Smart Athlete Podcast Ep. 19 - Stephanie Howe Violett - Manage Your Ego - Part 1 of 3

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“The study that I'm the lead author on was my dissertation project. And I'm super proud of it because it was not easy. And I came up with the idea kind of, by myself, it wasn't like normally you have some influence from your advisor where there's funding. This was totally me thinking about what I was interested in, what I wanted to study. And so I saw it through to the finish, it was kind of a nightmare at times. But I studied appetite hormones in elite female runners, - different intensities of exercise. And so it was cool for a few reasons. One, no one studies females because it's a little bit more complex because you have to account for the menstrual cycle. So, in research, a lot of studies focus on males. And so that was kind of a unique aspect to my study. And then two using elite athletes is super hard because they're really particular about their training and their nutrition. It's hard to ask them to put some of that aside to participate in research so it was a little tricky, but it was a really cool study. And the findings can be applied to what I do as a runner myself and as someone who gives other people advice in nutrition and coaching.” This episode of the Smart Athlete Podcast is brought to you by Solpri, Skincare for Athletes. Whether you're in the gym, on the mats, on the road or in the pool, we protect your skin so you're more comfortable in your own body. To learn more, go to Solpri.com. JESSE: Today on the Smart Athlete Podcast, my guest has numerous podium and top finishes at various Ultras. She currently holds a course records, the Bandera 100K, and Lakes Sonoma 50 Miler as well as being the champion at the Western States 100 in 2014. She holds her Ph.D. in Nutrition and Exercise Science. Welcome to the show, Dr. Stephanie Howe Violett. STEPH: Hi, thanks for having me. JESSE: We have a little bit of delay. So, if anybody's watching and there's like little pauses, we're trying to make this happen from across the world. So, I feel like the miracle science, you're in the middle of Europe right now and in the middle of the United States. So, even if there's a couple second delay, we're doing okay, it's not as bad as when people are doing weather reports and there’s that huge delay with your news station and like the weather cast are out five miles from them? STEPH: Yeah, yeah. We’ll just pretend it's that. JESSE: So, what are you doing in Europe this summer? Are you training, you're racing, you're coaching, you’re just on vacation; what are you doing? STEPH: I'm definitely here, I was planning to be racing. UTMB at the end of August, but I had surgery. I had surgery on my Achilles in April. And so I'm not going to be ready to run 100 miles by the end of August. So, I'm just here, I mean, hoping to do a shorter race, but also just training and working. So, it works out all right. I love it over here. JESSE: Was that like an acute injury that led to that or? STEPH: I mean, sorta. Actually, not acute, it's been chronic. Achilles are my area of my special area that gets injured easily on me. And it was-- kind of Achilles surgery is misleading, it was more in my heel. So, it was kind of a long time coming, great surgery, but need some downtime after that. JESSE: What does recovery look like for something like that? Are you like completely non-weight bearing for a while? STEPH: Well, if I got the surgery in the US, I would have been but I came over to Sweden because the best surgeon is there. And so I was walking 50% weight the next day, but that's not normal. And it was more of a minor surgery. So, the recovery was pretty quick, honestly. And I was able to run within six weeks. But turns out that you probably shouldn't start ramping up for races because now my other one is a little bit angry. But it was just a good reminder of okay, back off. So, now I'm not training for anything. I'm just running bits and biking a bit right now. JESSE: Yeah. I think as far as like your head’s so used to okay, yeah, I can go out for 20 miles, 30 miles or whatever. And then you had a surgery and it's no, like five may even be pushing it or we know whatever the limits were for you. I think it's a hard mental shift, sometimes. STEPH: It is and I just missed the freedom of being able to go out and run, that's how I clear my head. And so when I could finally run I was like I'm going to do this, this is a bad idea. I'm going to do this. But my body gave me a not so subtle reminder that you got to be a little more patient. So, I am, I’m being patient. JESSE: Yeah, I think especially, I mean with me, it was the same way. I crashed a triathlon last year and shattered my collarbone, had to have surgery and was off for several months from that. And it was definitely like almost like a life shift. I don't know that I'm quite the same past that just because life had to change for a considerable amount of time. STEPH: Yes, it's never easy. JESSE: Yeah, yeah. So, you're going to race UTMB, can you tell me about that? I'm not huge into Ultras so I don't know all about each particular race. So, I mean, what's the draw of that race for you? STEPH: Oh, UTMB Ultra Trail Mont-Blanc is 177 kilometer race around Mont-Blanc. And it's pretty cool because it goes through France, Switzerland and Italy. And it's kind of one of the if Western States is the iconic race of the US, UTMB is the iconic race of Europe or France. And it's much more techni-- Well, it's not that technical, technical for US standards, but much more mountainous, a lot of vertical and very rarely do you get a race that's a big huge loop. And so it's a pretty awesome race. The scene over here is amazing. And it’s just like you know, something you want to do as an ultra runner, I think. JESSE: Well, I mean, once you get to that distance, how many people are at the start line? STEPH: Oh, this one like 3,000. It's huge. Yeah, I mean, most of them are Euro, Euro runners. This is one of the things they do, they're more active in the mountains. It's not like a running race like Western States. It's more like a lot of hiking with poles and then trying to stay on your feet downhill. So, it's actually a huge race. JESSE: Okay. You're not anywhere where you get stuck inside for the winner for training are you, normally? STEPH: Me? JESSE: Yeah. STEPH: Well, I live in Bend, Oregon. So, yeah, we have a lot of snow in the winter. But I ski so I do that in the wintertime. JESSE: Okay. Well, I was talking to another gentleman, he's the Head Coach of Team USA, Minnesota and he does marathons and ultras. And so since he's in Minnesota, not always the best weather in the wintertime. And he was saying that, like he was getting ready for-- I can’t remember if it was ?? 8:20> or six 100, or whatever it was. But it was a varying terrain course, a lot of up and down. And he was talking about, he would take his treadmill and pitch the back of the treadmill up so that he could practice running downhill with a treadmill. STEPH: Yeah, yeah. JESSE: So, I was wondering if you did any weird treadmill antics or if you had any interesting techniques. STEPH: No, you know what? I've only run on a treadmill, maybe 10 times in my life. I don't really do that. I like to be outside. I'd rather like do something different than run on a treadmill. But that's partly why I come over to Europe is to prepare. I don't there's anywhere in the US you can enjoyably prepare for a race like this. Maybe the San Juan mountains in Colorado, but they're just under so much more snow. So, yeah, I come over here to make my training a little bit more fun. I just much more prefer to be in the mountains anyway. And the US is lacking in that sense. So, yeah, I don't do the treadmill thing. But I know a lot of people who do successfully and you do have to manipulate your training environment to come over here and do well. JESSE: Yeah. So, I mean, I know for a lot of people it's going to be almost like a mysterious or ?? 9:44> say a magical, but kind of an ideal situation where you have the freedom to go I’m going to Europe for the summer. So, how does that work for you professionally? You’re entirely remote, I assume? Did you catch that or was it too delayed? STEPH: I think I missed part of that. But I think you're asking how does it work for me to come over to Europe for the summer and make a way for-- So, I work for myself, I have a sports nutrition business and I do a little bit of coaching, mostly sports nutrition. And so when I come over here, I just work on-- It actually works out well for me, because I can do emails first thing in the morning, then I go train. And then I work from like four to 10 or 11 pm to overlap with the US. So, it works out pretty well. And while I'm over here, I usually try to pick up a little bit of work, doing nutrition at just like different, like organizations, just something outside of the US. So, it's pretty fun for me to be over here. But yeah, it's definitely it sounds like oh, Stephanie's off in Europe just like playing around. But no, I actually work while I'm here. My husband at one point was like you need to put some photos of you working on Instagram because all my photos are like me running in the Alps. And like no, I actually do work over here. JESSE: ...off in the mountains. STEPH: Yeah. I mean, I like working and not like you know, I love free time too. But I love what I do and so it's not really something that-- I look forward to it. I love the clients I work with, I love talking about nutrition. So, it's not like something that's holding me back, I actually really enjoy it. JESSE: Yeah, yeah. I mean, was a whole situation by design or did you just kind of stumbled into it? I know, I designed kind of my life to be more flexible for competing post-collegiately. But I don't know if everybody does that or if it's just kind of like a happy circumstance. STEPH: I think I am willing to take chances and seek lifestyle. This is not what I saw myself doing. I went through Ph.D. like undergrad Masters Ph.D. straight through. So, that was like 10 years of post-grad work. And then I worked as a professor for a while and it just, it wasn't the best fit for me. I thought that's what I wanted to do but I don't love lecturing. And so I started thinking about what else I could do, how I could use this degree because I want to use my Ph.D. Geez, I spent so long ?? 12:28>. JESSE: You spent so much time and money and energy. STEPH: Yeah. And then the running thing, opportunity kind of picked up. So, I had an opportunity with the North Face to be a, I guess, professional athlete. And so I kind of just like designed this niche for myself that's worked out really well. And I like to think of it as I put in my time of being a Ph.D. student and like going through that. And now I'm kind of living the good life. But it's due to a lot of hard work and being creative and willing to take a risk of starting my own business. And I left a job where I had full-time benefits. And it was just like really secure to try this and it's been really great. JESSE: Yeah. Did you have any fallback plan if things didn't work out? STEPH: Not necessarily. But I've never been someone who struggled to work or like find a way to make things work. If I didn't have a job, I would work at a coffee shop until I found a job. And I guess my fallback plan right now is I'll teach at a university, which is a pretty good fallback plan. And I may want to go back to academia at some point. JESSE: Yeah. Speaking of that, I saw you had, I’ll say had published or been published in conjunction with a few different studies that all seem to focus around exercise intensity and appetite. Can you kind of walk me through what you're doing? What's the difference between those studies were? STEPH: So, I think I missed part of that. But the ?? 14:20> study. Were you asking about the different papers I've published? JESSE: Yes, yeah. STEPH: Well, I spent most of those papers I was not the lead author. I was participating in research, helping out. The study that I'm the lead author on was my dissertation project. And I'm super proud of it because it was not easy. And I came up with the idea kind of, by myself, it wasn't like normally you have some influence from your advisor where there's funding. This was totally me thinking about what I was interested in, what I wanted to study. And so I saw it through to the finish, it was kind of a nightmare at times. But I studied appetite hormones in elite female runners, - different intensities of exercise. And so it was cool for a few reasons. One, no one studies females because it's a little bit more complex because you have to account for the menstrual cycle. So, in research, a lot of studies focus on males. And so that was kind of a unique aspect to my study. And then two using elite athletes is super hard because they're really particular about their training and their nutrition. It's hard to ask them to put some of that aside to participate in research so it was a little tricky, but it was a really cool study. And the findings can be applied to what I do as a runner myself and as someone who gives other people advice in nutrition and coaching. JESSE: So, what did you find? I assume from the way you're talking about, it seems like your results were statistically significant. So, what did you find out? STEPH: They were. Although, it wasn't, there was-- Okay. So, the significant part was, we know that appetite is suppressed post-exercise. And that's important because there's a window of time that you need to refuel to adequately restock your glycogen stores. And it's about 40 to 60 minutes. And so, in this study, we measured two different intensities to kind of mimic like an easy training day and a hard training day. And then measured the appetite hormones at every 20 minutes, for 60 minutes post-exercise. And we found what we were expecting that those appetite hormones are altered in the direction of suppression until about 60 minutes post-exercise, and subjective appetite is doing the same. So, people don't want to eat until about 60 minutes, but that's too much late. So, that was the significant part of it. We thought we would see more suppression with higher intensity exercise than moderate. I mean, we're talking like 80% VO2 max versus 60% VO2 max. But that wasn't significant. However, it was trending higher after hard intensity workouts, which make sense because you do a hard workout you're less likely to eat. Your stomach doesn't feel like you want to eat. So, I think if we were able to do a like 85% 90% VO2 max, which the IRB would not let me do. JESSE: Why not? STEPH: That's a committee that approves all the research you do ?? 17:43> JESSE: Intensity is too high? STEPH: And you have to get everything through them. And so I wanted to do a little bit higher intensity, but they wouldn't let me. So, I think if a future study, if they looked at that, they would find that difference as well. So, we did in my study, but still really, really cool to actually see that research in women. And elite women are similar to elite men. Whereas when you have sedentary or overweight obese women and men, they have different responses. So, the women are more robust to-- their hormones are more robust to have them-- their appetite is not as suppressed. So, they want to eat post-exercise, whereas elite women are like elite men. So, that's a finding that was really significant to the current literature at the time. JESSE: Okay. Let’s see if I can remember both these questions. So, why did the IRB say no to higher intensity? Do you know? STEPH: Well, my IRB was not used to doing research in exercise performance studies. I was at Oregon State and they were doing more nutrition, and not really exercise science. And so it's them it was like a really, this was like pushing a lot of limits, like doing all these blood draws, doing VO2 max. So, they just thought that that was too high. That's not normal to have IRB do that, but they can be a little bit sticky with things. So, that was unfortunate. JESSE: Yeah, I mean, I know they're trying not to push things into unethical bounds. But it seems like especially if you're working with elite athletes, like they have normal work at 85-90% VO2 max. It's not like saying, we're going to hit you at 105% VO2 max for as long as you can go, you know. STEPH: Right. This was we fought this for a year to get it approved. And once they said yes to pretty much the study I wanted to do, then we're okay, let's go with it. So, yeah, I mean, I'd love to work with an IRB committee that's really used to these kinds of studies. In Europe, they have a lot of them. Go to Frankfurt or Copenhagen, and they're like do whatever. Just kidding. But yeah, I mean, you got to find the balance, too. JESSE: Yeah. One of the things I'm curious about with the studies is, do you control for humidity and temperature? Like ambient temperature? STEPH: During the-- JESSE: During the testing. STEPH: Yeah. So, it was in an exercise physiology lab. So, yeah, we controlled for temperature. And we control for diet for 48 hours before diet physical activity. So, that was another tough thing with elite runners to say, please take the day before. And we didn't want to modify their fueling. So, we asked them to just mimic what they did from their first session to their second session, rather than tell them they can eat this and they can eat that. Because I wanted it to be more of an applied study. So, you have to find that balance too between controlling too much so you can see significance and you know, really have your variables stand out and finding the application piece because no one's going to just follow a diet that you give them. So, when athletes are more in their habitual lifestyle, they're probably going to-- their performance is going to be more real to them. So, we controlled as much as we could without really going overboard with changing the athlete’s training and nutrition. JESSE: Yeah, I think what I think about is, so I raced last weekend, and it was pretty hot. So, I overheated, it was triathlon I overheated by the run, I just couldn't run very hard. And then by the end, I kind of got to the point where I definitely didn't want to eat in. Like Gatorade, I could take a little bit in, but it's like, I don’t want to say I wanted to pass out, but I definitely wanted to take a nap or something. So, the IRB would definitely say no to this, but I'd be curious to see if you could crank the humidity up, crank the heat up, and then see what differences you could find between fueling during, or see how the appetite changes in that environment saying no fuel for your run, versus like that's a control group versus giving them whatever, whatever it is, whatever sports drink or fuel you want. And then seeing how that changes like post-run appetite, that might be interesting. STEPH: There's actually some really good studies out of the University of Oregon. That's actually where I started my Ph.D and then I transferred to Oregon State. But they did a lot on heat and humidity in their environmental chamber on mostly cycling, because that's a little bit easier to some of these things. So, they have some really good stuff that probably came out in 2000.. maybe 14, 2012, 2014. Chris Minsan, he's not the lead, but he was the advisor on these dissertation projects. So, yeah, it's actually interesting when you start adding variables like heat and humidity, what that does to appetite hormones. Like when I did my study, I tried to keep it narrow, but the more you like read into it, the more questions you have. Oh, would it be cool to do this? And would it be cool to do that? If I could just be paid to be a professional student and just do research like whatever I wanted, that would be my dream job. So, I'm like taking offers, if anyone wants to just fund me it research all these cool things in sports nutrition and exercise physiology, I'm open to it. JESSE: We’ll see what we can do. Go to Part 2 Go to part 3