When your time is so precious, you have to be incredibly intentional with how you spend it and also be highly aware of opportunities that you can gain a little time back in your day.
Speaker AAnd so on that first one about being intentional with your time, I think in our day and age it's so easy to, I don't know, sit down on the couch and then four hours later you've watched two movies or an entire TV series or I don't know, like you intend on doing one thing and next thing you've been buried in your phone for an hour scrolling through TikToks and Instagram.
Speaker AAnd for me, I just try and be very intentional to make sure that time isn't spent that way because I personally don't necessarily get satisfaction and fulfillment out of that.
Speaker AI feel like I have a much larger purpose and calling in life as being a future physician, as well as using the opportunity that I have now as professional triathlete to inspire other people and to hopefully make an impact on cancer awareness, cancer fundraising, et cetera.
Speaker BHello and welcome once again to the Tridoc Podcast.
Speaker BThis is the March 7, 2025 edition and I am your host, Jeff Sankoff, the Tridoc an emergency physician, a multiple Ironman finisher and a triathlon coach.
Speaker BComing to you as always from beautiful sunny Denver, Colorado.
Speaker BThat voice you heard at the top of the program was that of Matthew Marquard, my guest on today's show.
Speaker BMatthew is an incredible individual.
Speaker BAt 27 years of age, he has just taken the triathlon world by storm.
Speaker BHe started as a triathlete in 2021 and by 2022 won the overall age group for men championship at Kona for the Ironman Distance.
Speaker BHe turned professional the next year and has had just a string of successes.
Speaker BAnd all of this has come while he's a full time medical student.
Speaker BHe is really an impressive individual, not just athletically but as an all around person and I so enjoyed speaking with him and learning a little bit more about him and I think you'll enjoy that conversation too.
Speaker BThat's coming up in just a short while.
Speaker BThere's been a lot of interesting goings on in the world of triathlon.
Speaker BYou may have heard me discuss it with my friend Matt Sharp on the Tempo Talks episode last week.
Speaker BBut just in case you didn't, there were a couple of very interesting stories that came out in the world both of professional and age group triathlon.
Speaker BThe first of those involves the positive drug test of Imogen Simmons, the Swiss athlete who has twice been on the podium of the 70.3 Worlds last year, finishing in fourth in New Zealand, and has had really a stellar career up to this point.
Speaker BShe unfortunately tested positive for very, very trace amounts of an agent called Ligandrol.
Speaker BI think we're pronouncing that right, I'm not entirely sure.
Speaker BBut anyways, this particular agent is a selective androgen receptor modulator.
Speaker BIt's the kind of thing that somebody takes if they want to put on a lot of muscle mass.
Speaker BAnd if you've ever seen Imogen Simmons, she's not exactly the most sort of heavily muscled kind of female athlete you're going to see.
Speaker BShe's a typical kind of wavy kind of athlete, if anything, and she's had a long track record of success.
Speaker BSo those two things together kind of made the whole positive seem a little bit unusual and kind of mystifying.
Speaker BThere was also the reason she gave for what she thought led to her positive.
Speaker BAnd that was her longtime partner had actually been unbeknownst to her taking that substance.
Speaker BAnd she contended that possible that he transmitted it to her in his bodily fluids during intimate relations.
Speaker BAnd because of that, she tested positive for the very, very trace amounts that she had.
Speaker BNow, that may kind of come across as a fishy explanation, but in fact there is precedent for that.
Speaker BAn Olympic athlete from Canada in, I believe it was rowing back in the Tokyo Olympics, had the exact same thing happen.
Speaker BHer boyfriend, unbeknownst to her, was taking this substance.
Speaker BShe tested positive for very, very trace amounts for this agent in her drug screen.
Speaker BAnd she was able to successfully have it overturned when medical experts testified that yes, indeed, it is very possible for that amount of this drug to have been transmitted from him to her during intimate relations.
Speaker BSo I think Imogen Simmons is probably going to be successful in her own appeal for all of the reasons I mentioned that this is not somebody who kind of just came onto the scene out of nowhere and had great success and now has a positive doping test similar to what we saw with Thomas Hernandez last year.
Speaker BBut rather, this is somebody with a long track record of success, has had clean drug screens throughout, including as recently as what, a month ago at Worlds, and has a plausible deniability with a story that has precedent.
Speaker BSo don't be surprised if you see Imogen Simmons be overturned or at least her drug test overturned, and she will be back racing without a suspension.
Speaker BAt least that's my suspicion.
Speaker BThe other interesting news has to do with the Iron man related rules changes.
Speaker BYou have likely heard about them at this point.
Speaker BI think the maiden major ones that are probably garnering the most attention have to do with the change in the allowed bottles or hydration systems that are going to be allowed by rule to be carried on the front and rear of the bike.
Speaker BNo longer will you see these 3D printed contraptions with huge amounts of volume being carried on the front end of the bike, making the bike somewhat unwieldy and potentially dangerous.
Speaker BThe amount of liquid is going to be restricted to 2 liters, although there doesn't seem to be any criteria for how that two liters is stored.
Speaker BSo I won't be surprised if you still see people carrying like four bottles, which still strikes me as too many, but two liters at least is a reasonable amount of fluid.
Speaker BI know personally my bottles carry about 500, I think about 600cc or so, possibly a little bit more.
Speaker BAnd so I wouldn't personally want to have like four of those.
Speaker BBut I guess you never know what people are going to be doing and then on the back end you're only going to be allowed two bottles and it's going to, I don't think dramatically impact too many people.
Speaker BAlthough of course we did see a few competitors in Kona last year with a four bottle setup that will no longer be allowed.
Speaker BThe other major rule change has to do with the change in penalties.
Speaker BNo longer will a blue card for drafting or for not falling back or whatever you used to get a blue card for, which would be a five minute penalty.
Speaker BIt's now going to be only a three minute penalty.
Speaker BSo that is a pretty significant change.
Speaker BI know two minute difference doesn't seem like a lot, but when we're Talking about a 70.3 race, 3 minutes versus 5 minutes is kind of a big deal.
Speaker BWe saw what happened when certain pros have received a blue card penalty and a 70.3.
Speaker BThey kind of just their race as far as they're concerned is over when it's a five minute penalty.
Speaker BAnd that I think has led to referees being much less likely to assign penalties.
Speaker BAnd the same is probably true for age groupers.
Speaker BI wouldn't be surprised if age groupers are not getting penalties because the referees don't want to assign such a heavy premium for doing a rules violation.
Speaker BWell, that and also there's just not enough officials on the course.
Speaker BBut I think with a shorter amount of time being served for penalties, I won't be surprised to see more of them being handed out both to pros and age groupers alike.
Speaker BBut we'll see.
Speaker BWhat do you think?
Speaker BI'd love to hear your thoughts on either of these stories or on whatever else is going on in the triathlon world.
Speaker BPlease do send me a note@tridocloud.com or if you are a member of the Tridark Podcast's private Facebook group, I hope that you will leave a comment and maybe opine on a couple of these things or at least one or two of them of the different stories going around.
Speaker BAnd if you're not a member, please do head over there on Facebook, just search for Tridark Podcast, answer the three very easy questions, I will grant you admittance and you can join the conversation and maybe even ask a question that could be considered for a Medical Mailbag segment on an upcoming episode.
Speaker BAfter that interview with Matthew that I referenced at the beginning of this monologue, we are going to get to the Medical Mailbag and it's an interesting one.
Speaker BIf you heard last episode, then you heard me voice my dismay about a lot of the pseudoscience that seems to be percolating through our society these days and how it is impacting people in that it is leading them away from the tried and tested things that we know help our health and well being.
Speaker BWell, today's Medical Mailbag segment deals with yet another one of these things, what I like to refer to as the Bro Peptides.
Speaker BThese are peptides that are being promoted by all kinds of influencers, the likes of Andrew Huberman, for example, who shamelessly, as a scientist, no less, goes on his program and promotes these things that have absolutely zero evidence whatsoever to suggest that they do anything, anything positive for anyone.
Speaker BAnd yet he brings on individuals who, he does not clarify, represent a clinic that stands to profit and benefit from selling these things.
Speaker BAnd he brings them on as a reputable guest and gives them all the credibility in the world and allows them to espouse all kinds of falsehoods about these things.
Speaker BSo I call them the Bro Peptides.
Speaker BThey are things that have been promoted to improve healing and improve health and improve well being.
Speaker BAnd the reality is, I'm afraid, is just not that exciting.
Speaker BWe're going to talk about that when Juliet joins me right in a moment here for the Medical Mailbag.
Speaker BThank you so much for being here.
Speaker BI look forward to chatting with you as the show continues.
Speaker BHello again, Juliette.
Speaker BHow are you?
Speaker CI'm fine.
Speaker CHow are you?
Speaker CWe're only laughing.
Speaker CThe listeners should know we're only laughing because we have just brought our both of our collective heartbeats down from a very dynamic discussion offline.
Speaker BDynamic.
Speaker BDynamic, yes.
Speaker BThat's one way of putting it we had a little bit of an intense warmup discussion for you as we prepare for a somewhat interesting Medical mailbag segment that we have for you.
Speaker BIf it's the Medical mailbag, then that means Juliet, of course, is my friend and colleague Juliet Hockman, coach at Life Sport Coaching and a dear friend, Juliet, what is the question that we're going to be tackling here and hopefully keeping our heart rates down while we discuss Exactly?
Speaker CI feel like we've already tackled it, so this question came to us from one of our listeners.
Speaker CThank you very much for sending these questions in.
Speaker CThe questions are much more interesting if they come from you rather than if we generate them, so keep them coming.
Speaker CThis question regards the use of peptides for increased performance in endurance sports.
Speaker CAnd peptides have become more and more apparent for athletes, particularly athletes and particularly male athletes in the gym as they look for performance gains.
Speaker CAnd they are heavily shilled by people on the Internet, YouTube channels, by people we'll talk about this soon, who have some pretty laudable degrees and big names behind them.
Speaker CBut what do we really know about these peptides, particularly BPC157 and TV500 in terms of are they effective for any type of athlete and particularly staying in our lane for endurance athletes?
Speaker CSo what did your team find out?
Speaker AJeff?
Speaker BOh, we had so much fun.
Speaker BCosette Rhodes was the intern assigned to this, and she came to me yesterday with the research that she had done.
Speaker BShe was actually like laughing out loud when we were discussing this because she had not heard of this, just as I had not until it was brought to my attention.
Speaker BAnd we were looking at the science behind this, which is very scant and not at all on humans, and we just could not believe that this was as much of a thing that it is.
Speaker BAnd I shared with you an article that came from the Lay press a couple years ago, actually produced by my alma mater, someone at McGill University, and I thought it was an excellent little piece on what these things are.
Speaker CSo just just to lead the witness, the article is called the Human Lab Rats Injecting Them with Peptides, which is clickbait.
Speaker CEven coming from McGill University, I have to say.
Speaker BYeah, I like it.
Speaker BThis is.
Speaker BI alluded to the fact that we were going to have a couple of these topics coming up this episode and next episode.
Speaker BThe next one is a doozy as well.
Speaker BAnd we chatted about this last episode where I asked you what?
Speaker BWhy is there so much of this pseudoscience permeating the interwebs and the listener who sent this into me attached a couple of links to a very popular podcast.
Speaker BActually, I don't know, does he do a podcast?
Speaker BHuberman?
Speaker BAnd it's.
Speaker BWhat is it called?
Speaker BIt's Huberman Podcast.
Speaker CNo, it's absolutely a podcast.
Speaker CI've listened to it.
Speaker BOh, okay.
Speaker BIt came to me as a link to a YouTube.
Speaker COh, no, this is.
Speaker CIt's called Huberman Labs, I think.
Speaker BOkay, so Huberman Labs, much more popular than the Tridoc podcast.
Speaker BFrom what I could tell on YouTube, he's got 7 million subscribers.
Speaker BThe number of likes he had for the linked video that I looked at is like an order of magnitude higher than the number of listens that this show will get.
Speaker BWhich is really unfortunate because Andrew Huberman, as far as I'm concerned, honestly should be ashamed of himself.
Speaker BHere is a guy, and I don't say that lightly, here's a guy who is apparently, I don't know what his actual bonafides are, but he advertises himself as a neurobiologist and somehow involved with ophthalmology at Stanford University of all places.
Speaker BAnd he's clearly, he leads the program with those credentials, so he's advertising himself as someone you should take seriously.
Speaker BAnd he then goes on for more than an hour to spew the most unbelievable amounts of garbage on this subject.
Speaker BAnd now I can only imagine what else he's talking about because I have not listened to his program and I really don't want to ever have to again because this was painful enough.
Speaker BHe talked about peptides and he brought on what he called a world expert on peptides.
Speaker BAnd when I looked into who this world expert was, turned out that he's just a guy who owns a clinic that sells this stuff and injects people with this stuff and makes all these claims about peptides, but who he himself has not done any research on any of it.
Speaker BAnd it was just mind blowing to me that this was being pushed on people as cutting edge scientific evidence that backs up the use of these things.
Speaker BAnd that if you're not considering using these things, then you're missing the boat somehow.
Speaker BAnd this just infuriated me.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker CSo let, let's back up for a second.
Speaker CAnd if I understand, peptides are basically short chains of amino acids.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker CAnd they're responsible for stimulating growth hormone.
Speaker CIs that right?
Speaker BThat's what these ones are supposedly doing.
Speaker BSo we can go back and just look at sort of the history of this.
Speaker BAnd there was, there were scientific reasons to try and find ways or find molecules that had activities within the body.
Speaker BThat would result in changing the physiology of what was going on in different kinds of processes.
Speaker BSo, for example, I can give you a really good example of a peptide that was discovered that triggers a whole chain of events in physiology.
Speaker BThat actual.
Speaker BThat has real world results.
Speaker BAnd that peptide is GLP1 ozempic.
Speaker CIs that the one for kids when the kids aren't born?
Speaker BOh, Ozemic Ozempic.
Speaker COh, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker CYep.
Speaker BThe weight loss drug semaglutide is basically a peptide.
Speaker BIt is a short chain peptide.
Speaker BIt is a small piece of a hormone that was discovered through many years of research that basically exerts its influence within the brain and within the gastrointestinal system to basically make you feel like you're full.
Speaker BAnd there are hormones that do this.
Speaker BSemaglutide.
Speaker BNot semaglutide, but the semaglutide is based on a hormone that.
Speaker BI'm trying to remember the name of it.
Speaker BAnyways, it doesn't matter.
Speaker BBut there is this hormone that actually exerts its effect that makes you feel full.
Speaker BAnd they were able to figure out that if we just take a short chain of that, it's semaglutide, this small GLP1 receptor agonist.
Speaker BThis peptide will do exactly the same thing, but it doesn't have a lot of these other influences that the hormone itself would have.
Speaker BAnd that made it really a desirable kind of thing.
Speaker BGreat, so that's a peptide that works.
Speaker BAnd another peptide that was discovered by some of the early people that looked at this were peptides that stimulated the pituitary gland to release growth hormone.
Speaker BAnd this was very important for a variety of different diseases.
Speaker BThey used it in kids and it would help kids who had growth hormone problems and allow them to grow taller and things like that.
Speaker BAnd this led to a whole array of research.
Speaker BAnd one of the things that was found was there is a type of fish called a zebrafish that has the ability to regenerate its heart tissue.
Speaker BAnd people started to think, wow, if we could figure out how the zebrafish regenerates its heart tissue, then I bet we would be able to use whatever it is that's doing that in people.
Speaker BBecause after a myocardial infarction, we have death of cardiac tissue, we need to regenerate it.
Speaker ARight, sure.
Speaker BAnd so this led to a whole bunch of research that led to the discovery of these tiny little peptides or these hormones within the gastric juices of the stomach that were then reduced into these like short chains that seem to retain some of the activity and that protein is called BPC157 and BPC157 and TB500 is the other one.
Speaker BBoth of them are felt to do a whole host of things, but one of the big things is it's supposed to help with regenerative capacity, supposed to help regenerate injured tissue and to give you a sense of what malarkey it is, because the research.
Speaker BThere has been no research to actually show any of this works.
Speaker BBut they're calling this the bros out there, the Joe Rogans of the world, the Andrew Hubermans of the world.
Speaker BThey're calling this stuff the Wolverine stack.
Speaker BWolverine, like the superhero from the X.
Speaker CMen who can be shot up.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BSo you just have to buy these capsules at a hundred bucks for 50 capsules and get the claws inserted somehow and you're ready to go.
Speaker BThe problem is, outside of the zebrafish, there's not like a whole lot of things that have been shown.
Speaker BSo we found a whole bunch of studies, many of them in rodents, that seem to suggest that in preliminary, very preliminary science, if you injure the tendons of a rat, you can see the stimulation by these peptides of some tendon fibroblasts, which are the cells required to cause some tissue repair.
Speaker BBut do you actually see tissue repair?
Speaker BWho knows?
Speaker BBecause the studies haven't shown it.
Speaker BThey don't get.
Speaker BRemember, you know how many times we've talked about the mouse, the mice on treadmills?
Speaker CYeah, right.
Speaker BNone of these.
Speaker CThey didn't even run them on treadmills.
Speaker BThey haven't done that.
Speaker BThey haven't had the mice swim.
Speaker BThey haven't had them do anything.
Speaker BInstead, all they've done is in various rodent level studies, they have basically just showed indirect levels that, hey, these peptides might work.
Speaker BBut just might is enough for some of the drug testing agencies of the world to take note, because they see how many people are taking these things.
Speaker BAnd so Wada a few years ago said, we don't like this.
Speaker BYeah, we don't like either of these things.
Speaker BAmongst a host of other peptides we don't actually believe.
Speaker BAnd this is what they say.
Speaker BSo this is right off the water site.
Speaker BThe experimental peptide BPC157 is prohibited under the World Anti Doping Agency list and category of unapproved substances.
Speaker BThe reason they're blocking it and the reason they're blocking TB500 is because both of them are.
Speaker BThey worry could be the kinds of peptides that stimulate growth hormone.
Speaker BSo the reason you don't want that is because we know that growth hormone is a performance enhancer and we don't want people taking exogenous growth hormone.
Speaker BWe also don't want them taking something that's going to make their own growth hormone come out in more.
Speaker BSo they're thinking that, but they say.
Speaker CThat just because water bans it.
Speaker CJust because water bans it doesn't mean it works.
Speaker BBecause they go on to say.
Speaker AWorried about it.
Speaker BYeah, they go on to say that all the studies that have ever been done looking at BPC157 appear to have been canceled or stopped without any published conclusions because no positive results were ever found.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker BAnd yet Andrew Huberman, with his 7 million listeners.
Speaker CSo why does.
Speaker CWhy so knowing that these studies are non existent pretty much, or inconclusive at best.
Speaker CWhy.
Speaker CFrom what source are these podcasters drawing their conclusions that this stuff is so effective?
Speaker CIt's entirely anecdotal, right?
Speaker COh, I felt better.
Speaker CIt worked for me.
Speaker CI.
Speaker CMy muscles are bigger around.
Speaker CI think one said he was like my muscles rounder.
Speaker BYeah, that's.
Speaker BThat's the question.
Speaker BAnd that's what I was asking you last time.
Speaker BAnd I think it's what causes me a lot of angst.
Speaker BBecause I think in this day and age of social media, it's very easy for just any Joe Blow to just stand up there and say, I took this stuff, it did wonders for me.
Speaker BAnd oh, by the way, I'm selling it.
Speaker BWhy don't you just pony up and you can sell, you can buy it from me.
Speaker BAnd Huberman gives people a huge stage and people are everywhere looking for easy answers.
Speaker BWe've talked in the past, you and I don't take supplements because we just do the hard work and we recognize that the science doesn't bear out most of the claims that these things do.
Speaker BBut most people aren't willing to take the time to read the science or to even care to understand the science.
Speaker BBecause instead you've got Andrew Huberman, or whoever these other influencers are who look great, look a lot better than I do, and they have the time to spend on their social media channels basically saying, I look like this because I take this product, which ends up being complete rubbish.
Speaker BBecause as that article points out, what was his name?
Speaker BThe.
Speaker BThe strength influencer who was pushing this BPC157, saying that he was living clean and the only thing he was doing was his BPC157.
Speaker BAnd then lo and behold, it turns out, oh no, actually, he's pumping himself to the gills with the liver king.
Speaker CBrian Johnson, the Liver king.
Speaker CBrian Johnson.
Speaker BYeah, yeah.
Speaker BLiving clean, but not really living clean.
Speaker BAnd then other people pony off.
Speaker BNot pony, but basically piggyback off of him and do the exact same thing.
Speaker BAnd yet the gullible continue to be duped.
Speaker BAnd I think it's because as you and I were talking before, everybody wants the quick answer.
Speaker BEverybody.
Speaker BIt's so easy to just latch onto these things and just, just if I just shill send in some money, I'm going to get this thing.
Speaker BIt's going to make me a better whatever.
Speaker BAnd the truth, which is what you and I peddle in, is unfortunately not all that glamorous.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BIt's a lot harder to tell people that this stuff doesn't work.
Speaker BOr when we do tell people that it does work, we don't make promises of enormous gains.
Speaker BWe just say, yeah, it'll give you a marginal gain on top of the hard work that you have to put in.
Speaker BNone of these things are going to come easy.
Speaker BAnd I think people don't like to hear that.
Speaker BBut it really is discouraging to me to continue to see this kind of misinformation, disinformation being promoted by people who should know better, who have a huge platform, who, as far as I'm concerned, should feel a responsibility to the truth.
Speaker BAnd this is what leads to the hesitancy to believe in what science has laid down in terms of the foundation of what our whole society is based on.
Speaker BThis is why a child dies in Texas, because people latch onto whatever the latest person is going to say on the Internet.
Speaker BAnd, oh, never mind that we have 50, 60 years of science that shows that vaccines are safe and effective.
Speaker BIf I see one person, one famous person, tell me that a vaccine is going to kill my kid, I'm not going to go there.
Speaker BAnd I don't want to talk about vaccines, but I do want to talk.
Speaker CAbout it seems like we have.
Speaker CThere's a couple challenges here, right?
Speaker COne is that people have less time now than they've ever had in the history of time because everyone's very busy all the time.
Speaker CSo people are looking for shortcuts and quick answers because they just don't have the time to train and train, which is what we know it can take to get performance gains.
Speaker CPeople are impatient, so they want to see results now instead of six months, nine months, two years, 10 years.
Speaker CYou gave a great chalk talk last year about the importance of stacking seasons.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker CAnd being consistent.
Speaker CThere is no.
Speaker CYeah, there is no off season.
Speaker CIt's all about Training consistently all year round, periodizing it, but not training for six months.
Speaker CStopping for six months, training, whatever.
Speaker CWe have to continue to see those performance gains.
Speaker CAnd then as you just mentioned with the Internet, it's so easy to become alarmed.
Speaker CI only have to scroll one or two posts and I'm alarmed all the time.
Speaker CSo it's just, it's.
Speaker CWe have news coming at us at a rate that we have never had before.
Speaker CYou and I are the same age.
Speaker CWhen we were kids, it was the morning paper and the 6 o'clock news on three different channels and that was it.
Speaker CAnd they all said the same thing.
Speaker CNBC, abc, CBS and then the morning newspaper.
Speaker CThat was it.
Speaker CThere was no other access to news and it took longer to get information and sources were better vetted.
Speaker CYeah, now we can all be newscasters by just putting, throwing up, whatever it is.
Speaker CChallenge.
Speaker CIt is challenging, I think, for people to, to find the good sources and to find the right answers.
Speaker BYeah, let's bring it back from my existential angst and just focus on these peptides for just a second more because I do want to give, I do want to give some.
Speaker BI want to give place a little more medical context.
Speaker BYeah, A little more context to all of the work that Cosette did.
Speaker BBecause while there wasn't a lot of science to be found, there was some.
Speaker BAnd again, with respect to this, both of these agents, they're peptides.
Speaker BAnd I, I think that the article that we read from Gil basically highlights the fact that most of these things, in order to be effective, have to be injected.
Speaker BIf you go online, a lot of these things are sold in capsule form.
Speaker BAnd that's a big problem because there was two issues there.
Speaker BNumber one, these things are not regulated.
Speaker BSay what you will about regulatory agencies, but when our food and drugs are regulated, it means that somebody is overseeing, watching the shop on the label is actually in the bottle.
Speaker BAnd they did a study, let's see, this was a study from 2023 where they looked at TB 500.
Speaker BThey wanted to get a better understanding of what you were getting when you bought these things.
Speaker BAnd basically they said that the take home conclusion was no FDA approval leads to a lack of regulation.
Speaker BAnd TB500 product tested by researchers was not found to be what it was advertised as.
Speaker BYou're buying this stuff, you generally have no idea what's actually coming in it.
Speaker BSo that's problem number one.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BWell, I guess problem number one is this stuff doesn't do anything.
Speaker BProblem number two is if you think it's doing something you're buying a product that often doesn't contain what you think it does.
Speaker BAnd then problem number three is let's say it does.
Speaker BLet's say it does contain these peptides.
Speaker BYour stomach and your intestines do a fantastic job of breaking down proteins and their composite component, amino acids.
Speaker BAnd so the second that these peptides hit the stomach, they get broken down and then absorbed as into individual amino acids, and they don't get reconstituted into the peptide they once were.
Speaker BThere's a reason Ozempic has to be injected.
Speaker BOzempic can't be taken orally because our body won't absorb the peptide as a whole, and therefore it will lose its efficacy.
Speaker BAll of these things exactly the same as you swallow them, they get digested, they get absorbed in building blocks as opposed to as the peptide themselves.
Speaker BSo even if you want to disregard everything I've said and think that, oh, there's.
Speaker BI'm going to believe Huberman, you can't beat the fact that most of these things don't include what they say they do.
Speaker BAnd also, if they did, they wouldn't.
Speaker BThey wouldn't.
Speaker CThey get broken down.
Speaker CThey wouldn't get delivered.
Speaker AYeah, they wouldn't get delivered.
Speaker BSo now if you want to inject yourself with this stuff, that's your call.
Speaker BI wouldn't recommend it given that there have been exactly zero.
Speaker BAnd I am not exaggerating here, we looked there and even on Huberman's podcast, they admitted it.
Speaker BThere have been zero studies on humans.
Speaker BWhy they would then say that these things are so effective in that context, I have no idea.
Speaker BBut I am going to tell you, in the absence of any human trials, you can't say that these things do anything in humans.
Speaker BYou are completely making it up if you think that these things are doing anything.
Speaker BAnd based on the very limited animal science we have, it just, you know, here we are.
Speaker CSo you're giving us the great tridoc thumbs down, double thumbs.
Speaker BThis is getting double thumbs down.
Speaker BIt's.
Speaker BThis is.
Speaker BThese things are no worse than any of the other things.
Speaker BThe only reason I'm more riled up about it is because of how they're being pushed.
Speaker BLike, we.
Speaker BWe have talked about a lot of supplements before where the websites make all, like New Zealand currants, I think is a great one.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BThere's a fruit that is not dangerous in any way.
Speaker BIts promoters do have some research that is.
Speaker BYeah, it's not the best research.
Speaker BThey're making claims that are maybe outside of what the research supports.
Speaker BMore power to them, it's.
Speaker BThey're not.
Speaker BThey're scratching credulity a little bit, but they're not making things up.
Speaker BThey're basing it on the limited research they have and they're just extrapolating a little bit.
Speaker BAnd if people want to buy this natural substance and they want to take it and if it makes them feel good, great.
Speaker BI don't have a problem with that.
Speaker BAnd also, it's not that expensive.
Speaker BBut this is next level garbage, right?
Speaker BThis is like people who should know better, people taking advantage of, people who don't want to take the time to actually look into it, people who are lending their credibility to others to sell this stuff.
Speaker BAnd I just.
Speaker BThat.
Speaker BThat is not okay.
Speaker AI.
Speaker BWe.
Speaker CAll right, so listener note.
Speaker CIf you want to really crank Jeff Sankoff up, have an Ivy League or a Stanford or another really amazing university degree and have a couple million followers and sell them trash.
Speaker BSend me a question about something that one of those people is promoting.
Speaker CExactly.
Speaker COh, no, we love the guy who sent the question in.
Speaker BHey, look, we have never accepted sponsors for this program.
Speaker BAnd this is why, because we want to be able to say at face value that we don't have any stake in the game, that we're going to tell you about the things based on what the science says and nothing else.
Speaker BAnd it's my hope that makes us more trustworthy.
Speaker BWe have no, we have no reason to tell you other anything other than what we find as the truth.
Speaker BAnd I will hold.
Speaker CAnd the studies are coming from studies that are out there and publicly available from all corners of science and medicine.
Speaker BAnd now that we're publishing a newsletter that comes out next week.
Speaker CThat's right.
Speaker BThat will include all of the references.
Speaker BReferences that we use.
Speaker BIf you think we missed a reference, then you could compare to what we have there and you could say, hey, Sakoff, you missed this reference.
Speaker BThat includes humans.
Speaker CYeah, let us know.
Speaker BI'll want to know.
Speaker BYeah, absolutely.
Speaker BBut yeah, if you want to see those references, then of course please do subscribe to the newsletter.
Speaker BThe link is in the show notes.
Speaker BThe link is on the Tridoc podcast, private Facebook group.
Speaker BIt's at my Instagram as well.
Speaker BSo you could find it all over the place.
Speaker BI hope that you'll subscribe.
Speaker BThe people who have subscribed have let me know that they have found it to be quite enjoyable and a quick read.
Speaker CSo I want to do a quick.
Speaker CA double shout out here.
Speaker COne is that you and Matt Sharp are co hosting a.
Speaker CAnother podcast, Tempo Talks, which I've listened to.
Speaker CI think you've done three episodes so far, is that right?
Speaker BWe have done three, yeah.
Speaker BFourth comes up.
Speaker COkay.
Speaker BI've listened to all of them this episode.
Speaker CYep, I've listened to all of them.
Speaker CI think they're great.
Speaker CThat is a mostly impartial review.
Speaker CSo go and check that out wherever you can find your podcast.
Speaker CAnd then the other shout out is in a Couple weeks time, March 15 I think it is.
Speaker CYou are doing a chalk talk which Everybody's invited to summarizing 166.
Speaker BThis is episode 166, so.
Speaker CRight, okay.
Speaker CSo exactly.
Speaker CSo summarizing what really works.
Speaker CAnd Jeff did a similar chalk talk two years ago and it's probably one of the most popular chalk talks that we've.
Speaker CThat Life Sport Coaching has ever done and we've reproduced it a number of times.
Speaker CReally?
Speaker CAnd of course now we have two years more information.
Speaker CSo if you would like an invitation to that chalk talk, all we need to do is send you the zoom link.
Speaker CSo please be in contact with either Jeff on one of his many platforms or you can also reach out to me.
Speaker CI'm on Instagram at Juliet Hockman or julietsportcoaching.com we'd love you to come.
Speaker CAnd it's a very entertaining chalk talk.
Speaker BSo yeah, ever since we mentioned that we were gonna do another Review at episode 200, I've been getting a lot of emails.
Speaker BPeople are like, oh, I wanna know when is the summary coming out?
Speaker BFor those of you.
Speaker BAnd Tim is one of the person who emailed me last.
Speaker BI actually sent Tim an email back where I listed a bunch of the episodes.
Speaker BBut I think it would be great to have Tim and anybody else who's interested to come to that jock talk.
Speaker BWe'd love to have you there.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BYes, please do.
Speaker CActually, we can put the zoom link in the show notes, right?
Speaker CIf I send it to you, put.
Speaker BIt in the show notes.
Speaker BBut definitely drop Juliet a line or me because I know people often don't go to the show notes.
Speaker BSo give your email again.
Speaker BJuliet.
Speaker CJuliet.
Speaker CLike Romeo and Juliet.
Speaker CJ U L I e t@lifesportcoaching.com I'm happy to send you the zoom link.
Speaker CWe hope you come.
Speaker CMarch 15th, 5:00 Pacific.
Speaker BAll right, awesome.
Speaker BThat wraps it up for another medical mailbag segment.
Speaker BWe have another kind of crazy one for the next episode.
Speaker AOh, I can't wait.
Speaker BYeah, it's going to be a good one.
Speaker BI'm going to put my heart rate.
Speaker CMonitor on next time.
Speaker BWe hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker BAs always, if you have questions, if you have comments about this subject, then please do let us know.
Speaker BYou could email us at the email that we just gave you.
Speaker BOr you can of course leave your comments your questions in the private Facebook group on that platform.
Speaker BJust look for Tridoc podcast and answer the three easy questions.
Speaker BI'll gain you admittance and we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker BWe'd love to have you as part of the conversation.
Speaker BJuliette, thanks so much for being here.
Speaker BI look forward to chatting with you again in a couple of weeks.
Speaker BAnd I'll look forward to that chalk talk as well.
Speaker CThank you Jeff.
Speaker BWell, if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, then you've heard me say numerous times how I struggle with so many balls in the air between my day job, my family trying to get my training and coaching in, and of course just doing my own stuff.
Speaker BBut my guest today makes me feel like an incredible slacker.
Speaker BMatthew Marquardt is a professional Ironman triathlete and a third year medical student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine where he is aspiring to become a head and neck surgeon.
Speaker BA cancer surgeon specifically.
Speaker BHe graduated from Princeton University in 2021 in chemistry with a minor in entrepreneurship and he's passionate about using 3D printing to improve cancer surgery and applying athletic insights to enhance surgeon performance.
Speaker BHe discovered triathlon in 2021 when he began medical school.
Speaker BI did not discover triathlon in medical school.
Speaker BI was discovering a lot of other things.
Speaker BIt wasn't triathlon.
Speaker BIn 2022 in medical school, he won the overall age group title at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, where he first came onto the radar of a lot of triathletes, including myself, and he went on to Turn Pro in 2023 again while still in medical school, earning three podiums and the fastest swim split en route to 11th place at the Ironman World Championships in N.
Speaker BIn 2024 he finished fourth in the Ironman Pro Series with three more podiums, a sub eight hour performance and a new bike course record at Ironman Lake Placid.
Speaker BThrough racing, he is driven by mission to use sport as a platform for cancer advocacy, to honor the people in his life who have battled cancer, and to inspire others to redefine what is possible.
Speaker BIt is my absolute pleasure to welcome Matthew Marquardt to the Tridock Podcast today.
Speaker BMatthew, thank you so much for taking what I can only imagine is a tiny amount of your free time, or I should say A tiny amount of what you have as free time.
Speaker BCome and speak with me here today.
Speaker BThank you so much for being here.
Speaker AOf course, I'm more than happy to.
Speaker AAnd it's a privilege to be on any sort of podcast and be able to tell my story.
Speaker AMore than happy to spend some time.
Speaker AAll right.
Speaker BI have a lot of questions, as you might imagine, and one of them is, for most of us, we come to triathlon at some point and we.
Speaker BWe don't win the overall age group in Kona, So clearly you weren't coming from de novo.
Speaker BYou obviously have some kind of athletic background.
Speaker BSo tell us, what was your athletic background?
Speaker BHow did you find triathlon and when did you figure out, hey, I might actually be pretty good at this?
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AGrowing up, my main sport of focus was swimming.
Speaker AI swam in college, and around the age of 14 or 15 was when it became clear that swimming was my sport.
Speaker ABut throughout, really, as long as I can remember through high school, I.
Speaker AI always played multiple sports.
Speaker ASo in high school, I did track, cross country, soccer, lacrosse, and swimming.
Speaker AWent to a very small high school, so we were able to play basically any sport that we wanted.
Speaker AAnd so really, I never truly specialized in one sport until I got to college.
Speaker AAnd so that's really where the foundation was laid.
Speaker AAnd would also ride a bike on weekends and go mountain biking or road biking from, I don't know, probably since the time I was 10 or so with my parents and.
Speaker ABut never competed was always just for fun.
Speaker AAnd yeah, so really the.
Speaker AThat foundation was by doing a bunch of different sports throughout high school.
Speaker AAnd then swimming's obviously an incredible aerobic base and just built on that in college.
Speaker AAnd so that's really why I think that my success has been so rapid, is because it's not like the fundamentals were there, and it's more just been about fine tuning it and translating it over to triathlon rather than starting completely from scratch.
Speaker BYeah.
Speaker BYou're dashing the hopes of so many because it's much more fun to talk to someone who says, oh, yeah, I was a terrible swimmer and I had to figure that out.
Speaker BYou're reinforcing this notion that a lot of us have that if you can't come to this as a really good swimmer to start, it's, you're already way behind the eight ball.
Speaker BBut, yeah, you obviously establish yourself very early in these RA races with an incredible swim, and obviously you came up with biking and running, too, so.
Speaker BOr do you consider any of them to be a weakness?
Speaker AI think it depends on the race.
Speaker AAnd I think also, what do you define as a weakness?
Speaker AThe weakness.
Speaker ASomething that's truly like a weakness or is it just like there you could be better at it.
Speaker AAnd I think there's really areas where swimming.
Speaker AI don't really feel like it could necessarily be better at it because there's just such marginal gain being better at it at this point.
Speaker ABut there's always room for improvement in both the, the bike and the run.
Speaker AAnd I guess it depends on the day, which is the weakness.
Speaker BNow, at the risk of sounding very much like a bitter old man and sounding like I'm gonna say in my day, but I am gonna say a little bit in my day because when I went to medical school, I could barely get dressed in the morning to get out the door and be ready for my rotations and everything else.
Speaker BNow, I went to school in Canada where we did call as a third year student and we had pretty demanding rotations all the way through third and fourth year.
Speaker BI know from working in Denver that it's not quite the same, but it is still medical school.
Speaker BIt is very difficult.
Speaker BAnd here we are, it's Saturday morning when we're recording this at 9am Denver time.
Speaker BI think it's 11 where you are.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BAnd I asked Matt what had he done already this morning?
Speaker BAnd he says, oh, five hours on the bike and cleaning the house a little bit.
Speaker BAnd so he's got his whole day ahead of him.
Speaker BHow do you do it?
Speaker BHow do you balance it all?
Speaker BI mean, you've got probably a 60 to 70 hour work week that you're not getting paid.
Speaker BYou are paying for the luxury of doing that work week.
Speaker BAnd then you're training an additional probably 20 to 30 hours.
Speaker BHow, how do you.
Speaker BAnd then sleep.
Speaker BHow do you.
Speaker BSeriously, how do you do it?
Speaker BWhat are your tips for people who, like me, have a pretty busy work week?
Speaker BI've got kids, I've got everything else and I don't complain.
Speaker BBut I definitely do feel like it's a struggle to get in the training I'm trying to do.
Speaker BWell, what's your tips for the peons like us age groupers who, who, who feel like we can't get it all done?
Speaker BHow are you doing it?
Speaker AYes, it's a great question and it's, it has many different layers of an answer.
Speaker AAnd I think one of the most important things is I have my priorities for the day and I stick to them.
Speaker AAnd those come first pretty much no matter what.
Speaker AAnd so those are like, obviously training in school.
Speaker AAnd then the eating, sleeping and all that stuff as well is super important.
Speaker ABut I think when your time is so precious, you have to be incredibly intentional with how you spend it.
Speaker AAnd with that said, also be highly aware of opportunities that you can gain a little time back in your day.
Speaker AAnd so on.
Speaker AThat first one about being intentional with your time, I think in our day and age, it's so easy to, I don't know, sit down on the couch, and then four hours later, you've watched two movies or an entire TV series or, I don't know, like, you intend on doing one thing, and next thing that you've been buried in your phone for an hour scrolling through TikToks and Instagram.
Speaker AAnd, like, I'm not saying that's bad.
Speaker AThere's no judgment on that.
Speaker ALike, that's a very typical part of life now.
Speaker ABut for me, I just try and be very intentional to make sure that time isn't spent that way, because I personally don't necessarily get satisfaction and fulfillment out of that.
Speaker AI feel like I have a much larger purpose and calling in life as being a future physician, as well as using the opportunity that I have now as professional triathlete to inspire other people and to hopefully make an impact on cancer awareness, cancer fundraising, et cetera.
Speaker AAnd so really, it's what are the things that drive me throughout the day?
Speaker AAnd it's these bigger missions of learning everything that I can so that I can become the best physician in the future, as well as wanting to be one of the top triathletes in the world.
Speaker AAnd that really provides the lens through which I view pretty much everything.
Speaker AAnd so, with that being said, like, some of the practical aspects of that is depending on the day, I have to leave for rotation, somewhere between 6, 10, and teen in the morning, depending on what I have that day, is it clinic, is it the operating room, et cetera.
Speaker AAnd so really go from there.
Speaker AAnd then I figure, okay, these are the workout.
Speaker AThis is the workout or the workout that I want to get done before that time.
Speaker AAnd so then that sets, okay, this is what I need to wake up so that I do those things and that I then make it to my rotation ahead of 10 to 15 minutes early.
Speaker ABig day.
Speaker AOn time is obviously really important.
Speaker AAnd then throughout the day, it's okay.
Speaker AI'm focused on being the best student that I can be and, like, really trying to be fully engaged in that.
Speaker AWe all have to do different rotations.
Speaker ALast month I was on family medicine last week, and actually next week I'm on ent.
Speaker ASo that's obviously an interest of mine, but we have to do everything.
Speaker AAnd I will probably never spend another day or so in a family medicine practice for the rest of my career, but this is the month that I have, and I personally view that as an incredibly important time to learn as much as I can and to get as much done, exposure, et cetera, during that time as possible.
Speaker ABecause again, the goal is to become the best physician possible.
Speaker AAnd so during the day it's focused on that.
Speaker AAnd with that being said, though, that there are moments throughout the day like where you can fit in some other things.
Speaker AIt's an operating day, maybe there's four or five cases in between cases the residents are running around doing stuff and.
Speaker ABut sometimes a medical student can't necessarily help, so we're just stuck in the corner and you've got 10 minutes between cases or whatever it is where you're not really doing anything.
Speaker AThat's a great opportunity to send some emails or do a little bit of studying.
Speaker AAnd you piece that together throughout the day, you can find a shocking amount of time to do stuff.
Speaker ASo that's definitely part of it.
Speaker AAnd then the other thing too is like you get home and then, I don't know, I.
Speaker AI've got like my routine.
Speaker AAnd so I think that's a really important part, is I have the priorities of these are the things that have to get done in a given day and trying to find those literal opportunities wherever I can.
Speaker AAnd then also just having that larger purpose in sport and also in life to provide some motivation during the times where it's 6:30 or 7 at night and I would really love to not do anything or watch TV or just sit down or whatnot, but I have a workout to do and so I need to go do that.
Speaker BThat's the hard part, right?
Speaker BThat's the hard part.
Speaker BBecause I think that a lot of us bring the same kind of intentionality and dedication.
Speaker BBut the really hard part is making sure that you follow through exactly as you just described.
Speaker BBecause it is really difficult.
Speaker BI know personally, I start work at 6am every day.
Speaker BI finish at 3.
Speaker BImmediately I head out to do whatever workout I have.
Speaker BI often have things that I need to do around my podcast or writing for triathlete or whatever it is.
Speaker BAnd then I've got my kids to get to an activity or something.
Speaker BAnd when I get home, I have that small window before I hit the sack at around 10.
Speaker BAnd often I'm tired and the idea of doing a workout later at night when you're fatigued is difficult and clearly you're younger.
Speaker BYou obviously very driven, very mature.
Speaker BI have to say for a 27 year old to be as dedicated and driven to make use of every moment like that is I don't think, I don't think you'll find that in a lot of 30 or 40 year olds.
Speaker BSo it's a testament to who you are and I think that's a very special characteristic that you have.
Speaker BSo kudos to you.
Speaker BPeople ask me frequently and again, I do not want to compare myself because I am nowhere close to as dedicated as you are.
Speaker BBut people ask me frequently, how do you get it all done?
Speaker BAnd I have frequently said it involves a certain amount of sacrifice.
Speaker BI have to give up things that I generally would otherwise like to do.
Speaker BThe only time I watch TV is when I'm on the trainer.
Speaker BI watch Netflix on the trainer.
Speaker BI don't do Zwift.
Speaker BI do Trainer Road so that I can watch TV on the trainer.
Speaker BI love to read and I don't read because reading is time that I just don't have.
Speaker BSo what sacrifices have you made?
Speaker BI know when I was in medical school, my way of decompressing was social.
Speaker BI, I had a huge friend group.
Speaker BIt was a lot more partying than there probably should have been.
Speaker BI'm guessing that's something you've had to choose to forego.
Speaker AYeah, no, that's a great question.
Speaker AAnd yeah, certainly there's a lot of sacrifices that I think we make.
Speaker ANot just myself but my girlfriend as well.
Speaker ALike on a day to day basis where there are like more times than you'd expect where both of us are, oh man, I wish we were just living a normal life.
Speaker ALike I wish we could just be normal medical students and like that's.
Speaker ABut then like when you think about it and everything, like when you actually really think about it, you're like, no, this is the preferable option.
Speaker AUm, but yeah, no, sacrifices are, are a huge thing.
Speaker ACertainly not nearly as much socializing as probably I would have otherwise.
Speaker AI get a lot of socializing through the people that I work with on a day to day basis and, or just really trying to be intentional with how I socialize.
Speaker ASo instead of going out and partying for six hours, it's spending one or two hours at a dinner with someone and having a really high quality interaction with someone versus going out to a bar and, and having a really late night.
Speaker AAnd there are ways that I think you can balance quality and quality quantity versus some Things and obviously socializing is definitely the biggest thing that has to be sacrificed.
Speaker AAnd then I don't know, there's just a lot of little things as well on a day to day basis that I honestly can't really think about necessarily right now off the top of my head.
Speaker ABut sure, sure that you end up sacrificing or at least doing different.
Speaker ALike whenever we go on vacation the bike comes with.
Speaker AThere's things like that I.
Speaker AMy parents don't live too far away and her parents don't live too far away either.
Speaker ABut it's, it's hard to be able to even just go home on a weekend sometimes because that's time spent in the car and not spent studying or training.
Speaker AAnd it sounds like a psychopath.
Speaker AAnd I would agree with that to an extent.
Speaker ABut like overall, like I'm.
Speaker AI still try and be very intentional and make sure that the things that I'm doing in my life are the things that I enjoy and that the people that are the most important to me still get the time and whatnot that I want.
Speaker ASo for example, I'll still call my parents on FaceTime and talk to them on FaceTime, but maybe I don't necessarily go drive home for the weekend to see them.
Speaker ASo there's like different ways around it that you can.
Speaker ASome of these things.
Speaker AYeah, maybe it's not ideal, but also this is the, it's the kind of light of a medical student.
Speaker BI've talked a lot, I've talked a lot about the importance of having, even though triathlon is a individual sport, the importance of your team and you have really just, I think sketch that out very nicely.
Speaker BIs your girlfriend an athlete as well?
Speaker ANo, not anymore.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker BShe.
Speaker BWhat did she do?
Speaker AShe, she did like some running in high school and college and a little bit of rowing as well.
Speaker BYou can always get back to that later.
Speaker BI'm curious if you have given thought to what your future is for professional multi sport.
Speaker BYou're getting to the point now where you're going to start applying for residencies.
Speaker BHave you considered.
Speaker BI've spoken to a lot of other professionals who were like, Tamara Jewett was a lawyer, Laura Siddal worked as an engineer.
Speaker BSeveral professionals were actually in the world of working as high level professionals, realized they were really good at this, decided to take a break from what they were doing and then leave the possibility open to return someday.
Speaker BHave you given consideration to maybe taking a gap year or two before residency?
Speaker BOr are you just.
Speaker BIs this just as long as it goes?
Speaker BYou're Going to have fun with it and then move on to residency because let's face it, an ENT resident is probably not going to be able to do this.
Speaker AExactly.
Speaker AYeah, there's.
Speaker AI don't know, there's a lot of.
Speaker AI've taken some research time which has given me some additional research time which has given me a little bit more flexibility in terms of being able to travel and do things.
Speaker AAnd so that's definitely an option and can certainly do more of that.
Speaker ABut we'll never like fully step away.
Speaker AI think as crazy as it sounds, being a medical student actually helps provide a lot of balance in triathlon because like I do my workout.
Speaker ATake this morning for example.
Speaker AI did my workout immediately, finished and basically got on this call.
Speaker AAnd then after this I'll study and then this afternoon I'll do my workout.
Speaker ALike there's no perseverating on a workout or overanalyzing it because like there's just no time.
Speaker AAnd I think that can be a real strength because otherwise you're like going back over the file for an hour or two each day and you're just overanalyzing things.
Speaker AAnd I think having that larger purpose as well is also really valuable.
Speaker AAnd I think that's something that people can take away no matter what they do is like, why are you doing this?
Speaker AAnd I think like being.
Speaker AI personally feel like if I was only a pro, I wouldn't find that very fulfilling.
Speaker AThere's a reason I've decided to go into medicine.
Speaker AAs I like to tell like other pre meds, like there's a lot of much easier, quicker ways to make 400, $500,000 a year than becoming a doctor because it's a really long hard road and if it's not something that you want to do, like you shouldn't do it because like you have.
Speaker AWe always say that the journey matters as much as the destination.
Speaker AAnd that's certainly true like with medicine.
Speaker AAnd so I don't know, it's a long winded way to answer your question, but I think like for the most part it's.
Speaker AI've just taken triathlon six months at a time, six to 12 months at a time, and kind of throughout my entire career.
Speaker AAnd that's what I intend on continuing to do because there are certain things that you just can't really plan for.
Speaker AI think that's one of the main lessons that I think the pandemic really taught a lot of us is that medical students in particular have like their next 10 year plan mapped out.
Speaker AThat's just not realistic in this day and age anymore.
Speaker AI feel especially with how my trajectory in triathlon has been like that also.
Speaker AI just don't think that it's worth it to try and do those mental gymnastics to yeah, make a five year plan or whatever and.
Speaker BAre you working with a coach?
Speaker AI do work with a coach and I've worked with a coach pretty much, I don't know, since like week four that I've been in the sport.
Speaker AAnd I'm a huge proponent of working with a coach because especially in my case, I don't have time to think about training.
Speaker AAnd I also am a huge advocate of delegating things to experts.
Speaker AI have my area of expertise as a medical student and research or whatnot, but the amount of time and energy that it would take for me to really become an expert in terms of coaching is just way too long and way too much time.
Speaker AAnd I'd much rather have someone else handle that for me who has those prior years of experience, et cetera.
Speaker AAnd, and I think that's super applicable to many areas of life.
Speaker AThere's a reason why when you're not, when you're in a surgery, the anesthesiologist handles the anesthesia and you handle the surgery because there's just so much information, so much stuff out there that you really can't be an expert in more than like a few areas of life.
Speaker AAnd so for me, coaching is not one of those areas that I want to be an expert in.
Speaker AI want to be given something to do.
Speaker AI will execute it, give a little feedback and then move on with my life and then do the next thing.
Speaker BYou're preaching to the choir.
Speaker BAs somebody who coaches, I've been saying that for a long time that investing in yourself and taking the time and to search for a coach that lines up with you and, and making that investment in a coach is probably the best thing you can do for yourself as a triathlete.
Speaker BAre you just a regular med student on campus?
Speaker BI know triathlon is not exactly a high profile sport, but you have accomplished some pretty amazing things.
Speaker BDo you know?
Speaker AIt depends.
Speaker ASo yes and no.
Speaker AThere's certainly a cohort of people that know me as the iron man guy, for better or for worse.
Speaker AAnd then, but then there's also a lot of people that like, don't know who I am.
Speaker AAnd honestly I love that.
Speaker ALike I've swum at the same pool here at O2 for, I don't know what, almost four years now.
Speaker AAnd I think during that time maybe only, like, less than a handful of people have recognized who I am and, like, stopped me and said hi.
Speaker AAnd obviously, those interactions are super cool, and I love it when that happens.
Speaker AAnd I think it's always great to talk to people that.
Speaker AI always find it weird, honestly, to find it when someone says that I'm an inspiration to them.
Speaker ABut it's also, I think, very cool and a huge privilege.
Speaker AAnd for the most part, I feel like I'm pretty anonymous, which is pretty cool, honestly, just another guy.
Speaker ABut then there's certainly, you know, the cohort that kind of knows me in who I am and what I've done.
Speaker AAnd so that's also fun to jump between those two realities.
Speaker BYeah, that's great.
Speaker BI was just thinking back to my question about the gap year between med school and residency.
Speaker BYou wouldn't be the first.
Speaker BThere was a medical student at my alma mater, Laurent.
Speaker BI can't remember his last name, but he was a defensive lineman for the Kansas City Chiefs, and He graduated from McGill Medical School.
Speaker BHe played for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Speaker BHe actually graduated while playing for the Chiefs because he played football at McGill as an undergraduate, did medical school while he was playing, and then finally, after his playing career ended, he went and started a residency in emergency medicine, of all things.
Speaker BSo it wouldn't be unprecedented.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BWhat is your personal story with respect to cancer of the head and neck?
Speaker BBecause I know that you've spoken about that and you've referred to it a couple of times in this conversation.
Speaker BSo what is it that motivates you to become a head and neck cancer surgeon?
Speaker AYeah, the.
Speaker AHow someone chooses what specialty they go into is obviously like a long, evolving process.
Speaker AAnd everyone has their different reasons.
Speaker AAnd I will withhold judgment because some reasons are better than others, I think.
Speaker ABut everyone kind of has this process that occurs over, generally speaking, over months as to how they choose it.
Speaker ABut my story really started back when I was, I guess, 14, 15 years old, and that was like, really the first time that I had experienced cancer, when one of my childhood friends was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which otherwise known as pediatric blood cancer.
Speaker AAnd during that time, that was really the first time that I had experienced anyone that had cancer.
Speaker AAnd so obviously, watch her go through her treatments and whatnot, and she ended up beating the disease, and.
Speaker AAnd that was the first time.
Speaker AAnd then over the subsequent years, there's been a variety of close and extended family, as well as some friends that have had different cancers.
Speaker AOne had a head and neck cancer, bladder Cancer, pancreatic cancer, like kind of the lung cancer, this whole spectrum.
Speaker AAnd so my life in general has been really touched by.
Speaker AAnd so coming into medical school, I knew that I wanted to be a surgeon because I'm really three dimensional, as I think some people know.
Speaker AI really like playing with Legos, like loved playing with Legos growing up.
Speaker AAnd I love building things with my hands.
Speaker AAnd so being a surgeon was like a no brainer.
Speaker AAnd then it was figuring out, okay, what area within surgery did I want to go to.
Speaker AAnd really the head and neck cancers, I think are this perfect balance for me of complexity.
Speaker AYou're tackling different tissue types.
Speaker ALike you have some bony aspect to it, you have some soft tissue aspect to it, there's like a nervous system aspect to it.
Speaker ASo it's this very like, I guess we'll call it like a multi system surgery that I find really cool.
Speaker AAnd then the surgeons have a significant role in that, the cancer's patient's care too, which I really like.
Speaker AWhereas in some other areas the, the surgeon like just does the surgery and that's it, and then they send them off.
Speaker AWhereas in head and neck cancer surgery, the surgeon is involved throughout the whole process.
Speaker AEven in some head and neck cancers where you don't necessarily treat surgically, you treat them with chemo, radiation, the surgeon is still very much involved.
Speaker AAnd so I really like that and I like the variety of not only the cancer pathologies, but also the types of cases.
Speaker ASo like, you could have a really short case that's an hour long, and then you can also have 8 to 12 hour cases as well in that variation.
Speaker AAnd the challenge that comes with needing to do a really complex, like removal of a tumor and then also reconstruction of that body part so that someone hopefully looks and functions just like they used to, I just find really awesome and really fascinating.
Speaker ASo that's, I don't know, that's a long story of it.
Speaker ABut yeah, I've had a lot of people in my life that have had cancer.
Speaker AAnd I've seen over the years how cancer research has made an impact in their quality of life while being treated as well as the outcomes that people have.
Speaker AAnd so that's, I guess the larger guiding light is I like hard problems and I want to be a part of like, change.
Speaker AAnd I think cancer is a great way within medicine to be a part of innovation and pushing the field forward.
Speaker BAs an emergency physician, there are few patients that terrify us more than the head and neck surgery patient who comes in with an airway problem because it's never straightforward.
Speaker ASo what's next?
Speaker BWhat's next for Matthew Marquardt?
Speaker BWhat?
Speaker BI know you.
Speaker BYou were hinting on your Instagram about six races this year, which is pretty amazing given what you're doing.
Speaker BBut.
Speaker BAnd you don't have to name them because I think you had a contest going.
Speaker BSo I don't want to.
Speaker BYou don't have to divulge those if you haven't already.
Speaker BBut what's the plan for the short, medium, and maybe long term?
Speaker AYeah, so I.
Speaker AThrough kind of the end of April, I'm in clinical rotations, and so we'll be training and doing rotations.
Speaker AAnd then the summer time, I go back onto some research time for a couple of months, which will give me some more flexibility in terms of being able to race.
Speaker AAnd then in the fall, we'll continue to race.
Speaker AAnd there's some rearrangement of my schedule that work.
Speaker AAnd I'm working through with Ohio State so that I can do a couple races in the fall.
Speaker AAnd during that time, I'll be back on rotations and doing internal medicine, which here encompasses internal medicine, just kind of hospital medicine, as well as neurology and psych, like psychiatry.
Speaker AAnd then right now the plan is to then go on a surgery rotation and then fourth year, and we'll go from there.
Speaker ASo that's the, that's the broad bucket, as I said.
Speaker ALike, there's always, I think, some contingency plan or some.
Speaker ASome potential other paths that I don't really want to talk about if this happens.
Speaker AOkay, maybe we would consider going this way or if this happens this way and figuring it out as we go along and continuing to.
Speaker ABut I think, like, the great thing is that I have a really awesome team around me and so I know that we can make it work whichever direction, like, I end up going.
Speaker BThat's amazing.
Speaker BMatthew, just can't thank you enough for making time to speak with me this morning.
Speaker BIt really was a pleasure to get to know you a little bit and to hear your story.
Speaker BI just consider you an inspiration to me, a doctor towards the end of their career.
Speaker BJust watching you at the beginning of yours and seeing what you've accomplished already and just knowing with great certainty that you're going to accomplish a lot more.
Speaker BCongratulations for everything so far and the best of luck on what's to come.
Speaker BMatthew Marquardt is a age group champion in Kona.
Speaker BWho knows, maybe he'll be a professional champion this year.
Speaker BThe men are in Kona, right?
Speaker AThe men are in nice this year.
Speaker BThe men are in nice this year.
Speaker BThat's a great place to go, Ray.
Speaker BSo who knows, maybe he'll be a champion there.
Speaker BAnd he is of course a medical student at the Ohio State Medical School where he is pursuing a career, he hopes in head and neck surgery, specifically to be a head and neck oncologist.
Speaker BMatt Maricar, thanks again for joining me on the Tridoc Podcast.
Speaker BIt was a real pleasure.
Speaker AThank you so much.
Speaker AHave a wonderful rest of your day singing all the songs that no one knows.
Speaker AI wanna broadcast it.
Speaker DHi, my name is Rebecca Adamson and I am a proud Patreon supporter of the Tridock Podcast.
Speaker DThe Tridock Podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Sankoff, along with his amazing interns Cosette Rhodes and Nina Takashima.
Speaker DYou can find the show notes for everything discussed on the show today as well as archives of previous episodes@www.tridockpodcast.
Speaker Ddo you have a question about any of the issues discussed on this episode or do you have a question for consideration to be answered on a future episode?
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Speaker DThis song and many others like it can be found at www.reverbnation.com where I hope that you will visit and give small independent bands a chance.
Speaker DThe Tridot Podcast will be back again soon with another medical question and answer and another interview with someone in the world of multisport.
Speaker DUntil then, train hard, train healthy.