The Hobby Jogger Podcast
Welcome to The Hobby Jogger Podcast, where elite athletes and ham-and-eggers lace up their stories. We explore the common ground that running creates from the world-class runner to the hobbyist hitting the pavement, trail or treadmill. Expect a blend of inspiration, laughter and the shared joy that makes every step count. Join us on this journey, where every run is a story worth sharing.
The Hobby Jogger Podcast
E35 | Bill Armstrong on Building Neversecond Nutrition
What happens when a passionate runner turns his love for endurance sports into a groundbreaking nutrition brand? Bill Armstrong, founder of Neversecond Nutrition, shares his entrepreneurial journey with us, highlighting the pivotal collaboration with Dutch scientist Oscar Yikendra that has shaped the brand's identity.
Bill delves into the significance of proper fueling strategies tailored for those not just leading the pack but also those in the middle and back. Uncover how Never Second Nutrition addresses the challenges of inconsistent product recommendations, providing athletes with straightforward and effective fueling options.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Hobby Jogger. Today I have my co-host, mr Rob Myers, back with me. Rob, how are you?
Rob Myers:I'm doing well. It's a bit cold, so I'm dressing for the occasion when I went out for a run earlier today, but looking forward to a little bit of warmth.
Casey Koza:Yep Broke out the vests, the gloves, this week the hats. So it is officially winter here in Ohio, not looking forward to it, but I am looking forward to this week's guest. We have Mr Bill Armstrong on. He is the founder of Never Second Nutrition, a company which I speak fondly of on this show quite often, bill, how are you?
Bill Armstrong:I'm very good and thanks so much for having me on.
Casey Koza:Absolutely. Thank you for coming on and we certainly appreciate your time and kind of get to know. You get to know the product a little bit better other than just you know what I use here. I actually have the box that it came in my never second box right here.
Bill Armstrong:All right, nice to see. Never throw away a good box.
Casey Koza:You never know when you'll need it again. So I kept that around. And just to start out, Bill, like, what is your athletic background? Because I assume you had to have seen a need for some of the products you have.
Bill Armstrong:So you must have some sort of athletic background.
Bill Armstrong:Yes for sure, my background is as a runner.
Bill Armstrong:I'd say I was a halfway decent 5000 meter up to marathon runner, 5,000 meter up to marathon runner though it's a very long time ago that I was actually halfway decent and I kind of decided to stop competing when I was about 27.
Bill Armstrong:And then, shortly after then, I met my wife and started my first business and we built basically built products for brands and it was very early in the evolution of brands hiring out their development and manufacturing. So my wife and I kind of started this out of the basement business that way outgrew us over a 20 year span, way outgrew us over a 20-year span, and we were acquired out in 2018 and then tried retirement for a short stint and made it about a month just to see what that felt like. It wasn't something that was right for me, and so I started really thinking about how I could combine that real love of working with me, even though I stopped competing as an endurance athlete, it's something that I do every day, and so I really was looking for a way to really combine the product development expertise with working with people that I really they're the people that I have a community that I hang out with and that's endurance athletes and that was really how Never Second started.
Casey Koza:Yeah, I mean you have to have a problem to solve and you have to experience the problem. I feel like in order to start a brand, I mean that's what. I have a sauce company. It's a barbecue ranch company, and yeah, so that's kind of how we started it. People think, well, why'd you start a sauce company? There's a million sauces out there. And I said, well, there was no barbecue ranch sauce that you could just go to the store and buy. And I didn't believe it. When they came to me at first to do it, like I was like no, there's not, there's a barbecue ranch sauce. There has to be. That's preposterous that you would suggest there's not a barbecue ranch sauce. Sure enough, there wasn't. And so that's kind of how I got into it. I saw an open lane in a otherwise very saturated market and it kind of took off for us. So I get that.
Bill Armstrong:That's a great story. Barbecue barbecue ranch sauce was born. Huh, I love it.
Casey Koza:Yeah and uh and here it is. So I, you know, as a you know proprietor of a brand, I certainly understand the you know how you can see that and look for that vision of of something new. And was there anything like that, like my barbecue ranch not existing, was there something that you saw going? You know being an endurance athlete and a need that made you kick this off?
Bill Armstrong:Yes, I think. Well, when I was running at that point I became aware of this. Some of the early, the early performance nutrition companies and back then it was, there was a brand called Cytomax which you may or may not remember. Back then it was, there was a brand called Cytomax which you may or may not remember. Power Bar was really just getting off the ground and I was really fascinated at the time. I mean it was amazing that brands were making products for us as endurance athletes and I really liked that. But I was always fascinated with also the arc of how brands start with a certain goal and then somewhere in that five or 10 years span they start to pivot. Strangely they end up in gas stations and convenience stores and so forth, and I was really fascinated by that arc. And then, as I started my other business before, never Second, we worked with hundreds of brands over the 20-year span. You see that arc a lot and so I was really fascinated and it really begged. The question for me could you build a performance nutrition brand that stayed in its lane, really focused on high performance, really service the community, really spent time at events and built, really became kind of synonymous with the culture of endurance athletes and that's really what we set out to do.
Bill Armstrong:I started talking to some friends. I really wasn't in the beginning. I wasn't really sure what we would do. I just thought we wanted to work with endurance athletes. We're exploring performance nutrition as really the main arena, but wasn't exactly sure what the products would be or what our voice would be specifically. And I was put in touch with Oskar Je yikendrew, who is a well-known dutch scientist, and we had an initial conversation, hit it off and we started talking about how we might be different. What he said really struck me. That point, you know, we had that kind of pivotal conversations that so many brands have which is this brand necessary and should it exist? And I think from Oscar's conversation with me, I was convinced that Never Second really had a unique voice in the space and that was really how we started.
Rob Myers:Did you have the high level idea when you were still CEO at Whipsmart, or was it? Hey, I'm done with one company, I got to do something else. I'm an entrepreneur, it's in my blood and this was an idea before. What was that process like? Going from one company to the next?
Bill Armstrong:I really loved the time at my prior company. I absolutely loved it when it was time to go. It was time to go. I still sometimes, if I see work that's adjacent to what I was doing, I'm like, oh god, I just feel the love for what we did there. We really created some amazing products and it was the joy that we took from. That was giving someone who has an idea and a brand and sometimes it's a developed brand, sometimes it's a startup but kind of making those vision, the vision that they have of what their product could be, and bringing it to life. And that was really, I think, the thrill that we used to get out of that.
Bill Armstrong:I have to say, once we exited the business, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do, and until I started waking up in the morning in that kind of trial month and saying, okay, my wife had things to do and my kids were heading off to school, I was like, okay, what am I going to do for the rest of my life? And I started to really think about what gave me joy, and that was working with people. I love being around people and working with people and I missed that. I do recall that I had a conversation with another business owner who had exited their business and he said to me and it was, I think, real and it was pretty visceral he said I woke up and absolutely no one was looking for me and I was, like you know, I started to feel the same way and I was like you know what I really missed? Working with people, and that is the really strong part of what keeps us going.
Bill Armstrong:And you know, this past year I was at 32 events. It's a thick schedule. Next year it looks to be even more. I think a lot of people would say, well, it's too much work. And a lot of times I find that people will kind of paint this picture where life is either work or it's play. And I have to say I feel very lucky that I don't feel like a lot of the work that I'm doing. It doesn't feel like work. I really actually truly enjoy it. I love having conversations with endurance athletes and being at events. I love chasing our athletes around and watching them do amazing things.
Casey Koza:Yeah, you do have quite the lineup of some very good athletes. You got to see some exceptional things this past summer that your athletes performed. We were there for at least two of the performances at Western States. Were you there, Bill?
Bill Armstrong:I was there. I've been there the last two years. A few years ago I had my first trip there and it was just everything that I had imagined. When we entered as a brand, we started really with very cycling, heavy, off-road cycling heavy, so we entered trail running a little bit later and kind of staggered it. Obviously, as a a runner, it's always been a deep love of mine. So watching our athletes at western, which is to me kind of this I mean there's just so much kind of story that goes around western and history that goes around western and it was absolutely fantastic and I look forward to going year after year yeah, we look forward to going back next year as well.
Casey Koza:And I thought when we set this up, I thought and I try to go into things without knowing a whole lot of background so that I don't kind of poison the well, so to speak but I thought that you were going to say that you had a cycling background, because I've always known cyclists to be a good decade ahead of every other sport when it comes to just about anything nutrition, training, gear, everything. So I thought I in my mind, I thought you were going to be a cyclist Bill. That's what I thought.
Bill Armstrong:They definitely are a great learning ground. I cycle as a complete amateur. Um, I'm, I guess, a runner who's a bad cyclist. I certainly crash a lot and I'm certainly not nearly as good as a cyclist as I ever was as a runner. But certainly I think, when we're seeing, when we look at the trends of where things are going from a kind of a sophistication of fueling protocol, cyclists really oftentimes lead the way. Triathletes as well certainly lead the way.
Bill Armstrong:And then trail running has been I a little bit more of um, of a holdout culture, and I understand why. I've done many races as a, as an, as a competitor, with minimal, if no nutrition and, uh, you know. So I have a little bit of that kind of minimalist mentality. But I've learned a lot from the time we started never second around the importance of fueling. And learned a lot from the time we started, never second around the importance of fueling, and learned a lot from oscar. And we're obviously working with so many athletes. We see the tremendous positive impact that proper fueling can have for them. So, and I do think, looking ahead to the future, I think that runners are very quickly evolving. Uh, we, if you look at the athletes we work with specifically. They're, overall, quite focused on the details and we look at it like, hey, this is just. Many people look at fueling as a small thing, but it's those small things that, especially in ultra running and trail running, they can make a huge difference in leveling out high quality performance.
Rob Myers:And Bill, have you noticed in the past two years more and more of the hobby joggers the middle of the pack, back of the pack? They're paying attention to nutrition because it seems like the elite you know the elite runners have been paying attention to it for a little while. But now I'm noticing the people that Casey and I run with middle of the pack, back of the pack, starting to dial it in a little bit more versus just eat a bunch of pasta the night before and wing it.
Bill Armstrong:I think it's a great question. I would say. We do a lot of events and we talk to athletes of all abilities, right, obviously, with the professionals, where they have a lot at stake, they turn over every stone. With the middle of the pack and back of the pack, we're definitely seeing a change. You know, a lot of times we're asked you know, is this just for elite athletes or high level athletes? And it's really well if you look at it this way, I think it's really more about making sure that you can all athletes can have their best day, and so, even if you're a middle of the pack or a back of the pack runner or a cyclist or whatever your sport is, if you're able to have a better day and get through the race not DNF, not kind of fall apart mid-race, not bonk out that's a win. Uh, we do again.
Bill Armstrong:We do a lot of races and we're at a lot of events and we definitely see, uh, middle of the pack runners, um, to the back of the pack runners, asking more questions about how to do it right. And you know, I think for us we simplify that process, so it makes it usually, when we meet them, almost all athletes bring this hodgepodge of things that they're doing. They're, once we start talking to them, usually very relieved at how we can simplify their protocol and get rid of a lot of the noise. And that's probably the biggest challenge for us is kind of giving them instruction that they can, which oftentimes involves discarding some or most of what they're doing and simplifying how they're. Involves discarding some or most of what they're doing and simplifying how they're doing their protocol.
Rob Myers:Yeah, I know. For me personally, recently got my first DNF great motivator to pay attention to nutrition here on out.
Casey Koza:I'm going to try to dial it in versus just wing it?
Casey Koza:Yeah for sure. Absolutely. It makes such a massive. This is the first year, starting this summer, that I actually took nutrition a little bit serious, where I was like, okay, I'm getting tired of the last six miles just being a zombie walk struggle Like it's not fun, I need to figure something out. So this summer was the first time where I took it serious, other than falling on my face at Laurel Highlands. I felt really good. Like that was different. But then Grindstone 50K.
Casey Koza:I had a plan. Like you said, there's a lot of noise out there, there's a lot of do this, do this, do this. I just simplified it. I made it very easy. I followed the plan to a T and it was the first time the light went off at like mile 23, where I could tell I was getting because I like to start out easy kind of work my way through and I got into better runners. I was like these guys aren't just giving it up, they're actually going up this last climb, they're running hard down the downhill. But this was the first time and I used every second that I actually felt good at mile 23 to 31 of a 50K and part of it, thanks to your company was the simplification of what it is For me the hobby jogger, for me the mid-packer, kind of break it.
Casey Koza:Well, you do. You do a very good job of breaking it down, like, hey, here's what it is, here's the protocol, like just your website's very easy to use of what's in everything. I did get confused with the, the one uh mixed drink. I didn't realize it was. He sold it in a pound bag when I ordered it, so I got a pound bag. I was like that's surprising. I didn't look at it, but you guys were definitely helpful in uh aiding meiding me to get across. And this is not a paid promotion. I've only paid for your product, bill. I've never once received anything for free, but I just enjoyed it and you're absolutely correct that it does assist the middle of the pack just to make our experience more enjoyable, to be honest.
Bill Armstrong:Well, thanks, that's really nice to hear and, honestly, we hear that a lot and it's something that we actually, I think when oscar and I started, you know, we talked about. When I asked him, hey, is there, is there a point to us being around as a brand? He said to me and I think he he really, I think, captures it well because he's been doing, he's been really at the forefront for 25 years and he said you know, people haven't gotten much better at fueling, primarily because you just have brands throwing products at them. They make a one-off gel and they say here, take this gel, there's this drink, it's the best.
Bill Armstrong:And what happens is athletes inherently have this really confusing message that and they're constantly switching brands and really chasing their tails.
Bill Armstrong:When they have a problem, they a lot of times they can't pinpoint why, because they're taking gels from two different companies that have different carbohydrate compositions, they have arbitrary nutrient values, they have some products contain sodium, some don't, and so when they have issues a lot of times whether they can't keep track of what they're taking in or they develop stomach problems, a lot of it's because they're just taking either poor quality products or taking too much or too little of one thing or another, and so it can be a bit difficult sometimes when we talk to athletes at expos and at events and they're inherently they, they'll feel that, well, they're trying to sell me something, right, I think for us.
Bill Armstrong:Yes, of course we're in the, we're in the, we're a for-profit business, but one of the things we're also trying to do is actually help them just improve their protocols. They have a better day and they know what to do and from speaking to so many athletes, I would say the vast majority are mixing stuff together and that's really probably the one of the biggest sources, and you have a lot of these shopping mall type stores, these econ or stores that are buying different things and trying different things, and that a lot of times can lead to those that kind of well, it's sending athletes in the wrong direction, which is both selling them different stuff but not necessarily selling them the right things that help them do their job better.
Casey Koza:That's one thing where I know what you mean by the shopping mall. Where I don't shop there. At the shopping mall I go. I want to buy, whether it's shoes, whatever. I want to buy it directly from you, bill, I do have a third-party logistic shipping company that I'm part of, where we ship for other brands, and I don't like dealing with those brands because a lot of times they want to tell us how to ship things but they don't know anything about shipping. We've actually fired customers for it that were ours that we just hey, this isn't going to work. We're not going to be held liable for your broken products when you don't want to Ship them how we said, how we recommended to ship them. So I know what you mean with the third party, the shopping mall, which is I don't think I can buy your product correct me if I'm wrong anywhere but from you, but I can buy it via Amazon, correct?
Bill Armstrong:We made a deliberate decision to sell on e-commerce retailers who are non-endemic, meaning they don't sell a bunch of different nutrition products and mix and match products there. So, for instance, we love our friends at Running Warehouse. They're great to work with and Competitive Cyclist, also amazing to work with. We have our own Amazon store and the reason we do that is we can really control our own narrative. We can make sure that athletes get the right information. And then we also work with a fast growing number of retailers. I think we're only close to 300 retailers in the US that we that we work with and that's growing very quickly. For us, it's really important. We love brick and mortar specialty because we know athletes go there to usually get high quality information and our job is to, as we move into kind of 2025, is to do a better job of educating retailers to make sure that they're experts in what we do, and that's really our goal. So, to answer your question, we believe in brick and mortar specialty retailer, certain e-commerce retailers that really understand and want to understand what we're doing, and then our own shop and then our Amazon store.
Bill Armstrong:As we move into 2025, we're really expanding. We've really grown organically for the first three years really, and you know you can't push too hard when no one knows who you are. You have to kind of earn your way, and so we've really kind of spent our time in the trenches, and so, as we move into this next year, we're starting to, through those first few years, what works and what doesn't work and so we'll be, as we move into 2025, really pushing our brick and mortar. And we know we like the way it works, we like working with them, and so that's something that we're going to definitely increase to find a balance where we also protect their local business, to make sure that they're you know, that they have proximity and they have the ability to succeed and to do really well with our products. That's something that we're really excited about as we move into 2025.
Rob Myers:So, Bill, you just mentioned something with the product when you were going through testing. I've always wanted to ask this question to somebody like yourself what is that process like? Like you come up with the idea, you know you're working with your mad scientist partner and you're putting together the formula as it exists today, like the gel. What is the testing? Like you come up with an idea and then you try it yourself and go for a run and then report. I mean, what does that look like?
Bill Armstrong:look like. Well, I think one of the things that we brought to this industry because it is the development side. I was a little bit surprised at the lack of sophistication, and so we came from dealing with a lot of personal care brands in the United States with our past business, and that process is really, for the most part, well-regulated and guided. So when we came into, I think the marriage of working with Oscar as our scientist and then my wife and I as the product developers is really the key to our success. I mean, I think we make really good products and I'm saying that humbly. I think we really that's the one thing we focus on is make really great products. One thing I learned from my past business was never launch something that's bad. Business was never launch something that's bad because if you do it, you first of all you get the immediate reaction, which is get, you get beaten up by the consumers who are using it, but then it's also very hard to fix it and kind of change it and evolve it now as a brand we came in with okay we're, we want to always take criticism and always get better, but we also don't want it. There's a balance there. We don't want to launch products that are substandard. So what that typically starts with is a brief, which is what do we want to achieve with this product? And everything we do is having a really strong foundation of kind of, what are the rails that guide our development is really important. So working with Oscar he's no nonsense and you can't really steer development off the rails with him. He has a very strong credentials. He's a key researcher globally.
Bill Armstrong:So when we say something, it has to be right or at least true, and we have to be very careful with the claims we make and so that ultimately lands in a product. So give you an example we're going to make a sports drink. It's got to be two to one glucose to fructose. In terms of composition, it has to have 200 milligrams of sodium per serving. We're going to have mild flavor. It's going to be pH neutral.
Bill Armstrong:And then, once we have that brief, we turn that over to a to a manufacturer and then we start doing submissions. Brief, we turn that over to a manufacturer and then we start doing submissions. When we land on something we like, then we do testing with our athletes. That's why I think the step that a lot of brands skip is they just say, okay, this is great, let's launch it. And sometimes there are some blind spots and they can be really pretty brutal. Like you may think something is okay and yet it gives people stomach problems, and then you launch it in the market and you and you have a lot of unhappy consumers, and for us it's we're pretty sure once we launch something, that the chances of launching something that is not good or going to be problematic is is super low, and if we don't like something then we just won't launch it, and that's hopefully.
Bill Armstrong:That gives you a good understanding of how we do our thing. It starts the brief. You get your submissions, you make sure that all the nutritional criteria are met and then, of course, we make. We make sure that our claims are all met too. Like, for instance, if we're saying it's 30 grams of carbohydrate in the gel, it had better be 30 grams of carbohydrate or greater within a small percentage. And if we're playing 200 milligrams of sodium, it's got to be very close to 200 milligrams of sodium, plus or minus. And so managing those tolerances is also part of building a successful product.
Rob Myers:Well, if you need a couple of hobby joggers to do any testing, just let us know.
Bill Armstrong:We'd love that. We have some new products we're launching in January, so we have some submissions that are kind of our final ones and we'd love to have you guys try them out.
Casey Koza:Is there anything you could tell us about right now, any new products coming up? I was told to ask that by Mr Will Walmsley.
Bill Armstrong:Okay, so one thing we're not is very slick, I would say, meaning like we're not like the oh, don't tell them this. And we're not like the oh, don't tell them this. And you know, we're kind of like open book for us. I'm not really good at keeping secrets and honestly, I don't even understand why, like you're taking maybe some of the excitement out of something, but I mean, right now, as a brand, we're working on products that are, that are we're still, I would say, finalizing the standard system of products, so and making sure that we don't have any holes in that.
Bill Armstrong:So in this patent 2024, we launched our S 200, which is a sodium booster, and the reason we did that is to allow athletes to personalize the sodium level in our drink mixes, because we had cases where an athlete, for instance, was a heavy sodium sweater and super crusty, salty sweater and they needed more sodium and our drink mixes couldn't, really didn't have an. We build them down the middle of what your average person needs and then this heavy, this sodium booster, allows those heavier sodium sweaters to again increase that sodium level and personalize their mix. Likewise you can also do it with our c90, where you can add the s200 if you wanted to build a 600 milligrams of sodium per serving Instead of 200,. You can add a couple of capfuls and you've got a personalized product.
Casey Koza:What you just said there, bill, I think is something that a lot of people overlook when it comes to their performance is the sodium intake. Because me, david the producer, and Will Walmsleyley, with another company, we went to the University of Akron we did a sweat test and prior to that I would have told you that I was a very low sodium, very low sweater. We did the test and the results came back the exact opposite. This was last winter that we did this, so that was another thing that I kind of built on, and I know Will did as well with this sodium assist. So how early on did you guys figure out that as a, I guess, common issue of athletes? Was that something that you learned through people doing sweat testing a lot?
Bill Armstrong:I mean, oscar always goes back to research and numbers, he always goes back to statistics and early on he said look, there's a small percentage of athletes that are heavy sodium sweaters. And I said well, how, how much? And he said, well, it varies depending on who you talk to, but let's say anywhere between typically three and five percent is generally understood to be true. The solution for us was build a product that at its baseline, delivers 200 milligrams per 30 grams of carbohydrates, so that if you're at those higher intakes of like 90 grams an hour, you're going to have 600 milligrams of sodium, which is a good down the middle range that satisfies most athletes. And it's all important to remember, we all have sodium reserves, so that has to be considered when we think about how much sodium should be in the products. And then also that more isn't always better, and I think one of the problems that we have and challenges that we have as a brand is all of these athletes who are competitive at everything, include and more is typically the answer of more is better with everything. And so they're like I can take more carbohydrate, I need tons of salt, and their answer is check a box by taking a giant pile of sodium that a lot of times isn't. That's not the right answer either.
Bill Armstrong:So we developed kind of down the middle, and then the S 200 sodium booster allows you to manipulate the sodium level.
Bill Armstrong:So which, if you compare it with, let's say, a lifestyle lifestyle drink mix like LMNT, which a lot of athletes take, that has 1,000 milligrams of sodium per serving, our S200 allows you to incrementally increase the sodium level in the drink mix. So if you're at 600 and you want to bring it up to 1,000, you add two capfuls and you're done. It's just, I would say, a solution that allows for a much more specific level of personalization. That allows for a much more specific level of personalization. You know, we always knew we needed to build this product to kind of satisfy that small percentage of athletes and at the same time there's an education opportunity to talk about the importance of knowing what your sodium loss rate actually is. And a lot of athletes, to your point, think they're really salty or really sweaty and they turn out to be not as what they thought. And the vice versa happens to where they think they may not be in there, they may need more sodium supplementation.
Casey Koza:Yeah, I think that was a big game changer for me personally. So thanks to your company, for you know kind of making a product that assists there. So get your sweat tested Helps.
Bill Armstrong:It is something that we're actually trying to figure out, like how do we like we work with a lot of athletes on that and there's a lot of different types of tests that that you can do, and getting an accurate number Isn't usually a one off, it's usually takes multiple tests over a period of time.
Bill Armstrong:And so, again, there's another educational opportunity, and Oscar has some great blogs that we're working on that really try and help educate athletes around the nuance, around that. It's like not just do this or do that. It's kind of like here are your options and choose what's right for you. It's always like put the information out there and some folks will want to, will want to absorb it and listen and learn from it, and other folks are going to say, look, it doesn't. I don't have enough stake in the game to care about this and I'm fine. None of the folks want it, want an easier solution. Our, our job is just to kind of give the information and lay it out as a kind of a take it or leave, a type of approach, which I think is we're comfortable with.
Rob Myers:Yeah, I'm definitely going to read the blog because I am guilty of eating a big pile of salt and trying to be proactive and avoid all the bad things that happen out on the trail.
Bill Armstrong:Cramping is usually what a lot of athletes suffer from right, and that's sodium is usually their answer.
Casey Koza:yeah, One product I guess talking about evolving products here that I was blown away with at Western States and I don't know that anyone else has this product. Correct me if I'm wrong. I had never heard of it or have seen it. But the never second ice gel okay, that was something brand new to me, I so who came up with that?
Bill Armstrong:I'd say oscar and I did okay we started early on with world tour teams where he had been buying this from an I'm making ice cream company because Oscar also is the nutritionist for world tour teams and cycling, and so there was just kind of like one-off projects that would come up every summer for world tour teams. We started thinking, well, is there a commercial reason to do this? We were then started providing them to our world tour team partners as a product that we built for the purpose of serving that need, and it's one of these things that we, you know, we launched it. There's, you know, I think we always feel very, I guess, um, how we feel it's important to educate athletes around how to use something right, so so they have a good outcome. Yeah, of course, all the concerns came up. We're like, well, this is not necessarily. You know, if you take it out for a three hour run, it's not staying cold for two, you know, for three hours it's. It's a product that's meant to be consumed pretty much right away in races to drive down core temperature and to provide energy and and electrolyte. So I mean, we launched it.
Bill Armstrong:It's definitely a niche product. We don't sell a lot of it, that's for sure. We just it's really a product that every summer comes up and it has a very specific audience that's looking for it. The challenge is that you really need someone who can give you on-course support to really get the most out of it, to keep it cold before they give it to you. We honestly see, and one of the things that we're thinking about, is using the ice gels in more of kind of like court sports or field sports, where you know, if you look at, like, the number of high school football players that have heat stroke every year in the US and around the world, soccer players and so forth, you look at what could the ice gel potentially give them in terms of prevention of hospitalization?
Casey Koza:or worse, guessing you're going to see sales spike early June for that product after last year. I know I was crewing for Simone Gosselin and that's where I first got the product. Where I saw it I was like holy shit, that is a really good idea. Like how I'm in this kind of industry. I couldn't have freezing it, cause it's, you know, in the summertime here in the Northeast it's excruciatingly hot as well. But it's like I couldn't have come up with, you know, a frozen product to you know to put out there. So I thought that was just a very simple solution to heat mitigation out there, that you're cooling the core and you know you could dump as much ice as you want on you, but if you can actually help by cooling the core as well. Two-pronged approach.
Bill Armstrong:It's we. I mean we. We definitely think that we haven't given up on it. It's something that we do again we. It has a very specific use and we think it's cool products. It's given up on it. It's something that we do again we. It has there's really specific use and we think it's cool products. It's. For us, it's always when we come out with these products it's kind of like uniquely innovative. Um, I mean, in this case, the ice gel has been copied by a few brands in europe that we've seen, and that's just kind of the nature of things. But but overall we're, we look at it as a win. It's a product that helps athletes and it's something we.
Bill Armstrong:That was challenged us make something that I mean it kind of eats like almost like a snow cone and it doesn't freeze into an ice block and that's a lot of. So we got really what we wanted to get out of it. It tastes great. Athletes who love it really love it. It's just a matter of it's just a matter of we have some athletes who will say wait, I can't. When am I going to take this if I'm just training, and I'm of, not for training really, but, and that's it's just a matter of understanding, understanding how to use it.
Casey Koza:I will say we had a little issue with it because we were we were the B crew, which has about a three hour drive from where we stayed to the first. We're the first crewed aid station. So it was not completely frozen when we got there, because it's a long, you know, we had it in the cooler, so it's a long drive up the mountains, but it was. It wasn't hot yet so it didn't really matter. But it was used on the other side at robinson flat I know that that drive you're describing and yeah, that's that.
Bill Armstrong:That is probably the challenge is keeping it is keeping cold over a long period of time, which is, uh, yeah, it's something that, um, you know we're. How do we make that better? But a lot of it depends on how cold the coolers are too, and time and everything else.
Casey Koza:Yeah, yeah, it's something we could have done a little bit better as a crew to keep it colder. We were kind of just a little bit of a whirlwind to get up there and first time crewing there. But yeah, that was pretty cool to see, like this new product. And a few people asked us about it. Like what, what is that? I can't say. Can't say I don't know if I'm allowed to say so. I can't say yeah and that's a yes. Simone in in. I've mentioned a couple of times in the show, but I say like rank, you know we got asked to crew a random person from France, but he's very much not random. He's an incredible, you know, schema athlete, mountain runner coach as well. When he talked to me about the product, that's when I really was like all right, this guy trained some of the best mountain athletes on the planet and he's using it. Maybe I should listen to the man here and heed his advice. So, bill, that's how I was swayed over to the never second category, I guess, of users.
Bill Armstrong:Thank you. I was going to say a lot of the Schemo athletes we work with, obviously Katie Scheid and she does a lot of Schemo and a lot of the athletes in the States. I did a bit of Nordic racing as well and some of the athletes that are used the ice gel is actually in the winter because they're like, well, it never actually freezes and it's a good energy source for them. So I don't know about, I didn't you know, but you know, even in the, in the cold, you can really kind of get, you know, get heated up like a furnace, so it just gives you some energy and sometimes cool you off temporarily as well.
Casey Koza:Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm eating one in the winter time I appreciate the people who are, but I, I was freezing last weekend and I couldn't imagine eating one and then I'll stick my my never second icy pops for I'll wait till the summertime to to use Fair enough. Yeah, rob, you haven't tried one of those, have you?
Rob Myers:no, not yet looking forward to it yeah, back in the day I used to play a lot of tennis and I could could have used it then where you need to lower your core. I mean, maybe you have to eat a couple of them to do that, but playing tennis outside in the hot sun it's pretty rough you know, we've started to see, with some even watching like tennis matches on tv.
Bill Armstrong:You start to see athletes using products and I'm like if there was ever a use of those five-hour tennis matches in australian open or even during the even during the us open, when it gets pretty hot and that kind of early, you know, late summer, early fall, it gets really hot and it's just like gosh, they could really use something like that there.
Casey Koza:So I'm actually going to recommend it. Myself and Will were on a rugby podcast. We played rugby together for Akron and we were on a rugby podcast with a couple of guys from the Pittsburgh team and they asked us like you know, how do you guys stay? You know you're running these ultras, how do you stay fueled? And we explained it to them and they go oh well, do you think that's something we should have at halftime? Like, would that, do you think that would help? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Like you should definitely have a snack in the 10 minutes you get at halftime. Don't be buffoons because you're going to prevent. You know the bonk effect of an 80 minute, you know rugby game has on you. And so they started.
Casey Koza:I don't know if it's directly correlated, but they started eating at halftime oranges, snacks, whatnot, and now they're going to nationals. The Pittsburgh rugby team is. So I'll have to find out if there was a direct correlation, but I'll let them know because it is hot down there in St Louis where the finals are the Midwest finals. So I will let them know about the. Uh, the ice bars from from never second for you, See, if, see if I can get a sale for you.
Bill Armstrong:Thank you.
Casey Koza:Thank you, we'll take it. Yeah, any sport, any time, right?
Bill Armstrong:We do. We deal with a few, a number of um soccer teams and and for sure we see that they, they use the products. I mean they're not, it's not, you know, rampant use, but they they do use quite a bit of gels and drink mix as well.
Casey Koza:Yeah, and that was not a thing when I played. I imagine now everything is so optimized and the nutritionists have probably got a hold of them that, yeah, they're probably using your drink. They're probably. Hey, maybe the ice gels on the hot day when they go into the locker room. You've got a freezer right there, Cool yourself off internally and they all use this.
Bill Armstrong:Honestly, even I mean, you were seeing proliferation of performance nutrition across, like race car, driving motocross, a lot of these kind of pocket sports that I I mean I, to be frank, I haven't paid a lot of attention to. You know, I was like motocross, walk me through that and then you realize so many mountain bikers have a motocross background as well. So, um, and I, I didn't even know there was a correlation, but a lot of them, a lot of them come from, like come from the world of two-wheeled toys, right, yeah, but yeah, there's a. We work with a number of of motocross athletes and coaches and it was really one of those kind of unexpected, uh, relationships that we have. It's worked out really well.
Casey Koza:Yeah, that's one I probably wouldn't have put. You know, like eating a gel in a motocross race. You know, jeremy McGrath that was my guy back in the day, I don't know you remember him, rob Jeremy McGrath. King of the team.
Rob Myers:I remember the name.
Casey Koza:Yeah, yeah, I guess I never would have put that.
Bill Armstrong:It's funny how, when you come up with a product that it just blows up and expands to all realms of the sports world, yeah, I mean, they really describe it as there's a lot of this kind of an endurance element to it and it's long suffering and brutal heat, you know. And so they're just looking and they're trying to keep their focus and concentration in the cars and so forth, and so this is just, it's something that, again, we didn't really yeah, I wasn't really looking at it but it's definitely something that we see more and more of. And then to your point about everything getting more optimized. For sure, we're seeing that change and that evolution happening across, really across all sports, and certainly trail running is. It's great to see and it's something we're seeing very, very quick change that we're seeing in the sport.
Casey Koza:Yeah, I think that's. It's one that I think people, a lot of people, are going to be surprised this next summer how fast people are going, cause I think there's been a massive shift over the last two years, especially when it comes to fueling, heat mitigation, things like that, Especially Western states. I think it's going to be exciting, it's going to be awesome, but I think people are really going to be surprised because just from being out there and noticing and just looking and trying to learn, there was a massive shift that I saw when it came to the in-race fueling and different things people were doing, trying out, and I think they're going to start to just increasingly perfect it and get better and better. Like I know one of your athletes, uh, jim Walmsley, you know he's always looking for something, you know what, building up, building the next thing, so, and those guys are trying to catch them and they're watching for sure what he's doing, as we saw out there at Western States.
Bill Armstrong:So, yeah, I can't agree more. We're definitely seeing that, jim, jim, you know, working with Jim, working with you know, katie, as are really, are the two runners that we really started with, I think the real for us, the real connection was their focus on the details. I mean, they're both, you know, I can kindly say, a little bit nerdy about stuff and it makes you know. I mean, the other day I was talking with katie about our new unflavored gel that we're launching and we were talking, you know, and she really tried it. It wasn't like, just send it to me and we'll, we'll check it out. She's like, is it coming and arrived? And she's like, I just want to let you know what.
Bill Armstrong:I, you know, she tested it immediately and she gave us feedback, and I same with jim, and it's it's something that um for us. It makes us happy that they're actually really looking forward to this because they really they see it as a means of of for them and with, especially with the long the duration of what they're doing, the longer the sport gets, the more that imperfections in the fueling protocol can have big results. So if you're out for two hours, for instance, very little can go wrong, but if you're out for 20 hours, a lot can go wrong with just a little being a little bit off on something. So you know, jim is is quite selective about what he does and and and saying and so is Katie and the rest of our the rest of our athletes, for that matter all of them have that in common.
Bill Armstrong:They're all. I mean. We work in in cycling with Keegan Swenson, sophia Villafon, russell Finsterwald, um. We're going to be working with Matt Beers, um, in the next month or so. All of them are pretty nerdy about their nutrition.
Casey Koza:Yeah, and you need to be, because there's a lot to consume. And I don't know I've never met Katie Scheid personally, so that's why I don't but incredible summer that she had One of the best in trail running history, winning Western States and UTMB Eight weeks later no easy feat, and part of that has to come with nutrition and the recovery from the event. That's another question I had for you. Is that a product? You have looked into it in every second like a recovery drink, a recovery.
Bill Armstrong:We do. I mean and just a comment shortly on Katie Katie, I would agree she's had an incredible year. She's one of those rare breed athletes that no one knows how good she can be. I don't think she, if you look, even for the last two years ago to last year at Western I mean once you drop like 57 minutes or something, already running at a really high level I think that she's an extremely determined person and she is really one of those lead no stone unturned athletes. She'll look for every little way to perform better. That's what makes her and Jim the same thing. He's just this rare athlete.
Bill Armstrong:As a brand, we feel really fortunate to have the athletes we work with get to work with them, because it's just we. We get feedback from the leaders in the sport not only from a performance perspective but also from a kind of cutting edge in terms of evaluating every option to do their best. Um, in terms of recovery, currently have a product called P30, which is intended exclusively to really help athletes increase their protein intake throughout the day. It's a whey protein isolate product. It is really low in carbohydrate. Some athletes have asked us like well, why don't you have a carbohydrate and protein recovery mix that you can take after a session. It's very simple. That's in the works. It's called P30C30. That's a product that we will be launching in 2025. That is really intended to help athletes recover right after session.
Bill Armstrong:P30 is really intended to help athletes increase their protein intake throughout the day. Not to say that you couldn't take P30 after a session. You may just want to take some carbohydrate with it, like a banana or something, but it's a really great product. It's an isolate. It's really easy on your stomach, which is one of the biggest challenges after athletes finish an event is that their stomach is usually a little bit iffy, and so it's one of those products that I think it's really a premium recovery product. It's something that we always hear from athletes that it's by far the best tasting and the least problematic from a stomach perspective. I mean, I've used a lot of protein products myself over the years and I usually feel like I get a stomach ache from them, and this is the one product that I can take, and almost every other athlete that I know that has a more sensitive stomach doesn't have an issue with.
Bill Armstrong:I do have a sensitive tummy, so We'll have to send you one of these to try out.
Casey Koza:The carb protein one that you're releasing I had a feeling you were is what I'm definitely looking forward to. But yeah, anything easy on the stomach I'm a big fan of. I know we're almost to an hour, so, but I I I definitely want to discuss this with you because you seem you're definitely the most knowledgeable person that we've had on the show to talk about this. But the use of sodium bicarbonate by athletes now A lot of people don't know this, but that is a product that has been used in the horse race industry for decades, decades and decades, like going back to the 50s. Now I'm starting to see the.
Casey Koza:I grew up around that world as a kid, so now I'm seeing the proliferation of the sodium bicarb start to come in. First it came in through cycling. I have a friend who used to use it. He was an Olympic cyclist, but I'm starting to now see it in the trail running, the marathon world, and I know some other. You know other sports have started to get into the sodium bicarb. What are your feelings on sodium bicarb and how do you make it easy on the stomach, because I know that's something that's very important to never second. As I see it, on all your products like easy on the stomach, and that is one that I have not had any luck with being easy on the stomach.
Bill Armstrong:I mean, this is something that I think falls into a category of be very careful what you take we have. You know, athletes always are looking for an edge and they're so trained. You know, it's funny. When I met Oscar for the first time, we were talking about like what's the most important thing for athletes and he said you know, unfortunately so many of them are trained, they'll take like 40 supplements. They're taking all sorts of things to kind of top off and max out everything. And he said most of it's just nonsense, it doesn't do anything. And he said we really focus on getting good macros in their diet and sleeping on the same mattress every day. So simple things that you were like it's not a very sexy conversation, there's no miracle there. But you were like it's not a very sexy conversation, there's no miracle there.
Bill Armstrong:And when you look at what we make as a brand, it's, I would say, simple staples that serve a very specific purpose. You go into something like S200, again, even though it's an innovation in terms of how you use the sodium booster, it's a next to nil risk product that is just meant to enhance our existing products. And you've got to come over to something like bicarb ketones. But I'll stick with bicarb to start. Yeah, there are so many athletes who will say, okay, this is going to make me better and that's the flat statement. It's an oversimplification. They'll buy it and use it for the first time on a race. They have a really bad result and it's this idea. We even have it with our stuff. I've had athletes try to be like, oh hey, I want to see if my shipment is going to arrive before my race. And I'm like you know, looking at your record, you've never bought from us before and like, oh yeah, I'm saving the good stuff for race day. And I'm like like, well, okay, as risk goes, our product is as low as it gets, but you need to train your gut. Now move over to bicarb.
Bill Armstrong:It's a higher risk product. A lot of athletes develop GI problems from it. A lot of times it can derail a good race. You know, if you hadn't taken it and you had just stuck to a good fueling protocol, you could have a great race and it can really do you in, and so it's definitely high risk. I mean, it's one of those.
Bill Armstrong:I think Oscar is probably the better person to speak about how to guide athletes around it, but from our perspective. I just constantly hear athletes complain about you know, I had a bad race because I took some bicarb. Yes, you can take it out of a box. You know your arm and hammer. It's one of those kind of like was it worth the risk products, especially if it's expensive, which I know some of the commercial bicarb products are pretty expensive and are relatively unnecessary or, and the risk just outweighs the benefits, so it's not worth taking.
Bill Armstrong:It's kind of like ketones. We're doing our research around innovation products for never second, and one of the things we're always that that fine line of caution is we have to always look at the clinical data, look at the research studies and say, okay, we're going to launch something. We never want to be accused of launching unnecessary junk that people don't need. And that's I'm not saying bicarb is that. I'm just. I'm just saying it's misused more often than not and so it becomes a product that you have to ask yourself is it worth taking? You probably won't watch it because, honestly, if you have to educate people that much and they're not going to pay attention to the education, the last thing I'd want to get is a bunch of irate phone calls from someone saying you made me throw up, you gave me diarrhea, you ruined my race. I wouldn't want to be involved with that kind of feedback. To me it's just not worth doing, because you really can ruin your athlete relationships with that.
Casey Koza:For me I won't use it just because I know the risk benefit of bicarb and the risk is up here and the benefit benefit of bicarb and the risk is up here and the benefit not much. There's not a whole lot you're going to get from sodium If you're in a sprint event under 400 meters. Yeah, you have a lactate buffer and it makes sense to me, but I don't think for ultras because of the stomach issues that it is, I'll never use it. But I just kind of wanted to get your take on it. And I know and I'm glad you said that that you need studies, science, to back up a product, because that is I hate when I see people peddling stuff that I know there isn't good science behind.
Casey Koza:And you touched on the ketones. We've talked about it. We had a nutritionist on. We talked about it. It makes senseist on, we talked about it. It makes sense in theory to me that it would work. But until I see studies done over a range of people who aren't paying for the studies, it's not something that, as you know, a mid-pack hobby jogger that I would ever invest in, because stick to the products that you know.
Rob Myers:Stick to never. Second, you have a very sensitive stomach. Everyone knows that casey. So, yes, yes, let's not take any risks here, right? We need you, uh, healthy but to try something new.
Casey Koza:You know I rob, I do need there to be science behind it, and it has to be, you know, not black magic or snake oil that I'm going to consume. So I'm glad to hear that from from bill, and I think austin said to me early on.
Bill Armstrong:He said to me and I think it really meant a lot he said to me you can work really hard as a brand building and I've seen this in my past life too building credibility you go and you make a real flop of a product that can cause a lot of athletes problems. It's pretty brutal on social media too. I I mean recently and I can't name the YouTube, it was kind of like a YouTube talk show, but they're they evaluate everything about products, but it's in a very kind of cynical tone and it's just like. I mean, because we said a product is pH neutral, they're like well, everybody knows that every product should be, so why do you have to claim it? And I'm like well, we're providing basic information because a lot of people don't even know that that actually matters.
Bill Armstrong:These are deliberate decisions. But there wasn't even a discussion around the attack, if you will, and it was kind of a, I guess, as things go, I mean I looked at it and I was like you don't know me and you don't know what we're doing and we're actually trying earnestly to make a great product where this is harmless as the whole, as the whole thing goes but I guess my point is is you can undo a good reputation really easily by making something that causes people problems.
Bill Armstrong:I mean we if anyone has a problem with anything, I usually will hear about it. We've had, as a brand, maybe two product returns and it's because they didn't like the flavor over like three years and that's really to us like makes us happy, because it's like in the end of the day, everyone was happy with what they bought and that they feel good about it and they have a good relationship with the brand and we didn't burn the bridge.
Casey Koza:You know, as a brand owner myself, it's super important and we get asked all the time when we're launching something new and it's like man, it's tough because everything we do well with what we have and we've done. You know we do a good job making the basic things and if we go out and make something abstract or crazy and it doesn't sell it's it does. It would hurt the brand. It hurts your other brands like well, you made a bad product here, you know the stores. It hurts your other brands like well, you made a bad product here, you know the stores. So I certainly get it and glad to hear your thoughts on the on the bicarb, because it's pretty much in line with exactly what I think that, yeah, risk, risk, benefit, you know. You know you got to do an analysis of it and I would hate for an athlete to try it for the first time in a race because it's probably not going to go well for your stomach. You definitely need to train your stomach on it so stomachs are iffy and ultras too.
Bill Armstrong:I mean, honestly, the number of people, even with a good fueling plan, that have stomach problems. So you're already at the extreme of what you know. Most of them will say I'm good for six hours, eight hours, you go into 12 to 20 hours, you're out a really long time. Most athletes will have stomach problems at some point and you're just increasing the chance of dramatically of having some unexpected problems mid-race and that's just. I would hate that to be in the middle of you know hour 13 or hour 14 or something and start to develop. You know when you start having problems it's you paid. You're paying a heavy price because you're. If it forces you to DNF which I saw a lot of athletes know, it unfortunately happens. They're quite late in a very long race. I can't think of anything more discouraging than getting like 80% through an ultra and dropping out Because you're paying a price physically. You've got to recover. You just have to, I think, minimize the risk. If you can, yeah, just have, I think, minimize the risk if you can.
Casey Koza:You know that's really what ultra running is is minimizing all the risks that you can and minimizing the blow ups as best you can. Getting through it. That's number one goal for almost all of us, except for the guys at the top, is just to finish Right.
Rob Myers:Rob, just finish, just finish. And it's the worst feeling in the world that I can't continue, or I can't continue at my best, just because my stomach's upset like you're not sick, you don't have the flu, and then it's your fault, right? I mean you gotta dial that in, do the math I mean, did you guys watch?
Bill Armstrong:I know it's different sport, but switching over to kona, did you see all the a lot of what goes on and and again another lesson from oscar when just in our conversations, like so many of the problems that are out there are fueling problems. It's either like bonking you saw some throwing up during kona, you saw sideways walking into a urinal, complete disorientation from gross dehydration. You see a lot of these things and that's at the professional level where these guys actually know what they're doing, and there's extreme heat of kona and just a lot of variables and it really undid a lot of, a lot of really great races. I mean I know I would never take anything away from uh laid low on his like heroic effort through the bike. That was just incredible.
Bill Armstrong:I was glued, like everyone was, to the tv set all day watching that performance and I love that he puts it out there. Actually, I think it's great watching him, just like he put it all out there to really push everybody and make it a crazy fast pace and to see what was possible, which I thought was really great. But it also just shows how kind of unforgiving in those conditions when you're at that level like it can. Really, there's a fine line between winning and something less.
Casey Koza:Yeah, You're, you're, you're walking the razor's edge for a large portion of those races and doesn't take much to knock you off of them. It does not, does not take much to do that. So, yeah, Bill, I I certainly appreciate you coming on, taking your time and, you know, talking to us about never second and and some of the products you have. So we just want to thank you again and wish you all the best. We're going to get Rob Rob. You're ordering Never Second for Canyons, so we're changing it up. We're going to get you through the Canyons on Never Second, Rob. That's what we're doing.
Rob Myers:Well, I'm going to take it before Canyons, right? So I have at least a month to get used to it. So my stomach knows what's going on. I don't get sick. Yeah, yeah, I do the right thing. So, bill, where can our listeners find you?
Bill Armstrong:We are online at never tocom Uh. We also have our own Amazon store Uh. So a lot of our customers use Amazon for faster access to our products. There are warehouses all around the country. We're in roughly 300-ish brick-and-mortar retailers around the country. You can find most of them on our website, and then we're also at Running Warehouse and Competitive Cyclist.
Rob Myers:Instagram handle.
Bill Armstrong:Instagram is neversecond.