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.
I recently conducted an interview over email with Stephen Lane, author of the new book, Long Run to Glory: The Story of the Greatest Marathon in Olympic History and the Women Who Made It Happen. This book tells the story of American Joan Benoit, Norwegians Grete Waitz and Ingrid Kristiansen, and Portugal’s Rosa Mota—four of the greatest marathoners of all time—and the story of how all of them lined up to race each other for the first time at the first women’s Olympic Marathon in 1984. Despite the fact that this race happened nearly 40 years ago, I think it should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves a fan of the sport, no matter their interests, age, or how they identify. Add it to your holiday wishlist. I really enjoyed digging into the backstory of the book with Steve—himself a history teacher, track coach, meet director, and husband of my former teammate and training partner, Jess Minty—and I hope you’ll take the time to read our exchange below.
This is a great “getting back into it” session that isn’t meant to be that tough. I still use it today for that reason but I’ve also adapted it to serve a different purpose later in the season, which I describe in more detail here.
The 4 x 4 is a simple and straightforward workout that will launch your fitness to a new level, but you will have to earn it.
In this conversation, coach Megan Young talks about where her insatiable appetite for learning comes from, the importance of establishing effective communication strategies with athletes and colleagues, and what she means by living a high-performance lifestyle. Megan told me who and what opened her eyes toward coaching as a career path, what that path has looked like for her over the past 15 years, and why she believes coaches need coaches. She also talked about the importance of care and connection in the role of a coach, understanding the difference between passion and purpose, her personal goal to impact 100 million lives through her work, and a lot more.
The easiest days in your training schedule for running need to be taken as seriously as the most challenging workouts.
This week's episode of the podcast is with Stuart McMillan, CEO of ALTIS, and widely regarded as one of the best sprint coaches in the world. In this conversation, which easily would have gone another couple hours if we hadn’t run out of time, Stu and I cover a wide range of topics, from coffee and music to Stu’s former life as a DJ. We get into all things coaching, including how Stu got his start and how his approach has evolved over the past 30 years, creativity and how it influences his approach to coaching, the “philosopher-coach” and putting an emphasis on critical thinking and question asking, taking a systems approach to working with athletes and life in general, and so, so much more.
The 1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1 fartlek is an "introduction to power endurance" workout that can be used early in a training cycle when an athlete is still building fitness but ready to handle more work. The pickups are relatively short—1-3 minutes in duration—and the intensity—10K effort—should manageable for that chunk of time. The "recovery" intervals, which are run at more of a moderate training pace than a slow jog, are equal in duration to the work interval that preceded it. I like to use a version of this workout every few weeks during a half-marathon or marathon buildup because it forces the athlete to stay engaged the entire time and serves as a nice substitute for a standard threshold session.
