I recently sat down with my good friend and three-time podcast guest Simon Freeman, the co-founder, editor, and publisher of my favorite running magazine, Like The Wind, for the second installment of our yet-to-be named quarterly conversation, which you can listen to wherever you get the morning shakeout podcast or at this handy link. An excerpt of this exchange can be found in Issue #36 of LtW, which comes out later this week. In this one, Simon and I talk all about coaching: our experiences with being coached and what we got out of them, the different forms that coaching takes, the impact a coach can have on an athlete, and a lot more.
In this conversation, Randy Ashley and I tall a little about how he got into coaching, before discussing all things related to working with high school athletes: keeping it fun, building and maintaining team culture, dealing with the pressures of social media, interacting with parents, generalization versus specialization, how he thinks about training, and a lot more.
My guest for this episode is Starla Garcia, an Olympic Trials marathoner, registered dietician, and body and cultural diversity advocate. After sharing her story of how she got into running and eventually became a dietician, Starla and I talk all things nutrition and fueling for runners: maintaining a healthy relationship with food, being comfortable in your own body, how and when to fuel in training and in racing, eating for performance and recovery, hydration and electrolyte replenishment, different considerations for women versus men, supplementation, and much more.
My guest for this episode is Dr. Justin Ross, an avid endurance athlete and licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in health, wellness, and human performance psychology. In this conversation we bust some myths about sports psychology, unpack what it means to be a mentally tough athlete, discuss how to approach goal setting and performance standards, and a lot more.
My guest for this episode is Anh Bui, Doctor of Physical Therapy, 2:53 marathoner, running coach, and certified strength and conditioning specialist. In this conversation, we discuss what it means to run resiliently, understanding the difference between injury pain and normal aches, why strength training is important for runners (and how to best fit it into the week), the importance of pre-run activation exercises, considerations for Masters athletes, and much more.
My guest for this episode is Mark Coogan, coach of Team New Balance Boston and co-author of the new book, Personal Best Running: Coach Coogan’s Strategies for the Mile to the Marathon. In this conversation, Mark and I discuss his book, get into his training principles and the influences behind them, the importance of effort over exactitude, and a lot more.
The Mona Fartlek can also serve as a good 20-minute benchmark session every 4-6 weeks by simply comparing your total distance and overall average pace (and heart rate and power, if you’re into those sorts of things) from one attempt to the next. What I love about this session is that it’s efficient and versatile: it can be done anywhere and you can make it as hard or an easy as you need/want it to be.
We're in the midst of marathon season which means the long run takes on an extra level of importance if you're training to race 26.2 miles. The 3 x 3 Cutdown is one of my favorite go-to long runs to help develop the specific fitness and skills necessary to succeed on race day. Here are the details:
One-mile repeats are a bread-and-butter session for distance runners prepping to race 5K, the marathon, or anything in between. Every once in a while I like to mix up the intensity and recovery a bit to work on both stamina and speed while also keeping my athletes more engaged throughout the workout.
