In this episode Simon Freeman and Mario Fraioli talk about what it means for an amateur athlete to adopt a "professional" mindset when it comes to training and racing: being intentional with your time and workouts, taking the work seriously, not giving into your feelings, eliminating excuses, not overcomplicating things, and a lot more. We also discuss what professionals and elites can take away from us amateur athletes: the benefits of a well-rounded life, having interests, hobbies, and other "productive distractions" outside of the sport, dealing with failure, maintaining a healthy relationship with running, and a lot more.
Last month I asked readers of the morning shakeout to submit their fueling and hydration questions for the experts at Precision Fuel & Hydration to answer and boy did they deliver! Below you'll find questions and detailed answers about navigating the contradicting views and latest trends in fueling and hydration advice, changing your fueling strategy based on how much you sweat, adjusting your fueling and hydration strategies for difference seasons, how to determine your carbohydrate needs, pulling yourself out of a bonk, the importance of fat for runners, fueling for recovery, and much more.
I’ve been running competitively since 1997 and helping athletes work toward their own competitive goals since 2004. What follows here is a working set of principles I know to be true, developed from 27 years of trial and error as both an athlete and a coach, countless hours of my own reading and research into training theory and the history of the sport, and the influence of athletes and coaches I’ve been fortunate enough to observe, spend time around, form relationships with, and ask questions of over the course of my career. These principles form my training “philosophy” and help guide my thinking (and ultimately decision making) when it comes to working with athletes and putting together training programs.
Let me know if this situation sounds familiar: You're in no-man's land midway through a half-marathon or marathon. Or maybe you've been towing a group for several miles and none of the other runners in it want to help out with the pace. There's a good-sized pack about 10 seconds down the road but they're not really pulling away anymore. What do you do? If you want to ride that wave's momentum and take advantage of the collective energy in front of you, you need to make a move and surge ahead. The Surging Mile Repeats workout is a session designed to help give you the fitness and confidence to do just that.
I've always believed that to run your best half-marathon you should be in really good 10K shape—and if you're in ripping 10K shape, you should be able to run a really good half-marathon. There's a lot of overlap in the type of work required for success in both, specifically when it comes to longer intervals and tempo runs. This workout, which is designed to be repeated a few times over the course of a training block, combines these two essential training elements and can be manipulated any number of ways depending on what you want to get out of it.
This week's conversation with Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows is a follow-up to Episode 226, which was released back in August. In this one, we discuss how Jennifer spent her sabbatical over the summer and what she experienced visiting various run crews around the country (and even a couple internationally). She told me about what she hoped to get out of the trip, the feelings of culture, connection, and belonging she experienced along the way, how it all impacted her, what surprised her, and a lot more.
Marathon season will soon be upon us and improving your ability to run for longer at goal race effort/pace is probably top of mind. The "2 By" marathon long run is one of my favorite ways to introduce some running at goal race effort/pace into the mix and then extend the amount of time you spend there over the course of a 12-16 week cycle as fitness and confidence both improve.
For this episode of the podcast, Simon Freeman proposed a philosophical discussion about seasonality and consistency and I was all about it. We talked about when to rest and when to build, running as a means to an end versus running as a lifestyle, the “flywheel effect,” and more.
This effort-based workout is a great early to mid-season season session when you're still fortifying your fitness foundation and neither pace nor specificity are key concerns.
This week, I sat down with my right-hand man Chris Douglas and answered questions about the Olympic Trials Marathon start-time controversy, things I’ve changed my mind on, the importance of the weekly long run, time versus distance-based training prescriptions, and a lot more.
