Next Level Running
Training advice from the expert coaches at RunDoyen to help you run faster and take your running to the next level.
Next Level Running
Part 2 -- Running 101: Starting to Train
In this month's episode of the Next Level Running Podcast Coach Sean Henning and I continue our conversation about getting started with running! This time we dive into how to start training if you are a beginner, or if you've had a long hiatus from running! We talk about minutes versus miles, effort versus pace, listening to your body versus pushing through! It's a great conversation for those just starting to train and wanting to know how to do so safely and effectively!
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This is the Next Level Running Podcast, brought to you by the expert coaches at Rundoyan, helping runners of all levels crush their goals on race day by matching you with the perfect coach or training plan. Hello, and welcome back to the Next Level Running Podcast. This month, Coach Sean Henning and myself, Coach Jacob Phillips, we carry on the conversation from last month where we're talking about running 101, getting started with running. Last month, we kind of dove into shoes, gear, things, tips to get you started. This month, we dive into the training. We talk about how do you get started? What's too much? What's not enough? How many days should you be running? Should you listen to your body? Should you go based on effort? Should you run minutes versus miles? We dive into it all. Look, if you're coming back from a long break from the last time you ran or if you're just starting to run, this is a great conversation to help you get started. But before I jump into the conversation with Coach Sean and I, I want to point you to the show notes below. As always, I'll have my contact info as well as Coach Sean's. Look, if you want to reach out about training, if you want to reach out about the podcast, there's a topic you want us to dive into, feel free to reach out to us. I also have the link to rundoian.com. Look, if you want to find a coach that is going to work alongside you and help you crush your running goals, look no further than rundoian.com. Look, we have a roster full of expert run coaches and a unique matching feature to help get you match with the perfect coach for what you're looking for. If you're not quite ready for a full-time coach, check out the Doyen Dashers program. For$39 a month, you're able to get a a program written, a training program written for your goals by one of these world-class expert run coaches here at Rundoya. Look, I did it a year ago. It was about a year ago when I started the program, and it kick-started me into a great summer of running. It was awesome. I was able to move things around, make adjustments on the fly. I didn't feel married to the schedule, but I could do and follow the schedule. And so it was a great start for me, almost like a soft launch into running. A really good summer of running for me. So I'd really encourage that if you're not quite ready for a running coach just yet. But also I want to point you not only to that, but if you have not clicked that follow button on Instagram at Rundoyan, you should do that. Every month, Coach Wilbenites comes to you live with one of our expert run coaches at Rundoyan. They discuss everything from nutrition to marathon training to recovery, any and everything. They discuss it. It's a great conversation. And if you want to be part of that as it's going on, click that follow button. You'll be notified when they go live. But that's enough about the show notes. We're going to jump into this conversation with Coach Sean Henning and myself as we talk about getting into the training if you're either a new runner or you're coming back from kind of a long hiatus from running. Hey, man, how are you? Hey, good. How are you doing, Jacob? I'm tired, man. It's, yeah, I'm tired. It's been a long day. You know, we, we practiced pretty early and yeah, I'm tired, but I'm good. I'm good. It's been, it's been busy. You know, we're just like you guys were in the track season. It's been crazy busy with family and such, but
SPEAKER_00:yeah. How
SPEAKER_01:are you
SPEAKER_00:doing? Yeah. I was going to say you should, you should, you should add that into it too. You've got, you've got a newborn. I'm sure that that plays a role in it as well.
SPEAKER_01:It keeps it, uh, it keeps us moving. I think like, you know, um, yeah, a lot more chores, you know, that I, I probably wasn't doing, you know, a month ago, but, uh, yeah, yeah, it's been, it's been busy. And, you know, we had during spring break, it was NCAA indoors. And so it wasn't really a spring break. And then, you know, right into outdoor track this past weekend. And I got the, you know, the, the sunburn tan lines, you know, and, and, uh, and we're, you know, we're traveling, I think, you know, every week to next seven weeks and so it's staying all day at a track meet on Saturday mow the yard on Sunday on top of everything else you got going on you know but uh you guys man you guys get to stay pretty local right
SPEAKER_00:yeah we for the most part we are yeah we uh you know we don't do indoor track like you so that's uh I guess a um a blessing and a curse I think it's more of a blessing because it means we don't have to we don't have to do a lot of big trips that you know, pull us away, pull me away from the family and also, uh, pull, pulls us away from, you know, training blocks, right? You've got this race and that race, and you're constantly thinking about the next thing you've got on the, on the calendar. So it's nice. Uh, but yeah, most of our meets are fairly local. We'll go, uh, this weekend, we got about a, we got a big 40 minute drive, 40 minute drive. It's brutal, brutal. Um, but then, yeah, we'll go. The next week we'll go up to Stanford, San Francisco State. We've got a couple meets up there. So I'll see you up there. Yeah, we'll be there. Hopefully. Yeah, we'll both be there. Yeah, so it's good. Wait, give us the recap on indoors, man. Tell us. I know you didn't get to... You weren't there for every part of it, but loved to hear how the team did.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was good. I think it was the most we'd ever qualified for. We got a distance medley relay team in there, which was fun. Had a lady in the 800, and she ran really well. I think we were texting during her race. She ran really well, but... I think she was the seventh fastest time on the, on the day or the weekend, but you know, she didn't make the, she didn't make the final because of the way that you qualify or whatever. Um, so that was unfortunate. It'd be nice if they just take the eighth fastest or the eight fastest time she should have been in there. But, um, five kid girls, that was their first time competing indoor nationals and they, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't run great, but it was interesting because, uh, one of those ladies that qualified, she was a fifth year senior indoors was her last, uh, her last season of eligibility and then you know she doesn't have an outdoor season she's exhausted that eligibility and a year ago you know she's a she's a a pretty, not mediocre is the wrong word, but a pretty average college runner. And she was running about 1730 for the 5K a year ago. And man, just decided to take it really serious this summer and this fall. And she was our lead off leg on the DMR and ran really fast split there and ended up running a 1635 5K this year, ran a 936 3K, a 456 mile. So just had a tremendous breakthrough. And so when you see stuff like that, it's really satisfying as a coach, right? It's not like Obviously, there's some talent there, but it took her five years to get there. A year ago, she wasn't close. That was a cool celebration. We had a little bit of a family emergency, medical emergency. My little girl got sick, so I had to fly home early. We were in the NICU and the ER last week. It was a mess. It was not fun, but everybody's healthy. We're good. We're back. Back rocking and rolling with this busy season. Great to
SPEAKER_00:hear. yeah no it's yeah it's good to hear man yeah that's uh glad everything's okay with the family and uh yeah i think that's a cool story about your uh your girl that that made it i uh i think that's a great that's a great thing for our listeners here too you know that um it doesn't always click right away sometimes it takes a little bit of a grind and yeah um my guess is i don't know this young lady you obviously know her very well is my guess she um is that she probably believed in herself a lot and she kept uh putting one foot in front of the other and uh you know she probably was very consistent and uh, didn't miss a lot, I'm sure over the past, you know, six months or whatever. And, uh, what do you know? She ran really fast. So,
SPEAKER_01:you know, it's a, it's a patient person sport, right. And if you, uh, a lot of times, if you just, if you just outlast people, you'll, you'll, you'll get pretty good, you know? And, um, yeah, so that was, that was really cool, but, uh, to see, and, you know, now she's in that stage of life where she's like, oh, you think I could run an attached this week? And I said, man, take two, three weeks off, just relax, you know, like, you know, get, uh, you know, you're going to be, you know, I think she's doing it. internship and she's married, she's, she's married to a guy on our team. And so, um, it was like, man, just, just kind of relax for a little bit and, and let your body, you know, rest up from five years of hard running and, and then figure that out later, you know, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's weird. Some people, when they finished are really ready to be done. Some people like they get that itch and they just want to kind of keep going. And, and, uh, and I love it when they want to keep going, but sometimes a little bit of a mental reset is, is, is not a bad idea, you know, for a couple of weeks, but, um, But yeah, I was going to ask, what's the farthest you guys or the furthest you guys will travel for outdoors? What's your biggest trip this year?
SPEAKER_00:San Francisco.
SPEAKER_01:That's
SPEAKER_00:it. Nice. Where's conference? Fresno. So we'll go about four hours. We'll go about a four-hour drive. Fresno in the end of April is probably similar to Texas over the summer, except dry. Okay. Yeah, you guys get it humid, I think, right? Yeah, very
SPEAKER_01:humid. Yeah, the summer is pretty miserable, but right now it's not bad.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. We'll be okay for most. Yeah. We don't have a lot of big trips, but, uh, San Francisco, San Diego, a couple hours, you know, nothing, nothing too big. So, um, but, uh, but yeah, so that's, uh, what's going on over here. We had, uh, you know, real quick. I know, uh, uh, we got stuff to talk about, but we, we had world indoors too. Oh
SPEAKER_02:yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That happened. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's just, it's, it's crazy how, um, I mean, I love running. I'm on social media and like, yeah, it's just crazy. It's just not as big as everything else, you know. And part of that, I think maybe we're in March Madness right now, you know, so like that's kind of taken, you know, the brunt of the American sports viewer, I guess. But yeah, anything that stood out to you, anything that you were fired up about?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, you know, it's fun to see some U.S. guys doing some stuff in the 3K. We had a couple guys that did well, and... They finished fourth and fifth, which is great. And they didn't get on the podium, so to speak. But still, that's really good. That's really good for the U.S. And, you know, a lot of the guys that are competing at the indoor level, they're not our top dogs, so to speak. I mean, they're really good. Obviously, they're professional runners. They're elite. But not all of them are the top. And so it was good to see that. Jaka, Ingebrigtsen doubled. Obviously, he just killed it with the– the three K and the 15. And yeah, so that was, that was pretty cool. And we also had a guy win that 800
SPEAKER_01:guy. Yeah. He's crushing it, man.
SPEAKER_00:He is. Yeah. He did a great job and he's really had, I had an amazing last year. I think he was the first guy off the Olympic team last summer in the 800. I think he was fourth, I believe. But yeah, he was a favorite going in and he, he, yeah, he, definitely took care of business. So that was cool that we could, you know, come back with a medal. And, um, I think we had at least one girl in the, uh, I'm not sure, but we might've had at least one girl in the, uh, the women's 800. And we had a couple, I think we had a couple of girls do really well in the three K as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I think Shelby, Shelby got, got a medal. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So, yeah, it's so weird, man, because, uh, you know, with Shelby, you know, obviously it's a interesting, you know, with the, with the, however long of the band that she's, she's four years off served. And, and I followed her on Strava that whole time. And she was training like a maniac, you know, which is really hard to do when you can't race. And you, you know, there's, you know but it was weird. Cause I coached Kelsey Bruce in to the 2019 world championships. And Shelby was her roommate when we were in Qatar. And, and so like, you know, you know, like you're, Yeah, it's so hard, man. Like it's, it's so hard, but she served her time and she's running great. And I'm very interested to see where that goes, you know, cause it's, you, you know, you lose four years. It's a, that's a lot of, it's a lot of time in running, especially as you get older. And, um, and so, but, uh, yeah, sure. I guess her patience and her perseverance paid off cause she got a medal and, and, uh, it seems like she seems like she's rolling and enjoying herself and all that kind of good stuff. But, um,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. Now, now on to outdoors and, uh, for you and me and all the professionals will probably take a break and then they'll probably get rolling, uh, in April slash May. And,
SPEAKER_02:uh,
SPEAKER_00:um, Yeah. So, but it's, it's, you know, indoors is fun. Indoors is always fun to watch though, because it's just, it's such a different event than outdoors. Uh, outdoor track, 400 meters, no bank. You got the inclement weather. Sometimes indoors, perfect weather, 200 meters banked. Um, it's harder to pass. It's just, uh, it makes for a, just a totally different experience. And so, um,
SPEAKER_01:yeah, completely different, man. I, we, we, uh, we got spoiled indoors. We you know, you're indoors, climate controlled, no sun. And I am, I'm sitting out there on Saturday and it's 85 degrees. It's 30 mile per hour winds. And I'm just getting burnt to a crisp and I'm thinking, wow, I, uh, I need to figure out this outdoor thing because, uh, I forgot, you know, so, um, that's a lot different, man. It's a, it's
SPEAKER_00:a better wear your hat and put some SPF on or something, man. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well go, go to California as many times as you can. Right. So like I said, we'll be out there with you next, uh, I guess that's next week. And, uh, and then we'll be back in a couple of weeks later, closer to your turf, right?
SPEAKER_00:I promise we'll bring you good weather when you come out here, okay? You have my word. San Francisco will take care of
SPEAKER_01:you. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it because we have another meet with major winds and storms predicted. And so, yeah, we'll see what happens this weekend. But last time we chatted, we were talking about kind of like, you know, running 101, like getting started and, you know, kind of the foundation of it, right? Right. Like the shoes, the mental tricks and tips and that sort of stuff. And kind of run out a little bit of time there at the end and really wanted to kind of carry on that conversation where we talk about, you know, like, well, how do you how do you get started as a runner? Right. Like if you're, you know, some some people that are listening or sitting there. I mean, you and I both have clients that that employ the run walk method. Right. As they're trying to build for their first ever 5K all the way up to. to a marathon, right? And, and so just kind of talking through that idea of how do you start, right? Like, I mean, like it's, it's for us, we've been running, I don't know when you started running, but probably middle school age for us, right? Like we've been running a long time. If we take a year off or a month off, we kind of know how to get back and get started. It's like riding a bike, right? What if you've never started? And so, you know, just kind of talking about that and, and just kind of jumping into, hey, how do you get started with training? How do you ease into that? You know, what, what's kind of some good rules of thumb, all that kind of good stuff. And so what were your thoughts there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, so one of the questions I like to ask a new client or honestly, even a new student athlete, you know, is how long have you been running for? Right. So for someone that's a first time runner, it might be zero years, right? Okay. Well, at least we know, right. But, but how long have you been running for? Tell us a little bit, tell me a little bit about your, your mileage history, right? Are you running, have you been running a lot? Have you been, you know, putting together 30 or 40 miles a week? Are you a three miles a week type of a person? What is your history like? And what is your injury history as well in the sport? And that usually kind of helps us figure out a basic level of where to start, right? So for me, if someone's been running for the past 20 years, you know, I'm like, okay, you're basically a 20-year-old in the sport, right? You've been in it for a bit. You understand, you know, the ins and outs of it. You've done a few races. You know, that's great.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But, but yeah, I've had, I have a couple, I don't have a lot, but I have a couple of clients that are, that are fairly new to running. And so, or, or maybe they, they did it and they took massive amounts of time off. Yeah. I do have some of those. Yeah. When I say massive, I mean like eight to 10 years. Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Chunks of time. And so, so they're almost, they're almost like an infant sport. Right. And so, and learning about what they've done over the past, you know, month to the, to the past year, what have you done? Um, so that we know where we can, where we can start from. Right. Yep. So I think that's really important. That's the value of having a coach, right. Is they can really help, help you figure this out. Um, yeah. And so that's usually the first question I ask. And then, of course, if it's somebody that has not been running at all or or it's been several years and they're basically at a walk level, they don't feel comfortable jumping into a straight run. We kind of establish what are what are you comfortable doing to start? And I always go off a time when it comes to bringing someone into the fold with running. Yeah. If it's been someone that's been. just walking. I don't, I don't have them running a mile straight. We go off of time, right? That's, that's how I do it. And, but yeah, what about you? Some of those clients, you know, has that been your strategy as well?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. And I remember, I think a year ago I was working with someone writing an article for Runner's World and it was that question. It was like time versus mileage. And I said, you know, if you're pretty seasoned and obviously there's probably a kind of depends on how you're wired, but pretty seasoned runners, uh, mileage is kind of my go-to new runners. It's, it's about time, right? It's it's, and that could be segmented in one minute running one minute walking or whatever, all the way up to five minutes or a continuous run. Right. But, but I try to do, uh, I try to do minutes. I think for me, like when I have a client that's like starting, Hey, I haven't done this or I haven't done this for a while. It's been a long time, but treat me like I'm a beginner. Uh, we try to be really, you know, um, honest and realistic with where we're at. Right. And I, I try to preach like this idea of it's going to be a very patient buildup, right? Because what we don't want to do is get hurt. A lot of times the clients that I'll have reach out, say, you know, I tried running, but it hurt my knees or hurt my shins or my feet hurt. And so a lot of times that's probably because we did too much too soon. And so we want to be, we just want to be really patient with that buildup and think in weeks or months, not days, right? Like, you know, I've got one client I work with that I said, hey, look, I'll be honest, like this, this probably first couple months you might just be building up to like a 20 or 25 minute run. And that might not sound very sexy, but you went from running zero and we're trying to run three or four times a week on top of some cross training and some other stuff. But I think you hit it with, having a coach is very important. I think, I think the easiest thing, if you're trying to get started with running is, is find a coach, whether that's, uh, uh, you know, run Doyan with the world-class expert run coaches that are there, or, you know, finding a plan online or something. But I do think having a coach help with that is, is important because we've dealt with it. We we've dealt with beginners. We've dealt with kids coming back or, you know, clients coming back from injuries and how to build back from that, you know, like, and so I think, um, I think you nailed it there, but I think really just talking about this idea of patience and consistency over really big efforts, you know, and for beginners, a lot of times I'll talk about this idea of, you know, easy, relaxed, conversational. You know, like if you were, if you, if you can't run with a buddy or a friend and hold a conversation, then slow down. Like you will eventually get faster, but let's, let's relax. Let's slow it down. Let's, let's be, let's be. And a lot of people sit there and say like, easy, relax, running. That doesn't exist. It does if you do it right. And it might just involve slowing down. But, but yeah, just trying to be easy and conversational and being relaxed with it versus Versus this is supposed to hurt. This is supposed to be painful. Um, I think running is supposed to be really enjoyable. You know, there's some, there's some, obviously some hard days, but I'd say like the majority of your running hopefully is enjoyable. Right. And so we're trying to really teach what that feels like and what that, what that means, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I agree. And, um, I think there's, uh, there's obviously with some clients that have a little bit more knowledge of the sport, we can talk about percentage of VO2 max effort, right? Which I do with some of my clients. I'll say, okay, we're looking for like a 60 to 70% of your VO2 max, you know, whatever you can do for about a two mile, 10 minute hard effort. Like let's take a percentage of that. Right. But then I have some clients that that means nothing to them. And I said, okay, here's what we're looking for. Exactly what you said. Comfortable, conversational, relaxed. You, you, can carry on a conversation, but it's not, maybe you're not able to give this monologue for three minutes and not have to, you know, skip a beat. Like you're breathing a little bit, but you're able to, you know, have sentences come out of your mouth while you're running. And so I think the effort is really important. Heart rate's tricky, I'd say, because Again, the only way heart rate really works is if either you do a VO2 max test or you somehow know your maximum heart rate and your resting heart rate, which a lot of people don't know their max. They might know the resting, but they don't know the max, right? And so we're kind of guessing on that. And so sometimes I use that with clients, you know, that maybe we have a rough idea and it gives them another data point to work with. But oftentimes I have some clients that we just don't really know. We're not sure what their max is. And so it's a complete guess. The 220... minus your age thing is a is a nice basic number but it can definitely be off by 20 or even 30 beats per minute so um so yeah i don't typically focus on that a lot um i think another thing that uh is kind of an interesting uh concept is you're talking about building a building an athlete up from from scratch right okay we're starting up what do we do um there's this This idea of no more than five miles a week and you got to do it for at least three weeks before you can possibly move up. Right. And somewhere, you know, in the history of running, somebody stated this and it has become law. You know, like this must be what we follow. Period. End of story.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think it's a nice rule of thumb, but I don't think it has to be that way. Right. I think. Yeah. Some people can jump up more than others. Some people, maybe they need to go slower, right? But I don't think there's one... way that you necessarily need to do it. Um, so I think it's just good for our listeners to know it does not have to be this five miles a week, do it for three weeks, then you can go up and you and I would have college athletes. It would take half a year to get anywhere.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, yeah. And like the, you know, you, you hear the 10% rule, right. Or whatever. And sometimes that's probably a very good thing to follow. Um, but not all the time. I think that, uh, you would be taking forever building it and You know, you and I will have clients that say, hey, like I'm signing on. I've got a marathon in 12 weeks. Well, the truth is, is like if you're going to complete that marathon from scratch in 12 weeks, we have to move you up pretty quickly, at least for the long run. Exactly. Like we have to do this if we're going to get you prepared to finish 26.2 miles. And so like you can't jump up. the 10% or the five miles because your long run is probably jumping up a mile to two miles every week, right? As we kind of get you to a certain marker to know that, hey, look, you've gotten to, for me, it's usually 20 miles, right? Like that's kind of my marker. If you can run 20 miles, we can get to 26.2, right? Like we can build to 20 miles, but that's kind of my marker. And some people do 16, some people do 18, some people do more than that, right? But I think there's got to, each coach probably has this marker of knowing you've done this. I think you can complete this race Thanks. We can't get there if we're taking it, you know, 10%, right? You're going to take forever to get there. And again, sometimes that's needed. I've got a couple of clients who've signed up recently and it's like, hey, I have a year. I want to do a hundred mile race. First of all, that's a hundred mile race is not really running. It's enduring. There's a long time to get to a hundred miles, right? Obviously we're not going to build to a hundred miles in training, but like you got a year to kind of get there. But a lot of times we'll get, this past year I had two clients that said i've got eight weeks to new york city marathon i've got 12 weeks one had 12 weeks one had eight weeks and they had the longest run that they had done at the time was three to four miles their goal was their goal was to complete the marathon and so you know obviously i couldn't get the one to 20 miles but i kind of got them to but and they both completed it and it was all good and such but i think like it kind of depends on what you're training for um but i i think like When we're starting with a client, again, not a veteran, not somebody who's run 10 marathons, it's been great, but we're looking for, man, how fast can I go next year? When we're talking beginners, talking people who aren't coming from that background of training at a high level, there's a lot that I think they don't really quite realize. I think one is like, and it's tough when you sign up for a coach, when you're paying for a coach, you want the hard, you want, this is what I signed up for. Right. And the truth is, it's going to take a long time to get there. If you're starting from scratch, a lot of it's going to be very basic, very simple, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's those incremental steps that get you there. But I think like, there's things that like, you know, you might not think about like making sure you're stretching, you know, making sure you're incorporating some sort of strength work. And obviously coaches can help with this, but like, you're going to start feeling things you haven't felt before if you're not running, right? And so, you know, we can't just take days off. You and I talked about this today, about this idea of consistency and like not missing workouts. Well, how do we keep it going? By stretching, by strengthening things that are starting to get sore or to get fatigued or whatever. You know, like making sure we're in good shoes. You know, I think we're going to talk maybe a little bit about shoes and some technology and stuff, but making sure you're in good shoes, right? Making sure you're in a pair of shoes that is good for your foot and your foot strike and your mechanics. And then really, as important as a good training program is and all these other things, you cannot outrun good sleep, good hydration, good nutrition, right? And I think sometimes we think, okay, hey, I want to run a marathon. How many miles do I need to run? Can you get me in shape? And it's like, yeah, that's very important. You cannot replace the running, but there's a lot of things that you can do to make the running a lot easier on you and to to make your build a lot smoother.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, totally. Well, let me ask you this. What are your thoughts on effort over pace in time? What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, good question. So I think if you're looking just to complete a distance, I think you're running effort. I think if you tell me, hey, look, I want to run a 5K under 25 minutes, or I want to run a marathon under three hours, at that point we're training for a pace. Right. And so I think it kind of depends on your goals. Um, like if, even if you're a beginner and you say, like a lot of times they'll say, Hey, I want to complete 26.2 miles. I'd like to do it under four hours. There's a pace that you have to run to break four hours. Right. And so, um, so you definitely have to do some work at that pace. Um, you know, if we're talking about, uh, a hot, humid race or a hilly race, and you don't have really hills to train for something, maybe we're talking more effort there. Um, but typically, uh, I try to break it into... they're trying to complete the distance or they have a, they have a time goal in mind. And if they've got a time goal in mind, we're going to really dive into some pace, some very specific things. If they're just trying to complete it, I really try to dive into effort, you know, whether that's because I don't want to just give them easy running every day, right? Even if they're a run walk method, I want some faster running. I want some harder running. I don't want it to just be easy jogging all day. Right. And so that might, focus on effort more than a pace. But if you tell me, hey, look, I want to break 90 minutes for the half marathon, we better be running what that pace feels like. Otherwise, you're not going to be prepared to break 90 minutes, right? You've got to have some specific pace work there, right?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I would say, so I agree with that. You do have to be able to run certain paces if you're going to even fathom running it in a race, right? Totally agree with that. Yep. I do think one important thing to factor into all of this is just life's rhythms, the stressors that are in life. And I think a lot of the people that we work with and that are listening to this podcast, they're not professional runners, right? They've got stuff going on. They've got full-time job maybe they have a wife and children and other stressors and maybe they have two jobs maybe they have a commute maybe they live in a an area that is you know ridiculously hot or ridiculously cold and so there's all these factors that come into play right and so i think it's important to remember the effort at times because there just might be a day where let's say you and i um you know, we, we have a, I'm trying to think of a, let's just, I'll come up with a basic number. They're trying to run 1845 for a 5k. Okay. Well you and I know that six minute mile pace. Okay. So we want them to do some, some intervals and we want them to run them at 5k pace. Okay. So we're wanting them to do whatever 800 meter intervals at around, around a six minute mile pace, whatever. So maybe they, had a long day at work. Maybe they had to go take their son or daughter somewhere. And maybe they're finally getting around to the workout at five or six o'clock in the evening and it's cold. And I don't know, wherever they're running is not ideal. And so in those instances, I would encourage clients to not stress about the pace because the pace just may not be there on the day. right? The ideal pace might be, Hey, let's run three flat for these eight hundreds, but it just may not be there because of the fatigue that you've already accumulated throughout the day. Right. And we would say the same thing with our collegiate athletes, right? Like there are days where, you know, it's just not going to happen because you can tell that they are feeling it. So, so it's important while, while the pace, the pace is important, right? It's important for them to know, look, if the, if we're doing a We're doing a VO2max workout and we're trying to run 95% of your VO2max effort I don't want you to run a hundred percent of your, I don't want you to basically race to accomplish this time because now we've used a completely different energy system. We put ourself in debt. We probably affected the rest of the week,
SPEAKER_02:et
SPEAKER_00:cetera. So, so making sure like, again, this is the art of coaching, right? This is, this is where you and I have to use our best judgment. And yes, a hundred percent. There are times where we have to push our athletes to say, Hey, you really need to learn this pace. You need to understand it. You need to feel it. But also we have times where we have to say, look, We're not hitting the space today. That's fine. The effort is still important. The benefit is still there if we achieve the effort on the day. Focus on the effort. The benefit will be there even if the time– we don't get to spend time at this pace. That's unfortunate, right? We want to do that. But you're still getting something out of the day. And I think that's really important for listeners to understand is you're going to have those days. It's okay. There's that old 80-20 rule, right? If 80% of the stuff you do is really good, if 20% is average at best or maybe bad, you're still moving the needle. You're still doing okay. And just not being so slave to the pace that I must hit it or else, you know, it can be a dangerous game to play.
SPEAKER_01:I've got a client, Santiago. He was a guest on the podcast. He has run a PR, I think, in every marathon that we've worked together with. And it's been a good streak. And I mean, he's in Ecuador. It's sometimes very hot, very humid. His locations are very hilly. And there's a lot of times where he says, coach, I couldn't hit the pace, but the effort was there, you know, and like. And he knows– and again, he's a veteran runner. He's been running a lot of marathons for a lot of years and such. But I say, hey, man, you know what to do. I'm not stressed about it. I'm not stressed about it being a couple seconds per kilometer off or whatever. Yeah, I agree with you. All those days count, right? Even those days where it feels like we're just trudging through the mud, it counts. But I think as we're talking about this– You know, one of the things I was going to ask you is like, and let's, you know, I think the majority of our listeners either plan to run marathons or run marathons, et cetera, right? What do you think is the, and I know this is probably circumstantial, but what do you think is the minimum frequency? So the amount of days that you can run per week in order to run a marathon? good marathon again i don't know what good means but but run it strong run run the whole thing maybe no walk breaks uh to complete 26.2 miles i mean what's the what's the minimum frequency what's the minimum long run in in your mind because if we're talking about beginners they're probably sitting here saying like i don't have seven days a week to run like right
SPEAKER_00:yeah totally yeah no that's uh i think that's a great question and yeah what what is considered a good marathon right that's uh i i would say i would say this if you if you can if you're looking to complete a marathon and and primarily be running the entire time
SPEAKER_02:and
SPEAKER_00:uh not be at the caboose of the race where you're you're the you're the last guy or gal that's almost getting picked up by the uh the trail the trail car you know and you're wanting to you know put in a good effort you're not winning the race but you're completing it you feel good about it it's a decent time um and uh you've you've for the most part ran the whole thing obviously we you know you and i both been been there where we've had that had our fair share of walk breaks past mile 20 at least i have
SPEAKER_01:my first marathon i walked in so yeah it's brutal um You should have ran, man. You should have. I walked the last 10K in of my first ever marathon. So
SPEAKER_00:the
SPEAKER_01:wheels came off quick.
SPEAKER_00:They sure did. Geez. Yeah. I would say, I would say four days a week. That's a, to me, that's a safe number where you're wanting, you're putting out this goal of completing a solid marathon. I think four days is important. The long run, that's a tricky thing. I would agree with you. I think 20 miles, it sounds good. I think the other thing with 20 miles is really when you think about the goal of the long run. We're trying to spend time on our feet. We're trying to get time on our feet. We're trying to get our body to learn how to deal with the energy needs deep into a race for long periods of time when your glycogen stores are depleted. How do we deal with that? We need to feel that. We need to learn how to refuel and work through that period. If you can get to 20 miles, for most people, That's going to be– again, it depends on how fast you're running. But let's say you're just– you're trying to run just a solid day. That's going to be over two hours and 20 minutes. It's going to be probably over two hours and 30 minutes for just almost everybody listening. Yeah. That's a long amount of time, right? So I think if you can get to that, and the hope is obviously you run the marathon and you can run a little bit quicker than you do on that long run, hopefully, then I think that would prepare you well. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely trained for marathons and gotten up to 22 or 23, but I think getting up to 20 is good. I do think you have to be careful, though, If you have someone that's trying to do this short build, like you had mentioned, a client, 12 weeks, they're starting from three miles, the 20-mile is just not going to happen. No, it's not. Or if you get a client– and I've had this happen where– there was a minor injury that occurred and we were already kind of on a tight schedule. And then we lost two long runs. What do we do? Right. Do we, do we just jump, jump the long run up five miles so we can kind of get caught up again? Or, or do we just, uh, do we just kind of accept that that's the case and all right, we're going to get a quality 18 miler and we're going to get two of those and we're going to feel really good about it. Um, so sometimes you have to pivot like that, but I do think getting up to 20 and ideally if you can get in a couple of those, I think that's really, really beneficial.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. I think, uh, you know, I, I had a guy, uh, one of my first clients ever with Rundoy and getting ready for New York city, we get to 18 miles and then he pulls his calf and he, he cross-trained cross-trained cross-trained. He comes back. We're 10 days out from the race. We had done the bulk of the training and he was like, I was like, look, we're not trying to go more. We're actually going to taper down to health, you know, and just going to, and he crushed it. He did exactly what he wanted to do, ran his time. And so sometimes, you know, less is more kind of depending on the situation and such, but I think less is more. Yeah. A lot of times. Yeah. A lot of times. I mean, we, I think we probably hold our athletes back a lot more than, you know, they're probably wanting us to go harder on them and stuff. But with that, and I think this may be the last, last thing that we, we, we hit on just quickly, but like, you know, this idea of less is more sometimes. And this maybe can be a topic we do later about, you know, something completely different, but when to push yourself, when to listen to your body, when to rest, I think that's, I think that's complicated. So maybe we can't do it very quickly, but like, Yeah. I mean, someone new, it's hard to know when to listen to your body because you're new. It's going to hurt. It's going to be painful. You're going to be fatigued. Like, so yeah. Thoughts on that. When is it okay to push? When, when should you be listening to your body? When should you choose rest over fighting to the fatigue? You know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. If you're, if you're a new runner, right. Or you're starting a build, I think listening to your body right off the bat is important, right? Once you get more comfortable in your own skin and you learn, you know, what feels good, then I think you can learn where to push. I do not think the goal should be, I'm going to push myself right off the bat. I think that will... Number one, you might get injured. Number two, you might hate running after that. And number three, I think it could just... while it could be wildly inaccurate as to what you're capable of. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's better to start. It's better to start cautiously and listen to your body, take your time. And once you establish a good base, then I think it's okay to start pushing yourself a little bit more and challenging yourself. But I, but I would not suggest a client push right off the bat. I think laying a basic foundation, kind of feeling what, what is a comfortable effort. And that way we, When you get to the point where you're ready to do workouts, you at least know where your baseline is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that you said that because you will learn what you can push through, right? Like you will learn what is fatigue and what's soreness and what's injury, right? You'll learn that. And it's better to be cautious early. And so, yeah, great answer there. Great answer there. Well, hey, this is fun. Shout outs. Any clients or anybody you want to shout out?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Shout out to one of my clients, Beck. I've been working with Beck for, gosh, I think a few months now, and... Lives out on the East Coast. He's actually getting ready for Boston. He had a great marathon at CIM, Cal International. Did a fantastic job. The shout out is that he's just done a great job of family, full-time job, getting up at 0 dark 30 to get his runs in and Actually had a setback, had an injury that just came out of nowhere. And so we had about a week or two where it was just like, all right, what's our next step here? And he did a great job. He kind of stayed the course, took his time. He relinquished control over the mileage and didn't stress about that. And now we're back on a good path. So I'm very proud of him for kind of staying the course and I think we'll be okay. So yeah, how about you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Garrett, a client I've been working with for, I mean, I don't know, a year or two. I can't remember. It's been a long time. He just ran a 50 miler this past weekend, a race, and that's the longest I've ever trained someone for. So he was my Guinea pig and he crushed it. I mean, to, I, to be so smooth for 50 miles on sand, it was like a beach run or something. And so, um, but he's so good at making sure he has a plan like nutrition and he just stuck to it. And, and it just like when a client is just so responsive and lets you know how they're feeling and how the workouts are going. And yeah, it just was, it was an Awesome build up. We've had a, every race that he's run, he's run a PR over the last year. And then he said, Hey, look, I've done this marathon thing. I've gotten faster every time. I want to do something that really challenges me. And so he picked this 50 mile. And I said, you sure you don't want to do the 50 K, you know, and no, I want to do a 50 miler. And, and, uh, and he crushed that this weekend. And so we're going to, we're going to link up at some point this week and figure out what's next. Cause he's got that, he's got that, that itch, you know, he wants to, he wants to keep after it. And so, yeah, he crushed it, had a great, uh, 50 miler and, uh, uh, out there, I think, uh, in South Carolina on the beaches out there. Good job, Garrett. Nicely done. Yeah, yeah, you crushed it. Make your coach look good. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I've never done it before, but I will see you next week in California, man. I'll be out there, and yeah, we'll be back next month with another episode.
SPEAKER_00:That's right, my friend. All right, well, take care. Safe travels out here, and we'll see you soon. See you. Bye.
SPEAKER_01:And that does it for this month's episode of the Next Level Running Podcast. I want to thank Coach Sean Henning as my co-host. It's been fun getting a chance to dive into this topic, running 101 over the last few months. We're going to change gears a little bit next month. We're going to come back. We're going to be diving into common running injuries and maybe how to prevent and rehab those, right? So we don't want you getting hurt. So what can we do to maybe help you prevent that? But if you're dealing with some things, maybe there's some things that we can do to help you rehab that. So super excited for next month's conversation. Again, don't forget get to check out the show notes. There's good information there. And thanks so much for joining us again this month. Thanks to Coach Sean for his time. Hey, and until next time, have a great run. We'll see you then.