 is he thinks he may have purchased a next percent that is a counterfeit, a fake. So, keep that in mind. But it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Come on, here we are. Oh boy, he's got yogurt all over. How do you just close it and slide it in the side? Whatever you need, yeah, perfect. Rest up, cheers to the eighth day of Christmas. Eight day of Christmas. Hello, hello, there it is, there it is. Oh, it's just so nice, butter my bread. Yeah, I've thought about, you know, if people could send in, like, if I write the script and then they send in their voices to narrate, like everyone says a sentence, it's a powerful, gone, gone, chai latte on the eighth day of Christmas, it's all gone, sad day. We're discerning baby names, everyone, trying to figure it out. It's one of the tougher ones. One of the, you know, you get your favorite names out there first, Joseph, Seth. So we're just trying to figure it out, figure it out. What do you think, buddy? You're a Michael, you are a Michael. Yes, you are, I can't wait. Resting, resting, resting. All right, though, it's a big moment. I've got two minutes until the registration opens for the Pikes Peak Marathon. Here we go. So the Pikes Peak Marathon is at 26.2 miles, up a 14,000 foot mountain here in Colorado, and then back down 7,500 feet of vertical gain. There it is in meters on your screen. It's a big race for me in 2020, weird to say that. Happy New Year, by the way, but it fills up really fast. It's a very popular race, so let me just pull it up here. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, registration, oh my goodness. Let's see, noon, mountain time, oh my gosh. So I've got two minutes here. Where's that? Got the card, got the card, okay, here we go. Pikes Peak Marathon, Sunday, August 23rd, 2020. Confirmed payment, there we go. Butter my bread, butter my bread. True love, we did it. Registered, we registered, we got it. Marathon, here we come. And what's cool, come on down here. Come on down, nope, nope, you come on down here. We got baby on board, is that? This is what's amazing, and this has never happened before. You get to see the finish. Yeah, oh, yes! The ascent is finishes on top, the marathon finishes at the bottom of the mountain, and I will actually get back to the bottom faster in the marathon than if I did the ascent and then took the shuttles down. So it's like, so we can get to the pool faster. Hello, priorities. That is so, I think of that, because I think when we were dating I went to the top. Yeah, you did go to the top. Once, cause all the other times we had the kids like 2010, 2011. You worry about their ears popping. Yeah, so you get to see the finish in Man of Two Springs. We will see you there. You can hear me. Boom, oh yeah, we will hear you. We will hear you. And one thing we were talking about last night too was his ascent is within the marathon. Uh-huh, watch out, watch out. So you are doing both, in a sense. You get to the top as fast as possible and then zip on down, zip on down. Okay, boom, shaka laka. Now that we're registered, catching up on emails. This rest, I will talk about how rest can be very difficult for runners and for me especially, but it opens up opportunities to get other things done, like replying to your emails. So if you've been waiting on an email from me for the last two to three weeks, here we go. I'm answering all the emails right now. Made it through about 50 emails. I think I'm caught up now. And again, thank you for your patience. I appreciate it. All right, here's the deal. Why do I have the next percent sitting on my kitchen table? A gentleman emailed me from Europe and said that he thinks he may have purchased a next percent that is a counterfeit, a fake. So keep that in mind, everyone, as you're buying running shoes, especially online, make sure the source, the website you're purchasing from is reputable. It has a good reputation of providing great customer service and not selling fakes. So the gentleman is wondering, basically, he feels like his next percent is a fake because he can bend the shoe in half. That's probably a really good sign that it is a fake. And it might not even have a carbon fiber plate in there. And I told him that I would bend my shoe to show him. Now, I'm not going to give all the force into the shoe because I don't want to compromise the carbon fiber plate inside here. But I'm putting some pretty good pressure into that carbon fiber plate. And it's definitely not bending in half. So, and again, I'm not going to force it. I could probably force it through, but just keep it in mind that there are some bad actors out there that are making fakes of these really expensive racing shoes, running shoes out there. So anyway, onward and upward. We're resting, drinking a little extra coffee on January 1st, although one of my goals in 2020 is to cut back the caffeine, if you know what I mean. OK, I think we're going to do a little wrestling match now, a little resting, right? We're resting here. Here we go. Ah, yeah. We're resting, right? We're resting. There we go. Survived the wrestle match. No broken bones. Michael didn't get stepped on. We're doing good. True love is off. Grabbing a pizza. We're going to have some pizza tonight. I'll talk about that, how that connects to resting as well in a second. But when I'm running, high mileage, high volume, especially in the summertime with high vertical gain, I'm tired. You guys know, when you're training at your peak level, you're tired. And you want to sit on the couch. And one of my goals, I'll call it a resolution. One of my goals and resolutions of 2020 is to be more active with the boys. They're getting to that point, especially Joseph. He needs that wrestling and that rough and tumble. We could have done that for three hours straight, and he would not have stopped. He loves it so, so much. So anyway, that's one of my goals. But at the same time, as a runner, so actually, well, so right now, because of my knee injury, I'm on a break and we'll talk about my schedule of resting here in one second, but I'm on a break. And therefore, I'm just going to say it, my energy levels are pretty high right now. I'm not, whereas, you know, if I'm cross training, if I'm going to the gym, doing plyometrics, obviously running high volume, it's so much harder to do what I just did in there. But no matter what, like in 2020, that's not an excuse as a papa to not play hard with the boys. So anyway, it's like, oh my gosh, well, okay, I'll leave it at that. Here we go, diving into my resting schedule. And if you've been watching the vlog a long time, you know how I like to set up my annual calendar of rest. It's not too complicated, but, and I'm learning as well because I'm now dabbling in, well, not just dabbling, but going all into road marathon racing. So every year, I take at least two weeks off in December. This year was a little different because I was trying to qualify for the Olympic trials. That didn't happen because of the knee injury. So now, because of the knee injury, I'm resting. And I'll just let you know that I'm going to rest until I am healthy at least two weeks, but I have a feeling it's gonna be longer than two weeks. So that'll be, I'll give, I'll know more. Basically, let's see, like nine days from now. So late next week, I'll start to feel it out, but I'm gonna take my time. I'm in no rush to come back, but that is my annual major break is at least two weeks off in December, usually. So next, so December 2020 will be the next really big break. I do that for a couple of reasons. Hit the reset button physically. And in case you didn't know, your aerobic system develops much quicker than your tendons, ligaments, muscles, even bones. The more you run consistently, believe it or not, like your bone density increases. So that's a good thing later in life. Like the more consistent you can stay healthy and put that pounding into your legs, your bones are actually becoming more dense over time. So that's a good thing. But our aerobic system can develop much quicker than our ligaments and tendons. And so hitting the reset button once a year for me with a big break is why I do it in order to give the rest of the body, even though the aerobic system feels great, the your ligaments, tendons, muscles, everything else, bones are like, hey, whoa, calm down, especially if you're a new runner. Anyway, that's how I take my annual break. And then after every race throughout the year, I take a three to five day break depending on how the body is feeling, okay? So for example, like the Cirque series in Utah this past year, that would have been a, not a peak race, but a smaller race. So that would have been like a three to five day break. Whereas after a peak race, a big race, like the Pikes Peak Marathon this year or the New York City Marathon, that would be a bigger break. And little caveat, big asterisk, this year is gonna be different. So because I'm now diving into racing fast and hard on a hard surface, the pavement which my body is still adapting to, which is maybe one of the reasons why I have a knee injury right now, I will be taking a bigger break after my spring marathon and fall marathon. What's it gonna be? I don't know, I actually honestly don't know. I would say it's gonna be at least two weeks, most likely, it could be three weeks. I don't think it'll be four weeks, but I would say that two to three week window. Again, I'm still dabbling in this marathon business on the road, so I'm figuring it out as I go, which is part of the reason why I don't feel comfortable being a coach right now, like for marathon distances, because I'm testing and tinkering and figuring out what works in real time. So after the spring marathon, whether it's in Prague, whether it's maybe London, whatever it ends up being, I will then take a bigger break than I typically would after a normal race in the mountains because I realize it's harder on the body. So that is how I rest and when I rest, I guess how I rest. When I rest, I guess I didn't answer that. How I rest, I don't cross train in the beginning of the rest. I will cross train, let's say it's usually like, it's usually halfway through the rest. So if I take two weeks off in December, I will take a week of nothing. No swimming, no biking, definitely no running, just resting. Not even really core work, doing core work or gym work, and the reason I do that is so that I can take the mental break. Like tonight, we're gonna eat pizza. Why do I eat pizza on my break? A little bit of a mental break from the salads. I love salads, I think they taste great, but why do I eat salads when I'm racing and training at a high level? It makes me feel better. I literally feel better after eating a salad and protein rather than too much, let's say dough or bread. Even though I get my carbs through peanuts and different my bobo bars. So anyway, that's why I eat my salads and smoothies so consistently during peak training is that it just makes me, I literally feel better. Like I have a little more energy, but I don't feel as kind of run down if that makes sense. So, and one last point is that the second half of a rest, so let's say I'm taking three weeks off in 2020 after the spring marathon. So that means at 10 days, I will then begin to reintroduce the gym, the core work, gentle swimming and cycling at the beginning and then a little bit more toward the end of the rest. All right, question of the day, how and when do you rest in your annual calendar of training? And I realize some runners run every day of the year and I think that's great if that keeps you motivated to keep that consistency. I love being consistent, but anyway, that's the question of the day, how and when do you rest in your annual calendar of training? All right, with that said, let's go inside, get some pizza, enjoy some resting mentally as well, it's really, really important. Okay, let's go, hopefully those boys don't get me. Michael, we're gonna get the table. Watch your knee. Watch your knee. Hello. Yeah, that's it. That's it. I have to microwave mine. Resting, chilling, relaxing, recovering from 2019. It's been a big year, hasn't it boys? You guys cheering Papa on at the races? Oh man, Pike's Peak, Vail, what else did you cheer at this year? Oh, Cookie Chase, 5K, oh, and there's that pizza. I'm not the one. Yeah. Michael's excited, band. Back in the day. You like to ride horses? Good job, buddy. You like to ski, and... You started your dumb business? We're just brothers. Uh-huh, a telephone company. Maybe you guys will start a business. There it is. Oh, I don't know about all of you. What I forgot to mention out in the studio is that I don't enjoy resting. I don't enjoy it. I know it's crazy. It's just not part of my DNA, but I know as a runner and a long distance runner, it's so, so critical to rest, sit back, relax, chill out, let the body completely reset. In addition to my knee healing, I'm hoping that all of the niggles of 2019 go away in the next, basically during this break, during this time off, during this downtime. Remember the little pain on the bottom of my foot? I haven't felt it in a little while, so I'm hoping that is healing. It's just a perfect opportunity to lay back and chill out, and so that's what I'm doing, even though I frankly don't enjoy it. All right, that's just, I'm just shooting straight with you, shooting straight with you. All right, everyone. We're tossing it back on the right, too. Yes, we've talked about overtraining in the past. That'll be on the right in the little box there. If you're curious about that, and then on the left, I talk about some recovery tips after hard races. That'll be on the left long. All right, there you have it, everyone. See beauty, work hard, and love each other. See you tomorrow.