Physician Teddy Bross offers insights on general health for runners, medical screenings for runners and his thoughts about peptides like BPC-157.
Is ultrarunning healthy, or are trail runners just very good at ignoring their bodies? Dr. Teddy Bross is a family medicine physician at Highpoint Direct Care in Golden, Colorado, and the 2025 Ouray 100 champion. He joins Zoë Rom and Brendan Leonard to talk about what doctors miss when they treat endurance athletes, from bloodwork that looks alarming but isn’t to the real reason your stomach quits mid-race.
The conversation moves through direct primary care, injury planning, running in wildfire smoke, coronary calcium scans for athletes over 40, and when more health screening stops helping. It ends with an honest look at peptides like BPC-157. Teddy also explains why he dropped out of a 200-miler to rehab his Achilles, and how he ran his best Western States on about 10 miles a day.
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More About Teddy Bross
Dr. Teddy Bross is a Colorado family medicine physician who treats runners as one of their own. At Highpoint Direct Care, he focuses on athletes and active adults, drawing on his residency training in sports, wilderness and integrative medicine. He backs it up with serious miles. He has ten 100-mile finishes, including a sub-24-hour Western States in 2017 while he was still in medical school. He has also run 107.7 miles on a treadmill in 24 hours and tagged 12 of the Nolan’s 14 summits.
More About The Trailhead
The Trailhead is deliberately not a training show. It isn’t your typical trail running podcast: the hosts aren’t dissecting splits or debating race strategies. Instead, hosts Zoë Rom and Brendan Leonard go straight to the heart (and funny bone) of the sport, celebrating the people, stories and quirks that make trail running special. The tone mixes humor, heart and a little irreverence, and the subjects are the personalities, artists and everyday athletes who give the sport its soul. Catch up on previous episodes however you listen to podcasts.
Show Chapters
0:00 Meet Dr. Teddy Bross, Ultrarunning Physician
1:53 What Is Direct Primary Care?
4:02 Why 60-Minute Doctor Visits Change Everything
6:08 Bloodwork for Runners: What Doctors Get Wrong
9:00 Is Ultrarunning Actually Healthy?
10:39 Sports Medicine in the Exam Room: Ultrasound and Skin Checks
13:40 Why Every Runner Needs an Injury Action Plan
17:23 Practicing Medicine Without Insurance Companies
19:38 Pickle Juice, Cramping, and What Really Causes Race Nausea
22:25 Is Your Appendix a Backup for Your Gut?
23:41 What Being a Doctor Doesn’t Teach You About Babies
27:11 How He Ran His Best Western States on 10 Miles a Day
32:36 Why You Can’t Rush Achilles Rehab
36:42 Is It Safe to Run in Wildfire Smoke?
40:22 Should Endurance Athletes Get a Coronary Calcium Scan?
46:35 When Health Screening Does More Harm Than Good
51:36 Does BPC-157 Work? A Doctor on Peptides
57:00 Optimization vs. Balance (and Parenting Chaos)
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