The fact is the most important part of the body for an athlete is their brain.

That's where everything happens.

If you just stop what you're doing and say, okay, I'm going to just focus on having a

healthy brain for the next few weeks, you will become a much better athlete.

Guaranteed.

Can I guarantee things on this show?

Sure.

Yeah, we have a guarantee. Welcome to the trailhead of Trail Runner Nation. What we do here every week is we get somebody to come on and talk to us about running. Talk to us about how to become better runners, how to be healthier, and hopefully that translates into being better human beings. Today we're running with Dr. Phil, Malfatone, a long time contributor to TRN. We're going to talk about how the brain can actually be the secret weapon to your running success. Hey Scott, you know the feeling when the weather turns and you realize that your running gear is still stuck in summer mode. Yeah, that first cold rain or wind gust that makes you say, I should have checked out my John G. Winter gear. Exactly. John G. Just dropped your winter kit upgraded lineup. We're talking about running tights and pants like the Borrio fleece tight for cozy warmth or the trail tight for all season versatility. And for the top half of your body, I'm loving the Aura's Ultra fleece hoodie. It's like running in a cloud that actually breathes. Or when the skies open up, the rain runner pack jacket, It keeps you dry without slowing you down.

Hey, it's hard enough out there without having the right gear,

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And as a bonus for trail runner nation listeners, get 10% off your order with a code trail runner. Dawn on a scale from one to 10, 10 being the most important, how important are socks for trail running? For me, absolutely a 10. And if you said anything less than a 10, you probably haven't run in mud gearar socks yet. And these mudgear socks are not disposable treadmill socks. They're made for real conditions, mud, creek crossings, steep climbs, gnarly descents. I've crashed plenty of socks over the years, but my mudgears still going strong after countless miles. They shed the water fast so your feet don't feel like they're sloshing around in a swamp. That means less friction, fewer blisters, and more comfort. True graduated compression that keeps your legs fresh on long or back-to-back runs. Over 50,000 athletes trust mud gear. And they're made right here in the USA. Grab your pair at mudgear.com slash TRN and get our listener discount. Trust us your feet. Well thank you. Welcome to another edition of Trail Reincarnation. My name is Don Freeman and I'm Scott War and we are reaching back deep. Phil Maffaton, Dr. Phil Maffaton is joining us again and I went back to try to figure out how many times he's been on the podcast. I didn't have a calculator and I took my my socks off and I started counting with my hands and my toes and I ran out of toes and and fingers. He's been on our podcast that many times. And I was just as we as we started before we hit record, I was telling Phil that recently I've had two people listeners reach out and mention that they went back and listened to one of our first podcast episodes with Dr. Phil back in 2013 where he talked about the Maffatone method and heart rate training. And today we're going to talk about some new research that talks about brain, health and brain, stuff that's happening in the brain. But before we get to that, I thought we would just review with people that have not met Phil Maffatone and or listen to any of the back episodes if you haven't

Just Google trail runner nation doctor Phil Maffatone and you'll get a full list of all of the episodes

It's worth going back and listening to all of them especially the one

Especially the one where we all we didn't talk about running we just talked about the Beatles

And that was one of my favorites. Before we get going, Don had an anecdotal story that he and I talked about on the run today about how his doctor Phil Maffatone changed the way that he runs. Well, I'll share that story. Welcome back Phil. It's so nice to have you here. I have a blank sheet of paper that I'm starting with and I know when I'm done, it'll be full of comments and scribles and ideas that I that'll come up. But when I learned about the film, Maffatone method taking taking 180 and subtracting your age. I'm not trying to take the cat out of the bag. But that's what it is. Had me running at a very low heart rate.

And that was good because I had a hundred mile run coming up that I really wasn't that prepared for. I had done several before that. I'd even done this one. And I knew enough to know that if I go out too hard, too fast, and I get in trouble, that that's gonna be it for my day. I'll never climb out of that hole. So my strategy was your strategy.

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