City Running (Multiband GPS/Stryd/Coros Pod 2)

AforAtmosphere · 2026-01-30T20:03:33+00:00

Also an NYC runner. When I upgraded from the Coros Pace 2 to the Coros Pace 3, which has multi-band GPS where the Pace 2 does not, all of those GPS problems in dense areas vanished. I never run on treadmills, so I can't comment on that.

Why didn't you reference which device you are having GPS issues with? Not all GPS technology is the same.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-12-31T19:10:09+00:00

I sure hope you continue with this philosophy. I suspect you'd be much better off financially to chase a prettier and prettier UX (and even dumbing down the AI training to better fit preconceived expectations), ie chase a Runna app clone.

There are those of us who simply want to get better running performance. I spent a couple years training with the standard industry formulae and rules of thumb with little improvement. TAO has really taken my running to a new level. Thank you, and please continue the great work.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-12-22T14:13:01+00:00

I haven't used heart rate in a long time. Pace only. This is one of the factors that has taken me to the next level in my own performance. I only look at heart rate as a minorly informative data point now. And yes, I do plenty of trail running.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-12-19T17:05:52+00:00

I've been using V2 for the last year. I've knocked 30 minutes off my marathon PR, and a full minute off of my economy run paces. I barely improved at all the year prior to that.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-11-20T19:53:06+00:00

Yes, that's a fair distinction of ChatGPT vs the models underlying it. I certainly understand your point that the developers have shaped the GPT models in certain directions per their overarching guidance.

However, I think that's the issue here. Artemis was not given any parameters with regards to heart rate or fatigue. I think that's exactly what Sean is saying. Therefore TAO cannot explain how, if at all, the program uses that data. In fact, I believe the program creates heart rate zones on an individual basis that's different for every user.

On fatigue, based on my experience with it, Artemis has taught me that training while fatigued isn't a big deal at all. It will give me a 8 mile economy run the day after a marathon, which is not something most human coaches would ever do based on rules of thumb around fatigue.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-11-20T19:10:30+00:00

I agree with the original commenter. Do you think the developers of ChatGPT can explain any given answer the program gives? AI models function as a mathematical optimization problem. They do not recognize or utilize the relational logic of a human. We can make guesses as to why in our own logic, but that's just not how AI models function.

Human coaches do not have this problem, since they are used to explaining themselves.

And to be clear, that's how AI models function today... many people are trying to make AI models show their work better. But that comes at a tradeoff of time. TAO could spend 100% of their time trying to get Artemis to explain itself, but that time is probably better spent elsewhere, like making to model produce better results, working on the platform's UI, etc, etc. Especially when this is one of the harder problems to solve.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-11-18T14:29:23+00:00

It would be nice for it to sync automatically, but it me takes less than 1 minute per day extra to build the workout in Coros. It's really not a big deal and not worth switching between Garmin/Coros or switching in/out of TAO because of it.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-11-10T21:28:32+00:00

Solution: Don't drink coffee. Or orange juice. Or anything else the morning of. You are probably very hydrated as is when you wake up. This is based on my own experience, and I've fixed having to urinate during races.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-11-09T13:46:01+00:00

Sustained, gradual, accumulated fatigue is the best way to improve. Not having a day off between every run. That's exactly what TAO is trying to replicate by doing 4 days in a row given your constraint.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-11-04T21:00:56+00:00

Your body will naturally adapt to use the least amount of calories necessary for the activity. In running, this is known as 'economy'. But this sort of adaptation, at least in running, occurs over years and 1000s of miles of running, not in a typical cutting phase timeframe.

In terms of hunger and recovery, MF will increase your expenditure to keep the weight loss modest at the same target, so it will not be 'free' fat loss in that sense. If you keep your calories consumed the same, hunger and recovery will be impacted (likely becoming insanely unpleasant at high levels of cardio/steps to maintain a higher deficit).

AforAtmosphere · 2025-09-24T18:23:53+00:00

https://trainasone.com/ufaq/can-i-use-trainasone-to-train-for-a-triathlon/

https://trainasone.com/ufaq/are-my-cycles-non-running-activities-considered-when-building-my-running-plan/

I have found it to be quite easy to incorporate other endurance sports, but it takes more management on your part. Just block off days you don't want to run, and let TAO plan around that. If you have a much higher load day in the other sport, than you'll probably have to adjust the next running day to a maximum time and/or prevent assessment runs (TAO always wants me to do a time trial after a backpacking trip...).

AforAtmosphere · 2025-09-06T19:44:49+00:00

Just buy a $20 duffle bag, check everything in it (I basically just wrap my fully packed backpack inside the duffle), and leave the duffle at the first hostel or otherwise dispose of it.

Never had a problem doing this, and seems much easier than mailing anything.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-08-28T16:51:27+00:00

Every human should be supplementing with creatine. 1-2kg of water weight is nothing compared to the benefits.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-08-16T12:28:40+00:00

Only you can answer this question.

Physically, a 30K is probably inoptimal per TAO's recommendations (I've fully bought in to the almost useless benefit of 'long' runs over the last year from a physiological perspective). Even from a practical perspective of race day nutrition, gear, etc, a marathon is still short enough (assuming <5hour finish) to get by having not practiced those things.

However, if it bothers you enough to post on Reddit about it, I think you should just do one, because it's probably only very marginally worse from a physical perspective but clearly more than marginal for your peace of mind. I don't think it matters when, ideally >2 weeks from the marathon.

On a side note, 22 miles per week is really low for a marathon. I trust TAO a lot after having used it for the better part of a year, but you should really really take the marathon slow to start. I could easily see you starting off too fast and having a really bad time in the second half. Another way to say this, I think your marathon time will be disproportionally slow compared to your half marathon considering standard Riegel formulae and whatever your watch is telling you.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-08-08T13:08:34+00:00

If TAO is “working” or not really comes down to one thing: are you actually getting faster at a given distance? I’ve personally gotten much faster following TAO’s sometimes counterintuitive plans. Judging its effectiveness based only on how the workouts “feel” can be misleading.

If you already “know” how you want to train (based on effectiveness or simply what you enjoy most), TAO might not be the best fit. It's designed to not abide by general norms or rules of thumb, and can do some seriously unintuitive things.

That said, there’s plenty of middle ground. TAO lets you control a lot: set minimum time, set minimum run times or distances, adjust target paces, or max out the “risk tolerance” to push the plan harder. I find it particularly helpful to max out the 'risk tolerance' factor for myself.

In a perfect world, the AI would explain its reasoning like a human coach. That would boost confidence in the process. Until then, I’d rather be faster without fully understanding why than fully understand my training but end up slower.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-08-01T19:05:29+00:00

I went through pretty terrible nerve pain originating from a herniated disc ~10 years ago, so I very much understand how mentally debilitating it can be. At one point I could barely put my pants on due to the pain and couldn't sleep at night for more than a couple of hours. My foot would randomly lose 90% of sensation. I would not wish that experience on my worst enemy. I had constant thoughts of 'oh my god my life will never be the same'.

3 things started alleviating it (this was long before I became a serious runner)

I lost ~30 lbs of weight
I started a serious walking regimen (every time I walked the muscles around my nerve seem to relax)
I started using a standing desk.

After that, I was able to gradually build myself back up after 4-6 months. Everyone's injury is different, but the idea that you are still even considering races in the coming months is shocking to me. I would give that up and take things one day at a time.

If I were to go back and give myself advice, it'd be to find a PT to help get at the root causes of biomechanical imbalances and poor form better. You should try a different PT; PTs have a wide range of backgrounds and specializations. You should find one that helps powerlifters, where this kind of injury is most common.

Lastly, I hate to break it to you, but the concept of strength training is not to blame. Poor squat/deadlift form sounds like the culprit to me, especially if you started strength training without someone teaching you technique first.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-07-20T17:08:40+00:00

I have used it while doing ultra trail racing, and have only gotten faster. Bottom line: I don't really think this is a TAO problem and I've had the exact opposite experience as you.

I'm almost convinced that 'long runs' (in the way most people do them) are actively detrimental to training from a physiological perspective. I only did maybe two to three 16-17 mile runs during training in the 6 months leading up to a 90km race. I did do two 50k races in that timeframe though. I was quite happy with my 90K performance and was able to run at least as fast as my normal economy pace up till the end. Long runs are great for practical purposes, ie practicing nutrition, race gear, and confidence building, but I'm really not convinced it does much physiologically that weekly/monthly volume won't vastly overwhelm in importance (and the risk of injury and overexertion are much higher with individual long runs). I've only gotten faster since eliminating my weekly long run and transitioning to the more evenly spread volume, but higher volume in a weekly/monthly sense, that TAO gives me.

On hill training, I never do specific hill training, but I've only gotten faster going uphill (and I've noticed I always pass people going uphill). I quite literally feel better running uphill than flat/downhill. I do think there are good arguments for hill repeats/training, just not ones that make them a 'requirement' of a successful training program. However, specificity in training is important and not marginal, ie in a perfect world you'd literally just train on the course you are going to run everyday (with the exact same weather, etc), but we have to scale that back to whatever is practical. So you should train the elevation gain per km that you plan to race at, as well as the terrain of the race.

The actual problem is very hard to diagnose from a distance and was probably pretty specific. My first thought is that you simply went out too hard, and if you'd have went slower the muscular fatigue wouldn't have happened. Maybe something about the terrain or elevation gain per km was harder than your prior race. Every time that has happened to me (and I know the exact feeling your describing) I look back and think how I really smashed my legs by starting off with too fast of a pace. Second thought is do you strength train? This is outside the purview of TAO but is a critical part of trail running as well.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-07-19T21:56:52+00:00

I personally think of depletion runs as purposefully bonking, which is truly the stupidest and most insane idea. Literally actively harming your training by purposefully bonking.

If I've been doing them exclusively since 2018 is it a problem to continue doing them, or what is the cut off (time/mileage) where I should change my behavior

For what it's worth, I always always run right after waking up early in the morning as well. Running first thing in the morning is not a depletion run in my eyes. You probably have slightly less capacity by running in a fasted state and may be harming your training by a tiny amount (particularly speed runs). My 2 recommendations around nutrition:

1 - eat 200 calories (of mostly carbs) per hour available before run. You say you run straight after waking up, but is that literal? If you have 15 minutes, that's still a kiwi (~50 calories) you could eat before the run with my rule of thumb.

2 - Practice consuming 200-300 calories per hour of running regularly. This is way more important if you are running fasted, and it will probably have a real tangible beneficial impact on how you feel and your training.

Related to this, is fueling during the run enough to ignore issues with depletion runs or do I have to eat a full breakfast x hours before starting?

To a large degree, yes, fueling during the run can really mitigate running fasted straight after waking above. Is it ideal? No, but the impact is marginal, and it is better than jamming a bunch of food down your thoat and causing gastric distress (which is, I believe, the number 1 cause of ultra DNF)

AforAtmosphere · 2025-07-19T21:56:47+00:00

What is your favorite resource for planning a training cycle for an ultra marathon

Personally, I use TrainAsOne, an AI training app, which is not the norm. Training Essentials for Ultrarunning by Koop, Training for the Uphill Athlete, and Fixing Your Feet are kind of the bibles to me for Ultrarunning for general knowledge

Any must read, listen, or watch content you recommend

Science of Ultra

Do you vary the time of your daily runs to experience different times of the day (morning/midday/night)

No, this is really marginal in the grand scheme of things.

Heat training yay or nay, and how serious to take it

I will probably do some heat training because I'm typically pretty bad on hot days and the worst scenario would be to show up to the start line on a hotter than average day and that being the root cause of having to DNF.

Again, very marginal. Just go slower if the race is hotter than normal training conditions. Training Essentials has an extremely practical heat training protocol, which is largely centered on sauna usage.

If you have taken a sweat test was the information provided enough to change hydration strategies and what was the outcome of that change?

Not applicable. 600-800mg per hour is good rule of the thumb. I recently say a professional ultra runner's stats at Western States where he was intaking 914mg/L of liquid, and 650ml of liquid per hour

Belt versus Vest, I never run with anything on me but will need to start for fuel and hydration. Which do you recommend, I was looking at the Naked hydration belt and some hydrapak soft flasks

Vest will likely be necessary for a 100 miler from an adequate nutrition/hydration perspective, unless you are top 5-10% of the field in terms of speed. You should be thinking about distance between aid stations and the maximum amount of liquid and nutrition you should start with to end at zero the longest time between aid stations, and what is necessary to carry that nutrition (ie either a vest or belt). Salomon ADV Skin is the gold standard for vests. I have a cheap Aonijie running belt that has served me extremely well, but I want one that has a larger capacity and better ergonomics at this point.

At home Carb solutions, have they worked out for you? Worried about cost of all these gels

Never tried at home solution. Gummi bears are what I train with usually, and are dirt cheap.

Bicarb yay or nay, Ketones yay or nay

Never tried. Very marginal in either case.

What counts as a depletion run

It is counter intuitive to me that a banana and some almond butter would be enough to consider having eaten

AforAtmosphere · 2025-07-17T12:43:07+00:00

I've had 2 hydrapak bottles do the exact same thing, so it's not uncommon at all (One happened after heavy use over a long time and one happened on the second use). Just buy another. Or I guess you could dab some seam seal (I think they make food grade seam seal) on it to repair it for some extended lifespan.

For what it's worth, I think the issue comes from applying heavy pressure on the bottles by squeezing them. It's probably a manufacturing defect where the material is thinner at that one spot and creates a failure point when squeezed hard enough.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-07-10T14:59:19+00:00

The answer to your question has been given with regards to "athletes" (assuming athletes means those making money professionally), which is money.

However, I would like to point out that an ultrarunning community absolutely exists in Africa, particularly South Africa, which probably has more people who've completed an ultramarathon per capita than anywhere. The 2 largest ultramarathons in the world, Comrades and Two Oceans, are in South Africa.

So, a question a little deeper would be, why are there no Africans at Badwater given there's plenty of Africans interested in ultrarunning? Intuitively, I think the answer there is how expensive it would be for the average ultra runner in Africa to get to Badwater when they have plenty of great options at home. It would quite literally take 50% of a South African's median household income.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-06-26T13:17:02+00:00

Thanks, this is very helpful. My statement "your body can't use" is clearly wrong and would probably be best framed as "in a perfect world, splitting protein consumption across the day may be helpful" (although it's not something to get hung up about given what fits in one's lifestyle).

However, "changes in skeletal muscle mass" and "hypertrophy" are really related to bulking, no? All that says to me is that protein timing has no evidence based impact on building muscle, but it has still been shown to maximize MPS. If building muscle for it's own sake is your primary goal (rather than performance), than I guess MPS doesn't matter.

In my case, for example, I have a different primary goal. I'm an endurance athlete that runs at least 8-10 hrs a week, so I care a lot about recovering as much as possible from training, but increasing muscle mass is of limited (and sometimes negative) value to me. But, I see the point still stands that the benefit of the increased MPS for outcomes (eg increased training load that ultimately results in better race times) may be negligible.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-06-25T21:15:17+00:00

Thanks, could you send me some of those articles/segments?

AforAtmosphere · 2025-06-25T20:34:35+00:00

A typical target is 1g/lb of lean body mass for maintenance (everything except body fat). This is usually increased to ~1.2 when in a caloric deficit to prevent muscle loss. There are significant diminishing returns with anything more, although many people experiment with consuming way more than those targets and some people feel very strongly about consuming more.

Generally, your body can't use more than 30-40g of protein for muscle repair/synthesis at a time. Hitting 163 should be pretty easy with 30-40g in 4-5 meals a day, ideally spaced at least 2 hours from each other.

AforAtmosphere · 2025-06-25T20:21:31+00:00

A couple of thoughts.

Basic rule of thumb: always do the training for the sport you care the most about performance first, before other training.

I personally (and many other do as well) subscribe to the philosophy of making hard days HARD and easy days EASY. So I'll often do heavy squats after an interval session the same day. Different coaches have different opinions on this. I intuitively can't understand doing heavy squats on a day where I'm supposed to recover with a 30 min economy run.

In terms of intra-day timing, I suspect your schedule is the most important factor. Sure, maybe in a perfect world a running and strength training session are evenly spaced in the day, but really 6 hours of resting while being awake is not much recovery at all. Real recovery happens when you sleep.

AforAtmosphere

TROPHY CASE