So in the past we've obviously relied on measurements, but now with things like traffic data, meteorological conditions and the instruction of AI and dispersion models improving, what we're able to do is bring into account all these different variables and understand how much traffic is going on the roads, understanding which direction the wind is blowing, using also satellite imagery to understand what the different kinds of sources are in other areas of the country where there are no traffic sources.

So maybe for things like wildfires to satellite imagery to bring all these different sources and build up an AI model which can really understand what that air pollution exposure is at that hyper local level, then validated using ground level measurements and ground level measurements and sensors.

So that helps us to understand what the air pollution is at a hyper local resolution and that gives the insights for us to reduce the exposure.

Hello and welcome once again to the Tridock Podcast.

This is the November 28, 2025 edition and I'm host Jeff Zankoff, an emergency physician, a triathlete, a triathlon coach, and a multiple Ironman finisher coming to you as always from beautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.

At the top of the program, the voice that you heard to bring things in on today's program was that of Will Hicks, my guest and the co owner, co founder really of an app that's called Air Track.

Air Track is an application that you can have on your phone that gives you a lot of very hyper local data as to the air quality wherever you are.

Now, many of you are probably aware of the Air Quality Index or aqi, and some of you probably make use of that in order to determine whether or not you're going to be taking part in your activities outdoor.

This is specifically something that is pretty important during the summertime when there are a lot of air quality issues related to ozone and to particulate matters from wildfires.

But even in the winter, air quality can be a problem depending on where you live.

Well, AirTrack is a really handy application that you can get.

It's free, free to use.

It integrates with Strava and can give you all kinds of very detailed information right down to the street that you live on, right down to the street that you run or bike on.

And it will tell you how much exposure you've had to different kinds of pollutants in the air.

It can give you suggestions about where you should run as an alternative, when you should go outside as an alternative, and honestly, when you should potentially consider staying inside to do your activities.

Well, Will and I are going to have a conversation a little bit later on the program where we talk about the implications for air pollution on us as athletes as we continue to try and do our best to stay fit.

Is it something we need to concern ourselves about as we try and keep ourselves healthy and youthful?

And we need to think about these things in terms of how they can really have an impact on our performance and and also on our long term health and wellbeing.

That's coming up in just a little while.

Before we get to that, I'm going to be joined by my friend and colleague Juliet Hockman, who is vacationing in Italy this week.

But she took time out of that vacation to discuss a listener question on the power of positive thinking, specifically on the power of positivity as it manifests as a smile.

Smiling, it turns out, has a lot of really, really important benefits on not just those around you, but on your it can improve exercise performance, it can improve work performance.

And smiling, it turns out, has quite a bit of science behind it in terms of looking at just exactly what kinds of benefits you can expect to get.

And for something that costs nothing, it's really nice to find a thing that you can do that is easy, that doesn't cost anything, and actually does have science to show that there are benefits to it.

So that one is coming up really shortly.

Before I get to that, I want to acknowledge that here in the United States, this is Thanksgiving week.

Just yesterday was the Thanksgiving Thursday.

And although I myself am Canadian, I do want to take a moment to just express all the things that I am so grateful for.

I am just like many of you out there, so grateful for my health, my wellbeing, the fact that I have a wonderful family that I get to spend some time with.

I have a great job that I'm really enjoying.

And of course I have all of you.

Those of you who take the time to listen, those of you who take the time to interact with me on the Tridoc podcast, private Facebook group, those of you who send me emails, those of you who come up to me wherever you might run into me at races or just out in the wild when I'm training.

Anybody who has ever taken a moment to reach out and tell me how much they appreciate what I'm doing.

That is something I am eternally grateful for because at the end of the day, that's what I'm here for.

I am really dedicating the time and the effort to put the this podcast together because I am hopeful that it is giving you something to look forward to and it is giving you some kind of new knowledge and expertise that is helping you in your training, racing and recovery.

I hope that you have a safe and fantastic holiday weekend if you are celebrating it.

If not, then I hope you have just a great weekend altogether.

We're heading into the wintertime.

This is the time when motivation begins to flag just a little bit.

So stick with the podcast.

I am going to have an episode upcoming in which we're going going to talk about finding your why, how your why for doing triathlon and endurance sport might change over time and why that might just be okay.

If you are interested in participating in that show, please head over to the Tridoc podcast, private Facebook group and opine on what your why is and how it might have changed over time and how you're dealing with the fact that it's changing and whether or not that sometimes is positive or maybe a negative.

I'd love to hear.

We'd love to include your thoughts in that program.

And that's coming up.

Not the next episode, but the one after that.

For now though, let's move to the medical mailbag.

Juliet and I are going to talk about the power of positivity, specifically the power of a smile.

That's coming up right after this break.

It's the day after Thanksgiving and we have much to be thankful for.

I know that you, Juliet, are very thankful for where you are right this moment.

I'm thankful that you're taking the time out of where you are to join me.

So why don't you share with the listeners the lovely spot that you're in right now.

So I at the 11th hour piggybacked on my husband's business trip and we are in Bologna, Italy for a few days.

He will move on to his business trip shortly, but we have been enjoying about five days here exploring the area, eating lots of incredible food and just generally soaking up the whole atmosphere.

It is very cold here, but it is also feels very real because there just aren't a lot of tourists here at this time of year and there's a great vibe and we're having a great time.

I really enjoyed the pictures from the anatomy library or the where were you?

It was really cool.

Yeah.

So the oldest university in the world purportedly is here in Bologna and they have this amazing 15th century anatomy lecture hall and right in the middle is this slab marble table where they did all the dissections and there are some incredible anatomically correct statues that they actually used to teach anatomy from.

So it peeled back the skin and you can see all the muscles and yeah, it was really interesting.

I don't think I would want to be a subject of these doctors back then.

Oh no, definitely not.

Definitely not.

But it was really interesting because they would have people, they would have a lector giving the lecture and then in the middle they would have a person actually doing the dissecting and holding up one body part after another.

And then they would have a moral and philosophical discussion, very much church influenced about that body part.

Right.

And I just thought, wow, how can you have a philosophical discussion about a Liverpool?

But anyway, maybe you can.

Yeah, yeah.

The liver being the.

Yeah.

They used to think about things as like the nexus of where spirits would.

Yeah, exactly.

Really interesting.

Yeah, that's really cool.

Yeah.

It's always fun to explore these kind of off the beaten path.

Right.

Not the most touristy kind of places.

I know when we visited just an amazing city, Montpellier in France, in the south of France, there is.

It's Europe's, I believe it's the oldest official medical school.

And it's this beautiful building.

It's just an amazing place and it's got this like amazing medical library and it's just a. Yeah.

And it's just like you end up in these places where there's not a ton of tourists and it's much more kind of authentic.

Real.

It feels real.

Yeah, it's really cool.

And it's.

And the other thing which we were discussing right before we went live was it's always fun trying to figure out how to get a little bit of a few workouts in while you're traveling.

And that's of course Strava heat maps is really helpful for runs.

And we ended up running up this mountain and it was incredibly challenging.

And then of course going to a local pool where the norms of what is the proper etiquette in a lane are completely different.

And it's just led to one amusing episode and experience after another.

Did you use the website that we've referred to for the pools?

Is that how you found the pool?

Yes.

Places to swim.

That's how I found it.

It's great.

As long as you check the website ahead of time to make sure that the lane times are correct, then.

Yeah.

Municipal pool of Bologna.

Right in there with the local volleyball team.

Placestoswim.com Is that what it is?

Places to swim?

And the two is a number.

Placestoswim.com yeah, very good tool.

We'll drop that into the show notes again.

We have referred to this in the past as a really Great.

Very useful tool.

So bookmark that.

Make sure you have that whenever you're traveling, if you're planning on getting some swimming done.

It's a really.

I've used it as well.

It's just terrific way to find pools.

Yeah, 100%.

All right, we've got a really.

I think this is a great question.

I'm so excited about this question.

We answer so many questions about things like technology and about supplements.

And the last one we talked about was, of course, grounding, which is a little bit esoteric.

But we have, I think, just a wonderful question today that comes to us from a listener, and it's wonderful because it's something that doesn't cost us anything, something that really has important benefits to us all.

And it's just great.

We had so much fun looking into it, and I'm excited about the conversations.

Julia, what's.

Julia.

I called you Julia, which is the name of the questioner.

That's the name of the person who asked the question.

So, Julia.

So this question comes from one of our amazing let's sport athletes, Julia Swanson.

And she was thinking about Chrissie Wellington's.

Sort of.

The way that she behaved out there on the race course when she was always racing, and how she was extremely positive and always smiling, and that was very much her M.O.

and what she strived to be whenever she raced.

And so Julia was wondering if there was actually any scientific evidence to support this claim that if you can smile and project a positive attitude when you are racing, if it actually enhances performance.

And you and your research team found out an incredible amount on this.

And I think we both have probably some personal experience to show around, to talk about around this as well.

Well, so do you want to talk about the research or.

Yeah.

And before I even got to talk to Nina.

So normally what I'll do is I'll actually do a little digging myself and I'll find some papers to start off my intern and say, hey, here's what I found.

You can now go and see if you could find other things.

But I didn't get a chance to do that.

And I just.

Because I was leaving for Marbella at the time.

And I just.

So I just said, hey, here's the subject.

See what you can find.

And she told me she just so enjoyed looking at this because it was just such an uplifting experience because the evidence is really good and it.

It's compelling.

And before I even had a chance to talk to her, I just randomly posted something on Instagram, one of my Photos from the race in Marbella, where I was climbing up to this beautiful white village.

And I was coming around the corner and seeing the white village.

And I had, I had pre rode the course, so I knew it was there, but I was looking forward to it.

And you're coming up this climb and it's.

It's quite a long climb.

And then when you come around, it's just so pretty.

And I just had this big smile on my face and they got a picture of me and I was.

I posted just randomly about how smiling just makes it all better.

It makes the pain feel less and everything else.

Not realizing that we were going to find all this research that said exactly that.

And I think it's wonderful because I think that too often when we're racing, sometimes it hurts.

Sometimes we are pushing ourselves, sometimes we're very focused on what we're doing and we forget to enjoy and we forget to embrace what we're doing and just live in that moment.

And this is a reminder of how important it is.

And I want to call out the very first article here because it's written by Dr. Jim Taylor.

He's a PhD.

He was actually a guest of this program not that long ago.

And he and I continue to exchange emails.

He actually just wrote me recently about potentially coming back onto the program.

And it was very fortuitous that he did that because his paper was one of the first papers that he found.

Yeah, and it's called Smiling is a Powerful Mental tool for Endurance Athletes.

And in this paper, Jim, basically he talks mostly about an anecdote.

Jim is a psychologist and works with professional athletes.

And he shares an anecdote about a professional athlete that he worked with in the past who had a physical and psychological transformation from forcing a smile during a rough workout.

And it really helped her to relax and she was able to utilize that kind of technique to improve in the remainder of her training.

And he went in to looking at the research around smiling and how it can be really positive and found a lot of evidence that says that it goes back to when we were kids.

We're all taught by our parents, right?

Smile.

When you smile, good things happen.

Also, we know that when good things happen to us, we smile.

And so we have this kind of feedback loop in our brains and it activates the dopaminergic system, which is as the reward chemical in our brain.

And there's all these little signals that can happen.

Smiling even has been shown to reduce oxygen consumption and energy expenditure amongst runners running the same pace.

So just by putting a smile on your face.

And what I was particularly interested was another study by Philippin from 2012, the effects of smiling and frowning on perceived effect.

Sorry, perceived affect, which is your mood and exertion while physically active.

This study looked at frowning versus smiling.

The idea of course, being a frown is just a smile upside down.

Right.

But here, this study suggested that facial feedback exists during physical activity and that even if you're forcing the smile, even if you don't mean it, even if you're not totally engaged in the smile, it helped it actually participants perceived less exertion when they faked the smile.

If they faked a smile or faked a frown, the frown actually gave them the perception.

It impeded their perceptions.

I thought that was interesting.

And we need to point out that this is unrelated to whether you get a positive feedback from someone who might be in the area who you are smiling at.

And that came and that comes up in other papers where they talk to runners in actual events.

Because a lot of these are studies that are in controlled environments.

But when they've looked at runners who are participating in events, the effect of the smile on others around you is huge.

And but I want to stick to some of the physiologic stuff because smiles affect response to stress.

Smiles actually have an impact on stress hormones.

Like just, just smiling while you're doing things can lower your cortisol.

Now it's interesting.

I thought this was so interesting.

And it's intuitive and it make.

And it totally.

You'll hear this and you'll be like, duh.

But to actually see someone study it and have it actually like evidence based is cool.

Smiles in combat sports have the opposite effect.

Yes.

Yeah.

Which I thought was really good because.

You'Re trying to be tough and fierce and intimidating.

And in those cases I could totally see how it would be the opposite.

Right.

And what do you think happens in your opponent?

If you're in a combat sport and you walk into the ring and you have this big grin on your face, your opponent actually their stress hormones go through the roof and they actually tend to perform way better.

So they will become more aggressive.

But it was interesting, right.

If I saw someone coming in who is, who had really wanted to beat the crap out of me and they were smiling, I'd be a little bit worried that, oh, they thought they had this in the bag.

But apparently it doesn't matter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, that's funny.

It's interesting.

It's so interesting.

But yeah, combat sports don't smile.

Don't smile, smile internally on that one.

But for endurance sport, cycling, running, it really helped.

And again some other studies here, neuromodulator of long term synaptic plasticity, reward and movement control.

This looked at how smiling works within the brain and really looked at the effects of dopamine, again that sort of reward hormone or the reward chemical within our brains.

And that dopamine levels tend to improve and are related to rewards and motivation.

And that when you smile and when you see people smiling it tends to improve dopaminergic surges and allows for improvements in performance just across the board Here I came across a study that I did.

I highlighted something positive performance states of athletes Toward a conceptual understanding of peak performance.

And I just wanted to read this.

It says analysis of the athlete's best performances indicate that a total focus on performance and other characteristics of flow.

And that's like that flow state we've talked about.

This is key to the perception of a superior state of functioning.

While over concern with the outcome reflecting a competitive orientation was often associated with the worst performances.

And this goes back to this idea that if you just are in the moment and just let things happen and just rely on all of the hard work you've put in and just be present and stop thinking about every single step and every single action, but instead just focus on the fact that you're here, you're performing the way you want to be performing and smile and just be in that flow state, then suddenly things will work much better.

The person who is really hyper oriented on oh, I've got to hit this target, I've got to do this, that tends to actually decrease performance because oh, if you don't hit that next target, you're going to start changing the way you are doing things to try and overcompensate.

And it's just a reminder that our inward and inward talk, our outward sort of appearance with smiling can really be very important.

And I know you were telling me about your history in sport and how you had these different perceptions.

I knew that there had been scientific evidence to prove out this theory about smiling enhancing performance.

But it's so great when you sent me the pre show email really outlining how much substantive or substantive evidence there was for this because I think that I've been thinking about this quite a lot in the last couple of years because from my experience in Athlete 1.0, many of our listeners know I was an Olympic rower in my early 20s and I think that I had this impression that because I was the youngest on the Olympic team because I was the smallest.

I had to have this 100% intense, fierce.

I had to show that I was just in it and on it all the time.

And I think I believed in that sort of immaturity of your early twenties and being suddenly exposed to this world stage, that if I showed joy and happiness, that somehow people wouldn't take me seriously.

And so then 30 years passes and you grow up, but you still hold on to what you know is true.

And as I got into triathlon in my.

In my middle age, I held onto that for years and years.

And every time I showed up for race, I thought, oh, I've got a.

To show I've got my game face on, to show that I'm serious here and to show that I'm a competitor and I'm.

I'm to be taken seriously.

And it was only two or three years ago that I really embraced this idea of smiling at other people on the course, encouraging people audibly as you pass them or as you go the opposite way from them on the run, really stepping outside yourself and engaging in what is happening around you instead of being 100% focused, as you were just saying, on your own performance.

And the difference in my own experience was palpable.

It was just in my own enjoyment of it, in having more.

Yeah, having more fun out there.

Truth be told, the results for me were the same.

But my.

The enjoyment I had during those four and a half hours of the half Ironman or whatever it is, just went through the roof when I felt like I was able to engage with other people on the course and maybe offer them a little bit of encouragement, smile.

And so I'm 100% bought into this.

I feel like there's.

I feel like there's almost like this mixed messaging, though, right?

Because we hear a lot from mental performance coaches about the importance of intentionality, the importance of believing that when I step on the start line today, I'm going to be very focused on my goals.

I'm going to be very focused on my process to achieve my goals.

I'm not gonna let these external factors creep in, but at the same time, we're saying here we do want to allow joy.

We want.

And I can already hear super competitive people thinking or saying, I can't hear them think, but I can hear them saying, I can hear them saying, I don't have time for smiling or encouraging others.

I am 100% devoted to getting every ounce of energy and every ounce of performance out of every cell to make sure that I am not leaving anything on the course.

And I can understand that.

I was talking to Lance before a race recently and he said you've worked really hard as a runner and I think that you spend a lot of time in the last sort of third of the run gutting it out, making sure that you've seen that you believe that you have to be super tough to gut it out that last bit and hang onto your pace.

And he wants me to transform into a runner who is not gutting it out, but just doing it, just running and has become a runner that doesn't need to get it out, but is able to just get into that kind of flow and run.

And I don't know, I feel like, I don't know if I let up, if I start smiling too much now, smiling I can do, but if I start, if I let my guard down a little bit too much, I don't know.

So you see what I'm saying?

I guess if you're an athlete who is trying to extract every single piece of performance potential out of yourself and we know pretty conclusively that the whole smiling outwardly thing enhances performance, why wouldn't you include that as well in your toolbox along with all the other tools that we already possess and are hopefully using effectively in creating and going just a half a percent more.

And with regard to the comment about the gutting it out, I think that there is something slightly larger there of if you believe in those last three or four miles that you can sustain that pace.

And that's just part of that positive self talk that we talk so much more about.

Then you don't feel like you don't set yourself up for.

Oh my God, the last three miles.

I've heard you say, actually after a couple of different.

Because we've raced together quite a bit now.

Oh my God, Juliet.

I didn't have anything left those last three miles.

I was just dying.

Like with every single sort of hyperbolic description you can.

I'm good at hyperbole.

Yes.

And, and I guess I would, I would suggest that there's something to think about there in terms of if you enter mile nine, it's more, no, I can run 7:45 or whatever your pace is.

I can run 7:30s.

I can.

I am just going.

I'm just suggest what I'm going to do because you've proven it to yourself a thousand times over.

And then there is a little bit of that smiling euphoria that comes with that, which is, well, of course I can do this instead of I have to cut it out.

Yeah.

And I hear you.

And here, Lance, and I get what you're saying.

And I'm at all saying that the smile.

This evidence is super compelling.

And I think that smiling is an easy thing.

Right.

I more wonder about the mental state.

I know that for me, I do have to be pretty focused.

I'm not.

I don't consider myself a super gifted athlete.

I feel like I have to work very hard to get everything.

And I feel like I have to be continually checking in.

I have to be checking in.

How's my form?

How am I feeling?

Am I on top of my calories?

I have to run through this kind of checklist.

Sure.

And if I let up, especially late in a race, earlier on in the race, I feel like those things just happen and I'm good with it.

But when it gets late and I'm tired and I'm really making sure that I'm holding things together, I do tend to become a little more focused on that stuff.

And I know that if I were to, I'd probably smile less because of that.

Right.

And so it would take a mental shift to try and, and to get to this.

Now, it's easier for me on the bike.

Right.

Because the bike is there and the bike is.

I enjoy the bike more and I'm always able to smile on the bike because even when I'm doing a huge climb and even I just love what I'm doing out there.

So maybe that's part of it.

Right?

Maybe that's.

It's the activities that you find easier because either you're better at them or you're better trained at them, or I don't know what, but that it's easier to bring that joy and therefore get that performance boost.

So the challenge then is to bring that same element to the things you're not as good at.

Now, I'm never going to be able to smile in the water.

Unfortunately.

Nobody can see you.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I would suggest it's just one more technical cue.

So, for example, in the last three miles of a 70.3 run, you know, for me, it's cadence, hips forward, relax shoulder.

I can do this.

I'm running.

Smile, hips forward.

Yeah.

Cadence.

Relax shoulders.

I can do this.

I'm so grateful to be here.

Smile, hips forward.

You're just.

It's not actually that much more to add to the things that you know are going to make you run well.

And I do think.

I don't know, I Just I think as we get older, I've certainly suffered my share of injuries and a lot of it is.

It's just so great to be here.

Yeah, I still get to be here.

And so that I don't know.

And that is enough to make you smile as well, I think.

And again, it's the day after Thanksgiving.

We have a lot to be thankful for.

And I try to always remember when I'm participating in a triathlon or a running race or anything, how lucky and fortunate I am to be in that position, to be able to do that.

And no matter what, even when I'm suffering, I'm still joyful, because I'm joyful that I have given myself the ability to have this as a leisure activity and that I'm fit at 58 years old to be able to be doing this and luckily have my health.

And usually my son is now well ahead of me, waiting for me at the finish.

Jeering at you.

Yes.

But it is something.

And that makes it a lot easier to smile even when it does hurt.

And I think that's great.

And I do want to circle back to the evidence here because there's another area where smiling is really important and it's outside of our athletic performance.

And here was a paper from 2008 and it's titled Positivity in Healthcare Relation of Optimism to Performance.

And Nina was particularly intrigued by this because obviously she is a pre med.

She's interviewing for medical school now.

And it was obviously fascinating to me as a physician.

This was a study of 78 nurses in the Midwest, and it examined the relationship between the optimism of nurses and their performance in the healthcare setting.

And it reported that optimism, as evidenced by their outlook and their smiling sort of percentage, was significantly associated with improved performance evaluation from supervisors and improved healthcare delivered to patients.

And there is other studies that we came across that suggested very similar kinds of things.

That your outlook and that your demeanor and that your positive view and your positive attitude really has a major impact on your supervisor, on the people who report to you and.

And just on the work that you do.

Now, I am not going to pretend for a second that's an easy thing to do.

Right.

We all know that our work can often be very stressful.

Our work can sometimes bring out not necessarily smiles, but if we try really hard to remember to smile, if we try really hard to remember that what we're doing has an impact on others around us, and hopefully what we're doing is rewarding in some way, and hopefully what we're doing has a positive impact down the line somewhere if we can remember those things and try to remember to bring a smile to it, that's really powerful.

And I love, I think it seems like such a no brainer, right?

Particularly in the medical field where you have a knowledge imbalance, right?

You've got the doctor who knows more and you've got the patient who's nervous or scared or worried or stressed about whatever is wrong with them at that moment.

And if you're greeted with a friendly demeanor and someone who's smiling and reassuring, I think that we've all been in doctor's offices where we've received just the opposite for whatever reason.

And yes, patient satisfaction scores and if you are the deliverer of that smile and you see the impact on the client or the patient, then you're going to get that positive feedback loop.

And so I think this is probably very potent in the medical field where there is so much at stake.

But I would argue that in any client driven business, if you're a lawyer, I mean, if you're a coach, right.

If you can smile and be more reassuring and just think of when we are speaking at the Ironman Village before an event, right?

And people come up and ask us individual questions and they're worried and they're stressed, it's their first 70.3 or whatever.

We're delivering it with a smile and some optimism and some positivity.

That individual, that client, that athlete is going to go away feeling better.

And we get a positive feedback loop on, wow, maybe I just did something good.

And so it's gotta be times 100 if you're a doctor or a nurse in the case of this study.

I couldn't agree more.

I think it's such a valuable lesson to take away from this that smiling such an easy thing to do.

I, and I don't want to pretend.

I know, I know that when we're not in the best mood and when things are not going great, it's not that easy.

But, but when we look our social media right now is filled with horrible stuff.

And it sometimes.

But every once in a while what I find is like my social media will be interrupted by something that just makes me break into this big smile and immediately feel so much better about humanity.

And I have to immediately like it so that I get more of those because I just, I find that if I can like the right ones, I get more of the stuff that makes me happy.

And that's what I need because.

Well, it's interesting right before you sent Me, the email with all of the background research and evidence on this topic.

My husband was talking about this cross country skier that we both follow named Jesse Diggins.

She's one of the most celebrated cross country skiers in American history.

And she is positively notorious for being relentlessly positive.

And the steam was telling me that some of the other people in the kind of ski circuit were almost having a sort of a pushback.

She's too positive, she's too bubbly, she's too funny, she's too happy.

And then of course, the research comes through and I'm like, jesse Diggins, has all of you people figured out?

Because she is.

She's had her own struggles, for sure, and she's public about those.

But the fact that she's relentlessly upbeat, maybe that's a factor in her incredible success, too.

So fake it till you make it.

Right?

Fake it till you make it.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

I guess the one thing I wanted to add to this topic is it's not only that smiling, et cetera, et cetera, it increases the endorphins and the dopamine and everything that you talked about earlier.

But the feedback loop, if we're on one of those run courses where it's an out and back, right, and maybe you're heading back and other people are heading out and you're seeing people, or maybe you are in the fortunate position of passing some runners if you are giving them feedback.

I know that when I'm out on course now, I try to say something kind or positive or encouraging, particularly to the other women out there on the course.

And I have had athletes track me down later and say, can't tell you how much it meant that you.

I saw you out there and you said this to me or whatever, and of course I don't expect that, but the feedback loop that I get of maybe there's a chance that I just said something, that athlete is going to make them just feel a tiny bit better.

That in and of itself is a reason to smile and be positive out there.

Smiling is easy.

It pays back.

Being kind of is easy, and it pays back.

Yeah.

Listen, I do want to finish our little segment here with It's Thanksgiving after all.

What are you thankful for?

All the usual corny stuff that we say every year.

I'm super thankful for my family, my children, my husband.

I'm thankful I get to do this sport.

I'm thankful my body is healthy.

I think the things we say every single year, just gratitude for so many simple gifts.

Yeah.

Yep, yep.

Couldn't agree more.

I'm thankful for you.

I'm thankful for our friendship and that we get to keep doing this.

And I'm thankful for our listeners for sticking with us and sending in these great questions.

And I'm thankful that we can add smiling to the list of things that we have found that are positively beneficial and cost nothing, because we've got a pretty good list going.

That's what we've got for you.

If you have a question that you'd like for us to answer on the Medical Mailbag, we've got a couple of good questions coming up to end off the year.

We are going to find one address, the why are we doing this and how that why changes?

We are going to get to that before the year's out, I promise.

And if you have questions that you'd like for us to answer on the Medical Mailbag, please do send them on in.

You can join the Tridark Podcast, private Facebook group.

You could send them to me@tridozcloud.com however you get them to me, it will be our pleasure to research them and to answer them.

So I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Julia yet until we talk again.

Yes, until we meet again.

Although I will say the next episode we're going to approach a different question, but the one after that we're going to talk about this how your why can change over different chapters of your time in the sport.

And I would really encourage our listeners to weigh in on the Facebook page in terms of what is their why.

I know you already put a prompt out there a few weeks ago about this question, but it may have gotten buried.

So go ahead listeners and say why do you do this?

Has it changed over time?

How do you feel about that?

Give us a little bit of fodder here because we want to talk about our own experience.

I think that's the big one is how has it changed over time and why?

Yes, all right, cool.

Great.

Happy travels home and next time we chat, you'll be in Hood River.

We'll talk soon.

I will.

Thanks Kath.

Bye.

My guest on the podcast today is Dr. Will Hicks.

He is the co founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Air Aware Labs, which he started with his co founder Louise Thomas.

Together, their mission is to help people understand and reduce their exposure to air pollution.

With a PhD from Imperial College in London, England, Will has spent years measuring and modeling traffic emissions and assessing indoor air quality.

He and the team recently launched AirTrack, a mobile app that combines cutting edge modeling with real world Data to help individuals, businesses and governments make healthier choices outside of work.

Will is currently training for the Loch Ness Marathon, where at least the air quality should be excellent.

I look forward to hearing all about what that race must entail.

Hopefully no monster sightings for now.

Will, thank you so much for joining me on the tridarc podcast.

It's a pleasure to have you here.

Hi Jeff, thanks.

It's great to be on.

Here we are at the end, unfortunately, of what has been a lovely summer in North America.

Unfortunately, every summer nowadays comes fraught with wildfires and wildfires bring with it a lot of smoke.

Smoke, as I have discussed on this podcast in the past, has a lot of impact on air quality and we have talked on this program previously about the long term and short term effects of poor air quality on performance, but also long term impacts on health.

Tell us what exactly your expertise is in this realm and what you've been doing to try and inform not just athletes, but the rest of the world about what they can do about air quality and how to manage their exposure.

Yeah, I started my air quality science career at Imperial, so I was looking at measuring and monitoring the chemical composition of these particulates, so looking at what the particulate matter is made up of when it comes to air pollution.

So to really understand how and what where the different sources of air pollution are in the atmosphere, it's really important to understand what's in the air pollution.

And so part of my PhD was looking at that chemical composition of the particles and looking particularly at road traffic emissions.

So I spent three years, four years understanding what the what quantifying and characterizing these different sources by looking at the metals in particular.

So the metals, which comprise of brakes, road tire dust, resuspension emissions and tires.

So I was looking at chemicals like barium, zinc and silicon.

And so these were all looking at quantifying the emissions from road traffic sources, then also looking at the impact of powertrain electrication of the vehicle fleet.

And what we found was these traffic emissions are growing.

So that was for me a massive concern.

But also that electric vehicles were causing lower brakewear emissions, but actually higher levels of tire road wear emissions.

So then I follow that on by doing, as you say, a post looking at indoor air quality because we spend 90% of our time inside, so trying to characterise the different indoor sources of air pollution.

But what I found, I think during my PhD, was that you can change your exposure to emissions by just making small adjustments to your route and the time that you do activities.

So if you are to go away from, particularly like in London and Manchester and Birmingham where I did my measurements, if you to move away from the main road, you're able to reduce your exposure quite easily by 30%.

And that was like a really significant finding.

And so what I wanted to do was give this like actual insights to individuals who are out kind of training.

So I started taking up running over lockdown.

And this was massive changes in flows in traffic and volume during lockdown.

And again, seeing this kind of changes in the traffic made me want to really give this data and insights into helping individuals to reduce their exposure to air pollution.

So I met Alice Louise on a program called Zinc and we came with a mission to reduce this personal exposure to air pollution.

Because there are so many different sources.

There's sources from brakes, from the tires, from wildfires, as you mentioned, and also indoors you can have sources like cooking, cleaning products.

There are so many different sources of air pollution.

So trying to get that data into a mobile app which enables anyone anywhere to understand what their exposure is and to give actionable insights into reducing it.

So thinking about athletes, where we've targeted our app initially, we're giving the insights using modeling data to really understand what your exposure is by looking at high, highly time really high resolution modeling.

So to go into more detail, what previously looking at the measurements, it was great having this really detailed chemical composition look of the particles at these fixed locations.

There wasn't really high enough spatial resolution.

So what we're now doing with AirTrack is using modeling data which essentially predicts had a really super hyper local resolution what that concentration is and then it gives you the insight to reduce your exposure.

Right.

You covered a lot.

I have a few questions now.

One of the first things you said is if you can get away from the main road, you can reduce your exposure by 30%.

What are we talking?

Get away from the main road by a couple of blocks, get away from the main road by miles.

How far away do you need to be from a main artery?

So it depends on the type of pollutants.

Therefore nitrogen dioxide, you can just.

A couple of blocks and it drops off really significantly.

So it will go down.

Yeah, by 30, at least 30%.

If you were to go away from.

The main highway and when you look at the particulates and when you look at the different chemicals within them.

You mentioned metals.

You've now mentioned nitrogen dioxide.

I know ozone is a big problem in Denver where we have an inversion, climate inversion, such that we have cold air coming from the mountains.

It traps the warm air of the city, and so we get a big ozone problem.

What are the main chemicals that cause people?

Both short term and long term health issues?

Yeah.

So ozone is a really big contributor to short and long term health issues.

So ozone can impact your running performance in the short term, but in the longer term, it's really significant on your health.

And that's typically caused by the sunlight, the temperature, and also like traffic emissions.

So gases such as nitrogen dioxide and volatile organic compounds, these react in the air to generate the ozone.

And then ideally the ozone would be dispersed.

But what often happens is, as you say, it gets trapped and it becomes like a temperature inversion where it gets trapped within the mountains and it can't typically hot air rises.

So we could find that these, the warmer air from down below may bring some of the ozone up.

But if it happens to be a temperature inversion, you'll find that there's cooler air lower down and warmer air above.

So there's not an opportunity for the ozone to disperse properly.

So you get these really high concentrations of ozone, and that has a really toxic impact on your health short term and long term.

Then, as I mentioned, nitrogen dioxide as well is a key pollutant.

So that's caused by traffic emissions.

And if you think of nitrogen, it's really abundant in the atmosphere, it's around 70%.

But what tends to happen is that you get the really high temperatures of the engine, causing that nitrogen to become nitrogen dioxide.

So it reacts with the oxygen and then it all of a sudden becomes a lot more chemically toxic for humans.

And again, the particles, what happens with particulate matter is these are really tiny.

So particularly when they're made up of things like metals or black carbon, and they enter into your nose and through your blood, they enter your bloodstream, and they can literally affect any organ in your body.

So what they can have is that real impact on your health, any organ.

Now, we know that people who have respiratory problems like asthma are particularly acutely sensitive to these things.

But even for people without those respiratory issues, these are a significant health concern.

We have seen data that shows that life expectancy is significantly lower.

There are real problems for people who live in cities where there's a lot of diesel cars that emit a lot of, of exhaust, or in places where there's just not strict controls on exhaust in general.

For those of us who are cyclists, we're riding along and we have our friends in the pickup trucks coming by us and doing what they love to do, roll coal, where they suddenly emit a huge burst of smoke, of black smoke that comes out at us.

How concerned should we be for that couple of seconds that we're getting that unfortunate inhalation of those fumes?

Is that a real danger or is it really something that we need to worry about over a period of time?

Yeah, so the short term spikes are a big issue, but.

And it is definitely an issue.

And things like that are impacting your cycling performance as well as your health.

So you'll find that it's not going to be as easy to cycle.

You'll be losing, catching, losing your breath as well.

So in a sense, your actual performance coming down to if you're cycling or if you're running as well, you'll find that your performance is significantly reduced.

And there's been estimations where if just 1 microgram per cubic meter, which is a relatively small amount of increase, but that can cause the reduction in a marathon performance by around 30, 30 seconds, according to nine marathons in the U.S. they looked at over five years.

So a relatively small amount of increase can cause a big impact on your running performance.

And again for cycling, it's an issue.

And I think the key thing is just trying to have that knowledge so that you can avoid that exposure as far as possible because it is not good for your lungs in short term.

And then longer term, as I say, it's even just smaller concentrations being exposed to that over a longer period of time tends to cause that significant long term health impact.

And now a lot of us will, during wildfire season, if the aqi, the air quality index is high, a lot of us will just retreat indoors and do our training inside.

But you mentioned that even indoors there there's problems with air quality.

What are the things we need to concern ourselves inside and what are the things that we can do to mitigate the risks in our own homes?

Yeah, the big one is cooking.

So if you're depending on the type of source that you're cooking, you'll find a massive spike in air pollution.

So having really good ventilation is key.

And perhaps having an air purifier cleaning is another important source.

So if you're using chemicals, you end up having very high concentrations of volatile organic compounds.

So these are major sources.

But also the outdoor air can be a source inside.

So if you have your windows open, which is often used to ventilate, and you end up reducing your PM2.5 from cooking, but you end up actually increasing your nitrogen dioxide from outside.

So there's sometimes like a really hard but counterintuitive way to play where it depends where you live and what the traffic's doing outside, or if there's wildfires, as you say, which may cause different reasons, may have different advice.

So you may be at one moment it is to.

To open up your window and to get the air pollution from indoors, outside.

And on the other hand, it could be that you want to open up your window to get the fresh air from outside, indoors.

That's really not terribly helpful.

I find myself now not knowing when I'm going to open my windows or not.

Okay.

I live in a city which unfortunately is afflicted by air pollution because of the previously mentioned temperature inversion.

I have filters in my furnace.

I have all of these things to try and help, but nitrogen dioxide is not one of these things that a filter is going to remove.

So is there anything that, that we can do to try and decrease the levels of those kinds of pollutants?

There are all kinds of fancy.

There's UV lights you can put in there, but I understand that's really more for biologicals.

So what are the kinds of things that you can do to try and improve the quality of your indoor environment?

Yeah, so some purifiers will have different kinds of filters.

So I think that's one of the things to really look out for when purchasing a filter is it depends on the kind of.

Of whether it's a HEPA filter, but also trying to get that dispersion through your room so that you can.

Or your building so that you can really like look to get the nitrogen dioxide, if it is coming from outside, to really understand what the concentrations are outside and then shut the windows, I think is key for nitrogen D. But you can, it does depend on the kind of filter which you have and the purifier.

So some of the purifiers are now able to reduce the exposure of gases.

It used to be your parents told you go outside, get some fresh air, it'll be so good for you.

And now it's not that clear.

All right.

I want to talk about AirTrack because you and I have spoken previously to this conversation about how AQI is a very useful metric, but it's a little bit vague if your air quality index is reported generally for very large areas and may not be particularly specific to where you are.

And you alluded a little bit earlier in our conversation today about this idea that AirTrack models conditions and can be very specific, very hyper local to where you are to give you a better, a more accurate picture of what your air Quality is specific to where you are.

How does it do that?

Yeah, so in the past we've obviously relied on measurements, but now with things like traffic data, meteorological conditions and the instruction of AI and dispersion models improving, what we're able to do is, is bringing to account all these different variables and understand how much traffic is going on the roads, understanding which direction the wind is blowing, using also satellite imagery to understand what the different kinds of sources are in other areas of the country where there are no traffic sources.

So maybe for things like wildfires to satellite imagery to bring all these different sources and build up an AI model which can really understand what the air pollution exposure is at that hyper local level.

Then validated using ground level measurements and model ground level measurements and sensors.

So that helps us to understand what the air pollution is at a hyper local resolution and that gives the insights for us to reduce the exposure.

So it is building up an artificial intelligence model which incorporates lots of different data sources.

Predominantly for us living in London, it is traffic data combined with met conditions.

But a lot of particulates are quite regional.

So also understanding, like from in the UK for example, we have PM coming from, from mainland Europe.

So understanding the best time for that activity.

So what we have in air track is it gives you the insight into when might be better.

So it could be that there's an episode coming in from over from mainland Europe, for example, which has lots of PM2,5 from the fertilizer, from the farms.

And we might have that insight to say actually if you wait a few hours, almost like looking at the weather, you'll find that air pollution exposure will be a lot lower.

The same with things like ozone.

When you build up that temperature, you can really change the time.

And meanwhile we're looking at optimizing the route as well.

So that was what I was going to ask.

So I have air track on my phone and right now it gives you data after the fact.

It's not able to give you, it's not able to tell you yet when or where you should go to reduce your air pollution.

Instead all it does right now is it integrates with your strava and after you upload your activity it will tell you this was what your exposure was, which is fine, but it would have been nice to know perhaps before whether or not it was a good time to go out or not.

But I guess I gather that's what you're working towards.

But.

So for example, I went for a ride on Friday and it tells me that my exposure was 24 micrograms per meter cubed of nitrogen dioxide and 4 micrograms per meter cubed cubes of particulate matter.

2.5, which I imagine is 2.5, is a diameter.

So is that 2.5 microns?

Yeah, exactly.

Technically, it's the mass of the particles, but micrograms per cubic meter, but exactly.

It's essentially the diameter, the size.

So you can consider it like 2.5 micrograms.

In other words, the particles that would get far enough down into your lungs to cause problems.

So I guess one of the questions I had when I look at this data is, okay, what does that mean?

20, 24 micrograms per meter cubed of nitrogen dioxide doesn't really mean a whole lot to me.

So what does that.

Is that a lot?

Is that a little?

Is that average?

Yeah.

So, firstly, we have launched now the optimization route.

So you can now go back on the app on AirTrack and you can optimize your route so that you can.

What it does is it shows you what your route was.

And if you optimize it, you can now find an alternative.

It will give you the alternative route.

It takes a little bit of time, so if you.

If you try and do it in real time, it will take 30 seconds to a minute.

But essentially there's the optimize button which will tell you that alternative route.

In terms of the actual concentrations, we fund the WHO guidelines, so the World Health Organization daily guidelines, so they give you concentrations which of 15 micrograms per cubic meter for PM 2.5 and 25 for nitrogen dioxide.

And these are like guidances.

But I think the key thing is everyone's different and that's what's so important for us.

So we want to build up this database which really understands you as an individual, what your goals are, whether you're training for a triathlon and trying to do a pb, or whether you're just.

Whether you have asthma or if you've got other sensitivities to air pollution.

And we can give you much better advice because I think at the moment the key thing is these WHO guidelines are based on, for everyone.

But there's a very different sensitivity to air pollution depending on your vulnerability.

So I think that's the first thing to note.

There is no one single, one single health guideline which should be considered.

Although the WHO guidelines are what we currently use, we want to also try and introduce this aspect of dosage.

So when you're cycling, you're breathing in perhaps five times more air than when you are walking or when you are sitting down in the vehicle.

So that's like another aspect which it's not just the exposure to the concentration but your actual dosage, the amount you're breathing in.

And that can differ.

And I think the key thing, the kind of insights that air track can give you, do we hope in the future, is to like that real time advice about maybe you are behind the vehicle which is about to puff out a load of black carbon.

You should have that kind of advice obviously to avoid that.

But then if not, if you're on a road where it's really busy, to just reduce your strenuity, your strenuous cycling so that you're not breathing as much generally on the really high polluted areas and particularly like mouth breathing where a lot of people are just not having that layer of trapping to the nose.

In terms of the actual concentrations, what they mean, ideally zero exposure to any pollution is bad.

Like the WHO guidelines are quite concerned.

Like are based on what the scientific literature is out there and they're meant for everyone.

But ultimately you want to be reducing your exposure to 0pm 2.5 and 0 nitrogen dioxide because it's an air pollutant which causes cancer, it causes lung diseases, causes respiratory issues, and even the really small amounts can cause damage.

So I think that's like a key thing.

A key target is to reach zero if you can, but acknowledging that you probably can't.

So at least you've got the data to find ways of reducing that exposure as far as possible.

So ideally, how do you envision air track being used by athletes?

Would it be because right now it's like I said, it's a post activity thing.

Is it something that ideally it will.

You'll wake up in the morning, you will know what activities you need to do.

You would see air track integrated somehow with either training peaks or whatever you're using and it would say hey, best time of day to do this would be at this time.

And if you're considering riding, you might want to ride indoors because it looks bad or if you're going to ride outdoors, you probably want to consider these routes.

Is that kind of how you envision it coming together?

Yeah, exactly.

No, exactly like that.

So having those levels of insights where beforehand building up that overall picture of your profile.

So also understanding what your exposure is being throughout the day.

So we want it to be not just a thing for athletes, but a thing for everyone where if you're tracking indoors, you'd be able to understand what your exposure is.

There and then when you're going out for your route, you have an understanding of if you've been exposed to higher concentrations, you need to ultimately look at reducing your exposure for your activity outdoors.

And on the other hand, just having that kind of understanding of what your daily profiles are, then having the insights to reduce it.

When you go out and about commuting to work, doing your activities and giving those insights, I think for us it's having that insight to give to governments to really understand where levels of personal exposure is being much higher.

As I said previously, it's all been about looking at monitoring at fixed locations.

And that's not.

The action that government can take is relatively limited with that data.

If you have action, if you have understanding of where individuals are getting exposed to air pollution, you can have a lot greater insight into what to do to reduce that exposure.

And you can have a much greater impact on things like planning where if there's certain hotspots that cyclists are getting exposed to large amounts of air pollution, you can really look at certain junction.

But I think from an individual basis, yeah, it's exactly that.

It's looking at trying to change the time of your activity in the route so that it reduces exposure as possible.

If you're an athlete who's time poor, a lot of age group athletes, they really are limited in terms of when they can train and a fair track tells them, hey, bad idea.

I just know already that people are not going to necessarily follow it and if it's continuously telling them hey, bad idea, then they'll probably stop using it at all.

How do you get around that or how do you work with athletes really have restrictions on when they can train?

No, I completely appreciate that.

I think the thing is that should be seen as like weather forecasting where if you know it's going to be super hot, what we would love it for you to like, not get like you consider it as much as you can, but if you can't, we're not trying to discourage people doing an activity and I think if you are time poor, then we can potentially, you can potentially change your route, which is like another variable.

So trying to find the lowest possible air pollution exposure I think is a key thing.

And if you can't change your time.

Yeah, it would be another aspect.

Hike to root.

Is training and exposing yourself to air pollution worse than not training at all?

No, we.

Unless it's really high air pollution.

We do.

The science out there typically says that it's much better to train.

It's just acknowledging that it Potentially will have impacts on your body.

So there will be.

But generally doing sport is a better.

A better or fitness and training is healthier.

Obviously trying to reduce your exposure.

It's like a target it.

But yeah, it is typically better to do sport or fitness.

All right, I want to finish up with a couple of non air quality things.

The first is the Loch Ness Marathon.

Please tell me that there's an aid station down by the lake itself and that is a means of trying to verify or dissuade the knowledge of the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Because if any of the marathoners were to disappear, then that would somehow prove the existence of the monster at long last.

Or is.

Am I just fantasizing?

Yeah, the whole route runs across the Loch Ness.

I think the whole time we'll be looking out for whether there's something chasing.

I've said if I get under, if I get over four hours, then it's Loch Ness Marathon, which is going to gobble me up.

But yeah, it's definitely something which if there's an age station, I think there'd be lots of people looking out for the Loch Ness Monster.

Is this a big.

Is this a big event in Scotland?

Yeah, it is.

I think it is a big event.

It's not the biggest, but there's a lot of people I think from England as well who travel up to Scotland.

It's in Inverness and travel up for the weekends.

And is it a trail race or is it a road race?

A road race.

A road race.

Okay.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

It's been a real interesting discussion.

A little bit somber I'm afraid because like I said, we all think about going outside and getting the fresh air, but.

But sadly, if you live anywhere urban, not really the case.

Will Hicks is the co founder and chief scientific officer of Arrowware Labs.

They produce an app called AirTrack which integrates with several third party different programs including Strava.

And I will include the link for where you can get that in the show notes.

Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

It's been a fascinating conversation.

I really enjoyed it.

Thanks for having me, Jeff.

I wanna broadcast every everything in stereo.

What's up everybody?

My name is Joe Wilson and I'm a proud supporter of the Tridarch Podcast.

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