A few months ago a good friend texted me for training advice. He asked specifically about exogenous ketones and power meters, knowing that he was poking the bear, and this is a cleaned-up version of the rant he got back from me.
This latest episode is my quarterly conversation with Like the Wind magazine co-founder and editor Simon Freeman. We recorded the episode back in April and I put it out yesterday. Ordinarily it coincides with the release of a new issue of LtW, in which an excerpt of the conversation usually appears, but the latest edition of the magazine is “by women, about women, for everyone,” so Simon and I sat this one out. (You can buy a copy or subscribe here.) We still had a great chat, however, about a few topics that both of us have spent quite a bit of time thinking about: how we handle change, shifting priorities over time, defining our values, and emphasizing quality in our work. We quite enjoyed it, and hope you do to, so tune in wherever you listen to podcasts.
I recently sat down with Lucie Hanes, a professional ultrarunner and rock climber based in Colorado. In addition to her athletic exploits, she's also a journalist and Mental Performance Consultant with a Masters in Applied Sports Psychology. We had a great conversation about all the different hats she wears, how they intersect and interact with one another, her history with disordered eating and how studying psychology has played a role in her recovery, creativity, her relationship with Precision Fuel & Hydration (and the changes she's made in those regards), and a lot more.
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.
