Duo Athlete
Hi! We’re Shayna and Frank. We’re a couple of athletes here to talk about training, racing, bikes, running, our relationship, and all the chaos that comes with trying to fit endurance sports into real life.
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Bike. Run. Real Life.
Duo Athlete
How We Actually Use AI for Endurance Training
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How useful is AI for endurance training when you still have to supply the experience, context, and common sense?
In Episode 5, we share how we use AI to plan training, calculate DIY race fuel, analyze data, troubleshoot equipment, learn new software, and occasionally stop ourselves from making bad workout decisions. Shayna explains how she combines training history, race details, weather, spreadsheets, and her own experience to get useful answers. Frank shares how he uses screenshots and step-by-step prompts to make AI teach him in a way that actually sticks.
We also talk about privacy, fact-checking, hallucinations, chatbot loyalty, health data, WHOOP versus Garmin, AI coach versus human coach, and the great raspberry-powder fueling experiment that absolutely did not need to happen.
The takeaway: if you have something you want to explore but have no idea where to begin, AI can give you a starting point. Then use your brain.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Everyday Ultra: https://www.theeverydayultra.com/
- Flow Formulas: https://flowformulas.com/
Code: TRYFLOW
- Marji Gesick: https://906adventureteam.com/mountain-bike-events/marji-gesick/
- Some Work, All Play: https://swaprunning.com/
- SWAP Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/swap
We are not sponsored by or affiliated with the products, podcasts, or services mentioned above unless explicitly stated in the episode. Frank is a Flow Formulas ambassador and receives a discount.
This episode reflects our personal experiences and is not professional coaching or medical advice.
Questions? Feedback? We'd love to hear it!
Thanks for listening! We hope this is relatable and brings some value to your training and life. Please subscribe and share the show with another athlete balancing biking, running, relationships, work, and real life.
Welcome to the Duo Athlete Podcast.
FrankWe're Shayna and Frank, a couple of athletes balancing training, racing, work, and life.
ShaynaThis is where we talk about the honest version of endurance sports. Biking, running, relationships, and everything that happens between the workouts.
FrankBike, run, real life.
ShaynaLet's get started.
FrankHave you learned anything from the week or any takeaways or listened to any good podcasts lately?
ShaynaI have actually. I went to the Everyday Ultra podcast live version that Joe put on.
FrankThat was cool.
ShaynaThat was cool.
FrankI missed it, but I was out doing a group ride, but I got I caught a little bit.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankTell us about that.
ShaynaThat was a lot of fun. I mean, he gives a lot of good training pointers. And I mean, honestly, like big shout out to the Everyday Ultra Podcast and Joe because they have changed the way that I train. And a lot of the concepts that I talk about with you or probably on here as we get into more episodes, like kind of comes from their philosophy.
FrankLike time on feet.
ShaynaTime on feet, yeah.
FrankYeah, does that come straight from Joe?
ShaynaYeah, the podcast for sure. Yeah, time on feet and like your your slow runs, like run your easy runs easy. And yeah, I mean I've learned just so much from I just like the little tidbits that you pick up from like the culture, like just ultra running culture and tips and tricks that you learn. So yeah, that would be my takeaway for this past week. I mean, once this episode comes out, it'll be a couple weeks past. But you can definitely go listen to episode 400, I would think, by the time our podcast launches, the Joe's should be out too.
FrankSo And he mentioned you during his podcast? I mean a couple times.
ShaynaYeah, I was in the chat. I was like, hey, wait, but cyclists do this. And I was like, oh, but but I have a I don't know, I had some other things I was saying too. So yeah, you can hear my name a couple times.
FrankThat's really cool because uh you introduced me to Joe and I thought he was a huge celebrity, and then he like paced one of our friends at the race, and I'm like, oh, that was that's cool.
ShaynaYeah, Christy Brinker.
FrankAnd he's yeah, he's super enthusiastic and just his energy is contagious.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankHe's always building people up, and we try to be that way too, so yeah, it's pretty cool. And you were trying to win what during this thing?
ShaynaOh, well, he was giving away entries to the Desert Peak Ultra that he's putting on for the second year. And then he has a another race that he was gonna do, I think, in February that he has yet to announce, like officially, but yeah, it was uh I was hoping to win an entry to the Desert Peak Ultra. I mean, I could just sign up for the Desert Peak Ultra, but I thought it'd be cool if I won an entry.
FrankSo that would be awesome. And there was some coaching giveaways too.
ShaynaYeah, there's one-on-one coaching and group coaching giveaways, and it was cool. It was cool. No, they're they're they're good people, so yeah, that was my takeaway. But my takeaways happen to be other podcasts all the time, because that's where I learn that's where I learn so much about things I'm interested in, is other podcasts.
FrankSo Yeah, and I'm I'm getting into that liking that stuff too. Like the podcast is we when we start our longer runs, we listen to the same podcast and then it's over in an hour or so, and then we get to discuss what we just heard.
ShaynaYeah, what we heard and what we learned and possibly what we can apply to our podcast and Yeah, that hour goes by pretty quick.
FrankYeah. Listening. And I I like the interview style, so yeah, I think you're lately you've been picking those because you know like the first one I first one listened to from Joe, he's like he didn't take a breath and he just talked, and I had to get used to that, and I couldn't at first, but yeah, I I like it now.
ShaynaYeah, he's super high energy. But yeah, we did some interview style. So did you have any thoughts on the ones we listened to recently?
FrankI mean the the last one I was just amazed at. I don't even know remember the lady's name, but she's a coach for Everyday Ultra and she was talking about the race she did and training and what was she in her forties or fifties or uh late forties. Late forties. Or just the mental toughness and the fitness and just her mindset was inspiring. Like how many I can go 72 hours without sleep, it's fine. I could take a 20 minute nap and that's all I need, or I don't I'm not even doing that. I'm I'm I can still move. I'm hallucinating, but it's fine. I I can't imagine that. Seventy-two hours without just running.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankOr, you know, walking sometimes, I guess, but Yeah, but no naps.
ShaynaOr little very little naps or no sli no sleep, I guess is what I meant to say. No sleep, no eight hours of sleep with a pillow and I don't know. What are you talking about? You like to stay up till midnight working on bikes and then get up at 4 30 in the morning and go swim.
FrankI mean we're both night owls, we both said that. Yeah. You know, if we let our bodies just do what they want, they would get out of bed at eleven and stay up till two and but we can't do that because we have jobs.
ShaynaHmm. Corporate America, yay.
FrankSo it's kind of a segue into like you really w have been wanting to talk about this subject of AI and training. We started off talking about coaches, which we thought about getting coaches for running. You thought about it, you're still thinking about it probably. You will you I mean if you would have won one of those coaching packages with everyday ultra and that would have been awesome and you would have been all over it. Yeah. But you're also right now using AI as a coach quite a bit.
ShaynaYeah, sort of. Um, I mean I would say I use AI as like a as a tool because I have to feed it a lot of information. So I don't think it's a direct re I don't think AI is a direct replacement for coaching. I feel like I have to feed it a lot of information and I have accumulated this information over more than several years of just knowing things about my body, knowing things about training, knowing things about strength training. So yeah, no, I wouldn't I wouldn't go as far to say as uh you could just have yourself coach by some AI chatbot, but I am using it in training as a tool. Yeah.
FrankSo for people who think AI is just ChatGPT writing essays, how would you explain what role it actually plays in your training?
ShaynaSo it has it wears many hats in my training, but as a like high-level overview, I have given it some of my training data. Like you can export that out of Garmin. I have given it its own Google Drive folder that it has read-write access to.
FrankUm that's pretty deep into the rabbit hole with AI. That's beyond what I even thought was a a thing possible. Yeah. A totally separate Google Drive that it doesn't have your personal stuff on it that can go everywhere.
ShaynaRight. Yeah, no, like I made it I made like my own training email address so I can make my own Google Drive just for Chat GPT. That's what I use. I'm using ChatGPT.
FrankUm You put a lot of thought into it.
ShaynaYeah, well, I mean the security concerns, I didn't want it attached to my personal email address. So like if for some reason there was a breach and I lost that Google Drive, if I got locked out of that, I wouldn't be so concerned about it as if I got locked out of a different Google Drive that has like probably too much stuff in it that I should probably move. But it in any case, I try to separate the data that I wanted it to have access to.
FrankI mean you're in IT, so you have that IT brain where you're thinking about cybersecurity and information and data breaches and not giving the AI too much of your personal stuff. That's pretty smart.
ShaynaYeah, you could control the access.
FrankI'm not I'm not on that level at all. I'm just talking to it like it's a buddy right now.
ShaynaLike the whole, you know, making files and Google Drives and Yeah, I mean that thing will spit out whole spreadsheets for you.
FrankIt's probably getting tired of me uploading pictures that it has to look at. Pictures of screens. Yeah, because that's what I do. Hey, tell me what this is. I mean, just today I'm I'm I'm messing around with this Chinese power meter, and I'm getting these prompts in in Chinese symbols language, and I'm just taking a picture of it and it's like, what is this saying? And it's like immediately, yeah, I'm good at Chinese. It's it says this, and do this and try this. Right, of course. And download this app. And yeah, I'm I'm I'm right there. So when you first started using AI, what was the first problem AI saw for you that made you think, okay, this is actually useful? And that was probably a long time ago, but I mean you might have been one of the first people that I know that were that was using it.
ShaynaUm Well, honestly, it was it was a pretty it was uh I was like quite a crossroads with my career and the way things were going. And I could I could um I don't know, I'm sure everyone that's ever worked in a job can start to see when things are not in their favor and you start to question the workplace that you're at. So I was like, well, I mean, if AI is so smart, maybe it should tell me what I should change my career to because this one sucks. And you know that's huge career path. Yeah. I mean, like what do you what do you do? Like what I mean that's what what the f the villain origin story is for a lot of people. It's like some something starts to suck real bad and you need to make a change, so now you're down this other rabbit hole. So that's basically what I asked it, was like, how can I change my career basically, but I don't have the means to just drop everything, walk out of my job, and just go back to college. Like I was at quite a crossroads in my life from like I Yeah, so you have to tell it where you're actually at. Yeah.
FrankAnd then where can I get to the easiest right?
ShaynaSo I basically said, how do I change my career by doing basically certifications in between a full-time job and or some side gag jobs that I was doing? So like what's available to what's accessible to me online that I could learn from either free or low-cost certification courses or what have you. So it it recommended a couple things, and like one of the things it recommended was like software development, because you can get on free code camp or codecademy or any of those sites and kind of start coding for free. As long as you have a laptop, you can learn to code. I would still highly suggest that to anybody.
FrankI tried it. Yeah, learning to try it.
ShaynaYeah, so like that's what I mean, that is a legitimate problem that it solved for me, and that's how I ended up at the job that I'm at now. The story is more nuanced than that, but we don't have to talk about the whole entire career path, landing me basically here on this couch.
FrankBut you feeding it the right questions.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankAnd then it played a huge role in your career change.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankAnd I got to watch it in real time.
ShaynaYou did.
FrankAnd it's a great lesson, you know, for people who don't care about sports, but they maybe they don't like their career.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankAnd and they don't have anybody to ask, you know, what they should do.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankSo yeah, that was very cool. And you're you're living it now. You're in the job that you were talking to the AI AI about.
ShaynaBasically. Yeah, essentially. And like still still on that like original path basically of like trying to learn computers and like coding and programming and scripting and yeah. Yeah, so no, that's that's maybe legitimately the first problem that it solved for me. And I think that's what led me to kind of start like playing with it more because when I was learning things while I'm coding, AI is a really, really good at coding, but then it's like also programmed to be friendly and a chatbot and like people pleasing, so then it wants to be like, well, yeah, but tell me why, like, tell me why you coded that line that way, and then it wants to explain it to you. So that's I started using it as a tool to learn things, and that's where I've always stood with AI, is like it is a tool for you to learn things, it is not a replacement for human creativity.
FrankRight, it's just pulling from human knowledge from everywhere. It's got all that database.
ShaynaYeah, it's giant pattern recognition.
FrankIt's all human knowledge. Yes. It it didn't come up with it.
ShaynaIt's and it's never really going to.
FrankAnd it's it's good at making you feel good and telling you you ask good questions.
ShaynaYeah, you're so smart.
FrankYeah, it wants to keep you talking, which if you know that, you know it's not a big deal.
ShaynaRight.
FrankYeah, and I've I've watched you transform into another person with this new career. Like it suits you really well.
unknownThanks.
FrankBetter than better than what you were doing before, obviously. And I mean you literally took a laptop apart and and changed all kinds of parts in it and gave it to me for my birthday, which was awesome because I needed something that worked really good for Zwift and everything and using it for video editing because it and the fans are really quiet.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankAnd it's a badass laptop, so thank you.
ShaynaWell, you're welcome.
FrankI like watching you work on that stuff and talking about it and sending me pictures of what you're doing at work, and you seem to really enjoy it, and there's really the sky's a limit on where you can go with it. So where do you where do you want to go with it actually? Where's what's the goal?
ShaynaUm, the I mean the goal is really just to keep using it like like a fancy tool, like fancy software. So but it's for me to learn because I feel like my my own potential is I mean that's okay, so like that's like that is ultra though, right? Like where where is my potential and how do I reach it? How do I reach my own potential? So if we're talking about AI, like that's all I'm using it for is a tool to try to reach my own potential basically inside my brain. Like how much can I learn to do? And like how much can I teach my little AI to do for me so that I can learn to do other things? Like, what can I automate? I'm gotten on this automated kick here lately, trying to write a couple little scripts and things just to make things like more easy to it. I mean, just for where it translates directly to our podcast is trying to get some like file transfers going automatically.
FrankBut anyway, I mean it's helping us out tremendously because we're crunch of time all the time.
ShaynaYeah, so I like automating things, but I don't know wherever my ceiling is for potential is where I'm gonna take it.
FrankSo I know you wanted to talk about your do-it-yourself fueling mix. Yeah. Can we go back to like where you started, what you started using, and how you got to using AI and actually doing your own DIY fueling mix?
ShaynaOkay, so I had a like I heard a couple years ago on probably TrainerRoad's Um podcast. I think it's Ask a Cycling Coach podcast. They had mentioned like the DIY fueling, but then they kind of said, I mean, my impression, I'm like grossly summarizing my memory of this podcast, is like it was a pain in the ass. Um and then I listen to some more podcasts about, or I would do some more reading articles about like glucose to fructose ratios. I'm doing some research research on sodium, I'm doing research on like here and there, I'm like just putting all the pieces together, and I'm looking at everyone's formulas, I'm reading articles about high carb. So I'm noticing like some trends, like, but it's all I don't know, it's like basically putting this big puzzle piece together. Like, okay, well, I mean, there's only like really two ratios. There's two to one and there's one to point eight glucose to fructose, there's sodium, and then there's manufacturers out there that are adding things in, and there's manufacturers that aren't. So like flow doesn't really add anything in, it's their organic glucose, um, fructose, sea salt, like citric acid, and some natural flavoring, and that's it. And the more I started looking at everyone's like profiles and like their ingredients, I'm like, I feel like I could do this myself, but but I don't know. So I just kept buying fuel. And then I don't know, I started running into some issues with cramping.
FrankWait, did you start with flow? Like for someone who's just starting and just using water for riding and training, like what would you suggest? Like, where did you start? Where like tell me tell me about the progression of where you started with just the progression of my fueling like element and water into oh, I need carbs.
ShaynaWell, the progression really is like I start with scratch when I first started mountain biking because everyone's like, we should probably I mean my first couple group rides was the Tuesday night group rides, and it was obviously the middle of summer in Indiana, so it's hot and it's like 100 degrees.
FrankCorn sweat.
ShaynaYeah, always a hundred degrees. And so being a beginner mountain biker, like cramped immediately. So I started using scratch, not knowing any of the ratios or anything. Someone's like, hey, you should probably just try like some scratch, has electrolytes in it. Like, all right, cool.
FrankAnd then it's got electrolytes.
ShaynaLiterally, that's all I knew about.
FrankI was like, hey, it's got some like electrolytes in it, like it's Brondo, it's got electrolytes.
ShaynaSo I just started using that. Um, but I can never leave anything alone, so I have to research everything. And then I think it was it might have been our friend Greg suggested hammer because I was gonna start racing. I mean I jumped of I'm like, of course Hammer's big with triathletes, right? Yeah, like but I of course jumped from right from being a beginner to like you know what, do people race bikes?
FrankLike, I think I could race a bike because you have that competitive drive.
ShaynaI do. Yeah, I can never put it away either. But so it was yeah, Skratch and then hammer and then infinite. I think that was you. You were influenced by Infinit, and then you had a little I don't know, they were Did I influence you with my Infinit? Yeah, I think you did.
FrankAnd then it was Like hey, this is so customizable. You can I think take these sliders back and forth and adjust everything and and get it completely screwed up and it'll say, Don't do this, but you can buy it anyway, like that if you want.
ShaynaNo, I think it was either like um Is that about it? And then Infinit came out with their own high carb mix and then f around the same time there was flow doing flow formulas. Yeah, flow formulas doing their basically 30 grams per scoop, so their thirty or sixty, ninety mix, and then yeah, that's where I kind of stopped on flow where I was like, okay, well, like me trying to do calculations in my head and buying sodium citrate to add sodium to this mix and trying to buy or add salt, and I'm like, I can't go from 60 straight to 90 carbs, like that's not working for me. Like, I need like 60 carbs and 70 carbs and like 80 carbs and then like 80 carbs on a hot day, that was too much. Let's back it back down to 70. And that's not really that's not really sustainable to do with a pre-mix.
FrankYou needed infinite adjustability.
ShaynaI really did. Like it starts with to the gram.
FrankI'm I'm getting I'm starting to get there because uh, you know, flow, I'm a flow formulas ambassador, I get a discount, this stuff works for me. I'm gonna keep using it, I'm gonna keep telling people to try it.
ShaynaI mean, it is really good. I'm not talking, you know, like this is a really good fuel. Yeah, but people should use fuel, use carbs in your rides and your runs always.
FrankIt's a little like I got a bag of non-caffeinated and then a bag of high sodium flavorless and low sodium flavor, and you can start mixing and matching all this stuff, or you can leave your high sodium bag alone for the next race, and you can use the regular bag, and you can figure out how much salt you need to make it the high sodium mix. And then that's that's when you know you open the door to well, you know what, I can I can add caffeine. I can I can you know rearrange my ratio, I can change the glucose to fructose ratio, I can if I just buy all the stuff in bulk, I can make whatever I want for whatever day, whatever weather, whatever I'm feeling. So yeah, that was your progression?
ShaynaBasically, was I wanted all of the adjustability. I wanted to experiment with olive it. Sodium citrate, salt, what happened there? Kosher salt. Yeah, coarse ground kosher salt.
FrankAnd sea salt.
ShaynaSea salt. Well, you're using the sea salt, but yeah.
FrankWe kind of fight over it. And I can I can never remember when I get the jars out. Which one does she use? And which one do I use?
unknownOh yeah.
FrankI like the thick. Well, your sea salt is what's in flow, so I try to add the same stuff that's in there. Like the citrate doesn't taste salty. Right, so it's not a good thing.
ShaynaYeah, but if you're using like a 1 to 0.8 ratio and like there, that's where I discovered like one to point eight ratio is like super sweet and I like didn't like it. Like that's too sweet. I don't like that actually. Like I think if I can go higher on glucose, maltodextrin.
unknownYeah.
ShaynaI like that better. And I do like it better, because then you can cut the fructose sweetness down with more with just regular salt. So I just stopped using sodium citrate completely, and it's just kosher salt. And now I have a flavorless blend that's barely tastes like anything. It's just like a hint of sweet. I'd have it about perfect.
FrankSo since we're talking about AI, how much did AI affect your idea that you could do this? Like, did you like, hey, can I take I take a picture of the back of this bag? Can I do this on my own and upload it? Is that how it worked?
ShaynaOr so that's kind of how it started because I took a picture of all of the nutrition facts of all the things that was in my cupboard, and I was like, I want to do 90 grams an hour. Well, I'll just use an example. Like I want to do 90 grams of carbs an hour, and I want 800 milligrams of sodium, and this is what is in my cabinet right now. So can you make this work for me? Like how many scoops of whatever the heck do I have sitting around here? Can I just make this work? And yes, it would just generate an answer for me. And I did that several times. I did that throughout the winter because I was trying to figure out I was trying to f I was trying to get my 60 grams down on my runs, because I was struggling to get carbs on runs actually. So I was trying to get 60 at least.
FrankYou just stopped drinking because you couldn't drink any more carbs or how did that go?
ShaynaI don't know. I just like it's cold and it was Oh yeah. It was just it was cold and there's something about like bouncing when you're running that makes it hard to want to consume a bunch of like liquid and I don't know, I was I was struggling with it over the winter.
FrankI need that big sloshy belly when you're running.
ShaynaYeah, like we're I was struggling with it over the winter. So I basically just was trying to experiment with gels and a little bit of scratch and water and how much I was trying to basically figure out how little of water I could get away with without like causing a like nausea, basically. Yeah. Or any kind of belly cramps. So that's where that's where the AI thing started. And then where it ended up was summertime, and I'm trying to calculate assault ratios for um Big Frog 65 Mile, my first what do you call it, marathon mountain bike race for the NUE series and I'm doing all this math, and I'm like, you know what, I feel like I can put this in a spreadsheet. I think I give the spreadsheet to the chat bot and it can figure it out. And it can figure it out. Yeah.
FrankAnd then you can just say a spreadsheet for you.
ShaynaYes, it could. So I was like, I can do this myself, actually. Like this this can't be that hard. All these ingredients that are on the back of this label can be bought in bulk. And I can notate all of these things. Now I'm gonna track it. I'm gonna start making notes. I'm gonna start seeing what mix do I like. I bought some raspberry and blackberry powder that we could talk about later. That's a terrible idea.
FrankWell, we just think we need some flavor because that's what everyone's doing.
ShaynaYeah, like, oh yeah, I need flavor in there. Like, and I'm like, oh my god, I'm gonna I'm gonna mix my own things, so it's gonna be so bougie. I'm gonna get some blackberry powder, I'm gonna get organic raspberry powder. Like nobody out in the market has organic raspberry powder.
FrankWhatever flavor you want because it's all out there.
ShaynaYeah, it's all customizable. I'm so smart. I'm gonna get lemon powder.
FrankYeah, don't do that. Gross. I did that.
ShaynaDumb.
FrankIt's it's uh it's the white stuff on Sour Skittles.
ShaynaIt's the citric acid.
FrankIt's yeah.
ShaynaYeah. Don't I don't know. Flavorless. No flavor at all.
FrankWhich I'm starting to like that. Like and that was part of the infinite thing where you could dial down the flavor. Right. That was a nice option.
ShaynaYeah, I never did I never tried anything flavorless until I tried I don't think I tried anything flavorless until I tried the Never Second Flavorless Gels that I was using over the winter. And then I was like, oh.
FrankYou just taste like sugar.
ShaynaYeah, like that's not actually exhausting to eat a lot of flavorless gel packets. Like it's kind of exhausting to eat fruit punch.
FrankFlavor fatigue is a real thing?
ShaynaI think so. I mean you just have to do it anyway, but it's easier if it doesn't taste like something you don't like, like orange or some oh, passion fruit, gross. Yeah, it's easier if it's something that you actually like.
FrankYeah. So what mistakes did AI help you avoid while you're working on your premix?
ShaynaHmm. I guess I ask it I get concerned with water ratios, not dumping too many carbs into water. Basically that's not your gut's not gonna absorb. So you're gonna get gut rot, I guess. It can help with that. It can I mean I'm sure there's like I can't really think of anything off the top of my head, but I know that there's been times where I've like I'm reading through the formulation and it's making a suggestion about whatever it is I was trying to do or not do. It probably said not to buy any of that flavored powder.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaBecause it has fiber in it. And I was like, it probably did literally say, like, you don't need that. And I was like, Yeah, but it's blackberry, and I love blackberries and so you like to argue with it a little bit. I mean, I was like, it's how much that I mean, it's just a little bit of fiber. No, don't do that. It's like how much how bad could just a tiny bit of fi no.
FrankDid you ask it about caffeine? Like, how do you how did you come up with that conclusion on how to do that? Like you were using like the liquid for a while and now you're doing something different.
ShaynaUm no, I was oh you mean okay, so the liquid that I have in the cabinet is actually sodium citrate. Okay. It just has like glyc like vegetable glycerin in it, so it's a liquid. Yes, you can just like pop the little you just you twist the cap off of it and like the little cap fulls is like the measuring cup for it.
FrankSo you can't buy a big bag of caffeine though, right?
ShaynaI don't know if you can. I've always heard not to. My personal assistant said not to. It said if you mess that up, it's gonna be bad. And I can see why, because one tiny little cap is a hundred milligrams of caffeine. And it's really tiny. And you could even with your tiny little scale that we have, yeah. You can mess it up so fast with a little scoop.
FrankI can mess up the tiny capsules too, because they're hard to hold on to. And they fly across the kitchen sometimes. Hey, can you help me with this?
ShaynaExploded a whole caffeine cap hole of the kitchen.
FrankYeah, it's kind of soft and squishy, and it you can't put much pressure on it, and you're pulling it apart, you gotta twist it, and it's very delicate. And I'm like, I I don't I don't have these big giant, you know, mason hands. What's going on here? I can't hold on to this thing. But yeah, 100 milligrams per hour is plenty.
ShaynaThat's too much. But too much. For me personally.
FrankOkay.
ShaynaYeah, too much for me. But it's a hundred milligrams per cap. So I'm trying to like I will only put like one cap in like a two-hour USWE pack. That's what I came up with.
FrankYeah. And flows like 120 milligrams?
ShaynaPer two scoops, yeah. It's like a lot.
FrankYeah, so if you do three, then you're just compounding that. And then if you do caffeine three scoops per hour per over four hours, then then you can get ridiculous amounts of caffeine, and then you can't sleep right at night.
ShaynaYeah, and your resting heart rate like doubles, and yeah.
FrankYeah, I've been there before. Before I realized what I was doing. We could talk about that at a later date. Talk about the stage races.
ShaynaTalk about stage races.
FrankYeah. So when you're coming up with this formula and you're talking to AI, like what information are you giving it about your about you personally or about what you're about to do or the weather or just because you kind of do you do it every every time we go out to train? You go back over it like a what do I need today?
ShaynaUm, sometimes. Well, like my gym the gym mix is pretty set because that's just easy to measure. Um, but I am it will pull weather by itself.
FrankOkay.
ShaynaAnd if we give it instructions to, because I can just set the instructions inside.
FrankIt knows where we are. Yeah. Where we're gonna run.
ShaynaOr I can tell it that we're or I can tell it where we're gonna run, like if we're gonna travel a couple hours, like, hey, we're running here at around this time. So yeah, it can make suggestions, but I I basically tell it how long I'm gonna run or ride for, how many carbs an hour I would like, and then I really need to get like a H drop or something to monitor sodium and like sweat loss, but I'll tell it approximately how many milligrams of sodium an hour I'm looking for. So it can it can do that. But that's all say is it it all just pulls that from the saved like spreadsheet. So for example, because the viewers might be wondering why I can't just do math in my head, but which you can.
FrankI I mean you can't sit there for an hour and figure this out every time I go.
ShaynaRight.
FrankSo you just have it AI help you do it faster.
ShaynaIt does it, and then like but here's the thing, like so if I was trying to keep if I was gonna maximize the amount of time that the mix is in the cooler, and I wanted to do it per lap, but I'm uh guesstimating I'm gonna do an hour and fifteen minute lapse. So it'll just do all that fractional math for me where it's not scoops of powder like so flow formulas, you just have it per scoop. So if you do an hour and fifteen minutes, you're gonna have to stop and hesitate a second if you wanted to be exact on an hour and fifteen minute lapse. If you're doing a four-hour endurance ride, you're like, um, those those some fractional scoops, basically. Where the fancy algorithm I'm using.
FrankYeah. Or we're doing algebra.
ShaynaYeah. Is like I'm I want 90 grams an hour, but my lap time's gonna be an hour and fifteen minutes. I have a two-liter pack. Go. And then I'm swap I can just swap packs out and then put some in an Nalgene bottle. And it's all measured because I'm using a kitchen scale, like a little grams scale.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaIt's pre-measured and it's mixed up and it's exactly the way I wanted it. And it's exactly as much liquid as I needed and not too much, and then it's all very cold because it can all stay in the cooler.
FrankYou're using AI.
unknownYeah.
FrankAnd then I'm using your brain for storage most of the time.
ShaynaGreat.
FrankHow many times have I asked you what how many milliliters is in a bottle?
ShaynaMm-hmm.
FrankBecause I I go off of hours.
ShaynaRight. You go off of scoop still.
FrankYeah, and then and me trying to figure out how to make high sodium flow mix out of regular by just adding salt. And I got okay, which one is Shana likes to use the sea salt. No, the kosher salt. See, I did it again. I got the sea salt, you got the kosher salt. It's different grams, different amounts of sodium per gram. In those two bottles that look exactly the same.
ShaynaYeah, they're like coarse, well, yeah, because it's like coarse ground. It's different sodium levels per like eighth a teaspoon though, because it's like coarse ground.
Frank1.5 grams has 200 and whatever milligrams, and I'm like, okay, yeah. How many how many milligrams is in the color purple? I d I don't know. Just like type this and look in Google and okay. So yeah, and I have them writing this all this down in my notes app, and now I know I need you know one point just one point five grams of sea salt per hour.
ShaynaI think you need a spreadsheet. I think everybody needs more spreadsheets in their life.
FrankYeah, I'm starting to learn spreadsheets. I'm in the office now.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankI'm doing spreadsheets.
ShaynaYeah. I mean, I also use it not just for like fueling, but I use it for like the training plan also. Like I fed it the um feet per like the Marji course.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaAnd then I told it about where Marji Gesick?
Frank109 miles. duathlon duathlon.
ShaynaYeah, so if you haven't heard, that's uh like a hundred K mountain bike and then like forty-four-mile run afterwards.
FrankThat is our big event we're training for. We have other things in between, but Yeah.
ShaynaBut it has all that inform that course profile, and it has the cutoff the buckle time cutoffs. Like I gave it all this information. Like anything that you would anything that you would have given a coach or a coach would research for you, like how many feet per mile the course is, how long the course is, where it is, what the weather's like that time of year.
FrankHow many feet of elevation per mile, right?
ShaynaYes. What did I say something?
FrankAbout 5,280 feet per mile. You said how many feet per mile, which I thought was funny.
ShaynaOh. Feet.
FrankHow much elevation per mile?
ShaynaI was like, am I saying something clear? No, you're no, I'm just No. I was like, what am I I'm just being cute. I was like, is my mouth uh ahead of my brain?
FrankNo. Sometimes it is, but not now. Go ahead.
ShaynaOkay, thanks. Um anyway.
FrankYeah, that's crazy. The yeah, you d how long would it take you to sit there? I mean, it might be fun if you had the time. Because I like doing the math before a race and figuring all that out, but we don't have time for that.
ShaynaIt might be fun. But also it just knows that, and then we I start building. But here's the other thing too. I don't just use it to spit out a training plan. I'm still over here researching, literally taking notes out of other podcasts. I'm like, oh, they start their VO2 max phase when? Oh, that's interesting because cyclists use their VO2 max at the end, and runners are saying they do theirs before their own.
FrankAnd you're feeding this information into your questions, right?
ShaynaSome of it, but not all of it. Some of it I just store in my brain. And some of it I just store elsewhere. I mean, not all not all of my notes actually go in the there. And sometimes I feel like kind of protective of other people's like possibly proprietary information. I do, I feel I'm like, well, if I feed it to the algorithm, then the algorithm just owns it then. And I didn't kinda that's not my original idea. I'm like, so sometimes I'll even like well I wonder what it'll come up with on its own. Yeah. Because I'll listen to something educational or read an article, and then I'm like, I wonder if this thing will come up with if it comes up with it on its own, then I don't feel bad about it. But I just it feels like plagiarism, I guess. If I just rip somebody else's training plan off, I'm not just gonna feed it to the AI, like because they they spent time on that too.
FrankYeah. So they spent time with their AI on it.
ShaynaThey might have, but that's still their thing that they came up with. So like sometimes I store notes like off of it too. Like, no, I'm not gonna feed that I'm not gonna feed everything into it because that really wasn't my original idea.
FrankI think everybody's chatbot is talking to each other.
ShaynaProbably, but I still felt like oddly protective of someone else's intellectual property.
FrankYeah, that's very commendable of you. I like that.
ShaynaYeah, I didn't wanna I'm not gonna share it unless like they do first.
FrankI mean that would be The things you store in your brain are amazing. And I feel like I owe you money for using your brain as storage all the time, and I can't remember anything. And like I we we were riding yesterday and we ran into an old teammate, and like it took me how long to figure to remember his first name, and I feel so bad. How many you came up with I love you, but I I'm terrible with names, and it's been a while since I've seen you, but I finally remembered, and then it and then I spent two laps trying to remember his last name? Trying to remember his last name, and I remembered his wife's name first. And I didn't think I was even thinking about it, and then it just and then I started just you're like, what are you saying back there?
ShaynaI know because you just come you were just saying stuff out of the blue completely.
FrankYeah. I just then the last name just popped in my head when I wasn't even thinking about it. And that makes me wonder. You know, I got all these boxes in my brain, and the the box that holds the names. Like I want to look around in there and see what else is in there.
ShaynaOh yeah.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankBecause there's bound to be some good stuff in there. But let's let's let's get back to AI. Has AI ever talked you out of a bad training decision or plan?
ShaynaProbably. I remember this one time I was I sometimes I beat myself up for not training as much as I think I should be training. I think everybody goes through that. Like you're like you don't really feel that good or something's going on, but then like you sort into the spiral where you're like, well, I need to be doing more volume or I'm never gonna get to this race that I want to do, and I don't know, I spiral like that sometimes. I'm pretty sure it's talked me out of trying to do a really cold gravel bike ride and then immediately get into a run.
FrankAnd I'm pretty I'm pretty sure it talked me out of that crazy So you tried to plan that like a brick workout when it was super cold? Yeah. And it's like you it's too much. Do you remember?
ShaynaI think it called me a goblin.
FrankWell, yeah, it knows you pretty well.
ShaynaOr a gremlin. I think it called me a goblin. It's a Trishana's training goblins. Endurance goblins. It's obsessed with goblins.
FrankThat's a side tangent of I mean you must have mentioned that a few times, so it knows you like it, so it I probably did because I think it's hilarious.
ShaynaBut it didn't talk me out of it, and I was like, alright, fine, whatever. So yeah, it it has. Like, obviously it was a bad training idea. I knew it was a bad training idea, but I needed somebody else to tell me.
FrankSo you did listen.
ShaynaYeah, no, I did not do that break workout that day.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaI I did something else instead, or I got on the trainer. I probably got on the trainer because that's a smart thing to do when it's like twenty degrees outside. Is get on the trainer or a treadmill or go to the gym.
FrankSo it has told you to rest when you didn't want to, and you listen to it.
ShaynaI guess so. Like not I guess so.
FrankOnce or twice.
ShaynaYeah, I guess so. That's my catchphrase. I guess so.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaDidn't want to listen. I don't want to listen to anybody. That's my problem when I when anyone asks me about coaching, I'm like, oh, that'd be so much fun. And I'm like, oh man, I have a real problem with people trying to tell me what to do though. I have a problem with it. Yeah. Like you got like uh all this explaining and all these note takings, and like I wish I could just like follow a coach blindly, but I would be asking them so many questions as to where they came up with that idea because I'm just So you'd be a terrible athlete. I might be because possibly because I just want to know like where that's interesting.
FrankLike, uh would you be worried about like their feelings come into play at all?
ShaynaI feel like I would be annoying because I'm like, okay, well, I understand like you made me this training plan, and I understand you have experience, but also out of my own curiosity, where did you come up with this?
FrankLike explain this a little bit better.
ShaynaYeah, like why why do you like that's the other thing too? Uh my curiosity sometimes comes off as being like bitchy, I guess. Because I'll just be like, Well, why are we doing it this way? And I didn't mean it.
FrankLike I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, honestly.
ShaynaWell, I didn't mean it like why are we doing it this way? Like, I'm not questioning your intelligence. Oh, yeah, you're so funny. You're hilarious.
FrankI'm hilarious.
ShaynaBut yeah, I don't know. Like, I just I feel like I I would eventually just feel bad for a coach who's like, you wouldn't not shut up and leave them alone.
FrankSo people who are too curious, want to give too much feedback, or also have a little problem with authority, AI might be good for them.
ShaynaYeah. But wait, there's more.
unknownJust kidding.
FrankNo feelings, no feelings to hurt, no expectations. I mean, you can just say, nah. How about I do this? Okay. That's a great idea, Shayna.
ShaynaThat's great.
FrankYeah, you wouldn't get that from a coach, probably.
ShaynaNo, probably not. But I also want to learn how I want to learn all the coaching methods though, too. So I'm not just out here blindly following anybody ever. I'm out here taking notes from other coaches, I'm out here listening to podcasts, I'm reading articles, I'm reading um summaries of like studies. I don't have the time to actually read studies, but I will read like summaries or you know, someone else is gonna take that time like notes of peer-reviewed studies. Yeah, like I guess shout out to the SWAP podcast, the some work, all play. Okay, Megan and David Roche.
FrankOh yeah. Yeah, I love their yeah, yeah, I love their sorry, we said the same thing at the same time. Well, I mean, you started it and you got me hooked on them, and I love their energy, and I you know, I want to try to emulate that a little bit. And by the way, I'm I'm liking this one a lot more than some of the other ones. Um they're crap. This one's a good one.
ShaynaOkay, good. Well, we can't be good all the time. I know that.
FrankYou know, I know that.
ShaynaIt's gonna be it is what it is, you know. But yeah, so like they kind of summarize some studies and then like I find that highly valuable information and then like store it in my brain and wonder how I can apply it. Or sometimes they do the hard work for you and they're like, okay, well here's what the study said and basically if you are just trying to make this work for you, like they came out with like a super simple heat training program on their Patreon. And they have like a lot of programs on their Patreon too, and I think that's really cool.
FrankThat's a paid thing.
ShaynaUm they have some free they do have free things on their Patreon.
FrankCan we go back one for one second?
ShaynaYes.
FrankGive a um a shout out to who like say it again, what their their names are and the name of their podcast for anyone who didn't catch that.
ShaynaOkay, so it was SWAP, some work, all play. Some work all play. Yeah.
FrankSo just search for that.
ShaynaYeah.
FrankOkay.
ShaynaAnd they have a Patreon also. David and Megan Roche. You know, like the goat, David Roche. Yeah, okay. Leadville David. Yes. Yeah. Okay, so and they're really funny and high energy too. Like they're really cool to listen to. And I got I was l I was watching his documentary also while I was on the trainer the other day. But anyway, let's stop fangirling about No, you don't have to.
unknownThat's fine.
ShaynaUm I got lost.
FrankPodcast trainer.
ShaynaWhat was I talking about?
FrankWell, we were talking about AI, obviously.
ShaynaRight, right.
FrankAnd you not being a good trainee athlete for a human coach and why some people might do better with an AI coach.
ShaynaOh, but I was talking about all the research I do. Like, I don't know, I'm trying to give myself some credit. Like, okay, but I do try to research the things that I'm supposed to be doing and not just out here, oh, I'm s and like claiming to be like, oh, I'm so self-coached, and then just like doing random workouts. Like, and I do use training software, which uses AI also, like, but TrainerRoad has a TrainerRoad lives in my brain sometimes, and we can have a whole other conversation about that software, but um Yeah, which is also AI driven.
FrankRight?
ShaynaYes.
FrankBut it's not always accurate.
ShaynaNo, it's not but doesn't know you. I know, and there's so there it's so difficult for any software to try to interpret power numbers from both running and riding, and their software doesn't even recognize power number running power numbers from running. So I get it, I get it. It's TrainerRoad, literally, it's for bikes and cycles.
FrankIt's for it's for road bikes mainly. It does transfer to mountain biking and gravel and all that.
ShaynaI know, but they they market it pretty hardcore and it's not just there's not just two people in the whole world that's cross-train or train in other events or race two events or whatever. But anyway, I went off on a tangent.
FrankThat's okay. We had an interesting conversation yesterday, I think it was about being loyal to your chat bot. And I was asking you, like, you okay, ChatGPT was the first one that kind of came out that I knew about, and I started using that. And you know, there's been other ones that have had more research put into them, and maybe they're a little bit better, but neither one of us want to change. Instead of just jumping to the next thing that might be better and starting over and just you know continuing on. We're like, okay, but this one likes me. This one knows all this one knows me. You know, yeah.
ShaynaWell, also I've trained that one, and it has its own little Google Drive, and it has its own little like I have all these little project, it's not just the training, like I have all these other project folders inside for for work. I have some for like classes, I have some for this podcast, I have some like that's like like tech, but it's like crossover from home lab and this podcast and building servers and building like there's so many nuanced little things inside of just Chat GPT that I yeah, it makes me very sad to think if I had to transfer all of that information over to a different model, like for what reason when that one is doing a good job. Like, okay, maybe if I start a whole new project, a whole new thing, and all I wanted to do was like coding because I don't have a dedicated project folder to coding, and then someone told me that Claude could code better or teach me to code better, be like, okay, well maybe I'll try that out. Maybe I'll try Claude out for coding since it seems to be so much better for that, but I don't have a use case right now to just switch models.
FrankYeah. And also like well, mine knows what I do for a living, it knows who I'm with, it knows what I like. Yeah, it makes jokes, it makes me laugh out loud all the time because it knows the humor that I like. And I'm I've never really hit the up or down thumb like I don't do that. I do I do tell it, hey, I don't like that. I don't like when you ask me which which answer would you prefer. Like, don't ask me that.
ShaynaOh, you don't like that? I love that. I hate that.
FrankAnd I told it that I hate that, and I told it how it feels. Like, it just the conversation that I'm having, it just cancels that out completely all of a sudden, and it feels like I'm being managed. And like you make the decision how you want to answer, and I'll decide if I like that answer. I don't want to every fifth answer pick which one I like.
ShaynaOh, that's interesting. I like that because I'm like, ooh, customization, yes.
FrankYeah. That's how we're different, I guess.
ShaynaYeah, like no, I like I don't know, like, because I've picked a couple answers, and like no, super customized this one for me. You know what answers.
FrankWell, you're paying for yours, right? I am because you can't do all the things that you're doing because I'm not it's not gonna just gonna generate a whole entire spreadsheet for I don't know how the algorithm works because I have literally had a meltdown of some sort and been chatting for 18 hours straight. And it has never said that's your limit, bud, give me five dollars for this.
ShaynaI think it has to do with if you ask it to generate like images, or it has to use like extra extra data center power.
FrankI did notice that when I was trying to get it to help me come up with race plates in like I had a picture of one and I had some logos, and it it was not doing a good job. Like the first one it did was awesome, and then I when I wanted to tweak it a little bit, it just went crazy. And it kept saying, Oh yeah, the the imaging software it's not syncing upright.
ShaynaAnd I've run into that too. Sometimes it is just hallucinating, so I don't know. But yeah, I do um I do have a subscription to it.
FrankSo I could not do the things that you're doing with the free version.
ShaynaI don't know. Like I I've had a per I've had a subscription to it before they changed the subscription model even, so I'm not sure. Because I started using it pretty heavily for learning how to code and I was running into the paywall pretty fast and I was like prompted you. Yeah, so honestly, I was like, okay, well, this amount of money per month is less amount of money per month than all of the things combined that I'm using it for.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaLike, and I know it's not perfect, and I know I have to do my own research, but I'm perfectly happy being a human that learns how to do things, and I'm happy to be a human that learns how to fact check my tool that I'm using. And like if I ask it a question and then I read the answer and I'm like, hmm, I don't know, that seems weird.
FrankYeah, so it's been completely wrong and you've caught it.
ShaynaLike how do you I don't know if it's been like completely like off base or if it's I can't come up with an answer off the top of my head, but I know for sure that I will open another browser window and like look something up just to double check it.
unknownYeah.
ShaynaLike once in a while. Yeah, once in a while. I'm like, mm, I'm gonna look this up myself, the old the the old way. That's so funny.
FrankI catch mine being wrong all the time, and uh go get me an encyclopedia the old way. And what does it do when you say uh hey?
ShaynaOh it's it's just like oh my bad.
FrankMy bad.
ShaynaMy bad me. Yeah.
FrankSorry. It hasn't I mean I haven't seen anything recently, like it's getting a lot better, but but it's it's not trying to mislead you, it's pulling information that's not correct because there's all kinds of misinformation out there.
ShaynaYeah, and it's not so and I mean it's supposed to be able to filter it and stuff, but honestly, like that that stuff is so complicated that I mean humans get duped all the time too. Like just the scroll through like Reddit once in a while, and like if you scroll through Reddit and then you understand that the chatbot you're talking to has also scrolled through Reddit and Twitter, then you can kinda understand where it might get the wrong idea once in a while. So yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of forgiving.
FrankYou just have to So what's what's the best way to fact check it for someone who hasn't even tried?
ShaynaI mean just look up Just Google. Well use yeah, but no, but don't use the don't use the AI version of Google. Like scroll past that. Or don't use the AI version, like use a search engine that's not trying to pull an AI answer and like look for an actual article. Look for the facts, like look for your look for your receipts, basically, of your what you're trying to figure out. Learn it yourself. Like again, it's just a tool. So it's cool to use it to shortcut things or to make things automated, but also use your brain.
FrankJust like anything. Yeah. You don't just watch the news and listen to what they're saying because there's usually an agenda.
ShaynaRight. Yeah.
FrankAnd if it sounds too good to be true, or if it sounds too off the wall and it gets you all emotional, it's it's for a reason. Yeah, like if you get all wound up about it, just look it up for yourself.
ShaynaRight. That's yeah, that's my advice for using AI is like understand that it's just a very fancy tool for you to use and it's not a replacement for human creativity, and it's not an excuse either.
FrankI mean you can kind of tell that it's limitations and understand what's happening. Like, I'm having to learn this editing software for the podcast, and I'm using it to help because you've you've shared a thousand videos of your life. Right, because that's how I learned and women and men, humans doing it and teaching you.
ShaynaYeah, because that's how I learn.
FrankAnd sometimes I can't find it, and you know, it's it's not following the trajectory of how I want to learn something step by step because I want to be doing the thing while I'm learning progress on editing, right? And it kept telling me to do things that didn't exist on the and I'm like, that is what is happening? Like that button doesn't exist that you're telling me. And I kept taking a picture of the screen and saying, This is this is what I'm looking at. Like, where is this thing you're telling me to? And it was like, oh, my bad. I'm going off of a different version of that software. And I was like, okay, here's what we're gonna do from now on. You're gonna you're gonna tell me what the next step is. I'm gonna try that step. I'm gonna take a picture of the screen of what it says, and then you're gonna tell me if that was right or wrong, and you're gonna explain it to me what's happening, and we're gonna go step by step. Because once I learn how to do it one time, I want to stick to it, I will remember that, I will get good at it. I don't need several different ways to do the same thing.
ShaynaWhy not? The software does.
FrankYeah, and yeah. I'm I'm getting I'm getting good at it.
ShaynaYeah. I mean, yeah, that's just like one example of like learn learn it's just a tool to help you learn how to do something because you're gonna store that information in your brain, you're never gonna ask it again.
FrankSo you you have gotten better at asking the right questions.
ShaynaI think so.
FrankAnd giving it the information it needs.
ShaynaYeah. Yeah. I I try to give it. I mean, I if I want an answer from it, I'm basically typing a paragraph. I'm not just asking it like a Google search. Like if I needed to answer something or to or to fill in some gaps in the training program or to make a fueling plan, like I'm typing a paragraph.
FrankYeah, because you learn right away that it's gonna ask you those questions, so you might as well give it all the information you can think of that's relevant.
ShaynaYeah, or it's not gonna ask you those questions and it's gonna it's gonna give you a paragraph of unusable information. You're like, oh, I didn't give you sometimes. I do apologize too. I'm like, I'm so sorry, I did not give you enough information to answer that question. Let me try again.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaBut basically I'm typing and if I'm typing a paragraph in to give it to get it to give me an answer, that means that it would take twice that amount of work for me to get my own answer. So that's why I'm using it. Because it's gotta be faster. I'm still typing a paragraph in, but it's gotta be faster than whatever rabbit hole I'd have to go down, or m math I would have to do to figure out that answer, or to not even know where to start.
FrankSo So how much information does your chat bot know about you?
ShaynaProbably too much.
FrankLike how much history, how much medical history, how much like how much information have you fed it to get really good answers and get and and make a really good training plan personalized for you and maybe for me. Like how much have you told it about me?
ShaynaActually, I haven't really told it anything about you.
FrankBecause I've told mine all kinds of stuff about you.
ShaynaOh, okay, that's nice. Um, I don't really think I've told it that much about you. Like as far as like your training data. It has my training data for the past almost a year now. I've exported data into it. It has my like a basic background of my athletic abilities. I don't know, like I'm still the determining factor on how fast we're building like volume on our runs. Like, I'm still the one that's like how many hours are we gonna ride bikes? Like, I'm just using it as like a general structure. Or I will tell it so like if we made a generalized plan. We did make a generalized plan. Like I made a generalized plan in the spring to go from like the spring through March. It was like March through September or whatever. So we did that, and then I will upload some of my rides sometimes. I'm like, hey, can you analyze this against the plan? Can you look at this pace, these zones? Like, are we on are we on track here? Or do I need to make some adjustments or you know, like what do you like just like little check-ins? But I I really wanted to look at the courses that I've uploaded and the training plan, and then look at the data I've uploaded about my riding and running and kind of just like compare that kind of thing.
FrankSo Yeah, I mean it's it's the training plan is working. I can feel it working.
ShaynaYeah, I'll say some of those are like weightlifting suggestions, but again, I'm using my own I'm using my own expertise from power lifting and just general fitness and kind of feeding and I'm I'm prompting it. Like I am telling it what I believe the training plan should look like because like if you go out and search around online, like a lot of the running plans, like their strength training, just does like legs, and like I knew immediately that wasn't gonna work because we ride mountain bikes. So right off the bat, that's gotta be custom.
FrankLike we ride because if we're working legs all the time, it's gonna our riding is gonna suffer, or because we're already doing so much legs as no, because you need your upper body to ride a mountain bike. Yeah, okay.
ShaynaBecause you need like for me personally, like I needed my upper body to be stronger for the mountain bike. Like my grip strength needed to be better, like my upper body needed to be more durable, like my triceps and just like the general like the general beating that you get from your mountain bike after being on it for six or seven hours, like if you strength train your upper body, we'd like you can reduce their generalized fatigue. So that's why we're doing upper body. Because if we weren't like if we were just road cyclists or whatever, like I wouldn't be so concerned about it, but I can tell you at a last like long ride, my upper body felt less beat than it has on any other long ride we've ever done.
FrankYeah, I'm right there with you. I can tell the weight the lifting is doing a lot. I was it was like a moment where I got kind of stalled out in a rootie section and I had to put some power down with my left leg and uh it's just it felt like muscle memory from doing the box step ups.
ShaynaYeah, yeah.
FrankLike I could I could feel that, you know, that workout in that moment. And I'm like, oh and I don't I don't know if it's you know I I wouldn't normally use that leg to do something like that. I would I wouldn't have or but I definitely felt the strength and I just immediately was like, okay, this yeah that's affirmation that that these workouts are are doing something good.
ShaynaYeah, no, I definitely feel like my upper body, like my bike handling skills like the longer that we went on into the ride, like my bike handling skills didn't suffer from fatigue. I think I still had I still felt pretty snappy and able to overcome roots and rocks and general obstacles. So yeah, no, I mean I think strength training equals bike handling.
FrankYeah, so steering this back into AI a little bit, like we we talked about or you were talking about all the apps have AI now, and it's it's kind of irritating, right, to you?
ShaynaIt is, yes, it is to me. Like not every little thing needs a chat bot, like a WHOOP, like we just I'm doing that WHOOP free trial right now to see if I like it because you upgraded yours and like it has this little chat bot in it, and I was like, would you shut up?
FrankLike Oh yeah, sorry, Lauren, that I told you I was gonna give you my old WHOOP. I didn't see you forever, and Shayna used to hate it because Garmin did everything it the WHOOP did for free, but she suddenly decided to try it once she wanted to try it, so well when we talk about poor Lauren.
ShaynaUm I was like, yeah, if we ever do an episode on like cycle timing, like training around your cycle, then I'll explain more about the WHOOP. But yeah, basically the little chatbot inside Whoop, I was like, oh my god, would you shut up? Like I already have one, like I already have so much data fed into mine, like I don't need I don't need this. But honestly, it's kind of grown up.
FrankChat GPT.
ShaynaIt just has so much information already. Like, I don't need because like the WHOOP was like, How many days a week do you train?
FrankYou're like, oh my god, I'm not going through all this again.
ShaynaWhat are you training? Are you training for a race? Are you just trying to get fit? And I was like, Oh my god, I've already typed this out so many times. Like, just shut up.
FrankI'm so far ahead of you on this stuff. I don't need this.
ShaynaYeah, like I already, yeah, like meh. So I gave it like general information. Now, okay, like I'm a couple like a week into using it. I'm like, okay, that's that's kind of cool. Okay, I don't mind it. I don't mind it, but I'm not having full-fledged conversations with it. Like at once, it's like, how are you feeling this morning? How are you feeling after that ride? Wow, that was a big run that you had. And I was like, no shit. I know that. I just ran it, it was a half marathon.
FrankYeah, and I was I was just commenting like people who don't use the AI in the in the chatbots as much as we do probably enjoy that aspect of the apps that have the AI. Because they all do it because yeah, it's I guess it's easy. Right. Because it's easy to add a chatbot to your app, right?
ShaynaRight. And so, okay, so if like if Whoop was the first thing that you ever use AI for, and you're using AI to anal like I'm not making fun of the Whoops AI, like that's not what I'm saying. If that is what you use to plan your training and analyze your data and your recovery and your sleep score and your fatigue and whether you should push harder one day and you should back off the next day and plan your rest days, like by it is probably really good at that, and like you should use it for that if that's the only if that's the first one that you use and it has it knows you and it has a memory, perfect. Love it, love that for you. I'm just talking shit because I already had one trained. Now I don't feel like training another one. Like it feels like I don't know, it doesn't feel like starting over, and you're like, I don't I don't feel like typing all this out again. Like, can you read the cliff notes from maybe I should have one AI take cliff notes and give it to the other AI? Well just getting them to see. Yeah, I don't know what model like Whoop is using because like not all the models are like so friendly.
FrankSo But you think it's gonna give you some more information that the Garmin is not giving you?
ShaynaYeah, they're a little more in depth on their like recovery metrics and their sleep and the way that they overlay the data. Um like basically on top of your cycle. For me, that would be interesting to know. So that's kind of what I'm looking for. But like if we just like lightly talk about my hormone shifts throughout my cycle, I'm I'm I'm starting to like pay attention to like some patterns there. So that's what I was looking for a WHOOP. It's gonna do that a little better than Garmin. It Garmin will give you the data but you'd have to kind of overlay I don't you have to like splice it together yourself. Yeah. I'm not doing that. I want something else to I want something to automate that for me. Like I you already have all the data points just put it in the right order so I can see it the the correct way.
FrankSo as far as like information that you feed it like I have and I I think you have too taking screenshots of your labs. Oh yeah for sure saying okay what do I need to do here is this I need to I want to optimize my health right yeah I don't want to be somewhere in this bar of green I want to be right either right in the middle or a low or high whichever whichever is optimized. Right like blood volume or yeah you've uploaded your labs and have you learned anything um well first I did labs and that's a huge oh yeah that's a good idea everyone should do labs.
ShaynaYeah first first go probably before 34 what oh yeah whatever I wasn't having any issues I just went and that was something that the AI helped me with though because I like don't know how to ask for stuff sometimes but again I was like researching something on iron and iron levels and I was like maybe I should have mine tested but then my personal assistant was like well if you're gonna have that tested then it gave me some like other some other ones to like test so basically worded that into a message into my doctor's office I was like hey I'm gonna do some like heavy training this summer and it's hot out and I'm just like looking for athletic performance so can you help me with this and get some like labs ordered so then they ordered a bunch of labs. No questions asked right no they didn't no they did not ask any questions and then comes to find out that I'm like insufficient in one area so then that comes with a prescription again they don't even call me they're just like hey by the way like that's low so we're gonna give you a prescription for it. Like okay cool glad good to know good glad I did the labs because if we're over here in optimization land and you're insufficient in something like that's not very optimized. That's not very good for you. Some people might not notice it but if you're constantly pushing the edge of fatigue and what you can recover from like you probably want your labs to look good. So there was that but then I also so then I took the lab results and the prescription that they gave me and yes I stored that but I didn't just like give it to you I like stored it. I was like yeah here's this batch of labs so we can compare it to the next batch of labs the next time.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaAnd then I have asked that some questions on like what to do but I don't really have anything I don't have very much else to do besides what I've already determined for myself before I got the labs. So I'm just gonna be waiting for the next like round to see if I've improved my history of multiple years of labs to see what's trending. I mean I do for some I do for some things but not not to the depth that I took these most recent ones.
FrankSo how how much do you think the AI when you ask it something how much is it going into the Google drive and looking up and making sure it knows everything you've given it to give you the best answer?
ShaynaUm it depends on how I prompt it actually.
FrankOkay so that's a good question. What's the best way to prompt it? Yes so it gives you the gives you the answer like it knows everything about you on that subject.
ShaynaSo I just I mean I when you load instructions I gave it all the file paths for the inst for the Google Drive so when I reference something like if I say nutrition spreadsheet it can look at its own instructions that I've given it and then go into the nutrition spreadsheet but it depends on how I ask it so like if I just generally say hey can you give me a mix for an hour like 90 grams it's probably just gonna it's gonna use its own memory for that because it's done it before it's not going to reference the spreadsheet. But if I say hey I want you to go in the training spreadsheet and I want you to look up the past four weeks of training and I want you to compare it to the plan and I want you to compare it to how we executed it and then I want you to spit out an answer. Like there's yeah there's a big difference there.
FrankYeah.
ShaynaBut it depends on how you ask it. It's not going to go reference the drive all the time because like that takes extra energy so I mean it's like me. If it can answer you without using all of its brain it's probably going to unless you make it use all of its brain and go reference things.
FrankI don't have any files but I have all the conversations you know and I've I've asked it before hey can you go back through all of the old conversations like anytime you want when you're answering me and it said no but it has a memory. Yeah it has a memory it can re it can reference other yeah you're an electrician so you you think of it this way and you want to you want to learn it this way so we're gonna we're gonna attack this problem together as two electricians.
ShaynaAnd I'm like okay I don't remember telling you that and definitely didn't tell you that in this conversation but I mean no yeah it has a memory tied to your you can go in your settings like a side topic you can go into your you can go into like the app preferences and you can find what memories it has. Because I've gone in there and like deleted some stuff like I've deleted events out that I've done already and it kept saying like oh when we get ready to go do snake and I'm like buddy actually it's May like we already did snakes I'm just gonna delete that out of your memory dating when you're like you're supposed to remember everything.
FrankYou're not supposed to make mistakes like that.
ShaynaAnd I'm like oh you poor thing let me just delete that out of your memory and we'll go back to snake next year.
FrankBut I'll just kind of on the spot but do you have like a weirdest thing that it's ever told you or that you've learned from it or I got some I ask it all kinds of I mean what's what is this on my body or what's this pain mean? Am I dying? Just you know just things like that.
ShaynaLike I've always talked about using it like WebMDs. Yeah pretty good it's always going to tell you you're like what kind of cancer is this is it always training wise that you're that you use it for or is it health and training in the podcast and uh it's it's very highly technical highly technical low emotion.
FrankLow emotion. Low emotional thing oh I sent it pictures of my Franken toe that one time my toe that turned black after oh yeah the weirdest blister like under the nail bed blister what is that?
ShaynaI know I sent it to it. That's probably weird that's probably the weirdest thing I've ever sent it I don't know if it's I'm sure it's seen weirder things.
FrankHas it ever made you worry?
ShaynaNo.
FrankMine has one time I'm never worried about anything at one time I was like oh man what what is happening right now? Like this is not good I mean I don't know if I want to go into the story but you don't have to okay maybe for next time.
ShaynaYeah so you could save for another episode. So in your opinion coach or AI for you it's obviously I mean you would be coached right if if you won a I would for sure take the feedback of a coach. If I had to recommend it if I had to recommend something for for anybody I would a hundred percent recommend a coach because not everybody is gonna want to nerd out on what I'm nerding out on. Yeah. Like I'm over here thinking about VO2 max and lactate threshold and I'm thinking about optimizing training and I'm I'm thinking about how weightlifting impacts your quads and I'm I'm learning about people that are using downhill running to strengthen their quads and like like I'm eating it up like and not everybody is so interested in the training aspect of athleticism that they wouldn't do all that. So I would say coach.
FrankOkay. And you would take Joe as a coach for sure.
ShaynaFor sure or any of the any ultra coaches yeah any of the everyday ultra coaches like they're I mean I like obsessively listen to that podcast and everyone's like so cool. So I think you would make a great coach yourself actually oh you're I'm so nice feel like you're coaching me for running yeah you think I have the patience to deal with other people huh?
FrankI mean you have the patience to deal with me so far. Yeah just you though use it all of me I can't coach you because I got this one athlete who's a knuckle his head's full of knuckles and I it's all I got. It's all I have capacity for like I don't know have you seen the way I try to deal with other people also like you mentioned I work in IT do I look like a people person yeah I'm just getting I am customer facing IT so I'm somewhat of a people person but I don't know where this episode's gone getting kinda getting kinda long we might want to yeah we didn't I don't the timer's not going so I don't know how long it's been going on but an hour 16 minutes 30 seconds do you have like a like if someone who's n never used a chatbot or AI like what what would you tell them like one thing they could use it for to maybe help their the life or enrich their life or just help something small or because I I mean I use mine a lot and as motivation or just small things like working on the car or just problems that I you need help with or you have to find another topic that you don't know where to start with and that's probably the best use case for it.
ShaynaIf there's been something that you've wanted to explore in your life or you wanted to learn about but you're like I have no idea where to even start with that. That is the question for AI.
FrankYeah that's a good one. That is an If you don't know where to start it'll give you a start.
ShaynaIt'll give you a start but then use your brain and don't waste I would say don't waste resources of AI that you don't you can use your own brain for because like it's not a replacement for human creativity.
FrankWe could go on and on about the data centers and the political I could and we have our thoughts on that but we do. It's uh we've been doing this a while so do you want to say good good night?
ShaynaI could I could say see you guys later um we are on all the major podcast platforms.
FrankThanks for listening.
ShaynaYes thanks for listening you could also be watching us on YouTube right now so thanks for watching like and subscribe like and subscribe um might add some more features later into the podcasts where we can take questions so if you're listening to this and we've added those features feel free to send us a question if you have them some fan mail or what have you come playing around with our our uh RSS feed oh cool media host. We might do some on location podcast podcasting runs yeah we might rides yeah that'd be cool get some more hardware yeah so we'll try to put links to revel relevant things in the show notes but yeah thanks for listening to us on the podcast platform and thanks for watching on YouTube and hope you enjoyed and gained something from us yapping on the couch for over an hour and hope it's educational and yeah.
FrankAnd I did so good staying on topic this time and not leaving you all over the damn place.
ShaynaYeah. Good job.
FrankYou're welcome.
ShaynaGood job. You're an excellent co host. Appreciate you.
FrankOkay.
ShaynaAll right.
FrankGood night.
ShaynaGoodbye
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