Introducing RunDot: Optimized Training for Runners

Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Well, they did it! The beautiful minds behind TriDot triathlon training have released RunDot, data-optimized training for folks who just want to run. Will there be a RunDot podcast where we just talk about running? Maybe so, maybe not, only time will tell. In the meantime, we’ll talk all about RunDot on the TriDot podcast today. Here to tell us all about it is TriDot founder and CEO, Jeff Booher. Jeff is the chief architect behind TriDot’s nSight optimization technology that powers TriDot training. He is a multiple Ironman finisher, who has coached dozens of professional triathletes and national champions, as well as hundreds of age-groupers to podiums and PRs since he began coaching triathlon back in the year 2003. Jeff, on a scale of zero to ten, how excited are you for the launch of RunDot?

Jeff Booher: I’m super excited, Andrew. I’d have to say it’s an eleven today.

Andrew: It’s eleven! Wonderful. Cannot be captured by the scale. Also joining us is TriDot’s Vice President of Marketing, Matt Bach. Matt is an accomplished athlete, with an Ironman Maryland victory, and a 72nd overall finish in Kona on his résumé. He worked on Wall Street as a trader and portfolio manager for nine years, earned his MBA from Temple University, worked at marketing at UCAN for 2½ years, before coming on board to lead TriDot’s marketing efforts. Matt, welcome back to the show!

Matt Bach: Thanks Andrew! I’m excited to be back on today to talk about the discipline that began it all for me, running. That’s where it all started.

Andrew: Mm, yeah! Well, I’m Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, we’ll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set topic, and then we’ll wind things down on our cooldown with Vanessa interviewing a TriDot coach giving us a triathlon coaching tip. Lots of good stuff, let’s get to it!

Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: Whether it’s triathlon or a run-only event, every time you do a race you are assigned a bib number. Usually it’s out of our control, and usually it’s an unmemorable three or four digits. But the more you race, the better the odds that you will eventually get a race number that stands out and is meaningful for you. Jeff, Matt, for our warmup question today, what was a time where you especially liked your race bib number? Jeff Booher?

Jeff: I’m sorry, this is going to be a disappointment. I have not had a memorable one. Like you said in the setup, usually it’s unmemorable. I’d love to say, after the welcome, that it was number 11 that I had, but I’ve just never had one that’s a memorable number.

Andrew: And you’re a four-time Ironman finisher I believe?

Jeff: Yes, and I’ve done 60-plus races.

Andrew: Can you remember even one of your bib numbers? Just one?

Jeff: No, I cannot.

Andrew: Jeff, it sounds like it’s been too long since you’ve raced, and we need to get you back on the race course one of these days maybe.

Jeff: It could be.

Matt: The only numbers he cares about are the finishing time and the improvement, he doesn’t care about those meaningless numbers on his bib, right?

Jeff: That’s true.

Andrew: Matt Bach, do you have an answer to this one, or did I ask the two wrong guys this question?

Matt: I do have an answer to this one. I was number 22 at a half marathon in Rutgers in New Jersey. Beforehand I had no love for the number, because to me it was meaningless. But afterwards it was pretty cool, because I was number 22, I placed second overall, and I had a two-minute PR, so there were a lot of twos.

Andrew: Yeah, sure, hard to go wrong with that. My answer here, and honestly the inspiration for this question – I did a race last year for the first time. The PTO Tour organization came through Dallas, Texas, and did the U.S. Open. It was right down the road from where I live, so I signed up to go race. My number for the U.S. Open, held in July, was 1776. I honestly didn’t even realize the meaning there, but one of my buddies was with me at packet pickup and he was like, “Aw, dude, you got 1776, nice!” It took me a second, embarrassingly, a little longer than it should, to realize why that was a meaningful number for the PTO Tour U.S. Open.

Jeff: You might need to elaborate on that with all of our international listeners.

Andrew: Our friends in the U.K. will already know this story, but for everybody else around the world, the year 1776 is the year the United States won its independence from the United Kingdom, a few centuries ago. So the theme at the U.S. Open, everything was flags, red, white, and blue logos, and I was 1776, the Independence number for America.

We’re going to throw this question out to our audience. I’m curious, are you like me and Matt and you have an answer here? Or are you like Jeff, and you just honestly can’t think of something memorable? Either way, we want to hear about it. Make sure you’re a part of the I AM TriDot Facebook group, where I will ask this question. The Monday this episode goes out, I’ll pose that question to the group. Have you ever had a race bib number that was somehow extra-meaningful for you?

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

Andrew: Before we get too deep into the show today, I want to give a shout out to our good friends at UCAN. Here at TriDot we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. In the crowded field of nutrition companies, what separates UCAN from the pack is the science behind LIVSTEADY, the key ingredient in UCAN products. While most energy powders are filled with sugar or stimulants that cause a spike and crash, UCAN energy powders, powered by LIVSTEADY, deliver a steady release of complex carbs to give you stable blood sugar and provide long-lasting energy. I personally fuel many of my workouts with the orange-flavored Edge gel, but between their energy mix, energy bars, almond butter, and more, there is definitely a LIVSTEADY product that you will love. So head to their website, ucan.co and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. Once again, that’s ucan.co, promo code TRIDOT.

The endurance community is composed of athletes who enjoy a wide array of physical activity. Triathletes obviously are attracted to the challenge and the variety of swim, bike, and run. But some folks just want to swim, some just want to bike. Some want to hike or climb, kayak, row, or ski. Some folks just want to go for a run, and for them, there is now RunDot. Now Jeff, Matt, often triathletes at least dabble in run-only events, sometimes with a goal, sometimes for just race-distance practice, and sometimes just to get some racing in when it’s too cold for a triathlon. For the two of you, what is your personal experience with run-only racing? Jeff Booher?

Jeff: Well, I grew up playing all the ball sports and such, but I also ran track. I loved running track, did the decathlon a little bit. In the military, we did a lot of running there, and I entered several races. Even when I was a kid I did a 5K with my dad, and I remember that time, it was 25:25. I’m not sure how old I was, kind of young.

Matt: I told you he’d remember the times, not the bib number.

Jeff: I’ve only done one standalone marathon, and that was kind of funny. In the mid-90’s, I had an uncle on New Year’s Day, we were up together as a family. He said, “I’m gonna do the Cowtown 10K.” It was I think the third week in February, and I said, “I’m gonna do the marathon.” I had not been running at all. I ran 13 times, the 13th was the marathon. It hurt a little bit, but I got it done. Before that, everything other than a 5K was extreme distance. But it was fun.

Andrew: Yeah, that was before Jeff Booher created the nSight Training Optimization Engine of TriDot.

Jeff: Quite a bit. Yeah, don’t do it like that.

Andrew: My relationship with running – I played soccer and tennis in high school and college. After college I was just trying to stay in shape, so I would just get off work and go for a run. Personally, doing races and events never really appealed to me. Why am I going to pay 40 or 50 bucks to go do a 5K at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning when I’m not a morning person? I can go run a 5K for free at whatever time I want to wake up on my own accord. So I just never did much. But there was a guy in our church whose company was sponsoring a 5K, so he was like, “Hey, use this code, you can enter it for free.” I was like, “Okay, well, it’s free, so let me go try this 5K.” That was the first time I did an organized, actual race event. It was in Arlington, Texas, right down the road from us. I went down there – I think I was third overall male, with like a 23-something-minute time – and it kind of gave me a glimpse of, “Wow, this is kind of neat to get on a course with other people and do this thing.” That was my one-and-only run race for a long time. Now I’ve done a handful of half-marathons, but for me it’s mostly been triathlon. Matt, I know you have quite a bit of running in your background. You’ve teased that a little bit in the intro. Your run pedigree certainly eclipses Jeff’s and mine. Tell us about your relationship with running over the years.

Matt: First I’ll say it’s all relative. When you say my run pedigree eclipses you guys, that’s relative to you guys. But of course when I mention any times here, there’s probably going to be some 14-minute 5K guy out there thinking that I’m some chump. Which is true, it’s all relative.

Andrew: What a chump! Lame!

Matt: Yeah, but running is where it all started for me, back in middle school. I only joined the cross-country team and the track team because my friend peer-pressured me into doing so. I hated every minute of it. My mile time clocked in at a blistering nine minutes, where the only blistering that was happening was on the bottom of my feet. Blistering was certainly not referring to my pace. I was not particularly talented like your Meb Keflezighi or something, who I think in fifth grade ran like 5:10 or something crazy. I was definitely not that guy. But I kept doing it, because again, I was easily peer-pressured. Freshman year I tried slacking off as much as possible, but I still saw some improvement, and it got me wondering, “Hey, what if I actually tried?” I had a great coach named Rob Murray, who is still coaching at Danbury High School in Connecticut, just turning out All State and All American athletes like crazy. So I got down to 5:20 by the end of my freshman year, and made varsity by my junior year. I ran 15:53 for the 5K. By high school standards I was pretty good, but not great. I was All Conference, All State, but nothing more than that. I graduated, and I walked on the team at Penn State. I wasn’t recruited, I made the team by basically peaking for the time trial, which was part of the qualification process to make the team. But I hated it, I really didn’t like it at all, the team, the training. I got burned out, and I stopped running for about 2½ years. When I came back to it, I raced 5K’s, trying to break my old high school PR. I raced at Princeton a couple times, where I got annihilated by the legitimate college runners, many of whom lapped me once or even twice. I only ever ran 16:05, and that’s when I was getting lapped once or twice, that’s how fast those guys are. But it got me in shape to prepare for my first marathon, which I ran in Baltimore 2008. I ran 2:54, and then I got started in triathlons in 2010. Once I started doing triathlon, I was really using the pure running events throughout my triathlon career to improve my run in triathlon. One of the things I noticed was that in running terms, I was kind of a chump compared to a lot of the other runners out there. But in the triathlon world, I noticed my run was actually really good, I was one of the fastest runners in the entire field. That was really encouraging to me, knowing if I could make my swim and bike faster, then I could potentially be pretty darn good at triathlon. I ran the New York City Marathon in 2011, the Philly Marathon in 2014 where I ran my PR of 2:42, and a whole slew of other 5Ks, Turkey Trots, half marathons, and all those sorts of races along the way. A lot of it, like I said, was just prepping for doing better in triathlons.

Andrew: Yeah, I have never wanted to do a marathon. In a lot of ways, I still don’t have the desire to do a marathon. My only marathon in my entire life was the marathon that took place in my one Ironman, and I think that’s the case for some triathletes, that’s the only way they’re ever going to run that long. It was during the training for that, leading up to Ironman Waco, that I was starting to run 2 hours, 2½ hours at a time, and I was like, “I wonder what my marathon time would be all on its own?” So I’m sure eventually I’ll break down and do a standalone marathon. I haven’t don’t it yet. But it’s interesting to hear the background on running for you guys as we dive into talking more about running and RunDot today. Jeff, as we get into the origin story for RunDot, the origin story for TriDot we captured on Episode .01 of the TriDot podcast. It’s still out there, still being listened to. It is our eighth most-listened-to episode of all time, even with all of the interesting episodes we have out now. Jeff, where in this journey as a company did you have the idea for RunDot? Hit us with the origin story for this new app that’s launching.

Jeff: It’s funny, I didn’t have the name RunDot, I didn’t have a timeline on the app, but it was very, very early on. Probably I knew that there would be something. I didn’t know what it would be called, but I knew there would be a RunDot at the same time I knew there would be a TriDot. In my initial research, going all the way to 2004, 2005, as I started it at about 2008 or 2009, I realized that in tackling the triathlon training problem, with these different disciplines, that we really had to make the technology so granular that we were going to be able to optimize health, fitness, and performance. So if we ingested data, we could optimize based on that, so I knew it was a matter of time. It's kind of like the Amazon analogy: Amazon started out selling books and DVDs. They didn’t say, “When do we sell treadmills, and then when do we sell tires?” They optimized the supply chain, so now anything can go through. That’s what we started doing. We filed our first patent in 2011, so all the way back then we knew. It didn’t make financial sense to invest so much into just a single sport niche of triathlon. But if we approached it in the way, played the long game where we invest in the advanced analytics, the machine learning, all the things that need to take place to optimize triathlon training, then we could do that. We could optimize the improvement in health, fitness, and performance, regardless of the sport, if we had the right data.

Matt: That’s one of the things that I’ve admired about you, Jeff, even before starting working here, is just the fact that you’re patient. You’ve never broken into a market earlier than you felt it was the right time. Like you said, you’re in it for the long game, you are patient. It’s like, “Okay, we’re not going to break into international markets until we’re ready to do so. We’re not going to break into the running market until we’re ready to do so.” You’ve really taken the time and made TriDot, the optimization and technology behind it, so robust and powerful and effective that now it’s just a very natural progression for us to move into pure running.

Andrew: My journey with TriDot started in 2019, Matt’s journey with TriDot started in 2021. So we’re still relatively young in our relationship with TriDot, purely as a company, compared to you. As the founder, you’ve been there since Day One. You are 18 years into your journey, your relationship with this thing that is TriDot. What emotions go through you? How excited are you? Can you even quantify it for us, just seeing our company put out a new app in a totally different space?

Jeff: It’s really exciting. Predictive Fitness is the name of the company that builds the brands. So while these different initiatives are on a road map – we’re doing some stuff with the Department of Defense, the Army, and these other areas – each one of them is really cool. But running specifically is massive, because it touches so many people. There are so many people who run. It’s so approachable. You don’t need much more than shoes to do it, but it is one of the most injury-prone activities. So many people love it, but with the beatings. There’s just so many positives of being able to apply the technology here, and have something specifically for runners. It does feel surreal, and my wife Jennifer is oftentimes the one that points that out to me. I kind of have my head down, and the progress is so incremental you don’t see it. But she’ll say, “Look, remember when you said this? That was just three years ago!” The team as well, we have a massive team of fifteen-something engineers now working on this. What they can contribute is unbelievable. My secret to success I guess is hiring people more talented and smarter than I am. It’s pretty cool.

Andrew: Matt and I are certainly a part of those talented people you’ve hired along the way, isn’t that right?

Jeff: Absolutely! We have a great team, you guys are standout stellar, for sure. But back to your original question you posed, I look at it also a little differently. You mentioned this new app, it’s not really a new app. It’s based on 18 years of data, and the IP, and the things that we’ve been doing painstakingly, going through the process of perfecting and maturing the technology. So I feel like it’s not a new app in some ways. It's a new app and a brand new market that we’re going after, and introducing ourselves to a new market, but in one sense it’s not. It’s something that’s proven and time-tested, in generating those results for triathletes, and a ton of triathletes that just run for long periods of time, where they’re just runners.

Matt: Jeff, you did it the hard way. Instead of starting with running, which is one...