v4DvsO53L04zbXQp3qk/view?usp=share_link
Transcript
Free audio Post production by alphonic.com Are.
Speaker B:You doing everything you can be to be the best person athlete you can be?
Speaker B:Because you can control that.
Speaker B:You can't control who who shows up at the race.
Speaker B:You can't control who's injured or who isn't injured or any of that nonsense.
Speaker C:Hello and welcome once again to the Tridock Podcast.
Speaker C: ,: Speaker C:The tridoc, an emergency physician, a triathlete, a triathlon coach, a multiple Ironman finisher.
Speaker C:Coming to you as always from beautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.
Speaker C:The voice you heard at the beginning of the program was that of my guest today, Stuart Jenkins, the CEO and co founder of BlueMacca, a company that repurposes the high quality foam that is in our super shoes, the running shoes that I'm sure many of you are wearing on a day to day basis for your training and racing.
Speaker C:You probably wonder what happens to those shoes and whether or not they end up in landfills.
Speaker C:Stuart is a man on a mission.
Speaker C:He himself, a high performance runner for much of his life, continues to run today and wanted to do something about all of that foam.
Speaker C:And so you're going to hear a very interesting interview when he talks about his own career in running and talks about how he came to found bluemaca, what it does and how you can try to minimize the environmental footprint of all of the pairs of shoes that you go through.
Speaker C:That interview is coming up a little bit later.
Speaker C:I think that you will enjoy it.
Speaker C:Before that we are going to have a very interesting medical mailbag in which Juliet Hockman, my colleague, my co coach at LifeSport, and a co competitor at the very recent Oregon 70.3 we are going to answer a question that was submitted by a listener, but I gotta tell you, I can't remember where it came from.
Speaker C:Whoever you are that submitted this question, thank you.
Speaker C:But it was a question on sleep tech, specifically cooling blankets and whether or not cooling blankets can improve your sleep, your quality and the duration of sleep.
Speaker C:And we took a look not just at that, but some of the other technology that's out there.
Speaker C:We know how important sleep is to recovery and to performance and endurance sport.
Speaker C:And this particular person wanted to know whether or not some of the different things that are marketed to not just athletes, but people in general to improve sleeping, whether or not these things actually do some of the things that they promise.
Speaker C:So we looked at cooling blankets, we looked at the different kinds of sleep mattresses and we looked at melatonin, something that many of you have heard improve sleep.
Speaker C:We wanted to do a little bit of a deep dive on the literature in that.
Speaker C:And I think you'll be surprised at what we found that's coming up on the medical mailbag in a very short time.
Speaker C:Before I get to that though, I want to just give you a little bit of insight as to what took place at the Oregon 70.3 just a few short days ago.
Speaker C:It was another spectacular event.
Speaker C:The Oregon 73 70.3 really is a fantastic race.
Speaker C:If you have not had the opportunity to do it, I highly recommend it as one that you add to your calendar.
Speaker C:The community is exceptionally welcoming, which is really nice to see on a big event like this.
Speaker C:So many times we encounter hostility amongst the community that these events go to.
Speaker C:That is not the case in Salem, Oregon and a community that is so incredibly welcoming to Ironman athletes who come once a year.
Speaker C:And it's an event that has a rocket fast swim.
Speaker C:If you are not somebody who loves partaking in the swim, this is a race very much for you, I can tell you that.
Speaker C:For me it was very much confidence boost after the terrible time I had in Boulder.
Speaker C:This swim was about half as long because of the current assist that we got in the Willamette River.
Speaker C:I hope I'm saying that Juliet will let me know.
Speaker C:I struggle over that one, but I believe it's the Willamette River.
Speaker C:Anyways.
Speaker C:Made it down the river in lickety split time.
Speaker C:The bike course is beautiful and the run is just a dream.
Speaker C:It's in a park, it's a nice shaded path that you run along.
Speaker C:The concrete's a little bit uneven in places, but honestly, nothing really to to be too upset about.
Speaker C:And it's just a beautiful course.
Speaker C:It was spectacular weather for us.
Speaker C:It was very cool, nice running weather.
Speaker C:I know that in the past there have been hot days, but on the two occasions I've done it, it's really been pleasant.
Speaker C:So can't say enough about Oregon.
Speaker C:The race, the ven community.
Speaker C:It's just great.
Speaker C:But what I really wanted to talk about was just the insights I got from my first ever experience with the new allocation procedure for world Championship.
Speaker C:At least at the 70.3 event slots that were given out at this race.
Speaker C:So one of the things that I had raised on this program before was my lack of understanding of how they were going to fill a women's race if they weren't going to use women for tri slots anymore.
Speaker C:My understanding was that they were going to allocate the slots like they did in the past.
Speaker C:And then the slots were going to go to the age group winners and then after that to a performance pool that was going to be mixed amongst the men and the women.
Speaker C:So, for example, I had understood 50 slots to a race.
Speaker C:The number one from each age group would have the opportunity to take it.
Speaker C:If it didn't, it would be passed down to number two and number three.
Speaker C:But let's say you have 24 age groups.
Speaker C:I'm making that number up, but it's about that.
Speaker C:And if you gave away those 24 slots, you would have 26 slots left.
Speaker C:And then that would go to a performance pool that was a mix of men and women.
Speaker C:There would still be more men than women.
Speaker C:And so at the end of the day, you would not get as many women as men.
Speaker C:And therefore you would have a deficit of women going into the 70.3 World Championships.
Speaker C:And how are they going to finish that?
Speaker C:Women's.
Speaker C:How are they going to fill that women's day?
Speaker C:Turns out I was incorrect.
Speaker C:They are not doing it that way.
Speaker C:Instead, what they are doing for Oregon, for example, they had 35 slots for men, 35 slots for women.
Speaker C:And what ended up happening is there were 12 age groups for men.
Speaker C:Again, I'm making that up.
Speaker C:I would think it was about 12.
Speaker C:There were 12 age groups for men, there were 12 age groups for women.
Speaker C:Number one in each of those age groups was offered an automatic qualification.
Speaker C:If they didn't take it, it rolled down as far as third.
Speaker C:And if they didn't take it in those age groups, it went into a performance pool.
Speaker C:The performance pool was just by gender.
Speaker C:And so at the end of the race, as soon as the awards were about to begin on your Ironman app, they posted a men's and women's normalized standings based on time.
Speaker C:So remember, the time that you finished with was not the time that got posted on the normalized results.
Speaker C:And the reason for that is because you had to take your time and multiply it by a normalizing factor so the older you are, the smaller that factor is.
Speaker C:So, for example, I'm in the 55 to 59 age group.
Speaker C:I finished with the time of 4 hours and 37 minutes.
Speaker C:And you multiply that by, I believe the factor for me is like 0.68 or something like that.
Speaker C:So you took off a third, and I ended up with a time that was somewhere around 411 or something like that.
Speaker C: th finisher out of: Speaker C:Once you normalized my time, I ended up being the 36th finisher.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:On the normalized age group, my co host, Juliet Hockman.
Speaker C:Juliet was the 10th overall woman finisher out of, I can't remember how many there were women, but once you normalized her time with her age group normalizing factor, she actually became the number one overall finisher.
Speaker C:So congratulations Juliet.
Speaker C:Not at all surprising.
Speaker C:Juliet is quite an amazing triathlete.
Speaker C:I'm sure nobody who knows anything about her will be too surprised at her success.
Speaker C:But she went all the way from the 10th overall woman to the number one female based on her her normalizing factor.
Speaker C:So now she already had a slot because she had finished her age group.
Speaker C:Number one, she passed on it and number two would have had the opportunity to take it again.
Speaker C:They didn't take it, number three, et cetera.
Speaker C:So what I learned from this is don't think that based on your age group finish, you're not going to qualify.
Speaker C:So I finished 8th in my age group.
Speaker C:My age group was ridiculously fast.
Speaker C:Remember I finished 438.
Speaker C:The number one guy in my age group was 414.
Speaker C:He actually had the number one overall normalized finish time.
Speaker C:His time ended up being normalized to well under four hours.
Speaker C:So a 55 to 59 year old man ended up having the normalized fastest overall time, which is quite remarkable.
Speaker C:And between him and me, that 20 minutes or so, there were seven other finishers.
Speaker C:And when I looked at the results I thought, I'm eighth, there's no way I'm going to end up with a roll down slot.
Speaker C:But when you normalized all of our finish times, the eight of us, the eight men in the 55 to 59 age group actually all ended up ranked in the top 36.
Speaker C:And all I needed was one person to pass on a slot and I would have qualified.
Speaker C:Now I do want to go to Nice, that is in a location I want to race at.
Speaker C:Unfortunately, I was not able to wait around until the awards.
Speaker C:I had other things to do.
Speaker C:I had to get out of Salem.
Speaker C:I was supposed to meet someone up in Portland.
Speaker C:So I didn't want to stick around and find out how the whole process was going to work.
Speaker C:And the reality was is I honestly didn't think I had a shot.
Speaker C:But I started getting texts once the award ceremony started saying hey, you're going to get a slot.
Speaker C:And my wife who really wants to go to Nice also was not terribly happy.
Speaker C:But we really couldn't stay.
Speaker C:So it wasn't really an option for us to stay for the awards.
Speaker C:But what I took away from this is the following.
Speaker C:If you had a decent race and you finished in say the top 10 of your age group, do not, if you're interested in going to World Championships, do not walk away like stick around for the, for the roll down.
Speaker C:Because what's happening, I think is a lot of the faster men, especially in the older age groups, and a lot of the fast women, top three, top four in their age group, are getting rocketed up in the normalizing of the results.
Speaker C:So if you have a decent day, it doesn't really matter where you come in overall.
Speaker C:Once the normalizing takes place, you're going to get pushed way up, especially if you're in an old age group like I am.
Speaker C:If you want to go to the World Championships, definitely stick around.
Speaker C:Because what happened, especially on the women's side, there was a lot of people passing and I don't know if nice is not popular, I don't know if people don't understand how the system is working and therefore they're not sticking around.
Speaker C: place I want to go Back to in: Speaker C:I love, loved the course, I thought it was a great race and it's definitely somewhere I would like to go back to.
Speaker C:I love going to France anyways and definitely I would encourage anybody, if you are eligible to get a slot, you should consider it.
Speaker C:It really is a terrific place to go if you're interested.
Speaker C:If you have a solid day, if you're in the top 10 or so of your age group, I would definitely consider sticking around.
Speaker C:And even if you come in lower, it's worth sticking around because slots rolled quite a ways.
Speaker C:I know a woman who was interested in going.
Speaker C:She was on the normalized ranking 65th and she ended up getting a slot.
Speaker C:I don't know what happened on the men's, I wasn't there.
Speaker C:But the take home is again, you have a good day.
Speaker C:Certainly if your result is less than five hours.
Speaker C:On the men's side, the 250th on the normalized results was four hours and 51 and it got normalized to less than that.
Speaker C:But their actual result was 451.
Speaker C:So if you're a man and you come in less than five hours and are interested in going to the Worlds, definitely worth going.
Speaker C:And even if you come in over five hours, if you're interested in going, I say stick around.
Speaker C:You might as well see we'll see what that list looks like.
Speaker C:If you've got the time and you're not doing anything, you might as well because it doesn't hurt.
Speaker C:What was your experience if you were at Oregon?
Speaker C:I'd love to hear it.
Speaker C:Did you get a slot?
Speaker C:Did you stick around for the roll down?
Speaker C:Were you surprised at how things shook out once the normalized results came out?
Speaker C:I'd be really interested in knowing what your experience was.
Speaker C:As always, you can join the Tridoc Facebook private Facebook group where you can leave your comments and tell us what happened because I'm sure everybody would like to hear it.
Speaker C:If you're not already a member, I hope that you'll consider joining.
Speaker C:You can look for Tridoc podcast on Facebook, answer to three very easy questions.
Speaker C:I'll gain you admittance, and we would love to hear what your experience was.
Speaker C:Or you can just ask questions for the Medical Mailbag there.
Speaker C:You can just join the conversation in general.
Speaker C:You can also drop me a line by email@triodocloud.com whichever way you do, I would love to hear.
Speaker C:Let me know.
Speaker C:With that now taken care of, let's move on to the Medical Mailbag and talk about things that can potentially make you sleep better.
Speaker C:Me and Juliet, get to that right now.
Speaker A:All right, Juliet, welcome.
Speaker A:We have a lot of explaining.
Speaker A:Anybody who is, anybody who's watching the YouTube is going to be like, what the heck is going on?
Speaker A:This is our first ever remote broadcast for the Medical Mailbag.
Speaker A:And anybody who listens to the sister podcast, the Tempo Talks podcast, will know there's a lot of travel going on in my life.
Speaker A:And because of that, we've had to take a bit of a pause on Tempo Talks, partly because of me, partly because of Matt.
Speaker A:And Juliet and I are also facing some hectic travel.
Speaker A:So we are juggling around how we are scheduling this recording.
Speaker A:So this episode that we are recording for is coming out after Juliet and I get together for Oregon 70.3, but we are recording this before Oregon 70.3, so our cadence is a little bit mixed up.
Speaker A:We're recording this on Monday, July 15, so we are still, what, five, six days ahead of the big event.
Speaker A:Is that right?
Speaker A:I got that right, man.
Speaker D:I am already putting you in the penalty tent.
Speaker D:I am already putting you in the penalty.
Speaker D:I am already putting in the penalty tent because Today is Monday, July 14th.
Speaker A:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker D:Don't say Oregon.
Speaker D:Don't even come to my state if you're going to say Oregon.
Speaker D:Okay, it's Oregon.
Speaker D:You swallow it.
Speaker D:It's Oregon.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I am.
Speaker A:I am properly chastened.
Speaker A:The other thing I should point out is because of scheduling conflicts and everything that's going on, I am recording this from Lauren, who is editing the podcast.
Speaker A:She will be able to see herself in the background.
Speaker A:If you look over my shoulder, you can see some pole vaulters back there.
Speaker A:So if you're watching on YouTube, you don't have to look at me.
Speaker A:You can look at Juliet, and you can look at the pole vaulters behind me as they are going through their warmup routine right now.
Speaker A:I wanted to say that we are recording this pretty soon after the last episode came out, Juliet.
Speaker A:But a lot of positive feedback on that entire episode.
Speaker A:Our discussion on the Medical Mailbag about tendinopathy and tendinosis was very well received, I think.
Speaker A:I know for me, it was educational, and a lot of listeners thought so, too.
Speaker A:I've heard quite a bit of feedback of people really appreciating it and feeling like they now have a handle on at least a little bit better than what they did before.
Speaker A:And I think that's really what we came for.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:That's the whole point of that was cool.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:The other segment of the show that really resonated with our listeners was something was my interview with Hillary Topper.
Speaker A:And I think it's because she said something that you and I have talked about that we actually discussed on the Medical Mailbag recently.
Speaker A:And she talked about how as you come into the sport, as you move through the sport, as you find yourself doing this at different stages in your life, it's not about doing it for anybody else.
Speaker A:You're really just doing it for yourself.
Speaker D:You.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter what you look like.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter what equipment you have.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter how fast you're going.
Speaker A:It's really just about getting the most out of yourself, getting the most out of your enjoyment as you do this, and learning and discovering and just continually pushing yourself to be better than you were yesterday.
Speaker A:And that message clearly resonated with a lot of listeners because I've had really incredible feedback from people, and I don't know if you got a chance to listen to it.
Speaker A:I highly recommend that you give it a listen because she really was a great interview.
Speaker A:I really enjoyed talking to her, but she really reminded me of a lot of the things that you and I have talked about.
Speaker A:And I thought that it reminded me again that we have to have that conversation where we bring on some other voices and hear about people's experiences.
Speaker A:As they move through the sport.
Speaker A:And I know we're going to talk to people this weekend in Oregon and we will get a chance to hear what people are at and have a chance to see them enjoy their place wherever they are.
Speaker D:It's interesting.
Speaker D:You probably experience the same thing now.
Speaker D:A lot of your athletes are in the races and a lot of my athletes are in the races and most of our athletes are in North America.
Speaker D:It makes sense that there's a lot of racing going on right now and it's very noticeable that when athletes get closer to their race and anxiety goes up a little bit, the stress of the race goes up a little bit.
Speaker D:And so often when I sort of get to the meat of why an athlete is anxious about the race, it's not, oh, it's going to hurt or I'm afraid I'm going to flat and not be able to fix it, or a hundred other things that could go, quote, unquote, wrong on race day.
Speaker D:It really comes down to what are other people going to think?
Speaker D:What are they going to think if I don't do X?
Speaker D:What are they going to think if I don't, if I go too slowly or if I don't place in my age group or if I don't whatever it is, right?
Speaker D:And I have to.
Speaker D:I have to remind athletes, I also have to remind myself from time to time as well.
Speaker D:Your husband is not going to love you any less if you do seven hours instead of six.
Speaker D:Your children are not going to think you're any less of a badass if you do seven hours instead of six or whatever it is.
Speaker D:I always say neither your mortgage nor mine is being paid on our race winnings.
Speaker D:And at the end of the day, it's how you feel about your performance, how you feel about your race, how you feel about the effort you put in on that day.
Speaker D:And are you proud of it?
Speaker D:Because no, I don't want to be so blunt as to say nobody else cares because people do care.
Speaker D:They do care that we are enjoying the experience, but they don't care how we do.
Speaker A:I love that you brought that up.
Speaker D:That's really important.
Speaker D:I remember.
Speaker A:I love that you brought that up, Juliet, because there was a comment on the Facebook group and I don't think she'll mind me bringing this up here because she made it public on the Facebook group.
Speaker A:But Rebecca, who has been on around and a supporter of the podcast since the beginning, Rebecca actually made the point on the Facebook group.
Speaker A:She asked about whether or not people would think differently if she listed herself as anonymous on the tracker.
Speaker A:And the reason she said that.
Speaker D:I saw that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The reason she said that was because she's having a difficult year with training.
Speaker A:She's had some injuries and she feels like she's not performing up to her usual and she's afraid people will think less of her.
Speaker A:And I told her, I said, you are amazing.
Speaker A:The fact that you're doing this is amazing.
Speaker A:The fact that you.
Speaker A:How am I gonna follow you and cheer you on and support you if I can't track you?
Speaker A:Because that's all I care about.
Speaker A:I'm not at all concerned about.
Speaker A:Yes, if you do really well, I'm thrilled for you.
Speaker A:But if you don't, it's.
Speaker A:I don't think any differently.
Speaker A:I still think you are an incredible woman who has dedicated herself to this and does all the other things she does in her life.
Speaker A:And I have to remind myself of what I was telling her because I had the same experience recently.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it's a very important point.
Speaker D:I mean, I think that if you do, then people will say, hey, congratulations, looks like you had a great race.
Speaker D:And if you don't do well, they say, oh, too bad.
Speaker D:Jeff, did you see.
Speaker D:Jeff, did you see how Rebecca.
Speaker D:Jeff, did you see how Rebecca did on a race?
Speaker D:Man, she sucks.
Speaker D:Did you see that?
Speaker D:She was doing that.
Speaker D:I was doing that.
Speaker D:And so I think that one of the.
Speaker D: it might have been worlds in: Speaker D:And I was talking to a woman who I used to train with a lot, who's a good athlete and we used to both be competitive with each other.
Speaker D:And she wasn't racing and I was expressing all this anxiety about what are my.
Speaker D:What are the other coaches going to say?
Speaker D:What are my athletes going to say?
Speaker D:What are the.
Speaker D:All the women in life sport going to say if I don't perform at X?
Speaker D:And you'll have to excuse the language and maybe Lauren will have to edit this out.
Speaker D:But she said over the phone to me as I was driving across Utah, she said, juliet, why do you think anyone gives a fuck how you do?
Speaker D:And she was so right.
Speaker D:People care because it's important to you, but they don't care how you do.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker D:I just want you to have a good experience.
Speaker D:So it's a really good thing to remember.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:All the time.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's valuable advice for me, for Rebecca, for everybody, that we care much more about our own results than probably anybody else does.
Speaker A:But everybody cares when you do well and everybody cares when you're happy about how you did, when you're not happy.
Speaker A:I think that they're much more inclined to be supportive than judgments.
Speaker A:And we have to.
Speaker A:All right, that's right.
Speaker A:Let's get to our medical mailbag question.
Speaker A:We have, I think, a good one.
Speaker A:You and I have spoken in the past about how important it is to get good sleep.
Speaker A:It impacts training, it impacts performance.
Speaker A:We had a question related to that.
Speaker A:What are we going to be talking about today?
Speaker D:So, as you've just said, sleep is so important for so many things in life and in our small world.
Speaker D:It's so important for performance and for being able to stack days and for being able to do well in the events that matter to us.
Speaker D:And as we get older in particular, sleep becomes.
Speaker D:Seems to appear more and more elusive and particularly for women, I think, at least from what I've read and experienced.
Speaker D:And so there's a lot of things out there.
Speaker D:There's a lot of gadgets, there's a lot of over the counter medications, there's a lot of sleep aids that proclaim to help us get a better night's sleep, help us sleep more deeply, help us fall asleep faster, help us stay asleep, et cetera.
Speaker D:And boy, I got to tell you, there's a lot of people out there who wish they could sleep all the way through the night or at least be able to go back to sleep when they wake up in the middle of the night.
Speaker D:Did your team find anything that was helpful in this sleep aid department?
Speaker A:We did.
Speaker A:And I have to apologize, somebody reached out to me about this and I, for the life of me, I can't remember who it was.
Speaker A:And you and I searched to see if it was in the Facebook group and we couldn't find it.
Speaker A:So whoever you are, I deeply regret that I can't remember to give you credit for asking this question.
Speaker A:But the question came up specifically around this idea of cooling blankets, because that was where we started.
Speaker A:We started looking at these cooling blankets.
Speaker A:I'm sure you've heard about them.
Speaker A:They're advertised as enhancing sleep.
Speaker A:And we did find a couple of articles on them that actually, whoops, Farley hears us talking about sleep, he's perking up.
Speaker A:And there actually is literature that suggests that cooling and cool conditions does enhance sleep.
Speaker A:And which is interesting because at night, cortisol levels tend to drop.
Speaker A:And we know that core temperature tends to drop.
Speaker A:So you wouldn't necessarily think that cooling would necessarily go with making you sleep better because, you know, I don't know about you, but I like it when it's cool.
Speaker A:But I also like pulling those blankets up around me and warming up.
Speaker A:So it's interesting.
Speaker A:But holding blankets.
Speaker A:We've found a couple of studies.
Speaker A: One of them from: Speaker A:And they looked.
Speaker A:Not huge studies, but interesting studies all the same.
Speaker A:They both looked at cooling blankets and they both found that they definitely improve time to sleep, the amount of time in deep and REM sleep.
Speaker A:But both of them found sex differences.
Speaker A:And I don't think this will strike anybody as particularly not, I don't know, surprising.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Duh.
Speaker A:I mean, you probably.
Speaker A:I think it's, it's.
Speaker A:It stereotypes are generally stereotypes.
Speaker A:They're based somewhat on a kernel of truth.
Speaker A:And I know in my house it's always a fight over the thermostat, right?
Speaker A:That my wife wants it warmer, I want it cooler.
Speaker A:And I'm guessing it's similar in your house.
Speaker A:I've heard this from many couples say, is that true for you?
Speaker D:I actually, we have the opposite.
Speaker D:Oh, yeah.
Speaker D:And I thought.
Speaker D:What I thought you were going to say is particularly when women reach kind of their 50s, were so hot at night that that's when you have those.
Speaker D:That's when the blankets, like, the.
Speaker D:Like my husband can be under four blankets and I'm sitting over here in a T shirt and a sheet.
Speaker A:Okay, so that's interesting.
Speaker A:No, my wife still wants to be warmer.
Speaker A:Anyways.
Speaker A:The long and the short of it is these studies found both sexes do better with cooling blankets, but that men tended to respond best and that women had less of a benefit than men did with these cooling blankets, which I thought was not terribly surprising, but interesting all the same.
Speaker A:And that was really all we found about that we did find.
Speaker A:So I know you're familiar, of course, with the sleep number mattress or bed, and the idea there being that you can control your side of the bed, and there is science around that as well, that having a mattress that is more to your preferred firmness also goes a long way to enhancing your comfort and ability to sleep.
Speaker A:With that said, we found a particularly study that I found particularly interesting.
Speaker A:And by the way, I should thank Cosette Rhodes, my intern who did the research on this.
Speaker A:She found a Study that basically looked.
Speaker A:I gotta find it here.
Speaker A:But basically looked at the.
Speaker A:Looked at varying firmnesses of mattresses and pillows and showed that firmer mattresses, firmer pillows, dramatically enhanced sleep and resulted in deeper sleep, higher quality of sleep.
Speaker A:And that was across the board.
Speaker A:And yeah, it was pretty interesting.
Speaker A:I thought that was pretty interesting.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:It's interesting because my wife and I had the same mattress for, gosh, 15, 16 years.
Speaker A:And eventually we realized we had paved in the mattress so that the mattress had our body shapes in it.
Speaker A:And it was time.
Speaker A:It was time.
Speaker A:And so we got a new mattress and immediately we started sleeping.
Speaker A:The firmer mattress made a huge difference.
Speaker A:And so I wasn't surprised to see this paper that showed that I mentioned before we started that we had previously covered this idea about sleep and how important it is to performance.
Speaker A:I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes if people want to go back and listen to it.
Speaker A:But the reason for why was actually fleshed out in some of the papers that Cosette found.
Speaker A:And it's particularly interesting because it relates to hormonal effects.
Speaker A:And I think that goes back to what you were saying, Juliet, about how women in the perimenopausal time frame don't sleep as well and are probably impacted more performance wise.
Speaker A:What was your personal experience with that?
Speaker D:So I often joke with my female athletes that 50 to 54 age group is the menopause age group because a lot of women coming into it haven't quite hit it, but pretty much everybody coming out of it has.
Speaker D:And there is a difference for sure in terms of a lot of things.
Speaker D:But my personal experience was that I had a terrible time with night sweats.
Speaker D:And it got to the point where I would stack a pile of 5T shirts next to the bed because I woke up drenched at 12, 1, 2, 3 and 4am and I would just go through the T shirts and I put up with it for about three months and then I was absolutely going insane from lack of sleep.
Speaker D:And so I finally went on the patch.
Speaker D:But.
Speaker D:And which has caused a lot of relief.
Speaker D:But every woman has a different experience.
Speaker D:But I was so boiling hot at night that it became like a war zone to me.
Speaker D:Like sleep bedtime became a war zone and it was miserable.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And my experience has been, as I've just aged, as I have found that sleep has been more difficult.
Speaker A:But as I have found recently after changing jobs, I hadn't recognized how impactful stress was and how had become such a menace to my sleep and once I changed jobs and got into a place where, mental health wise, I was in a much better place.
Speaker A:And also I was in a much better place for sleep routine because now I was waking up early, going to sleep early, and I was going to sleep at the same time every night.
Speaker A:And I had a very regimented routine around sleep, right?
Speaker A:Sleeping so much better.
Speaker A:I still have the issue, as a lot of men do as they age, that unfortunately they're up in the night, that is not fun.
Speaker A:And then going back to sleep after that is not always the easiest, but it's not as hard as it was when I was impacted by a stressful job.
Speaker A:I think that as we talked about in that other episode, these are all things that I think that people have to take into account.
Speaker A:Sleep routine, minimizing caffeine and alcohol, as we talked about on that previous episode, and then from this episode, really evaluate your sleep structure in terms of your mattress, your blankets, cooling blankets, or cooling mattresses.
Speaker A:Because there's a lot of that technology now, they seem to actually work.
Speaker A:And there is science that seems to support that.
Speaker A:And now none of the science is rated, is related specifically to performance.
Speaker A:None of these studies have said, oh, sleep on this mattress, and then let's see, you know, how you perform the next day.
Speaker A:But we know, just by virtue of the other research that's been done, that if you sleep better, you perform better.
Speaker A:So I think we can take it as an indirect corollary here.
Speaker A:So using better mattresses, using better pillows, getting a better sleep hygiene, better sleep protocol, and then minimizing these other things that can take away from your sleep, if you are in perimenopause and having a lot of symptoms, reaching out to your physician and considering hormone replacement as a possibility, if that's something you want to consider between you and your physician, that is something to talk about.
Speaker D:And then I would also add to that, I would also add to that when you do wake up in the middle of the night, because I think we all do at our age, wake up, up once, maybe twice, to use a toilet or maybe because of stress.
Speaker D:And we start that 2 o' clock is when everything in the world goes wrong, right?
Speaker D:You can worry yourself into the ground at 2 o' clock in the morning and.
Speaker D:But I also think developing a toolkit or a protocol for some type of meditative response that distracts you from whatever it is that's worrying you.
Speaker D:And that might be, I've developed so many over the years, it might be counting backwards from 100 by 7.
Speaker D:It might be saying the lyrics to a very long song in your head so that your mind is doing some simple task that is taking you away from whatever it is you're worrying about it.
Speaker D:Maybe that's what meditation is, I'm not sure.
Speaker D:But when I find myself lying there worrying about something, I just kick right into this one really long Harry Chapin song.
Speaker D:And I'm always asleep by the end of it.
Speaker D:So whatever.
Speaker D:Developing some sort of strategy to help put yourself back.
Speaker A:Practice sleep.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, I've read a lot about that too.
Speaker A:And sometimes it's hard.
Speaker A:Right, because once you get up, your mind starts spinning.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of talk about also trying to minimize those breaks to try and make sure that you get out of bed and back into bed as quickly as possible.
Speaker A:Try to make sure you don't need to turn lights.
Speaker A:I suppose all back to that sleep protocol and everything else.
Speaker A:It's hard to do, but if you can manage it, it's.
Speaker A:It's something that's valuable to try and put some work into to try and perfect it.
Speaker A:I want to finish with just the last thing, and that is melatonin.
Speaker A:Because we found some surprising stuff about melatonin.
Speaker A:I know you and I have talked about melatonin when we talked about tart cherry juice.
Speaker A:Both of us have had a positive experience with tart cherry juice.
Speaker A:I know that I've incorporated it into my pre bedroom, pre sleep routine.
Speaker A:And I. I mean, personally, I think it's helped.
Speaker A:I mean, you.
Speaker A:In terms of sleep.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we know.
Speaker D:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:And we know it's very high in melatonin.
Speaker A:And I had read previously studies that have suggested that melatonin is a sleep aid.
Speaker A:But when we looked at it specifically for this question of using melatonin as a sleep aid, we didn't actually find that.
Speaker A:We actually found a lot of conflicting evidence.
Speaker A:We did find that melatonin continues to be something that seems to have impact for helping shift workers, for helping jet lag.
Speaker A:It's not a guarantee, but it can help in resetting your hours for sleep.
Speaker A:And I wonder if that's why you and I and others who have used tart cherry juice are finding it helpful because not so much that it helps put you to sleep or that it helps necessarily keep you asleep, but it might act as a signal to your brain to say, oh, it's bedtime.
Speaker A:Because that's seems to be how melatonin works with working in jet lag and that kind of thing.
Speaker A:But what melatonin seems to really work with is just in helping with recovery.
Speaker A:There are a host of studies we came across that showed that taking melatonin really works well because it works as a signal in the muscles, it works as a signal in the mitochondria.
Speaker A:It actually seems to trigger a bunch of hormonal processes as well, all of which seem to enhance recovery at a cellular level, at an oxidative level, to reduce oxidative stresses.
Speaker A:And I thought that was particularly interesting.
Speaker A:And when we talked about tartary juice, we talked about how its polyphenols and how about its anthocyanins were really the chemicals that seemed to be most important for recovery.
Speaker A:But now I find myself wondering if the melatonin isn't also part of that.
Speaker A:Because it's so high in melatonin.
Speaker A:And I again continue to use it.
Speaker A:I feel like it's certainly not terribly expensive.
Speaker A:It's something that I enjoy using and I do feel like it's helped my sleep.
Speaker D:I wonder that too.
Speaker D:I wonder if it's the recovery piece as much as anything else.
Speaker D:Do you only drink tart cherry juice at night?
Speaker A:No, I'm using it in the morning in my sleep.
Speaker D:You put it in the morning?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I had wondered about it because if it's supposed to help you sleep so well, then wouldn't taking it in the morning make you sleepy?
Speaker A:And it never does now.
Speaker D:And I thought, no, I think it's more about recovery.
Speaker A:And I thought to myself, oh, it's because I'm taking it with coffee.
Speaker A:But no.
Speaker A:So I feel like this evidence is pointing me in that direction, like you just said.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's really about recovery and not so much about.
Speaker D:I think it's more about recovery.
Speaker D:Yeah, I have my.
Speaker D:I have a shot of it in the morning and then I.
Speaker D:Here's the other piece.
Speaker D:I now have a shot of it with seltzer at around cocktail hour and I'm not drinking as much.
Speaker D:And so I think that's one of the reasons it's helped me.
Speaker D:I'm not, you know, I don't have drinks nearly as much.
Speaker D:And now this becomes my little mama's five o' clock or whatever you call that thing.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:And that.
Speaker D:That has helped a lot as well.
Speaker D:It's just replaced it.
Speaker D:So it's like a double effect.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I think all of this evidence here, again, I'll just recount what we've talked about is really work on your sleep protocol.
Speaker A:If that means getting a firmer mattress, a firmer pillow, cooling things like cooling blankets or weighted blankets.
Speaker A:Those have also been anecdotally quite helpful for people making sure you're staying away from caffeine and alcohol.
Speaker A:Incorporating melatonin is probably not going to help you so much with sleep, but definitely helps with recovery.
Speaker A:And we found a paper, a really interesting paper that looked at the.
Speaker A:What's that three day Iron man called?
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's Ultraman.
Speaker A:I think it's called the one that takes the Ultra.
Speaker A:The Ultraman.
Speaker D:The Ultraman.
Speaker A:So we found a paper that actually looked at Ultraman athletes and found that they sleep progressively less as the events go on, as the days go on, which is not surprising.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:They're finishing these incredibly arduous days.
Speaker A:They're exhausted physically, emotionally and it's just.
Speaker C:Hard for them to sleep.
Speaker A:But do you know that the athletes who actually managed to sleep better and sleep more hours perform significantly better the next day.
Speaker A:And I thought to me that was not only not surprising but also just really a very poignant reminder of get that whatever you need to do to get that sleep the night before your race, whatever you need to do to recover well after a hard effort before going out and doing something again.
Speaker A:Because there's just so much evidence now to show us how sleep is valuable, how it's just as valuable as any training you do.
Speaker A:And just.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:It put the bow on it for me.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:I have to leave it with that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:What are your strategies?
Speaker A:You mentioned, you mentioned the Tartary Juice in the evening.
Speaker A:Not drinking as much.
Speaker A:You talked about your.
Speaker A:How you've medically managed the symptoms of menopause.
Speaker A:Is there anything else that you do?
Speaker D:Yeah, all the things you might find in the top 10 list.
Speaker D:Anytime you Google this.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:I leave my.
Speaker D:I don't look at my phone.
Speaker D:I put my phone away and my computer away.
Speaker D:Some nights I have to work a little bit later but I don't do it right up to bedtime.
Speaker D:I allow there be the gap.
Speaker D:My phone does not live in my room.
Speaker D:My phone is outside the room so there's no temptation to look at it in the middle of the night.
Speaker D:The room is dark and cool.
Speaker D:I drink the Tartary Juice at night.
Speaker D:I sometimes I'll read for a few minutes before bed but.
Speaker D:But just that's almost more from waiting for my husband to come to bed.
Speaker D:I wear very comfortable clothes to bed.
Speaker D:I love my all cotton sheets and the bed and I just love my bed.
Speaker D:It's very comfortable.
Speaker D:I go to bed at pretty much the same time every single night.
Speaker D:I get up at the same time every morning, even on weekends.
Speaker D:So all of those things you would find on any Google list on what to do drinking, certainly as we get older, helps if you cut that back.
Speaker D:I find first the red wine goes out the door, then the beer goes out the door, and pretty soon you have to make a real decision.
Speaker D:This worth it?
Speaker D:Is this going to be worth it at 2 in the morning if I have this drink?
Speaker D:So those are all super helpful and many of those are just common sense, too.
Speaker D:And then, as I said, if I do wake up in the middle of the night, I have a series of strategies I go through and they pretty much always work after years of practice.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, hopefully this is helpful for whoever asked the question and for everybody else because I think that, as I said, sleep super important and a lot of things that you can do to try and enhance it.
Speaker A:And, and if none of these work, then think about what's causing you stress and see if you can't mitigate that somehow.
Speaker A:Because I know for me, that was a big one.
Speaker A:Well, there you go.
Speaker A:I think we've answered another interesting question.
Speaker A:We have a few more that are in the queue.
Speaker A:I am pretty excited about that.
Speaker A:We are going to be revisiting Creatine because I've been asked about it a million times, and even though we've talked about it quite a bit, I think it's time to revisit it again.
Speaker A:And we're going to break it into a couple of.
Speaker A:We're going to break it into a couple segments because there's creatine for endurance sport, but there's also creatine for a lot of other reasons.
Speaker A:So you can look forward to that in upcoming episodes.
Speaker A:But for now, I think we're done with this one.
Speaker A:If you have a question you'd like for us to consider, I hope that you'll reach out all of the usual ways to do it by email, by joining into the Facebook group.
Speaker A:We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker A:Leave us your comments there.
Speaker A:We'd love to hear what you're doing to try and enhance your sleep and let everybody else know as well.
Speaker A:Juliet, thanks so much for being here on the Medical Mailbag.
Speaker A:The pole vaulters are still going, so I'm going to go take a look at them and I will see you in a few days.
Speaker A:It'll be a few days past by the time everybody hears this, but I'm looking forward to catching up in Oregon.
Speaker D:Oregon.
Speaker D:All right, thanks so much, Jeff.
Speaker C:Bye now.
Speaker A:My guest on the podcast today is Stuart Jenkins.
Speaker C:Stuart is the founder, CEO and chief.
Speaker A:Innovation Officer of Blumaca, a Santa Barbara.
Speaker C:Based company that repurposes high quality foam waste from athletic shoe production into performance driven sustainable insoles.
Speaker C:Before he was in the shoe wear business though, he actually was wearing shoes on a regular basis.
Speaker C:He is or was a very competitive runner running in the Boston Marathon several times.
Speaker C: ied for the Olympic trials in: Speaker C:We're going to talk about all of that.
Speaker C:We are going to spend quite a bit of time though, just talking about bluemaca because it's a fascinating company.
Speaker C:It is what got me interested in speaking with him.
Speaker C:He launched Blumaca to tackle the massive foam waste and footwear using up to 85% recycled foam by volume with near zero chemical and water use.
Speaker C:Stuart, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Speaker C:It's a pleasure to have you here.
Speaker B:Thanks for letting me join you.
Speaker B:It's a privilege.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:I'd love talking about Blue Maca for sure.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:I'd love to start first with just your running career.
Speaker C:I've had a chance to speak with several.
Speaker C:I've been very fortunate to speak with several Olympians.
Speaker C:I would love to hear what your path was to the Olympic trials, how that event went and how it has contributed to who you are and what kind of market left for you.
Speaker B:Boy, that's.
Speaker B:I don't know how long you have, but certainly the running career or the running activity has been central to finding my way in life as a career.
Speaker B:If you could have scripted it and said, hey, you're going to get to turn your hobby into a job and somebody's going to generally pay you to do it until you do a startup.
Speaker B:But to be involved with footwear, that would have been a dream come true for a guy that's a runner.
Speaker B:So I grew up on a cattle ranch in central Nebraska, 18 miles southwest of a town called Broken Bow on a dirt road.
Speaker B:And I can tell you there were no distance run in Broken Bow, Nebraska.
Speaker B:And I happened.
Speaker B:I was dyslexic.
Speaker B:My mother was very concerned.
Speaker B:They didn't think I would graduate from high school, let alone college.
Speaker B:So she sent me to a boarding school in St. Louis that had a great running tradition.
Speaker B:And I discovered distance running, it was heresy to be a Nebraskan and not play football.
Speaker B:But 135 pound freshman, I didn't think that was in my best interest.
Speaker B:And I discovered distance running had a great coach.
Speaker B:And my brother was an outstanding distance runner.
Speaker B:He was a freshman, ran a sub, 10 minute, 2 mile and so forth.
Speaker B:But I didn't have his leg speed.
Speaker B:And I went home between my freshman and sophomore year in high school, and I was on this dusty, dirty road out between the cemetery and my friend Charles Nancel's farm.
Speaker B:And I got to thinking myself.
Speaker B:I said, I'm not.
Speaker B:Not fast enough to really be good at a mile.
Speaker B:I'm not fast enough to be good at the two mile.
Speaker B:But I said, you know what?
Speaker B:I think anybody that works hard and is dedicated could run in the Olympic trials in the marathon.
Speaker B:Now, how that came to my head or why that came to my head, I don't know, but it was like the first eight mile run I did.
Speaker B:And I thought the good Lord didn't give me speed, but he probably gave me a lot of stubbornness or work ethic.
Speaker B:And so from that day forward, it became my goal to run in the Olympic trials.
Speaker B:And I didn't miss a day of running for the next eight years because I didn't figure the guy qualifying was going to miss.
Speaker B:I knew how to rest.
Speaker B:And just day by day, I would.
Speaker B:I would run distance and ran the Boston Marathon as a senior in high school, of all things, 17 years old, ran 229.
Speaker B:And that said to me, okay, you can get close.
Speaker B:And by the time I was a senior in college, eight years later, I was going to the Boston Marathon.
Speaker B:And you had to run 2 hours, 19 minutes and 4 seconds.
Speaker B:And those 4 seconds were important.
Speaker A:And just to be clear, you had to run that to qualify for the Olympic trials.
Speaker B:Yeah, for the Olympic trials.
Speaker B:And it was the first race of the year that you could qualify for the 84 Olympic trials.
Speaker B:So it was the Boston Marathon in 83.
Speaker B:And because I was slow, Boston set up pretty well for me because it's a strength course, a lot of downhill early, and if you were strong on the hills and then could survive, you could close that race pretty well.
Speaker B:And so I get to Boston and I looked in my journal, my running log, and I had literally run, Jeffrey, 26,085 miles the day before.
Speaker B:I was trying to qualify at Boston.
Speaker B:And I don't know why, but you know how it is mentally, for whatever reason in my young mind that computed, I go, you know what?
Speaker B:I'm prepared.
Speaker B: I have run: Speaker B:And I knew I would have to run a pr.
Speaker B:And I got out there and was going pretty well.
Speaker B:And then I got some blisters on Heartbreak Hill, which were very unfortunate.
Speaker B:It when you get that far into that race, I get these big blisters on my heels, bloody shoes, the whole thing.
Speaker B:And I said, you're either going to quit or you're going to achieve your goal.
Speaker B:And at that point, there didn't seem to be much value in quitting.
Speaker B:What the hell?
Speaker B:Okay, I've got relief from the pain, but pain is temporary.
Speaker B:Qualifying for the Olympic trials is permanent.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I thought the goal, finishing out this goal is just more important.
Speaker B:And I pushed on and I got to the Citco sign and I realized I needed to run five, 10 or so to qualify in the last mile.
Speaker B:Of course, I've been running about a 5:18 pace, so this is no small feat.
Speaker B:And I'll never forget going up Hereford Street.
Speaker B:Hereford street looked like a mountain.
Speaker B:Of course, it's barely a slope.
Speaker B:And I turned on to ring row and I remember the guy on the loudspeaker said, this is Stuart Jenkins from Nebraska.
Speaker B:He's the last guy that has a chance to qualify.
Speaker B:Chance.
Speaker B:And that damn clock down there, it looked like a fan.
Speaker B:It was just.
Speaker B:And I got there and I literally went through the finish line and I was not sure whether I had made the time or not.
Speaker B:And I ended up running 219 flat.
Speaker B:So I qualified by four seconds.
Speaker B:And it was very meaningful because again, I was the third fastest two miler in my high school.
Speaker B:I was the third fastest miler in my high school.
Speaker B:My brother could run a 2.
Speaker B:He could run a 1:52 half mile in college, and I couldn't break 206 in a half mile.
Speaker B:So I think it does show that everybody gets a talent.
Speaker B:And sometimes that talent looks a hell of a lot more like hard work than ability.
Speaker B:And told my wife that, she said, what do you want on your tombstone?
Speaker B:I said, I wish they'd put on my tombstone that he did the best he could with what he had.
Speaker B:And I hope that's true.
Speaker C:That is.
Speaker C:That is a great story.
Speaker C:And I love that perception of the clock because my son is a track runner and I have spent many a time being at the finish line and watching him run his two mile.
Speaker C:And I know what time he's trying to get to.
Speaker C:And you see him come around the corner and he's got 100 meters to go and you're just watching that clock and, yeah, time is just distorted when the finish line is in view.
Speaker C:It's very odd.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So what happened at the trials?
Speaker B:The trials are pretty interesting.
Speaker B:We go up to Buffalo and they picked the race in Buffalo because you're supposed to Run around the city of Buffalo and go across the Priest Bridge.
Speaker B:And then it.
Speaker B:Historically you got a 20 mile tailwind blowing you down to Niagara Falls.
Speaker B:And so they line us up.
Speaker B:And now I'm six foot tall at the time and I'm £150.
Speaker B:Keep in mind the average guy in that race was 5:7 and 123 pounds.
Speaker B:So I'm standing there and I'm trying to pretend that I was seated out of 202 guys.
Speaker B:I was seated 197.
Speaker B:So I'm trying to cover up one number like I'm not the slowest guy at the race.
Speaker B:They just seat you in the order you qualify, right?
Speaker B:I got 190, 87.
Speaker B:And they tell us, okay, this wind is going to blow you to Niagara Halls.
Speaker B:So we go out pretty quick and go across the Peace Bridge and are hit with a headwind for the next 20 miles going to Niagara Falls.
Speaker B:The wind switched and in that race, only one guy ran a PR I didn't.
Speaker B:And that was the first race where Alberto Salazar got beat, Pete Fitzinger beat him, and I finished, I think I finished 92nd.
Speaker C:So above your seed.
Speaker B:Well above my seed.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But it was a little bit of a death march because guys were just getting one.
Speaker B:We went out, I swear to you, I ran a five minute opening mile and I was in last place by 20 yards.
Speaker B:It just felt, people just took off.
Speaker B:And so I remember Benji Durden, who was seated number one.
Speaker B:I think he'd been training in Atlanta and a wetsuit or something for the weather.
Speaker B:And I remember passing Benji and thinking, God, there goes number one.
Speaker B:And it wasn't as though I was running the greatest race of my life.
Speaker B:But you're dealing with athletes and triathletes and I think there's some lessons in that.
Speaker B:There's a couple things I've asked myself.
Speaker B:I said, one, what if my goal had been to run in the Olympics instead of the Olympic trials?
Speaker B:And I honestly don't think I had the leg speed.
Speaker B:I really do feel like when I ran 219 flat, I. I don't know how I could have run any better.
Speaker B:I think I ran the best race I could run.
Speaker B:And so candidly, the Olympic trials were a little bit of a.
Speaker B:Wasn't a letdown.
Speaker B:But my goal for eight years had been to get qualified.
Speaker B:And I probably needed to set a different goal or a different way to express that goal because it was.
Speaker B:I was prepared, I was fit.
Speaker B:But for whatever reason, it was never as important to me to run in the Olympic Trials as it was for me to qualify to run in them.
Speaker C:I totally understand that.
Speaker C:My colleague on this program, Juliet Hockman, was an Olympian.
Speaker C: She rode at the: Speaker A:She talks a lot about how dedicated.
Speaker C:She was to her training.
Speaker C:She had a very outside shot of making the team, but she was convinced that she was going to make it.
Speaker C:And I've asked her many times, how could you have known that you were going to make this team knowing the reality that you were really on the outside?
Speaker A:And then what would have happened if.
Speaker C:You hadn't made it?
Speaker C:Because to just have this dream and to be so invested in it and then I just can't even imagine.
Speaker C:I think your perspective is really interesting.
Speaker C:You were absolutely focused on getting to qualify for the trials, knowing that was probably going to be the best that.
Speaker A:You could do, and you did it.
Speaker C:And maybe that didn't set you up to have the best trials because you were like, in your mind, oh, I got to where I needed to be.
Speaker C:And that's.
Speaker C:But so I'm sure that's what Juliet would say.
Speaker C:She would say if he had told himself that he was going to make the Olympics.
Speaker A:But I always wonder because I've spoken.
Speaker C:To, as I said, I've had the great fortune to speak to many Olympians and I always wonder, I've asked many this question.
Speaker C:It's like, how do you convince yourself that you can be the best of so many amazing athletes?
Speaker C:And then obviously you made it.
Speaker C:So I can't ask you what would have happened if you didn't.
Speaker C:So anyways, it's a fascinating kind of mindset.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think, yeah.
Speaker B:I think there's a couple sort of traps there though, that society sets for us.
Speaker B:One, you can say all you want about, I just put it in my mind and I was going to be the best and therefore I was the best.
Speaker B:I've never really seen the best world class athlete that also didn't have physical talent.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:LeBron James could have wanted it all he wanted.
Speaker B:If he was 5, 6, he wouldn't be LeBron James.
Speaker B:And for me to qualify, I had to run four 10ks back to back within about 22 or 3 seconds of my 10k PR.
Speaker B:And I don't think so.
Speaker B:I think you're.
Speaker B:It's not like the Kentucky Derby.
Speaker B:Look, I was 150 pounds.
Speaker B:My competitors were buck 23.
Speaker B:Put a 25 pound weight pack on all those guys and see how I would have done.
Speaker B:I think I would have beaten a hell of a lot more than I Did.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I don't know that you can just mentally say I'm going to be the best runner or in the race or beat everyone else.
Speaker B:But that's the trap.
Speaker B:That's in fact, that's not even important.
Speaker B:What the real question is, can you be the very best runner you can possibly be with the talent, gifts, mindset that you were given?
Speaker B:And I'm comfortable that I did the best I could with what I had.
Speaker B:I trained hard, I trained every day, I raced hard, I was competitive, I slept, I ate.
Speaker B:It's a different time.
Speaker B:But I think the big question is, are you doing everything you can be to be the best person, athlete you can be?
Speaker B:Because you can control that.
Speaker B:You can't control who, who shows up at the race, you can't control who's injured or who isn't injured or any of that nonsense.
Speaker B:And so I think that gets a little esoteric.
Speaker B:I think the lessons of running are far more important than what you actually did or did not do in some race somewhere with somebody else or against somebody.
Speaker C:Yeah, I could not agree with, I could not agree more with what you've said.
Speaker C:I think I would add a couple of things to it.
Speaker C:Number one, I tell my kids all the time it's not the success or the failures, but how respond to both of them that really define you.
Speaker C:And then also it's not just did you become the best runner with the gifts that you that you had or with the talent that you had, but did you do, and you said this earlier, and I just want to bring it back.
Speaker C:And did you make the most of what you had by doing the hardest work, by making sure that nobody was out working you and making sure that you didn't not succeed because you just weren't investing in yourself and allowing your own talents to come through?
Speaker C:I think those two things to me are really what define an individual and an athlete much more than their actual results.
Speaker C:And I think that it's really important I want to shift the conversation to Blamacca.
Speaker C:I think it's really fascinating what you're doing.
Speaker C:I find myself cycling through shoes regularly and of course these days those shoes are often filled with a lot of foam.
Speaker C:And I have many times thought to myself, what's going on with these shoes?
Speaker A:Because I keep them, I don't just throw them away.
Speaker C:I manage to find ways to recycle them and use them over and over again.
Speaker C:But even my son, who's now a.
Speaker A:Very high performing high school runner, he's.
Speaker C:Constantly collecting shoes as he Gets as he wears them, them out and has to get a new pair.
Speaker C:And he came to me just the other day and he had six pairs.
Speaker C:He said, what do I do with these?
Speaker C:And I said, we need to figure out a way to recycle them.
Speaker A:So tell my listeners how you came.
Speaker C:Up with the idea for Blumaca, what it is you guys are doing and how it came to be.
Speaker C:And also, if there's a way that those of us who have these shoes can get them to you in some way so that we can also contribute to lessening the impact that our shoes.
Speaker A:Have environmentally, like all great questions.
Speaker B:And now you're in my wheelhouse for sure.
Speaker B:So I think what we have to realize about footwear is guys like you and me, we love it.
Speaker B:And I've been buying shoes for 48 years, running shoes.
Speaker B:And I could probably fill a semi with all the shoes that I've gone through, unfortunately.
Speaker B:And one of my last projects in corporate America was I found this little brand called Hoka when they had sold 800 pair of shoes and really helped shepherd that into the Deckers Corporation and then did a lot of work with Jean Luc and Nico on the early products to make Hoka sort of commercial.
Speaker B:And the company I worked for also owned the Ugg brand.
Speaker B:And so getting to make footwear and getting to have a chance to improve footwear, that's my passion.
Speaker B:And even though I came from this, this rural background and learned as a runner, I just always felt, oh, I can make shoes better.
Speaker B:This doesn't work.
Speaker B:That doesn't work.
Speaker B:But when you go to the big factories over in Asia that are making these shoes for you, and you see these beautiful pristine shoes that we all love to pull out of a box, and it's this beautiful jewel that comes out of the box perfectly quaffed, colored just right and soft and fluffy and as clean as newly minted snow.
Speaker B:When you walk out the backside of those factories, you would find piles and piles of foam.
Speaker B:And these foam piles would be literally as big or as tall as the building.
Speaker B:You don't think about foam as being plastic because we think about water bottles as being plastic.
Speaker B:The good news is water bottles are one type of plastic which can be melted down and made into a new water bottle.
Speaker B:But foam is plastic, and foam is the key element to a shoe.
Speaker B:That's what cushions it.
Speaker B:But it is a two part plastic.
Speaker B:It is like the proverbial scrambled egg.
Speaker B:And when you make foam, you put in an ISO or a polyo or two materials, they then explode to get cellular structure.
Speaker B:And there is no unscrambling that egg.
Speaker B:And so what's happening with all of this foam is that it either gets burned or buried, primarily burned for fuel, which means you get to breathe it, or buried.
Speaker B:And you walk out of this building and you can say, that's one hell of a problem.
Speaker B:I certainly didn't want any of my friends back here knowing that's what I was contributing to.
Speaker B:Or you can walk out of that building and you can say, there sits an opportunity.
Speaker B:And really, that change in perspective was, okay, what can we do with that?
Speaker B:Because this is some of the highest quality foam in the world, as I've researched, this number will shock you, Jeffrey.
Speaker B:There is enough foam waste being produced by making the 23 billion pair of shoes we make a year in the world.
Speaker B:There is enough foam waste for me to make 5 billion pair of new insoles.
Speaker C:And that's primarily what Blumaka does, is you make those foam insoles.
Speaker B:But we also make midsoles, okay, or sandals or flip flops with our Flex brand.
Speaker B:But there's enough foam waste to make two and a half billion midsoles for shoes.
Speaker B:And the ironic part is that our foam, because the way we transmogrify it, we think of us as being making Rice Krispie Treats.
Speaker B:I know you're too healthy to eat them, but when you make Rice Krispie Treats, you don't have to cook the Rice Krispies.
Speaker B:So we, we take the foam and we chop it up into chunks.
Speaker B:You can see the white chunks in here, right?
Speaker B:And then we have to stick them back together with some sugar.
Speaker B:So we have a proprietary formulation which is also a foam foam that sticks them back together.
Speaker B:But when you stick them back together and you put a skin on them with the new foam, the blue that surrounds them, it makes them compress less quickly.
Speaker B: hioning properties to last to: Speaker B:We guarantee them for a thousand miles.
Speaker B:And let me contrast that with what comes in their shoes.
Speaker B:We just.
Speaker B:The local testing center here, one of the world's great independent footwear testing centers, Helix in Santa Barbara, tested some insoles from a $200 pair of high performance running shoes.
Speaker B:The cushioning in those shoes failed.
Speaker B:The insole failed.
Speaker B:In four miles.
Speaker B:They went flat.
Speaker B:Most insoles that come in your athletic shoes, your running shoes, will fail in about 20 to 25 miles, go flat.
Speaker B:So not only are we able to take this waste and use it productively, but we're making superior product.
Speaker B:And that's what is really hard, because everybody thinks recycled trash, junk, crap.
Speaker B:And here we're taking this beautiful high performance running shoe foam, some of the, the best foam in the world, and we're converting it to new products that actually last longer.
Speaker B:But that's a, that's different.
Speaker B:There's almost no one in the industry in any recycling business where they're taking the recycled materials and increasing the performance.
Speaker B:We're at the intersection of performance and recycling.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker C:You're making use of the byproduct that is being produced when these shoes are being manufactured.
Speaker C:So you're not actually recycling old shoes, which is something that I thought you might be doing.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker B:We'll get.
Speaker B:That's next.
Speaker B:Because you asked about that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So what's that?
Speaker B:Yeah, so the first thing I would say, if you want to be a good steward of the land, the first thing you should look for is shoes made from recycled content.
Speaker B:Honestly, it's not that hard.
Speaker B:The brand should be doing more of it.
Speaker B:I believe the director of design at Nike came out a couple months ago and said the most, the fastest way the industry can become sustainable is to start with recycled materials, recycled uppers, recycled foams, all of these things that we're doing.
Speaker B:So we get fixated on the end of life.
Speaker B:And really we should be focused on the beginning life.
Speaker B:So start with recycled.
Speaker B:That's the number one principle.
Speaker B:And ask your brands to do it.
Speaker B:So then, end of life and remember this name and write it down because it's one of the.
Speaker B:It is the most underrated thing going on in sustainability in the United States of America.
Speaker B:For footwear.
Speaker B:Write down the name Sneaker Impact.
Speaker B:Sneaker Impact is down in Miami, Florida.
Speaker B:They put out boxes in literally thousands of running stores around the country.
Speaker B:And if your running store doesn't have a box that says Sneaker Impact, tell them to get it because you can go into Sneaker Impact and I happen to be there.
Speaker B:Last Friday, you drop your used shoes in this box and Sneaker Impact bulk ships them.
Speaker B:So you don't want to send one shoe back to me or anyone else because that balloons your carbon footprint.
Speaker B:They put 30 or 40 pair in a box and then he brings them to his warehouse in Miami, me.
Speaker B:And this is the critical thing, the number one thing you should do with an old shoe is to give it to somebody who needs a shoe.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:And when you walk through his warehouse, I did it.
Speaker B:As I said Friday, you go through these big gaylords.
Speaker B:He gets back a half a Million pair of shoes a month.
Speaker B:80% of those shoes he then sells to micro entrepreneurs in other parts of the world, South America, Africa.
Speaker B:And those micro entrepreneurs come and literally buy the shoes that are.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So he's not sending size 13 shoes to Patagonia or Costa Rica.
Speaker B:He's sending five, six, sevens and eights.
Speaker B:When you look at those shoes, you'll look at some of them and it does not even look like they're warm.
Speaker B:And so these micro entrepreneurs are taking what would be otherwise go to a landfill and buying it for their market so that somebody in their country has a pair of shoes.
Speaker B:And in many of those countries, shoes are not shoes, they're transportation.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And then what we've worked with sneaker impact on, he has just invested in this enormous grinder.
Speaker B:I think it's probably the most sophisticated grinder in the world.
Speaker B:I'll show you.
Speaker B:So he grinds up the entire shoe.
Speaker B:He drive.
Speaker B:Grinds up the entire shoe and collects this.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:Foam.
Speaker B:So he's got this now to about a 98 to 99 purity level.
Speaker B:Just foam, no rubber, no fabric, nothing.
Speaker B:And so he came to us and he said in your process, because you're using virgin foam.
Speaker B:See the white stuff?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Can you take this and can you make something out of it?
Speaker B:I made this.
Speaker C:There you go.
Speaker B:And this is comfortable, it's lightweight.
Speaker B:We've tested the compression, we've made insoles, We've made.
Speaker B:So we know with 100% certainty that MO and sneaker impact can extract foam that can be used in our system to make new shoes, new footwear, and new insoles.
Speaker B:The challenge with that is, so far, no big brand has wanted to partner with us to do it.
Speaker B:They want right now, you send them to the landfill, you send them out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker B:And what has to happen is somebody has to say, I want to make these components in the United States because you can't send trash back to Asia.
Speaker B:And we have to make simple shoes or simple insoles in the United States or have them assembled in Mexico or the Dominican nearshore board.
Speaker B:And you're not necessarily going to make a brand new running shoe, but you can make a sandal, a flip flop, a slide, a recovery product.
Speaker B:Using virgin foam for performance running is a really good use of virgin foam.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Using virgin foam in a slip, flip flop, or a slide is environmental terrorism.
Speaker B:Or if you want to be nice about it, it's environmental malpractice.
Speaker B:And people have to.
Speaker B:You and your son and the runners and athletes have to start saying, look, do something good with it.
Speaker B:But the first thing you should do is get your local running store to go and send their shoes to Sneaker Impact.
Speaker B:It's just been damned hard to get the footwear brands to get out of their marketing department and out of their sustainability marketing story and say, hey, we're gonna.
Speaker B:We're gonna dedicate a certain part of our line to building shoes with the trash from our old shoes.
Speaker B:And if they would do, we could make 400 million pair of these a year.
Speaker B:400 million pairs of these a year using the old running shoes in the United States of America.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Stuart, where can people find Flex and Blumaka products?
Speaker B:So blumaka is blumaka.comb l u M A K A.
Speaker B:The flex line is flexfootwear.com we're also sold in running stores.
Speaker B:Big river in St. Louis, Dallas, running company Fort Worth, running company Santa Barbara, running company Snails Pace in Southern California.
Speaker B:So we have about 115 retailers across the country that are carrying our brands.
Speaker B:We've got some distribution of Flex at Shields up in Minnesota, the Upper Midwest, ABBA, Dabbas.
Speaker B:But if you go to our website, flexfootwear.com or bluemachin.com you can order them directly.
Speaker B:I would, obviously, I'd like to do.
Speaker B:I'd like to sell more product because the only way we can clean up the world a little bit is to do it.
Speaker B:When you make a Flex product.
Speaker B:Get this one pair of these cleans up the foam from making one pair of running shoes.
Speaker E:Shoes.
Speaker B:Think of that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Stuart, it's been a fascinating conversation.
Speaker C:You are a fascinating individual, and I can't thank you enough for being here.
Speaker C:Hearing your story about running, hearing your story about.
Speaker C:Hearing your story about Blumaca has been just tremendous.
Speaker A:I wish you nothing but success and.
Speaker C:Definitely I share your enthusiasm for cleaning up the world.
Speaker C:We need more of that.
Speaker C:Stuart Jenkins is a former Olympic trials participant in the marathon, and he is.
Speaker A:The CEO and Chief Innovation Officer of BlueMaca.
Speaker C:I will have the links for BlueMacca and Flex Footwear in the show notes.
Speaker C:I hope that you will take a look at their product line.
Speaker C:Stuart Jenkins, thank you again for joining me on the Tradoc podcast.
Speaker C:I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker D:The top of my lungs.
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