Dave: 00:00

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Dave. This is the Trail Talk Podcast, where we talk all things fitness tech, wearables, GPS watches, shoes, ultra marathon running, being a dad, whatever the hell is on my mind on a given week is what we talk about here on this podcast. Now today, if you are, watching or listening on YouTube, you're gonna notice that I don't have a video to go along with this episode of the podcast, and that's for a couple of reasons.

Dave: 00:31

I decided to throw it back to the old days how how I started this podcast, just hitting record in a spare bedroom of my house and and just speaking my thoughts. And when the camera is aimed at you and you're looking at the lens, I feel like it does change how how I talk and it's a little less natural. Maybe I need to get better at talking in front of a camera. I don't know. It's my job.

Dave: 00:54

I should be better at that, but I'm not. So anyways, today is gonna be an audio only version. And another reason why is just because as you might have noticed, if you're a fan of the podcast, I really appreciate you. I appreciate you sticking around for all the silly episodes I put out there. And you might have noticed that ever since I introduced to the video version of the podcast on YouTube, It's been harder for me to keep up with posting consistently posting episodes, and that's mainly because audio is a lot easier than video.

Dave: 01:25

Video requires editing, you have to watch the whole freaking thing, cut in the graphics, put the you know, sync up the audio and camera angles, have multiple camera angles. It's a it's a lot. So you probably don't care about this topic. But the moral of the story is that I'm gonna start putting out more audio only episodes because they go to YouTube anyways, so you can still listen to it. And who cares about seeing my stupid face anyways?

Dave: 01:51

And if you do like the audio the video version, don't worry. There there's gonna be more coming soon. I think I'm gonna save the video version for, like, when I have a guest or when I have, like, big news or, you know, just wanna have more time to set up. But today, I've got my cup of coffee. I'm sitting here in my freaking pajamas, so I'm not turning the camera on.

Dave: 02:10

Okay? Anyways, let's just move on to the topics of this podcast because it's been a while. I feel like I need to catch up with you guys every everybody listens. Again, if you are a listener that's been around, I can't believe we're into the sixties on episodes now. I think this is, like, episode 63 or something.

Dave: 02:27

I could be wrong. But I really appreciate you and for you to keep tuning in and and listening to my ramblings. I really appreciate that. Now what's coming up on the podcast? Today, we're gonna be talking about a few different things.

Dave: 02:40

I wanna quickly go over the podcast in general and maybe put some feelers out there for for you, the listener, to to provide some feedback for me. Because I feel like it's this podcast has gotten a little bit stale, and I wanna revitalize it and bring it back to life. I I also have a couple housekeeping things I wanna mention before we get into this. The first topic of this whole podcast will be all about, Chase to Summit. Sorry about that.

Dave: 03:06

But I have a lot of things going on, and, I'm gonna speak my thoughts and tell you the secrets being going on behind the scenes on this podcast because you are probably the person that would care about this more than someone watching the main channel, if that makes sense. But before we get into it, as usual, I wanna give a huge shout out to the Patreon members. There's a bunch of people on Patreon. You've been supporting me for a long time. I honestly don't post enough on Patreon to warrant your support, but I do really appreciate you and and everything you've contributed so far.

Dave: 03:41

And if you are interested in, you know, helping out in in providing support to the podcast and getting a glimpse behind the scenes, check out the Patreon that's in the show notes and in the YouTube description down below. I also do have, YouTube members enabled on the main channel. If if you wanna do that, I I really appreciate that as well. And there are gonna be some more things coming to Patreon. I've said this before, but I actually have like a whole bunch of merch.

Dave: 04:08

So if you if you don't know, the merch store has been going crazy. I've been generating about I've designed and manufactured a whole bunch of new hats and t shirts, and, we'll talk more on that in a minute. But be through the whole process of designing this new stuff, I've actually ended up with, like, a whole pile of merch that is not going to be sold in the store, but there's nothing wrong with it. They're just designs that didn't, like, make the cut. So what I'm thinking is I'm gonna take all these, instead of, like, donating them locally, which you know is admirable.

Dave: 04:41

But I think what I wanna do is, just send them out to Patreon members for free. So if you're a Patreon member, hop over to Patreon. I'm gonna try to set something up where you can put in, like, your shirt size or something and maybe I can mail these things out to you. And hopefully, you like them because, again, it's gonna be luck of the draw. I have, like, sweatshirts and t shirts and stuff.

Dave: 05:02

Some are, like, blemished. They got messed up in printing, and some, they just you know, their designs I'm not gonna use. But, hey, they they still look cool, and I want someone to wear them. So if you're a Patreon member, check look out for that post. If I remember to do it today, if not, just stay tuned on the Patreon because I'll post that in there.

Dave: 05:21

Okay. So thank you Patreon members, YouTube members, it means a lot and your continued support is crazy. So, in this episode today we're gonna talk about a few things. 1st again, like I said, we're gonna talk about Chase to Summit, what's been changing, what's going on behind the scenes here, and what's coming down the road. This summer is gonna be crazy.

Dave: 05:40

On another thing we're gonna be talking about is Vermont. The Vermont 100 endurance race is kind of my a goal race. We are currently 6 weeks out from it. So that is like a free train coming at me. On top of that, we're gonna talk about my shoe situation.

Dave: 05:58

Like, you care about my shoe situation, but I care about it. So we're gonna talk about it, and that's very dramatic. And then, of course, we're gonna jump into the fitness tech news. Not a whole lot going on in the tech space, but there are some things that I wanna talk about. I I was out in, Los Angeles, California for camp Strava.

Dave: 06:18

So we'll talk about that experience. Gonna talk about the spring energy gel debacle that's been going on. You might have heard about this for an ultra runner. We're gonna talk about the new Amazfit Helio ring. We're gonna talk about, the Garmin Whoop killer that should be coming someday, and I made a video about that on the main channel if you haven't seen it yet.

Dave: 06:38

And finally, we're gonna talk about the new Garmin Connect, in the outpour of interesting comments that I've been seeing about it. Okay. Hopefully, you care about those topics. And along the way, I'm sure I'll digress into lots of other avenues, So stick around for that. Okay.

Dave: 06:55

So first topic, Chase the Summit. What's going on behind the scenes? Well, if you haven't noticed yet, head over to chase the summit.com because I have completely revamped the website. The website is completely redone top to bottom. I put a lot of time and money and effort into it.

Dave: 07:12

And along with that, I've also developed and designed a whole bunch of new merch. We've got new t shirts. We've got new running performance apparel, and we've also got 7 different hats available now. It was just kinda crazy, you know, just a couple of years ago, I was struggling to come up with the funds to finance just having one hat like the original chase to summit hat. And here we are a couple years later, 7 different hats.

Dave: 07:38

All these hats are custom designed by myself in conjunction with textile mills that I've been working with, and they are awesome. They're all awesome. So, if you haven't checked them out yet, check out the chasetosummit.com website. Check out the new hats. There's a couple on pre order right now that no one's really seen yet.

Dave: 07:57

I've kept it pretty quiet, but as soon as they, come into stock, I'll be advertising them a lot more. And also check out the t shirts because, again, all this stuff is, like, locally made and stored in inventoried in my house and I ship them all out by myself. Like every order is printed in my house and my family and I, we work together to, to get them out the door. So it's not your typical crappy YouTuber merch. It's actually, it's actually really good stuff.

Dave: 08:23

If you haven't yet, check it out. Shameless plug on the website, but I need to turn more faces over there. And if you know anyone looking for cool t shirts or hats, obviously recommend them to check out the website. What else? Oh, yeah.

Dave: 08:37

So more stuff coming up on the YouTube channel. I'm gonna be doing a lot of travel this summer. My wife is not too stoked on that because I'm gonna be out. I'm not sure I should even say. But yeah.

Dave: 08:51

I'm gonna be traveling, in June this month. We're gonna be traveling in July And there's potential travel in August. All for new and exciting things that are coming soon. So I think, you know, it's safe to say that the season is warming up literally here in New England. It's been like 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit every day here.

Dave: 09:14

But I think, like, the fitness tech space as a whole is starting to churn and we're gonna start seeing a lot more stuff from people, you know, companies, the big companies out there, small companies out there, lots of products coming. And on that on that note, there's also I'm not invited in person, but on Friday of this week, we've got Apple's WWDC event that, typically they announce, like, new software features for their products. And I'm not sure what we're gonna see there, But it is interesting. You can kinda almost, like, expect you can almost come up with what they're gonna announce by who's invited. So, of course, I follow a lot of these, you know, tech reviewers on YouTube.

Dave: 09:58

So if you see, for example, my good friend, Raymaker there, DC Raymaker, he's invited in person to go to Cupertino. He he, showed that in his Instagram stories yesterday. So I can only assume that there's gonna be something wearable related. I could be wrong, but who knows? You know, I wasn't invited personally, to be there in person, but I will be watching, the live stream.

Dave: 10:22

I'm probably gonna do some sort of recap video if they do cover anything like the Apple Watch space, and I'm excited to see what comes next. I think if I had wishlist items for Apple's WWDC event, I would say, I hope they improve the mapping and navigation on the Apple watch. Like, instead of the, you know, the offline map they gave us last year at WWDC. If you're unfamiliar, they added offline mapping to the Apple Watch, but it relied on your phone. So it wasn't really offline.

Dave: 10:53

Like, you needed to have your phone in your pocket, which would store the maps on the phone, and then your at your Apple Watch would like fetch the maps from your phone, which was a really weird implementation in my opinion because the Apple Watch has plenty of storage to have maps on board, but that's not the how they decided to to implement it. Anyways, I hope they fix that. Maybe add some more, you know, running dynamics or running specific features or hiking stuff, that would be cool to see, but time will tell. I have no insight. There is only, like, all these rumor sites out there.

Dave: 11:26

So there's that. Okay. That I kinda jumped ahead to the tech news, but let's jump back to Vermont 100. So the Vermont 100 endurance race takes place on July 20th at 4 AM, 4 o'clock in the morning. And fun fact, I had a brand invite me out to Death Valley to do some, like, product testing and running and stuff that I was really excited about.

Dave: 11:51

But it was, like I think the travel dates were, like, July 16th to 19th. And I'm like, do I really wanna travel before I'm signed up to run a 100 miles? Probably not. So I ended up backing out of that, which is a bummer because I was looking forward to it. But, so the Vermont 100, July 20th, 4 AM start.

Dave: 12:10

I'm gonna be running this race solo, which I have a little bit regret about at this point. So I won't have a crew. I won't have a pacer. I'm gonna try to run the entire 100 miles by myself. I did this, back in 2022.

Dave: 12:25

And in 2022, I believe I finished in 25 hours and, like, 15 minutes. My goal this year, I think I'm in better shape, but I am also 2 years older. My goal is to try to get sub 24. I don't even know why I'm saying that publicly because it's kind of a big deal to go sub 24 there, but I'm gonna give it my all. And fun fact, I actually turn 40 years old.

Dave: 12:53

I'll turn 40 years old just a couple of days before the Vermont 100. So this is sort of how I'm celebrating. I'm gonna turn 40 and then I'm gonna try to run a 100 miles. We'll see how that goes. In terms of training, I've actually been dialing dialing things up pretty aggressively.

Dave: 13:10

This week, it's only it's only Thursday. I've already got 35 miles in the bank. And today, I'm planning to run route right after I've, record this podcast. I'm trying to nail down 50 miles a week, and then, you know, we're only 6 weeks out from the race. So for the next 2 weeks, I'm gonna try to put in, well, next 3 weeks or so, 50 plus miles a week and have some structure to it.

Dave: 13:37

So I've been trying to do, like, speed days, like, short fast sessions, and then longer endurance sessions with hills and trying to get more time on the trail. And I gotta say, I'm I'm actually feeling I don't wanna, like, jinx myself, but I'm feeling pretty darn good right now. I feel like I've been I've lost a couple of pounds, just from the increased accuracy and trying to dial back things like alcohol intake and eating a little healthier, trying to clean things up a little bit before the race. And, yeah, feeling pretty good. So I guess, you know, I I don't wanna get ahead of myself and say things are gonna go well, but, yeah.

Dave: 14:13

I'm I I I'm actually feeling like I've actually trained for this race, which is something I don't typically do. I usually sort of wing these things. So like I said, I'll be running this one solo. I'm still trying to iron out details like my race strategy, and even like so this race is unique in that they actually offer free camping for everybody who's running They there's this giant field, they it's called Silver Hill, and they allow anyone to camp there for free the day before or the 2 days before leading up to the race, which is, you know, really nice and financially a good thing because you don't have to pay for a hotel room or anything. And I've been trying to decide if I wanna do that or, like, get a hotel room.

Dave: 14:54

Think I'm gonna get the hotel room. You know? Fragile little me. I don't know if I can I'd be able to sleep in a tent before running a 100. I know a lot of people do it, but then there's, like, you know, people all around you snoring.

Dave: 15:09

Maybe people are staying up too late. I've heard nightmare stories about, like, the, porta potty door slamming shut every 10 seconds all night long. So, I think I'm gonna do what I did a couple years ago and get a hotel room. And I haven't even booked that yet. We're 6 weeks out, so I should probably be looking into these details.

Dave: 15:27

And, if by chance you are someone who will be at the Vermont 100, I'd love to hear from you. If you're listening to this on YouTube, comment down below. Let me know if you're gonna be there. And, yeah. Pretty excited.

Dave: 15:40

So, that's Vermont. I guess my strategy there will be go out slow, maintain. It's funny. One of my goals at this race is I always tell myself, you will see the sun go down. Because the race starts so early at 4 o'clock in the morning that, you know, like, the sundown is 12 hours 14 hours away sometimes.

Dave: 16:04

The sun doesn't go down until, like, 7 or 8 o'clock. So my goal is to watch the sun go down and get through the heat of the day. Nighttime, things cool down, start moving faster, and hopefully that strategy gets me a finish. I'm looking forward to it. I'm I'm super freaking nervous, but I'm I'm looking forward to it.

Dave: 16:24

And on that note, let's talk about my shoe situation. My shoes. So I have a 1,000,000 shoes. I I feel like a jerk because I have a literal closet like filled from the floor to the ceiling full of shoes, from both that brands, you know, brands send me shoes to test them out, and hopefully, they end up in a video. And sometimes they just want feedback.

Dave: 16:48

Other times, I buy the shoes and I wear them couple times, but they're not for me. And the problem is, like, I'm so sensitive to my shoes now that I only wanna wear a specific shoe for for road running and for trail running. And lately, I've been wearing the HOKA Rocket X Twos on the road. They're like a great all around shoe. The problem is I just want to buy a new pair.

Dave: 17:11

They're very expensive. They're $250. Just kind of a bummer, but I do love them so. And I just went to buy another pair, and I can't find them literally anywhere in my size. And I think it's because they're planning on coming out with a new version.

Dave: 17:25

Like, I don't know anything about this, but I'm assuming the fact that I can't find the old version means that there's probably a new one coming. So I've looked everywhere. I've looked at local running stores. I've looked at marathon sports, REI, the running warehouse runners warehouse, all the stores, no one has a poker rocket x 2 in ascent in a men's size 11. So if you're, listening and you know where I could get those, let me know.

Dave: 17:50

The only place I found them were on eBay and they appear to be counterfeit, which, might end up being a video in itself. But, when it comes to what I'm running the the Vermont 100 in, it probably wouldn't be the Rockets anyways because those are like strictly road shoes. The Vermont 100 course is like, there's a lot of road, but it's it's all dirt road. I'd say the the entire 100 miles is probably 70% dirt rolling dirt hills and then 30% singletrack or narrow trails. The problem is, like, the roads are not, like, easy road miles.

Dave: 18:29

They're there's tons of elevation gain. In the 100 miles, there's a 17,000 feet of elevation gain. And it's not like any one big climb. It's just like thousands of these little ups and downs and climbs. Like, you're always climbing or descending.

Dave: 18:44

There's no flat anywhere on the entire course. So like shoe selection, you're kind of in a spot where you could pull off road shoes. I I ran them in trail shoes last time, and now I'm in this debate this decision making process of, like, do I go road or trail this time? And I don't know. And I also like now I all of my shoes are worn out and I typically run ultras in ultra montblanc boa shoes.

Dave: 19:12

And again those seem like they're being replaced because I can't find those in my size either. So I'm in this point where I have a bunch of worn out shoes a big race 6 weeks away and I might need to switch my shoe model. So if you're a shoe connoisseur by chance comment on the YouTube and let me know what shoes I should be trying out. I have like this clown foot where my mid foot like the middle not the forefoot where everyone wants a wide toe box like the ultra toe box gives you that wide like in the toe area super wide. But like the mid foot area for me is where shoes tend to pinch me.

Dave: 19:49

I have like this wide instep. So if I get a shoe that has that typical hourglass shape to it where you have the wide heel and the wide forefoot, but the middle will always pinch my foot. So I have a weird shape and and that's where I don't know. I have to, like, try on a 1,000,000 shoes to make sure they work for me because in a distance like a 100 miles, if you have any little hot spot or niggle like early on it's gonna blow up in your face. So you gotta make sure your shoes are like dead perfect.

Dave: 20:18

So that's the drama when it comes to my feet. Aren't you glad you came here to listen to this about my feet? Okay. Next topic. Let's jump into the tech news and talk about camp Strava.

Dave: 20:31

So if you missed the main YouTube channel video, Camp Strava is a event that happens out in, Los Angeles, California. It's really like a media event. They invite, like, you know, people writers from, like, outside magazine and trailer runner magazine and whoever else. But there's also, like, a big portion of the people who attend that are in the brand side of things. So you'll have people from Garmin and Apple and Coros and, you know, all of those major brands, clothing brands are there.

Dave: 21:04

I bumped into a lot of people there. And then on top of that, there's like a whole segment of, like, influencer style people, which that word makes me cringe, but those people are also there as well. So all in all, it was about 300 people. And it was like a variable who's who of if you look up runners on Instagram, basically everybody was there. I bumped into Mike Coe, Kaffuzzi.

Dave: 21:30

I bumped into Floris Gierman who's works for he's a co founder of Path Projects, but has his own YouTube channel about running and training. It was a lot of people there. Tommy runs was there in, Olympic athletes and everybody in between. So quite a spread of people, and it was cool to meet and mingle. I think that was like the the main reason why I wanted to go.

Dave: 21:54

You know, Strava invited me which was super cool so I could like learn about their new products, but in the back of my mind, I was like, who's going though? I really wanna know so I can meet them and, you know, just meet more people in the industry. So it was super cool. And everyone was really down to earth. We got to go on a run together, in Glenwood, I think.

Dave: 22:16

People are gonna kill me because I don't know the name of this. But basically oh, no. Griffin? Is it is it yeah. It's Griffin Griffin Park Griffith Park.

Dave: 22:23

Basically, where people go to run to see the Hollywood sign. We got to run there. It was my first time seeing the Hollywood sign, which was super cool. It was, a lot further off in the distance than I expected, but fun nonetheless. Now when it come to came to the actual Strava event and what happened there, they they announced a whole bunch of stuff.

Dave: 22:43

Basically, it was like a keynote. Like, you know, how Apple has a big speech about their new products. Same here with Strava. They talked about things, and you would have seen this in the main video that I put out on the main channel was, they they're starting to build out safety features for women. They basically have women in mind with these features, but it kinda benefits everybody with things like enhanced privacy features so you can, like, hide when you started an activity or hide where you typically start your activity from.

Dave: 23:12

They just made that whole privacy thing a lot easier. They also brought AI features to Strava in the form of what they're calling athlete intelligence instead of artificial intelligence. Right now this is kind of like a I don't know. It's not that impressive. I've been testing it for the past couple of weeks.

Dave: 23:30

It basically takes your activity and then AI kind of translates that into just a quick summary of what that activity did. So if you like yesterday, I ran 14 miles in the heat. It was 90 degrees Fahrenheit out, very hot, good Vermont training. And athlete intelligence after the fact when I uploaded it to Strava said something like, great job. You really crushed it in this heat.

Dave: 23:55

You kept your heart rate at a good stable level. This shows your training is improving your fitness or something like that. So it basically takes all of your metrics and then tries to break it down into a quick summary of what that activity actually did for you or what you should walk away with. But right now, it's like it's almost like very obvious. Like the things that tells you it's like you spent most of your activity in zone 2.

Dave: 24:18

This is good for endurance. Okay. That's cool. But, like, don't most people know that? I guess not everybody but like I don't know.

Dave: 24:26

The stuff right now is pretty straightforward. So it's it'll be interesting to see how athlete intelligence, you know, evolves over time. But they also added a bunch of new features for groups. So if you're if you're not a member yet, go over to Strava and join the chase to summit. I think it's called summit summit chasers or chasers of the summit.

Dave: 24:47

Strava group you can join. And they enhanced the group features by enabling group chats, group challenges, and things like that. And finally, probably the biggest announcement at the event was that Strava rolled out dark mode. And I know what you're thinking. Dark mode, why is that a feature when every other app on the planet has that?

Dave: 25:08

Well, Strava explained this. Basically, they explained that dark mode is not as simple as it seems. Like, a lot of people just think, hey, flip a switch and invert all your colors and you'll have dark mode. But from what the CEO of Strava stated, it's that dark mode is, like an infrastructure thing. They had to go back and basically rebuild the entire app to make dark mode work.

Dave: 25:32

But now that they did that, their infrastructure is much more streamlined and optimized. So future updates should be much quicker than how long it took, for dark mode to be enabled. In the dark mode video, they had, like, a promo teaser thing for dark mode. It's actually available on the Strava the Strava YouTube channel if you wanna watch it. It was pretty hilarious.

Dave: 25:54

It was like, CEO Mark Mike Martin reading out loud hate comments from Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, like, asking why dark mode has taken so long. And it was pretty funny. If you haven't watched it yet, go check it out. Moving right along, next topic. Let's talk about spring energy gels.

Dave: 26:15

So if you're an ultra runner, you probably know what spring energy is. It's a nutrition brand. They've been around for a couple of years. Technically, I think they're like a startup company, but they've grown to a point where a lot of people really rely on their gels. So what happened what happened to to Spring Energy?

Dave: 26:34

Well, they've they've had multiple products advertised at a certain carb level, like a really high carb level and a decent amount of calories that turns out not to be true. In particular, the one that sort of blew up is a product called spring awesome sauce. And awesome sauce, this is where things get really social media dramatic. I've been watching it unfold from my little corner of the Internet, and I I don't know how I feel about it. Basically, awesomesauce is a product that spring energy came up with in conjunction with David and Megan Roche, who are podcasters.

Dave: 27:14

They're they're on the swap podcast, the some work all play podcast, where they talk all about ultra running and everything else. I mean, they cover just about every facet of life. I've really enjoy I've really enjoyed their podcast over the years, and they're also incredible trainers. They've got a whole roster of athletes who really crush it out there. But the point is they used to be several years ago spring sponsored athletes.

Dave: 27:40

And during that process, they had the opportunity to come up with a flavor of spring energy energy gels, which they dubbed the name, awesome sauce. Basically, the the roaches came up with the name and they helped develop the flavor, I guess. They got to do a bunch of taste testing. But other than that, that was, like, basically their involvement in it. Now fast forward a couple of years, it turns out this awesome sauce product is advertising a certain amount of carbs and calories that are just not true.

Dave: 28:10

And it's not just not true. It's, like, way under what they're advertising. I think awesome sauce says something like 45 grams of carbs, and they're really there's really only, like, 15 or 16. I I forget the exact numbers, but the point is it's, like, way under way way under what they're advertising. And, you know, if you're relying on that nutrition label for your ultramarathon and you're you've dialed yourself in to know how many grams of carbs you need need every hour or whatever, that's a real problem because you're taking down these gels that are just not enough for what you're you've calculated out for yourself, which could lead to things like bonking in a race, having stomach problems, you know, all the bad things that can happen.

Dave: 28:56

Now that's in the best case scenario. Right? Like, that's a silly little race thing, and, you know, it means someone may not finish a race. But on the flip side, imagine you're like a diabetic or something where the nutrition facts on the label are super important. And that's where things become, I think, pretty serious for spring as a company because I think this can result in a pretty big fine on their end, and it's really blown up on the Internet.

Dave: 29:24

It first started on Reddit where someone did, like, their own, you know, testing, unscientifically. And then it it got to a point where they started doing more scientific testing. And then it got to a point where another coach on the Internet did his own testing. He sent it to a lab, and his findings were, again, that the the product was not as it advertised. However, this other coach on the Internet decided to make a video about this, and in the process throw Megan and Dave Roche, David Roche under the bus in a really, aggressive way.

Dave: 30:01

Now I have no involvement. They probably don't even know who I am. But it it was, like, a really interesting thing to watch unfold because typically in, like, the trail and ultra marathon world, you you don't see a lot of hate, you know, I don't know. No. I guess hate's not a great word.

Dave: 30:21

That's probably the right word to use. You don't see a lot of people trying to throw each other under the bus. Typically, in this sport, everyone's trying to bring each other up and be supportive. But in this situation, it was quite the opposite. And I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

Dave: 30:35

I understood the frustration of this coach, but also there was a lot of negative comments in that short video. And if you I'm not even I don't even know why I'm talking about this. I guess the point is Spring Energy Gel is in trouble. And depending on what happens with the Food and Drug Administration, it could be a huge fine that I mean, it might even put them out of business at this point. Who knows?

Dave: 30:58

Because it's pretty serious to falsify your nutrition labels. And another thing I learned that I think is super interesting about this whole process is that nutrition labels on food are not tested by the FDA. Like, they don't do their own testing, I guess, because that's impossible. There's so many there's so many foods out there that, you know, for them to independently test every little thing that's on the shelf of every single store and on the Internet would be impossible. So, basically, they take your nutrition label for what it's worth.

Dave: 31:31

And and and then, you know, down the road, if there's 3rd party testing that proves otherwise, that's when you can get into some trouble. And that's what we're seeing here with Spring Energy. Interestingly enough though, you can still buy this stuff online, and a lot of websites that carry it are selling it at half price. So if you are an athlete that uses spring energy and you found it works for you, you really like it, this could actually be an opportunity to scoop up a huge amount of it for pretty cheap money, I guess. That's all I'm gonna say about that, but I felt like I had to just bring it to light because what a weird situation that that really is.

Dave: 32:07

Okay. Next up, let's talk about the new Amazfit Helio ring. This is a product I did a review on on the main channel, and it's really interesting. If you if you didn't watch the review, the big showstopper feature of the Amazfit Helio ring is that it ties into the same ecosystem as Amazfit's watches. And what this means is you can have sort of a hybrid ecosystem of having a smartwatch and a ring that both report data to the same app.

Dave: 32:37

In I'm I'm like shocked that Amazfit is the first the first to do this. I mean, they're a big company, but like I expected this from Garmin or Coros or, you know, Suto or even Samsung. They have their their ring coming soon. But Amazfit here is the first company that I know of to actually make a ring that ties into the smartwatch experience as well. So they treat the ring as almost like a compliment to your smartwatch.

Dave: 33:03

You can use it by itself, but the whole idea is if you're somebody who doesn't like to wear a smartwatch to bed, maybe you hate the feeling of a a watch being on your wrist 24 hours a day, but you still use a watch to track your runs or your rides or whatever. But you still wanna get all of that wellness data, like your step tracking and calories burn, your stress, and your sleep data, now you can because you can wear the Amazfit Helio ring 24 hours a day, collect all of that wellness data. And then when you go on your run, you could throw your AmaceFit Cheetah Pro or T Rex Ultra, whatever watch on your wrist, and then you can gather data from that source as well. And the Zepp app actually intelligently merges that altogether, removes duplications, and just makes it a really seamless experience. And I actually had pretty low expectations going into testing this.

Dave: 33:54

But so far, it's actually worked really surprisingly well. Even the way it, like, merges the data is, it's very seamless. So pretty impressed overall. If you haven't yet, go check out the Amazfit Helio review on the main channel. It's an interesting product, and I can only imagine more will be coming from other brands in the very near future.

Dave: 34:14

That brings us into the next topic, Garmin. I made a video a few days ago that has gotten a ton of views. So I think it's got, like, 25,000 views in a couple of days. And I feel like everybody has the same frustration I have with a product from Garmin that doesn't exist. Imagine, if you will, a whoop band.

Dave: 34:37

If you know what a whoop band is, it's essentially a a simple heart rate sensor you wear on your wrist or your bicep that collects to, like, your all day health and wellness data. It's got a really streamlined, smooth looking app, and it's got a a pretty big cult following. But the problem with the WHOOP band is it's like just one device with one app, and it doesn't tie into the ecosystem like the Amazfit Helio does, for example. That's where I wish Garmin made a device like the WHOOP band, but for the Garmin ecosystem. Because, again, there's a huge percentage of people out there, a huge segment in the Garmin world, the Garmin user world that's wearing a big watch like the Phoenix or Epyx watches that maybe can't sleep with those watches because they're big and clunky and have sharp edges and they're not great to sleep with.

Dave: 35:28

And I'm I I can only imagine how popular a simply simple little band like a Whoop Band would be to complement your watch. And the funny thing is that video I made about this whole dilemma and what I think Garmin should do, what product I think Garmin should make, they were like there's like thousands of comments on that video now. And there's so many people saying, yes. I want this. Take my money.

Dave: 35:52

I'd buy it tomorrow if it existed. And I think it is like a really interesting it's like a marketing research video for Garmin. I I hope they saw it. I hope they read the comments. In fact, I should probably just email it to their PR team so they can actually read through it because it's, like, overwhelmingly people want this, And it just doesn't exist right now.

Dave: 36:13

Like, they do have the Vivo smart series, I think, or Vivo fit series that is kind of what we're looking for. But, again, that still has a screen on it, so it's not really like a whoop band. What we're looking for is a screenless passive device that you kind of forget is there that could be in the form of a ring or a band that will still collect data when you're not wearing your watch. That's where we're all what what we're all looking for. And the use cases there are people who can't sleep with a watch, people who like mechanical watches and don't wanna have a smartwatch and a mechanical watch because that's kind of a a dorky move, I think.

Dave: 36:50

And, just people who don't want, like, an like, a complicated thing on their wrist with a display, I think that's where this would be really interesting. Anyways, if you haven't yet, go go read through the comments of that video as well because I thought that that was interesting. Oh, yeah. One more thing I wanna talk about with Garmin is the the new app experience. Holy crap.

Dave: 37:14

So the Garmin Connect 5 I think it's 5 point o. Garmin Connect 5 point o is here. It's available publicly. I've been testing it in beta for, like, a couple of months now, and I made a video when it was in beta. In that video, like, it got a lot of views up front, and then it kinda died off.

Dave: 37:31

But lately, it's come back to life with all these comments because Garmin decided to roll the beta version out to everybody. So now if you own a Garmin watch, you've probably noticed the app on your phone has changed. It's updated. It looks different now. It's got, like, little tiles instead of, like, a vertical scrolling thing.

Dave: 37:48

You can scroll sideways at the top. There's the in focus section, then the vertical scrolling section. There's like square tiles. It just looks a little bit different. The functionality is basically the same.

Dave: 38:00

It's just the app looks a little bit different. And I gotta say, what an outroar. The community is pissed about this. The Garmin community is overwhelmingly hates the new Garmin Connect app, which I find kind of odd. Like, I don't really care.

Dave: 38:19

I saw the change. There were some things up front I didn't love about it, then they fix those things. And now I'm like, meh, whatever. It still works and gives me my data. But there are people out there that are like, I'm leaving Garmin.

Dave: 38:32

I can't even look at this app. I hate it so much. I'm gonna buy a chorus because of what they did to the app. So I don't know what the path forward is here, like, from Garmin's position. I'm sure they've gotten the negative comments as well.

Dave: 38:46

I think they're gonna go one of 2 ways. Maybe they'll do another update down the road to make it you know, try to smooth out the edges and make it a little bit more like what it used to be, or they're probably just gonna stick with what they have in the new version and expect everyone to just get used to it. And that's probably the way they're gonna move, I would bet, because I don't see them going back and flipping the switch to the old version. So if you're a Garmin Connect user, buckle up. I don't think they're gonna change it.

Dave: 39:16

It is what it is at this point. But I'm sorry. For those of you that are so passionate about the app and absolutely hate it, your your, voice is loud and clear. I get it. I'm sorry.

Dave: 39:29

So that's that's sort of the end of the, fitness tech talk. Again, not a lot in this episode, but there will be next week, I'm sure, because we do have Apple's WWDC event. So I will do another podcast about that. With that said, let's move right into the q and a, the the listener q and a section of this podcast. If you're unaware, in order to get my q and a questions, I post on Instagram.

Dave: 39:55

I make a story on Instagram with that little question box where you can fill in a question and send it over to me. And then I take all those questions, and I read them out loud on the podcast. So if you're interested in being featured on this podcast and having me read your question, head over to atchase to summit or is that how old people say it? Follow me at a just atchase to summit on Instagram or or threads. And if you just have a question you wanna send to me, feel free to DM me that question instead of waiting for the question story or just email it to me using the website chase summit.com and hitting the contact form.

Dave: 40:32

Any of those ways work, I'll put them all in the next episode if you wanna be part of it. With that, I have a bunch of questions from people, so let's dive right into them. The first question comes from the Vermont 100, their Instagram account. Thanks for following me. So the Vermont 100 asks, best adaptive assistance technology for runners.

Dave: 40:52

That's a great question. And if you didn't know, the Vermont 100, it's a it's a charity event for the Vermont Adaptive. And the Vermont Adaptive is an organization that tries to to, provide adaptations for typical sports that people with disabilities may not be able to do. So for example, if you've been in an accident and have no legs or arms, they find a way to let you, you know, get into mountain biking or rock climbing or canoeing or whatever it may be. They adapt those sports to help out those athletes.

Dave: 41:26

And I think it's a real noble cause. It's really awesome that they do that in the Vermont 100 endurance race is a huge contributor in donations to the Vermont Adaptive. So really good organization. Check them out if you wanna make donations. I'll drop my donation page in the show notes of this podcast.

Dave: 41:45

But getting back to the question, what is the best adaptive assistance technology for runners? So this could be this is kind of a tough question. When you say runners, I don't know if there's, like, a big push. I you know, what comes to mind is at Vermont, there's a lot of visually impaired athletes that are running, and this is just mind blowing to me that these people can run a 100 miles and they can't actually see where they're going. So instead, they rely on guides.

Dave: 42:15

There's someone running with them, shouting out, you know, where a rock is or where there's a tree or where there's a turn, and they make it. It's unbelievable. So every time I I feel like complaining about how I feel in a race, you just have to remember those people that have a much harder race ahead of them that are not complaining. They're still smiling, and they're running faster than you. I guess one technology that would be useful in that situation for for for example, a visually impaired runner would be turn by turn navigation.

Dave: 42:44

Some watches have it, some don't. And I think if there was turn by turn navigation with audio, you know, for example, a voice telling you where to turn or where the next trail junction is, that could be really useful. Another big push that I've seen Garmin move is wheelchair sports, which, you know, a couple of years ago, if you're you're disabled in a wheelchair and you had a Garmin device, there were really no activities for you to track, which is kinda shortsighted from Garmin. But lately, they've added in, a lot of wheelchair sports. So that's good to see as well.

Dave: 43:19

Other than that, I don't know if that's like a big area for wearable devices to push on, and I think it should be for a number of reasons. It would be interesting to, maybe have a chat with somebody like Garmin with their what their view is on that. Moving on to the next question is Luke Taylor 74. What's your favorite GPS watch release so far in 2024? That is a good question.

Dave: 43:44

By limiting it to just 2024, that makes things a lot more complicated because there have not been a lot of new releases so far this year. What comes to mind is, like, the Coros Vertex 2 s, the Polar Grit X2 Pro, the Garmin Forner 165. And out of those 3, there's a couple from Amazfit. I'm, like, scrolling through my YouTube channel to see what I've reviewed so far this year. I think out of those 3, I'd probably say the Garmin foreigner 165 has been my favorite release this year.

Dave: 44:17

And that's mainly because it's kind of like a nice balancing act of performance to price. You get the AMOLED display, you get a lot of running specific features, and you're not breaking the bank at $250. So I'd probably pick that for 2,024. But there's a lot more to come. We're only halfway through, and the latter half of the year is really where a lot of the stuff happens.

Dave: 44:40

So it is what is. Moving on to Kraken's SB. If you were to choose the Oura ring or whoop band and you can only choose 1, which one would it be? For me, I think I if I could only choose 1, I'd probably go with the Oura ring, and that's mainly because I wear a smartwatch every single day. So I'd rather not have 2 things on my wrist.

Dave: 45:03

So the Oura ring is a nice compliment without, like, being too too obtrusive when I'm out in public wearing multiple devices. But if you were to pick only 1 and you're only gonna wear 1 every day, I think the whoop band I like the data it provides a little bit better. Like, the the way the app lays it out just seems a little bit more useful because the Ourang can be a little bit generous sometimes in its, recommendations and, like, sleep score and stuff. Next question from NotAll. Why don't you wear multiple watches like other reviewers out there?

Dave: 45:37

That's a good question. So I do. The problem is, like, I don't know. Like, on camera, I typically don't like to wear multiple devices. I don't know.

Dave: 45:44

I just don't like the way it looks. Although, I guess it would just add some credibility to me if I did. So maybe I will start doing that. But, like, day to day activities, I'm typically wearing 2 watches every day. Especially when I'm running, I always have 2 watches on.

Dave: 45:59

And usually, like, 247, I'm doing that as well. A lot of times I'll take it off for sleep, and I'll only wear 2 to sleep if I'm, like, actively testing something. But I don't like sleeping with 2 watches on, so I try to avoid it if I can. But, yeah, I do. I do usually wear multiple.

Dave: 46:17

Next question from John m. Interested in the dad life, in how you plan your schedule. I feel like this is, something not a lot of people talk about. That's a good point, John m. And, I can only I get this question a surprising amount, and I've actually been writing sort of a day in the life kind of video that I I wanna share.

Dave: 46:37

I wanna share it from, like, a no BS perspective though, because I think a lot of the day in the life videos you find on YouTube are painted out to be some sort of, like, dream life of sunshine and rainbows if you're a YouTuber and that's your job. When in reality, it's still, you know, we still have our ugly sides of life, and I I wanna highlight those in a video and be as realistic as possible. So, you know, I've got 4 kids. I do I make podcasts and YouTube videos for a living. That is my job, which I am blessed to do.

Dave: 47:08

It's an amazing thing, but it's still hard. It's still time consuming, and I still have to attend my kids' baseball games, my soccer my kids soft soccer games, pick up from daycare, get them on the bus off the bus, make them lunches, and at the same time, train for an ultra marathon. At the same time, make YouTube videos and travel for various events like Camp Strava. That is, complicated. That makes life very complicated.

Dave: 47:33

And I gotta be honest, it's hard to summarize on this podcast how hard it is and and what the sacrifices are to to live a life like this. So I think I'm gonna save that for a full YouTube video. So stay tuned for that. It might be it might be a good topic for a whole podcast episode with a guest down the road. Maybe that's something I'll do.

Dave: 47:56

Next question is from Hunter along the way. This is Fit Gear Hunter. He's got a YouTube channel as well. Go check him out. He asked, is there a smart ring on the market that shows recovery score lower than 50%?

Dave: 48:08

So what he's implying is that all of the smart rings in the market right now, whether that be Ouring, Ultrahuman Ring Air, Ring Con, what's the other one I'm looking for? You get the idea. Basically, they're all I think they're all a little bit generous on how your recovery score is when you wake up in the morning. Like, I don't often see my Oura ring go below like 80%. When my Garmin watch can show me my body battery very low and like really poor sleep, sometimes the Oura ring will miss that.

Dave: 48:41

What I did find interesting is about the that new Amazfit Helio ring I just talked about. That ring did show, like, compromised sleep when I actually did have compromised sleep. So I would suggest maybe checking that out, especially in your position. Your you review these things on YouTube too. So maybe check out the Amazfit Helio Ring and see how it works in your situation.

Dave: 49:03

Next question is from Jeff Pelletier. Big big, filmmaker in the ultra running space. Check out his, YouTube channel as well, Jeff Pelletier on YouTube. He asked the question, beer before liquor or liquor before beer? Obviously, a joke question, but I'll answer the question.

Dave: 49:22

Liquor before beer, I guess. To be honest, I've been dialing back my alcohol intake because of, the race is coming up and trying to perform a little bit better. So that's a that's a side answer to your question. Next question is from Ben Benjamin Meridian. Any word on the next LTE device from Garmin?

Dave: 49:43

That's a great question. So if you're unaware, a couple of years ago, Garmin came out with an LTE watch called the Garmin Forner 945 LTE. That is now, I don't know, 4 years old, 3 years old now, and it has not been updated. That is the only LTE cellular enabled watch they've ever made other than a random I think it was a Garmin Venue or Vivoactive device that was sold in, like, Verizon stores that you could get that was LTE enabled. But you couldn't buy it from Garmin.

Dave: 50:12

You couldn't buy from AT and T. You could only get it at Verizon. Needless to say, that was an epic fail. So the 40945 LTE is actually a device I liked quite a bit. I liked how they implemented LTE.

Dave: 50:26

It wasn't so much like a a recreational form of of cellular. It was like safety only. So you could share your activity for location tracking. You could send, SOS messages if you're in trouble. You could send some recreational messages if you wanted to let someone know you're running late, for example.

Dave: 50:46

But you couldn't, like, just chat back and forth or make phone calls on it. Now fast forward to 2024 now, we still don't have a Garmin LTE device, and everybody seems to be asking for it. And the weird thing is that they do make a device called the Garmin Bounce, which is actually a children's watch. My kids actually do have them. They're great.

Dave: 51:10

It's like $10 a month, and my kids can send me voice messages, text messages, they can, join step competitions with me and that device is actually cellular and it works quite well. So it's kinda weird that you can buy a Garmin LTE kids watch that has way more cellular connectivity functionality than any Garmin watch out there. You could take a $1200 Garmin epics in pro whatever that doesn't have the capabilities that this $150 toy kid's watch has from Garmin. And I I have to wonder, like, why haven't they taken that technology and put it into the higher end stuff in some way? I got to assume it's coming, but, yeah, hasn't happened yet.

Dave: 51:56

Guess time will tell. And with competition out there like Apple with the Apple Watch Ultra, if the Apple Watch Ultra gets any better with its battery life or mapping capabilities, Garmin's gonna be in a position where they need to think about things like this to to stay competitive. But it hasn't happened yet. Next question is from the wandering social worker. How do you stay motivated to train beef between races?

Dave: 52:23

That's a tough one. Generally speaking, I like training. I like running. Obviously, I do it a lot, so you have to like it. I try not to look at training as a chore.

Dave: 52:33

I try to look at as, like, something I'm lucky I'm able to do because our schedule is so busy. So to get 2 hours to myself to go run on the trails is like, heck, yeah. I'm so happy I can do this. So I don't really need motivation, but I will say in the colder months, in the wintertime, when there's a foot of snow on the ground, trails are impossible to run on, and I'm in the basement on the treadmill, that's when I'm looking for motivation. And that's where I turn to, I don't know, looking at past photos of big events I've done or, social media, like YouTube, watching other people do inspirational things, that's when I I look at things like that for a form of motivation, or I watch a movie or a documentary about trailer ultra running that really can get the fire lit under me.

Dave: 53:24

But generally, yeah, the winter months are tough for me. I'm fortunate that I'm kind of forced to train through the winter in order to, you know, keep up with the YouTube channel, but, if I didn't have the YouTube channel, it would be tough. Next question comes from the world is a console game. That's a cool name. Do you ever run without a sports band or watch?

Dave: 53:45

Easy answer, no. I'd usually don't. I have experimented with it, and I have had batteries die on me before. I just don't like the feeling. I guess I'm, like, so programmed now to be looking at distance and pace and time.

Dave: 53:57

And a lot of times, I'm on, like, a time crunch with my family where I can only shoehorn in 2 hours to go for a run. And if I go over that, I'm gonna be in trouble with my wife because my kids are supposed to be at the soccer field or something like that. So it's hard for me to just disconnect completely. And I am completely envious of those of you who can run without a watch or a phone. I can't I can't leave my house without a phone.

Dave: 54:20

I have to stay connected, so I'm jealous of those that can. Next question from Luke Taylor. What are your thoughts on the new Garmin Connect revamp? He's talking about the the app update I just talked about in the tech news segment. My personal feelings are I already said it.

Dave: 54:40

I don't really care. Like, Dapp is what it is. It still collects all the data. It looks a little different. I actually don't mind it, but I think, you know, devil devil's advocate here, I do think the old design was a little bit more practical.

Dave: 54:55

So I guess I'm kind of a I'm kind of in between on how I feel about it. Next question is from a Mets252. What are the odds we'll see a Phoenix 8 or an epics 3 this year? What features do you expect to see? Yeah.

Dave: 55:12

So this is a tough one. The odds of it happening, I think, are, if I had to guess, pretty good. But I'm speculating. I know nothing. They haven't told me anything.

Dave: 55:22

That's my disclaimer out there. I think they're pretty good. Now when it comes to what features we we might see, that's where things get a little bit tricky because the Phoenix Pro and Epyx Pro are so capable. Like what the heck else could they cram in there? If I had to put on my tinfoil hat a little bit here and just dream up features Maybe sweat tracking would be interesting.

Dave: 55:48

Some sort of like sweat tracking sensor underneath, maybe improved battery life, even even more improved battery life with the OLED devices would be cool to see. But, like, the fact is these watches are so dang feature packed now. I just don't know where they can go from here. Unless, to jump back to a previous question, they add the LTE capabilities. And if that happens, I think that'll be huge because, you know, I I read a lot of the comments on the main YouTube channel.

Dave: 56:17

And every time I compare an Apple Watch to a Garmin watch, it's overwhelming in the comments are people saying I need LTE. I need cellular connection on my watch. So Garmin's a nonstarter. So if Garmin can change that and add the LTE, that may be a big deal for them. And maybe there might be a lot of Apple converts depending on how it's implemented.

Dave: 56:40

And the final question is from Jackalope. And they ask, what's the biggest the what is the big East Coast race that people should hit in your opinion? Oh, that's a good one. So, you know, I'm kind of a I live a sheltered life up here in Massachusetts, and a lot of the races I do that I think are cool, no one's ever heard of before. So let's shout out a few of them.

Dave: 57:04

I think, one of the big ones I think you should put on your radar is probably the Vermont 100 if you're an ultra runner, the Vermont 100 miler, and they also have a 100 k distance for those who don't wanna do the 100 miler. It's beautiful. It's a really unique, experience, a very old race. So I'd say that's something you you should put on your bucket list. Now there is an a lottery and a wait list, and it's, like, a little bit complicated to get into, but it is worth it.

Dave: 57:32

I think another big one on the East Coast is the Eastern States one one hundred. I haven't done it, but it's a pure ass kicker if you look at the stats and specs and read about it. It's on single track. It's got a crapload of elevation game. It's brutal East Coast, you know, rocks and roots and mud and river crossings.

Dave: 57:51

So I'd say that's another one. If you haven't heard of it, check it out. It's also a western States qualifier. And some of the local ones that I I think deserve more coverage in in, you know, brought to light a little bit more are all of the AirViper and, White Mountains Endurance race, races that happened in New Hampshire. So if you don't know, there's a company called White Mountains Endurance Race.

Dave: 58:18

They put on a lot of races in New Hampshire In the White Mountains, obviously, as the name implies, but before that, they were a company called Rockhopper races. And they were one of the the first organizations to be able to put on big races in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, because previously, the White Mountains were kind of a sacred place. They didn't wanna have a lot of traffic and trash and things like that. But Rockhopper got the permits and they pulled off these really unique races. And as of last year, they actually partnered up with Arevaipa from the West Coast, to make their races a little bit more I don't know.

Dave: 58:52

Get the word out a little bit more because now they're on the Arava website as well as being on the White Mountains Endurance Reiss website. So they got a few that are really interesting. They have the Kilkenny Ridge 50 miler that I did, back in 2019. That is 50 miles, but with 16,000 feet of elevation gain, which is crazy. A whole over 50 miles.

Dave: 59:14

And all of that is in the backcountry of New Hampshire. You don't see a lot of people out there. You're really out there with the moose, and and it's really cool, beautiful, beautiful area. So if you haven't done that, check that out. And they also have one called the jigger Johnson 100.

Dave: 59:29

That's a 100 miler with, like, 35,000 feet of elevation gain in the white mount mountains of New Hampshire. And, again, super cool. I haven't done that one, but something I really wanna do, I'm just, like, terrified of it. And finally, not a race, but I think if you're traveling and you're visiting New England or New Hampshire, the Pemajawassett loop is a great adventure run if you wanna go out on a hike or run. You can do it in a day depending on the fitness level.

Dave: 59:57

It can take up to 15 hours if you do it in a day, but it can be done. And then the presidential traverse, again, another big one that you'll find on, like, the FTK forms or FTK. No. FKT forums, fastest snow times. Be it's it's a really competitive route up here in New England.

Dave: 01:00:18

There's a lot of races around. The Trail Animals Running Club puts on a lot of really great local races, but, again, those are tiny, but I really enjoy them because they're, like, $25 here in New England, and they're just a good time. Really good community. Good vibes all around. Hope that answers your question.

Dave: 01:00:35

And that brings us to the end of the q and a section of this podcast, and we're at a hour in duration. So I'm probably gonna wrap it up here. Again, thanks for tuning in for the audio only version this week. We'll be getting back to the video version as well, but I just wanted to get this out there because it's been a minute since I've updated everybody, and I wanna keep you listening. So hopefully, you enjoyed this podcast.

Dave: 01:00:58

If you did enjoy this podcast and you're on YouTube right now, make sure to hit that subscribe button down below. Make sure to join the YouTube channel. Comment down below on the YouTube channel. Get some engagement, some community going on. And, oh, yeah.

Dave: 01:01:12

One more thing I wanted to mention is that I'm thinking about putting on a, community meetup here in Massachusetts in the near future. I've got some plans, that might involve, like I don't know. I'm not gonna get into weeds about what it what might involve, but I wanna get some, like, biweekly, monthly meetups going on with people from the community. So if you are listening on YouTube, comment down below. Let me know if you'd be interested in that.

Dave: 01:01:39

And if you are, I'll try to put something together in, like, my neck of the woods. Hopefully, you can make it if you live around here. I think that would be fun to meet in person. Maybe I can bring, you know, a bunch of watches or something if you if that's what you wanna check out. We could check them out in person, chat, you know, talk shop, and then go for a run on a trail.

Dave: 01:01:57

That'd be, a lot of fun. So I'm gonna try to organize something like that. Stay tuned. Make sure to hit the subscribe button down below. Make sure to join the Patreon if you wanna support me there.

Dave: 01:02:07

I'd really appreciate it, and stay tuned for lots more coming on the podcast and the main channel because, like I said, it's warming up, and there's a lot there's a lot of stuff coming, and I'm overwhelmed. So, there's a lot. Okay. With that, I'm gonna leave it there. I will see you in the next episode.

Dave: 01:02:28

Bye.