The TriDoc Podcast, triathlon and health in one place · Dr. Jeff Sankoff

"Sleep Like a Pro: The Truth About Cooling Blankets and Your Recovery" and How One Guy's Trash is Another's Treasure": Recycling Shoes

·1 hr 12 min·4 clips

Juliette describes waking at 12, 1, 2, 3, and 4 a.m. drenched in night sweats.

Jeff Zankoff opens on control. He frames the episode around the small things an athlete can still manage when race day, injuries, and everyone else's luck are all out of reach. Sleep comes next. The conversation moves through night sweats, menopause, stress, routine, caffeine, alcohol, mattresses, blankets, and cooling options, with the same practical question coming up again and again: is the bedroom helping recovery, or making it harder than it needs to be? The tone stays grounded. Sleep is treated less like a miracle fix and more like a mix of habits, surfaces, and temperature choices that can be improved one by one. Zankoff's background matters here. As an emergency physician, triathlete, coach, and multiple Ironman finisher, he speaks with enough physiology to be useful without losing sight of what feels awful at 2 a.m. The middle stays personal. A story about a rough stretch of night sweats and later relief through the patch and routine gives the sleep segment a lived-in edge. Stress gets proper attention too. The episode points to work pressure and a broken sleep routine as major factors, and it keeps coming back to a more regular bedtime rhythm, cutting back on caffeine and alcohol, and paying attention to sleep structure. Then the shoe segment starts. Stuart Jenkins, the CEO and co-founder of Blue Macca, joins the show to talk about what happens to the high-quality foam in super shoes once the miles are done. His background as a runner is not just context. It gives the conversation a practical center, because the issue is not abstract sustainability talk but a very real pile of expensive gear headed for landfill. Blue Macca is the answer he is trying to build. The episode lays out the basic idea of repurposing that foam and using it to reduce the environmental footprint of the shoes endurance athletes burn through. The pacing never feels rushed. It moves from complaint to advice to mission, which keeps the whole hour feeling useful instead of preachy.

As heard by us

A grounded look at sleep habits and what worn super-shoe foam can become next.

The episode keeps its focus on sleep, routine, and what to do with the foam inside super shoes after the miles add up. It moves between cooling blankets, mattress setup, and the value of a steadier sleep routine, then turns to shoe repurposing without losing its practical…

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Why you'd press play

When sleep feels like a war zone and your retired super shoes are stacking up, this one earns a listen.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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