Episode 634: Listener Submitted Q&A

0:09Jared Ward: Welcome to The Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint.

0:13Ryan Sterner: Whether you are a brand new runner or you already have a great mustache,

0:16Jared Ward: we're here to help you increase your running knowledge and present it at a practical level. This is The Running Public.

0:30Jared Ward: When you're ready to take your training or racing to the next level, go to the running public.com. We have both monthly subscription training plans,$19.99 a month. And Bracken and I both offer one-on-one customized coaching. Again, go to the running public.com and check out our offerings.

0:48Ryan Sterner: Made it, Kirk. You slid into home plate just in time to record. I did. I backed my trailer right in between my parents' fence and my garage. full speed screeching to a stop and ran upstairs you listeners don't know what bracken has

1:04Jared Ward: sacrificed this week he's had a week camping away with his family it's an annual trip at this point i believe now i'm thinking about the timing of it and now both recordings this week you had to leave and drive all the way back home to record these episodes that is sacrifice it's it's not i'm not

1:22Ryan Sterner: a hero. Others may say I am. I wouldn't say I'm a hero. It's that we had two weeks in a row. I was in California for a week and you took over and did great. Doing it a second week, it throws us off. We've been so disjointed at times over the past year that we just can't afford multiple weeks of it. It's not the end of the world, but just know that I care enough about you all that a little bit of discomfort in my life.

1:50Jared Ward: Flattery goes such a long ways with pretty much everybody.

1:53Ryan Sterner: Yeah.

1:54Jared Ward: It's the universal currency. It really is. I had one other thing to ask you, but I think we should just get to the episode. Let's do it.

2:05Ryan Sterner: Because we're on a time.

2:06Jared Ward: As you think of it. We're on a time like, well, not really. I think, well, the thing, it's not that I thought about it and I said it's not that important to say, is that we aren't, we're not ask you, but we aren't that, we're not perfect with episodes anymore. Like we are five out of six weeks, we will have two episodes. But what we have decided after doing this for how many years that if like it is an extenuating circumstance, like we used to bend over backwards and really inconvenience ourselves. You know, I was renting a hotel. I was literally renting a hotel room and paying 180 bucks for the night just to go in, use the Wi-Fi in a secure place and record and then like leave when I was traveling.

2:44Jared Ward: And we just said, hey, we probably shouldn't do things like that anymore. Like we've been consistent enough. So if you don't see an episode on occasion, it's because we've made that decision sort of.

2:56Ryan Sterner: This week I drove past the library in this small little town in central Wisconsin where I had booked and rented a quiet conference room to have a podcast recording with Matt Fitzgerald. Matt Fitzgerald at one time. So I nostalgia driving past like this is what we used to have to do. And it wasn't quiet. You can't control the people around you and can't make too much noise either talking because there's people. It was just, it was a real hassle staring at Matt Fitzgerald who was like a little personal hero author wise of mine and thinking I'm in a terrible room with terrible acoustics and my backup mic.

3:35Ryan Sterner: And I'm constantly looking over at the librarian to see if I'm making too much noise. And now I could only rent the room for 90 minutes. It's just a hassle. So yeah, we're trying to make this. This is year six, and we want this to be around in year 16 and 26, and that's the way we're going to make it work.

3:51Jared Ward: Okay.

3:52Ryan Sterner: I was going to ask you a question about all that,

3:53Jared Ward: but I think you just said enough there. Okay. So what I'd like to do is the screen. You guys, I don't know if we have more listeners or not. Maybe we do. Our ratings and reviews have like, you know, when we ask for them, we get them, but it's so pathetically slow now. that first of all, if you've been listening and considered writing a review or giving us a rating, that would be wonderful because we could use them right now. Because in this space, they say if you're stable with your listenership, you're actually growing because of the number of options out there. There's over twice as many running podcasts today as when we started six years ago.

4:36Jared Ward: So we could really use a bump up on the, I don't know, the alg, if we will say it. But what I'm getting at is we have hardly any new reviews or ratings, but we get more freaking questions than we've ever gotten. And I don't know why that is. So what does that tell you? Finally trustworthy with our information. Is that as simple as that? Yep. That's what it is. So I guess we're trustworthy now, deemed by Bracken, which makes us inherently not trustworthy. So I think we just get to this thing. Maddie. Maddie asks, hey, guys, hope you're doing well. As a High Rocks athlete and coach, I'm always looking to improve both my own performance and the way I coach others.

5:15Jared Ward: I was just wondering, in your opinion, what are the biggest factors when it comes to improving running efficiency and getting quicker? Are there any key drills, strength exercises, or training methods that you think have the biggest impact on helping athletes become more economical and faster runners? I'd love to hear your thoughts and any advice you'd be willing to share. Thanks heaps. Maddie.

5:33Ryan Sterner: So for years, my answer was that if you do a million fast, good running reps, your form is going to clean itself up. Just said so many times where we watch someone come through the collegiate ranks and start running 100 mile weeks and their form just got more compact and concise and their foot strikes just improved and they started popping off the ground. And that was basically where I stood. Just spam it with volume and you're going to naturally just self-regulate.

6:04Jared Ward: But once I got older, I'm like nodding my head here with you. So I got, I'm so curious now how you're going to follow that up. Cause I have a version of that, that I'm going to say my opinion.

6:13Ryan Sterner: Well, and I still believe it. I believe that to be true. I don't believe that most people need to pay an ungodly amount of money to have someone fix their running. But the part that I was naive to that now as an adult, seeing people in the adult world who didn't grow up running, that, that part witnesses the fact that not everyone is doing the constant running drills and plyometric and accelerations and strides and post-workout 200, all the things we did in high school and college that helped us run well and be youthful, being youthful was part of that. You don't do that as an adult. So I think simply just running a lot more and being cognizant of your form anytime you're in front of a mirror, but you have to pair it with, I become more and more of a believer of hip and core stability and any drill that reduces your ground contact time.

7:05Ryan Sterner: So anything that employs the need to, or prioritize the need to hit the ground and get off the ground immediately, that just makes you a better runner because you can't have hip drop or sagging or knee splay or crazy amounts of pronation with that. You have to be controlled and get off the ground. But I still think you volume your way to better form unless you have a huge glaring flaw in your stride.

7:34Jared Ward: Well, just give a couple concrete examples of these quick foot off the ground things you're talking about.

7:40Ryan Sterner: Skipping, bounding, running with, doing hurdle form, hurdle drills, doing fast, hard 100 and 200 meter efforts. Anything that forces you to not spend time on the ground improves your ability to get off the ground. It could be as simple as A skips, B skips, C skips. It can be just running tall and bounding. It could be jump roping. But anything that prioritizes getting off the ground quickly works down the chain of firming up everything that would be a weak link in the chain for how to get balanced and get off the ground with purpose. And you can Google. I've done it a couple of times recently for people.

8:19Ryan Sterner: Like, good running drills. Show me a pro running warmup. and there's a million things online for how to do it. Some of my favorite things are Kenyan team warmups. They are a thing of beauty. I haven't seen anything about that. It's like everything we ever did ever as a plyometric drill, as a running drill, as a warmup for running, combined into one 15 to 25-minute endless circuit with jogging, skipping, and almost dancing in between. It's just like one constant. and they do it daily and I don't think anyone can argue with the results. Maybe people just need to take up dancing. Honestly, dancers have great hips balance and ground contact time.

9:04Jared Ward: I'm going to just dumb it down and simplify it to the most simple, maybe easiest thing for people to do. And that is, first of all, I don't know if people know or don't know if they have good running economy or not. Like it's such an, I mean, there's a handful of some of the fastest runners in the world that you look at running. You're like, yikes. Josh Hoey, are you kidding me? This is important to say.

9:28Ryan Sterner: You cannot see running economy. You cannot see running efficiency.

9:33Jared Ward: You can feel it.

9:34Ryan Sterner: Yeah. So when announcers are like, oh, look at their running, you can't see it. You can't see it because you don't see what's happening. You have to be hooked up to a machine. like josh hoey like quincy wilson quincy wilson quincy adams wilson which one is quincy adams but that's not the one you're thinking okay anyway no anyways excuse me what i think is uh if you

10:01Jared Ward: think you're struggling with efficiency or you have like slow cadence or whatever you just feel like you're plodding around all the time i think if you're like a four day a week runner you run the exact same mileage and you run six days a week, but you split it up into smaller chunks and you run more frequency. You, you, you like embrace the grease, the groove concept, right? You're just in your running shoes every day or way more days than you normally are. You're doing less mileage. You're not overextending like, Oh, if I run an extra day or two, it's going to be more mileage. You spread it out more evenly.

10:28Jared Ward: And it's just, how often are you touching it? How often are you touching it? How often are you going in the sun? You'll build up a better tan that way. How often are you going in putting on your running shoes? You'll build up a better economy that way. And I think step one is frequency of exposure. And I think most people listening are somewhere in the three to four day a week runners. I really do. I don't think the bulk majority of our listeners or gen pop who are runners are running more than four days a week. I would bet that most of our listeners run four days a week or less versus more. And simple fix, bump up your frequency.

10:59Jared Ward: That's what I would do first without any other changes.

11:01Ryan Sterner: I agree with you. And because clean reps, fresh reps are the reps that matter most when you're trying to improve technique. Frequency matters more than just overall volume. You are correct about that. And I think that it is important to spend time running fast because if there is a downside to polarized training for people who aren't running 50 plus miles per week, it's that you're not spending a whole lot of time running well. you can spend a lot of time plotting and not getting better at running i think there's a lot of people that just a lot of runners who don't have the ability to spring off the ground well due to age injury or just lack of coordination anything you do repeatedly you get better at doing yep and that whole practice makes perfect verse practice makes permanent i don't care about the distinguishing word there the reality is whatever you practice you improve upon even if you're doing it poorly, you get better at doing that thing poorly.

12:00Ryan Sterner: And so running slowly, you can get better at running poorly. But if you practice drills and speed work as well in that, you're going to get better at that and that's going to translate to your running. So as many good, clean, fresh steps as possible. And I do believe that if you didn't grow up running, you've got to be doing drill work. If you want to improve your form, you don't have to do that to be a good runner. But if you think my form's not great. The best thing you can do is fix your feet and your hips in the ground contact. Ground contact is so big.

12:30Jared Ward: You see a lot of the running content out there, whether it's influencers or just people that we follow that are running. And it's like these big loping strides, and they're fighting for everything. And you can just see how inefficient. It's mostly an overstriding problem. And when you overstride, then your feet come inwards of center. They come towards the center more and then you're slapping. And then pretty soon it's like, probably could be fixed by running a little more upright, increasing your cadence and then showing

12:57Ryan Sterner: up a little more often. Right? Yeah. And that fixes everything. As long as you're not like crazy toe striking, it's a lot harder to hurt yourself with shorter ground contact time because you don't have all these weird flaws in your form. So I think the simplest thing everyone can do is film themselves running. And if you don't see glaring issues, just do it as frequently as possible. The best my form has ever been was college, running track with crazy amounts of drills and speed work. And then whenever I'm doubling, simply from the frequency of the skill work, it cleans you up so quickly.

13:32Jared Ward: Well, speaking to your speed component, then we got to move on to the next question because we can really drag these questions out is I've been running fast twice a week now since my last ultra, a Tuesday quality. It's always an over speed day. I'm talking like VO two max work. Like I'm, I'm, I'm zone five in it and living in it a good bit. And then on my long runs, they always have a quality component and I'm always half marathon pace or faster. Um, and I have noticed already, like I go out the door and I click just, I mean, I click right in, in a way I didn't when I was like slogging a bit with ultra training.

14:03Jared Ward: Um, so there's also something to that too. I think just, I can feel what you're talking about right now. Just frequency of like, I'm turning it over frequently and I'm not running as far either, which is, I think, for me working. Yeah.

14:15Ryan Sterner: I'm going to finish with this then. I think there's a test everyone should do, and that is go outside on flat ground and just try doing bounding running strides. Essentially, you're just trying to over stride like crazy. You're almost leaping foot to foot, but you're running form, but you're bounding. Try to do 10 to 20 per leg. If you have a drastic fall off after your first two or three strides, you have some efficiency issues in your chain that you can fix and you can fix it quickly by just doing more of that motion. If you can bound well, you can run well.

14:48Jared Ward: Bounding's hard, by the way.

14:50Ryan Sterner: It's very

14:50Jared Ward: difficult, but it comes back. You improve it so quickly. Confession, I've never bounded. I mean, never with any sort of purpose. No.

14:58Ryan Sterner: I'd be interested to hear what would happen if you did it. If you're just, you're fine at it. I'm not talking like trying to cover 15 feet, but like if your normal stride covers six feet, try to cover eight.

15:10Jared Ward: A good miler stride covers six feet. That's an unreasonable expectation of me.

15:14Ryan Sterner: If your normal stride covers three feet, try to cover five.

15:16Jared Ward: I'd probably send my planner into a spiral is what it would do. All right. Will asks, potential Q and A. This one's sort of for you, Bracken. I don't have a big opinion on this. The boys' thoughts on recovery slides would love a Bracken level breakdown of the various kinds and if these are marketing BS or a valuable tool.

15:37Ryan Sterner: I just had this conversation with my brother out in California because I have a pair, I have two pairs of what would be considered recovery slides. I have the Nike, I forgot even what they're called. They're their React X foam. It's just a fancy slab of foam. And then I have the Hoka Aura recovery slides. But aren't Crocs basically a recovery slide?

16:03Jared Ward: Yeah, I suppose. But they're not big.

16:06Ryan Sterner: Yeah, the Ufos, Ufos, Ufus.

16:08Jared Ward: Ufus, yeah.

16:09Ryan Sterner: Yeah, they're all the same thing. And the reality is that none of them help you recover. They just help you feel better after spending time on feet, less bad than you would. So when I wear mine, and I just got them as sandals to wear, as flip-flops to wear around the house and around the yard. and I'm just not as beat up at the end of a day of wear. You know how it is if you wear flip-flops or slides for a whole day, your rear chain just kind of like your Achilles will ache or your feet will ache if you just spend too much time. You just don't get that in these. They're like big cushion running shoes but in sandal form.

16:46Ryan Sterner: So they're not helping you recover. They're just not beating you up as much wearing them. So does it matter? Either way, I'm going to put my feet into those after an ultra because my feet are beat up, but they give me the support of a running shoe. But I don't have to worry about rubbing weird on a shoe after I've been in a shoe. But they're not speeding up recovery. They're just not hurting me more. That's my take. They're so comfortable. So comfortable.

17:12Jared Ward: I agree about just the not beating you up more. Your corns hurt. Your feet aches.

17:16Ryan Sterner: Yeah.

17:17Jared Ward: You got to put these on. Let them breathe a little bit so your toes can splay out and your feet aren't sweating. and they can just, then you happen to have a little bit of foam underneath it. So when you walk on your hardwood floors, it just doesn't feel wretched.

17:29Ryan Sterner: I put them on to cook dinner because I've been standing a lot all day and my feet just ache and I put them on and they feel less bad sitting there, but I'm no better the next day. It's just, it's a creature comfort in the moment. They don't enhance recovery. They prevent more depletion, which I guess in turn will shorten recovery if you don't get beat up as much. I just wear like my plastic, it's a plastic material

17:52Jared Ward: Birkenstock. It's like the cheap version. I love them. What?

17:56Ryan Sterner: Yeah. I'm too old.

17:57Jared Ward: I got an indoor pair and an outdoor pair because my wife told me I can't keep wearing the same pair in and out. That's why I have two and I wore them both outside. I still don't have an indoor pair.

18:08Ryan Sterner: I wear them all everywhere. I've really messed it up. You know what they're the best for? Long airport travel days. Oh, do I love them for that.

18:18Jared Ward: Although the whole, what helps me recover better conversation oh my gosh like oh i just got some so wrecked after my long run what should i do to recover for tomorrow or monday should i ice and foam roll and stretch a bunch or should i go in the sauna or what should i do i'm like don't do any of that actually that would be terrible just like eat food and like live your life and like get some sleep tonight

18:39Ryan Sterner: like that there it is this is this is important too kirk for people to hear we haven't soapboxed this in a while. The reality is you cannot change your body's biological recovery process. You can't speed it up. What you can do is add chemicals to your body that will help. You could do peptides, you could do HGH, you could do EPO, you could do hyperbaric chambers, you could do red blood cell transfusions, you could do PRP, you could do things like that. Yes, you can chemically make it faster. But mechanically, you can't make it any better. All you can do is remove the things that would have made it worse, like sitting around all day or eating things with high sugar content that are just going to shoot your inflammation higher.

19:28Ryan Sterner: But none of these mechanical things you're doing will make you recover faster. They're just going to stop you from recovering worse. There's no magic fix out there unless it's medicinal. And if it's magical,

19:40Jared Ward: it's probably illegal for most people to do. Thank you for saying that. There's some biohackers listening just shaking their head at you, but you were absolutely correct. Would I recommend going out and squatting that night after your long run and then deciding to, I don't know, go to a dance party and stay up all night? No, that I would be contraindicated. That's going to add to your duress. But living your normal life and doing life things and going to the grocery store and then out to dinner with your buddies or whatever it is, just eat food, get your water back in you, and get sleep. I don't think there's any other, like, the shoes aren't going to do anything.

20:15Jared Ward: I'm sorry.

20:15Ryan Sterner: They might feel nice. Minimize damage, maximize blood flow. Those are the two best things you can do outside of sleep and hydrate. And if there is a crowd that I'm okay being upset with me, the biohacking crowd, I have no use for. I'm sure some of you are great people, but most of you, I don't have any use for. You don't have any use for Ben Greenfield? I'm not naming names, Kirk. I just did it for you.

20:38Jared Ward: okay we'll move on i mean it's not joe rogan he and i okay um all right next one i'm gonna i'm gonna take this one from the start do it it's from shelton shelton says uh q a my course sucks it's weak and i avoid it what routines do you do you also talk about wanting to lift heavy weight with low reps does that apply to your core are you doing weighted crunches and leg lifts or tons of sit-ups and planks? Shelton, I'm glad you asked because I think you know the answer to this. You kind of hinted at it, but why would you squat heavy and then go do five minutes of crunchies to do your core work? It's an absolute flawed way of thinking.

21:22Jared Ward: Everything we do, this is my general philosophy for runners in the weight room, which is my profession, part of my profession. And we take a million steps a day by running, exaggeratory, but so catabolic in nature that I think all other work outside of it should be high weight, low rep, and that includes your core. There's no exception. Maybe there's some place for calf work or something where maybe you need to go a little bit more high rep potentially to get the desired outcome. But yes, most of the people I work with, and if you're on a running public strength plan, I'm like, uh, like 12 reps of like a weighted core movement.

21:59Jared Ward: Yes. What do I do? I put 25 pounds between my feet. I hang from cuffs and I do knee tucks with the weight between my feet. Sometimes I don't even get to 12 where I can't get my knees to touch my elbow. And then I go and I put 15 pounds between my feet on a decline bench and I do leg raises. And if it's a steep enough grade, I might struggle to get to 12. And then I weight my sit-ups or I band a Bosu sit-up in which I can barely bracing my feet, get myself all the way to the full crunch position. Um, you can finish with lighter work, higher rep stuff if you want, but like you must lead with heavy movements that force you to brace truly and put out power.

22:36Jared Ward: And so, um, you wouldn't treat your abs any other differently in your core than you would any other body part. And if you weren't a runner, if you were just weightlifting for life and you didn't run and you, I think it should be a little bit of most muscular strength and muscular endurance. But I just think because of the high output nature of our chosen, uh, hobby, weight, low reps, always. That's it.

22:58Ryan Sterner: Exercise physiologists, scientists have known for a long time that core muscles respond to heavy work, low reps. They've known that for a long time. So why is core one of the things that people just spam reps? It's because it's unweighted. Almost every common core move that you can think of that people do is body weight. It's just a functional exercise. Sit-ups, V-ups, planks, all these things, leg raises, flutter kicks, they're unweighted. And so the only way to get a burn, to get a reaction is to do a crazy amount of reps. That's why it's done that way. Not because it's best practice, but because it's convenient.

23:34Ryan Sterner: But the reality is, is you need to go watch Alec Blennis and find out ways to weight your core movements. And if you can weight them to the point that you fail out, you've done a good job. It's like anything else. Keep a rep or two in the tank and you're doing it well. Whether that's 30 reps with two or three in the tank or three reps with two or three in the tank, you have stressed that muscle and you will get growth off it. But the good news for you and most people out there is if you're not doing anything, you're going to respond to anything. So go do literally any core exercise routine you see out there.

24:07Ryan Sterner: And when you're ready to get it done in a third of the time, add weight to your movements and get out of there.

24:12Jared Ward: We did a 10-minute ab routine in college two or three times a week, and I think about a waste of time that was after we could have been doing more valuable things with our time. And yet we were shredded. Well, because we were lean. And because anything works if you do it hard enough. I mean, anybody has a six-pack if they're 5 % body fat. Just how big is that six-pack and how nice and shiny does it look on the beach? I would say if your forehead veins aren't sticking out doing your abs, you're not doing them right. That's all I need. There you go. Move on.

24:39Ryan Sterner: Yeah, you can get ab muscles off 50 rep exercises. For sure. Part of Kirk's thing of just do low weight, high rep is because most runners don't have time to do a ton of different things. That's super efficient. So if you can get done in 15 reps what you can get done in 500 reps, why mess around? Unless your job is to explore every possible niche and crevice of the human physiology.

25:05Jared Ward: yeah i just think in theory like our main focus is so catabolic we just gotta offset that i don't care what you do i feel like you wanted to make your eyelids stronger i wouldn't be like okay just blink all day every day be like no like somehow attach weights to your eyelids and like go like i'd take it to that extreme like because i yeah the theory would be across the board for me no

25:26Ryan Sterner: matter the pursuit we're doing micro little things all day long every day yes you don't get sore from that?

25:32Jared Ward: I don't know if we're going to answer this. This is more of a suggestion, so I can just put this bug in your ear and maybe if people reach out, say this would be interesting to hear. Brian says the subject is podcast guest. Here's a topic for podcasts in the future. How about you to do a Where Are They Now podcast on former OCR stars and people you've talked about on the podcast? What's Hobie up to these days? How about that Ryan Woods guy? Brian. update ryan woods ran the ashville super this past weekend i saw something i think i saw something

26:03Ryan Sterner: about that he he's not running as much these days he i i don't think he's running much at all he was like 20 minutes off first place 10 minutes off first place i love that though that he went out there he's done this from time to time he'll show up i have an athlete who was down there running i said was that an old man wood sighting he said yes it was and it was awesome i've tried so i I've tried to coordinate with Ryan two or three times over the years.

26:27Jared Ward: And he's, you know, but some people know, like, people just think we're all just like have all this free time on our hands, but he's running a pretty busy chiro practice and he's hustling and trying to schedule with him has been tough. Like I can do Friday night at eight o 'clock. I'm like, we're not going to do Friday night at eight o 'clock, unfortunately.

26:41Ryan Sterner: And he's willing to meet. We just haven't been able to line up like in a reasonable timestamp. So good reminder though. All right. So in your opinion, just quick answer, what one two or three ocr athletes are competing at the highest level currently in sports still uh how how og are we talking uh let's say they had to be in the sport prior to 2017 2017 or earlier so i went to be included hey when were you in the sport well 2016 but i wasn't any

27:13Jared Ward: good i mean by comparison why wouldn't you count if i said 2017 or earlier because like Because if they were an OG in 2017 is how I'm looking at it.

27:24Ryan Sterner: Oh, no. If they were active in the sport in 2017 or earlier. Well, you got to say Rich Ryan. Yep. You got to say Rich Ryan.

27:34Jared Ward: I wish I knew what Atkins was up to these days. I know. But I don't. So this is a case in point. What are they doing now? I'd love to chat with Robert Killian because he's put less of a focus. I just want to know what these normal people are doing. I think he had a hip replacement surgery. It would be so good to talk to some of these.

27:50Ryan Sterner: John Albin is still running professionally, and he's a world-ranked mountain runner.

27:55Jared Ward: Rich Ryan. I mean, and you can't exclude Ryan Kent, really. He just hasn't had the success that Rich has. And then I would say, if you're paying attention, Johnny Luna Lima is still chasing really big things and running really, really well. He's chasing big international mountain races, and he's doing very well. So I would put those three.

28:15Ryan Sterner: Now, I claim Dylan Scott because he did OCR before he did anything else, even if he was no good at it. And he, yeah, he did OCR, did several races, and he just won a High Rocks World. So I'm claiming him, even if he wouldn't identify as such.

28:32Jared Ward: On the female side, I mean, you still have like Nicole Miracle and Logan Broadbent still like coming back. I guess they're an item. I didn't know that until somebody told me such. and so they show up in clean house so they're still very fit vj jones is making like a sixth comeback we'll see how that goes uh i don't know if i chase big races and put myself out there maybe i'd be in that boat i think i'm one of the fittest guys from that era still but i haven't gone on big stages really so if we did a get in the band back together tour where everyone who competed in the elite series in 2017 came back in and everyone had the green arrow up red arrow down

29:19Ryan Sterner: or just the slash for held the same your green arrow would be one of the highest up i agree for where you would move in the field mine would be a red arrow plummeting downwards you'd have some people that are about the same yeah and some we just don't know we're gonna have updates on so

29:35Jared Ward: this is a good reminder this is actually really fun to talk about so maybe you got to put some feelers out there.

29:39Ryan Sterner: We have to do a lot of nets, huh? We have to bring Jack Bauer on for this episode.

29:43Jared Ward: Jack Bauer on for this episode. That'd be fun. Um, I, anything else there? Next one, Jesse, uh, message my personal IG. Uh, sorry, Kirk, maybe I should send this to the channel questions, but I wanted to ask about heavy lifting for running. Okay. We're noticing our theme five, but I wanted to ask what heavy lifting for running five by five. I like power lifting and I'm around two plate squat and three plate deadlift. At what point as you build your heavy lift, should it just be maintaining instead of going down to three by five? Cheers. I don't

30:18Ryan Sterner: think those two things are mutually exclusive. Okay. I think you can maintain at three by five. I think that I want to be clear that this is going to sound dismissive or insulting and it's not. I would say that a, wait, is this a male or a female?

30:33Jared Ward: I believe a male. Okay. You said Jesse?

30:35Ryan Sterner: IE. IE. I think that helps. Yep. Jesse, I believe it's a male. I can't see the profile. Okay. Anyway, two plate squat, 225, three plate, 315 deadlift. I wouldn't say is excessively heavy. I'm not saying you're not doing well. I don't know your size. I don't know anything about you. But my point is we all know runners who can do more than that. So my take would be that unless you're a real hard gainer, which doesn't really apply in the running strength world, I think you could continue to do both.

31:04Jared Ward: until it's obvious that it's negatively impacting something.

31:08Ryan Sterner: You'll know when one's pulling from the other and it might just be immediately at upfront and you go down to three by five or you stay at five by five and you drop your weight 20%. But eventually you're going to be able to get back up to everything you're doing now. And there's a good chance you can still push it up. Those are good numbers. I'm just saying it's not like you're deadlifting 500 pounds. And I have to say, obviously we can't keep that going. we know like Ryan Woods was deadlifting 315 back in the day I just think it's doable I it's not doom and gloom you can keep it going you just may have to dip one for a little bit while you adjust

31:42Jared Ward: to the other I think you know I think you know when you stop reaching for it if you have any sort of athlete intuition um I shouldn't say that that's insulting to some people it if you're in touch with your body as much as I'd like to think you are speaking generally um like you kind of know, like you hit your last set of 225 by five and you're like, I could try, but I know how stretched I am here already. And staying here right now feels right. And I say that maybe I'm defending myself right now because I just weighed myself and I'm the lightest I have been in years. I'm not putting a lot of focus on my strength.

32:22Jared Ward: And I literally had this conversation with somebody yesterday. I was reverse lunging with dumbbells and I had 90 pounds in each hand. Okay. Six reps, reverse lunging. And I was doing them and I could tell I was not a little tight and I was fighting for each rep. And I was like, I don't need to be doing this. I'm going back to 80 pounds like I did last week. And I'm going to stay put because I'm available. I'm not risking anything. If I can reverse lunge with 80s in my hands, I'm doing just fine. Right. It's not the time. I can't put effort into that. If I want to go put out a big run session twice a week, I can't want to have it all, all the time.

32:59Jared Ward: And so in this period of my life, I put the same number on the bench and I just say, I'm going to bench this today. And that's going to be, because I just know it's keeping me available and I am plenty strong for what I'm doing. And so I feel like you can kind of feel your way through it. Do you know what I'm saying? like, all right, but I can tell I might be risking something here, or this might not be sustainable. I'm going to stop or even back off a deviation and stay put. There can be a period of time when you want to build and run less in the winter months or whatever it is. And that's a different story.

33:29Jared Ward: But in general, higher peak mileage in competition season in particular, which is the most important thing to note, they ask that what's the reward. That's what you have to ask. So that's been my current philosophy.

33:41Ryan Sterner: Yeah. I think what you said there is the best thing you can say, which is that when you're combining lifting with running and you want to do well at either or both or not do poorly at either, you don't push for anything extra in either realm. Like you're always borrowing one side to pay for the other. Like I could run 10 more miles this week, but I won't be able to lift tomorrow. Well, then you don't run those 10 and you go get your lift. And when you get to the lift, it's like, I could do another set, but I'm going to have to shorten my run, then you don't. You always sit below that extra point.

34:13Ryan Sterner: And that's really the difference between a lifter who runs and a runner who lifts and someone who would consider themselves hybrid is that they're never sacrificing one for the other. And over time, your tolerance to all of them rises. And a lot of hybrid athletes do find themselves stronger long-term because they're holistically more well-rounded, but you don't borrow from one to pay the other. Exactly right.

34:38Jared Ward: And anybody who's done it successfully, who has built strength, that is an endurance athlete, has done a phase of like, I'm backing off 50 % on my run focus and I'm increasing my lifting percent by 200 % focus and I am going to do this for a period of time

34:53Ryan Sterner: and then I will go back to maintenance mode. Speaking of 2017, I did that for the first time. I tried to get strong for the first time ever in OCR. And I have a vivid memory. I was lifting in Lake Geneva in our garage and I was back squatting the heaviest I had and I felt good doing it. And then the next day I went to this hill to do a midweek long run on the hill and going uphill. I thought my hamstrings are actually in danger. This is not healthy for me. and I had to just give up on one for a while until I could lift. And now, even when I'm out of shape, I can pick up lifting and running concurrently.

35:31Ryan Sterner: But there has to be a time where you pay for one at the expense of the other. But once you want to start being good at this thing, you can't borrow from one to pay the other. It's too bad, right? Yeah. Or you take drugs. Or just keep coming back to that. Or you can just cheat. You can do everything you ever want. I believe in you guys to make the right decision for you.

35:53Jared Ward: All right. Brian asks, Brian says, I have a new observation you can state during the next Q &A. Mount to Coast has overtaken Ultra as the ugliest shoe color combinations. Topo is right up there with Ultra, but the new combos for Mount to Coast do not invoke speed for me whatsoever. Seriously. Who comes up with these color combos? Do they run them by the public beforehand? I've tried a couple pairs of the H1s and the T1s, and I absolutely love the fit and feel, but I'm a firm believer that if you think you have a fast shoe, color, model, or even has sentimental value, it will be a fast shoe, Brian.

36:30Ryan Sterner: I see where you're coming from, Brian, and you're wrong. You're right in that if you feel fast, you are fast. And so in that vein, you are correct, but you are incorrect. H1, T1, we have the upcoming M1. We have the C1 and the C135 or whatever it is. These are not designed for you. If you're saying that, they're not designed for you. They are supposed to be ultra-specific shoes designed for the grungy slash lifestyle look consumer. They are choosing colors that don't resonate with you as speed because they're not designed for speed. You're not seeing these on the feet of anyone who's doing anything.

37:12Ryan Sterner: The closest to fast I've seen is someone won like it was Blackwater or Black Canyon or something like that, Javelina, in the H1s. But even that, you're talking 12 plus hours on feet, I think. So these aren't speed, but they're not supposed to be. And Topo, their colors are killing it lately for speed. Go check out the Topo Spectre 3 or the Pro or the Elite, I should say, and tell me that doesn't look fast. Ultra, yes. the ultra shoes don't invoke anything this is their shape doesn't help to start with uh

37:47Jared Ward: you can't you can't make flippers look fast you know yeah yeah yeah uh remember how bad like when hoka first came on the scene it was i mean talk about slow ugly looking shoes i mean they still make some good looking but models but like holy smokes you had not one that looked fast or looked cool. They made it that damn blue color that they just couldn't kick for years.

38:12Ryan Sterner: Yeah. A lot of red and yellow combos. Anyway, I don't think Mount to Coast makes a single shoe that anyone would reach for first if the main goal was speed. They want all day comfort on your feet and I will tell you, they're doing it. The H1 is the best all-around jack-of-all-trade shoe I maybe have ever worn. The one thing it's not is speed-based. You can travel in that shoe, and I did to California. You could run an ultra. I mean, Ian Floyd ran 100 miles in his and didn't even change out of them once. He used two different pairs for the majority of his Cocodona 250. That shoe, the circle cell foam in that is the truth, but they are built for comfort, not speed, and they're built for durability, and people are getting 600 to 800 miles plus out of the shoes.

39:01Ryan Sterner: Well, there you go. I have no opinion on this. You know it better than I do. I really like their foam. I really like their feel. They are probably the best balance I've ever seen of roomy interior that will not irritate you and still lock down and can run in them. I'm very impressed with them. For as little as they've been around, they are advanced in their shoemaking.

39:23Jared Ward: Good plug there, Mount to Coast. I got a couple of athletes telling me like, hey, you got to try these shoes. I'm wearing them now and I love them. It's always a Mount to Coast trail shoe. I don't know what you would get out of them currently other than like trainers. Yeah. But that's what most people that are telling me they're great are doing in them, training in them. But if you were running an ultra on them, you wouldn't. Okay. Jared asks, question for you or save it for the podcast. I don't remember if I answered this directly or not. When you do think, when do you think working smarter, not harder starts for running?

39:54Jared Ward: For example, someone just starting running probably shouldn't focus on staying zone two because then they wouldn't be running. Do you think there is a certain point, mileage, or pace that 80-20 begins versus each run really being about working on developing the skill of running for an individual? Also, do you think there is value in spending short periods of time gray zone running for a block of training, for example, to work on getting your body used to running at that certain pace and potentially lowering your heart rate at that pace over time?

40:24Ryan Sterner: That's a really good question. I like every single sentence in that. This is an athlete I've been working with for quite a while, Jared. He just learns from the best bracket. We met Jared on the podcast. We interviewed Jared. He's a PT. This is Franciosa? Franciosa, yeah. So I really like the idea of the question, is there a volume of work at which 80-20 starts to matter? And I would say, yeah, actually there is. If you are not supplementing your running with other forms of machine cardio, Running 20 miles a week on 80-20 doesn't make a lot of sense because you're just not getting time spent doing things.

41:02Ryan Sterner: I would say it's somewhere around 50 miles. Could be down to 40. Below that, it does make sense to have a higher percentage of your running done faster so that you can advance. If you're doing eight hours of cardio on top of this on other machines, then it could be very low. But the reality is, yeah, the less you run, the higher percent can be intense. Gray zone running gets such a bad stigma.

41:28Jared Ward: And it's not bad at all. It's not bad at all.

41:32Ryan Sterner: It's actually great, I think. In a vacuum, gray zone is one of the best bangs for your buck.

41:36Jared Ward: I agree with you because you actually start running a little bit quicker, a little more efficiently generally. I mean, I got really good at running all through my high school career, gray zone running the vast majority of everything I did that wasn't an interval workout. Right? So I think early on putting handcuffs on, I think you can get away with just like going out and running if it's all gray zone for a year or two and you're going to progress. You're going to hit a point in which you want to level up and then this becomes a different conversation. But for a beginner, put your shoes on and go running.

42:08Jared Ward: We can worry about the fine details after you get some mileage and some time under your belt. And generally what will happen anyways, not to everybody but most, is they do this gray zone run and they go out and run kind of hard every day. and eventually they realize they are tired and they go kind of easy one day because I'm just tired. I feel bad about myself. I ran so much slower today. But then they go out and feel better the next time because they ran slow the previous time. Then they run a little harder and faster. And they end up falling into still some sort of periodized training-ish. Right?

42:38Jared Ward: It's not perfect, but if you graze on run every day and end up cooking a little too hot, you'll end up paying for it. It self-regulates. It self-regulates.

42:47Ryan Sterner: Right.

42:48Jared Ward: It's not the best way to do it.

42:49Ryan Sterner: it yourself or you run until you feel crappy a couple of days in a row, then you have to take

42:52Jared Ward: time off. Exactly. It's not the best way to run your best metrics. No, it's not. But if you want talking improvement for a beginner, go gray zone, run your face off.

43:01Ryan Sterner: Gray zone is great right up into the point where you have more intense efforts you're trying to recover from. 100%. And then it's not. The reality is that when you are new to running, running in low zones means you have to run poorly because you're running 12 minute miles, 13 minute miles. And it's almost impossible to run with good form, good mechanics at such a slow pace. But that's what a lot of people ask the only option. And so yeah, running above a zone in order to just run better is a really good thing. But then you're restricted to only mechanical speed days or doing quality on machines.

43:39Ryan Sterner: But early on, realistically, if you're running 12 and 13 minute miles, you don't really need to be focusing on all those other fancy things. You just have to get better at running and tolerate it more. But yeah, a lot of gray... I mean, that's what math running is, right? The math methodology is just run aerobically hard every day. Just develop and develop and develop until you max out your progression and then you start adding other things in and reducing others. But I really don't think that there's a problem with running gray zone when you don't have zone four and five work in there as well that you're recovering from.

44:11Yeah.

44:11Jared Ward: If I were to go to straight gray zone running a decondition week one and on because i've been running for 30 years with you

44:18Ryan Sterner: might spike aerobically for a couple weeks like doing a top as who is that marius bachin used to do this sebco used to do this their top off aerobic weeks where they would just drop most of their intensity and just run like a huge amount of volume for two weeks top back up and then move back there's there's merit to all these things we get locked into systems and we want or run that rinse and repeat for the rest of our lives. And the reality is that a science lab would modulate you in and out of stages of training.

44:45Jared Ward: Yep.

44:47Ryan Sterner: We're only going to do one more question. Beautiful.

44:50Jared Ward: I know you're looking at the timestamp, folks. You're like, it's only been so long. But this is the cards we've been dealt today. You know what I'll do?

44:57Ryan Sterner: I won't remove the dead air out of this one. When I strip silence out, we lose minutes just from tense here and there. I'll keep it in so that we can have a 45-minute episode.

45:06Jared Ward: Okay. Okay. Well, our time cap, I've got five minutes. So Danny asks a couple of questions for the podcast. I'll be moving back to Colorado early next year, which will put me in the dead of winter weather. I've only lived in San Diego since I've been in endurance. Do you guys have specific gears, layers you wear between say 20 to 30, 30 to 40, et cetera? I'd love to hear insight on how you decide what you're going to wear on a winter run and not be too cold or too hot. Danny, we've done a couple episodes pre-winter or winter, I mean, how many years maybe? So I would go back to the December timeframe of the previous year's episodes and you'll find at least two, maybe three, where we talk about all of this.

45:47Jared Ward: Yes. Bracken. Can I give theory though, just

45:51Ryan Sterner: for people thinking about it?

45:53Jared Ward: Yep.

45:53Ryan Sterner: Everyone has their own zones. So it doesn't matter what I wear in any temperature. It matters what works for you. So what you have to do is buy everything appropriate for every possible scenario and then find which of those things work in your own zones but i can't just say here's my 10 to 20 degree kick because that might be your negative 10 kit or that might be your 60 degree kit um and this one's for you uh bracken did you

46:19Jared Ward: notice that when you lived in colorado you actually had an upper hand on people that didn't live at elevation versus before at sea level or races at elevation that's confusing phrasing any races you were like holy shit being adapted to elevation has helped in xyz or even the opposite knowing you can't hit the same speed work that you could at sea level as always keep crushing it with the best podcasts out there and we all appreciate you guys thanks danny uh i never felt

46:45Ryan Sterner: it no i never thought like i'm a superhero this is the problem with things like that give people natural advantages they always are quick to say well it doesn't it's my hard work that pays off it's why people who take drugs always downplay like you couldn't do what i'm doing because i'm tougher. The reality is that you don't feel like Superman, but what I always felt is that when it was going bad, I could press and there was something else waiting. Altitude still hurt me. I didn't notice it not hurting as bad because I was still racing hard. Maybe it was going out harder than I used to go out, but consistently in races where I would fall apart around the 40 to 50 minute mark, I would start to get dropped.

47:30Ryan Sterner: I would bite down and dig in again and it would feel awful, but there was something there. So that doesn't make you feel like you have an advantage. It makes you feel like I am the toughest SOB on this planet. But the reality is I could do that because I was running volume invert at altitude. So I didn't feel it, but it absolutely gave me an upper hand. And without question, I had my best results when I was living at altitude, but it was also the biggest training volume of my life, the biggest vert of my life. The only time in my life, I wasn't working a job and I was just training. So it's, it's way too easy to be like, I earned this.

48:06Jared Ward: Yeah. I think when it, cause I've spent two summers in Colorado, three months stints in college, a long time ago. Uh, I also do believe that I did get some altitude acclimation in two weeks before Tahoe one year, it came around just enough where I at least recognized the feeling while running hard at altitude. And that was helpful. Um, I find it's like not rep one or mile one or rep two or mile two. It's like, you don't feel any different. In fact, you might even feel a little compromised early. Like where is, where is my speed today? Sluggish. But when you get to, if it's six by a mile and you get to your later stages, you're like, it's still there.

48:38Jared Ward: And in fact, I might almost be feeling better at this stage than I did early. And it seems the later rounds, like you almost come alive late and then you can have just a fantastic session or race or whatnot. But almost early was sluggish. Yes. But then when you needed it, like exactly what you're talking about, that next, I was like, it's there today. I didn't even think it'd be there today by how I felt early. And it's there today.

49:03Ryan Sterner: It was one of those feelings. And if you've read Floyd Landis's book or Lance Armstrong's, that's how they described EPO. Like I feel heavy. I don't feel like I'm having a good day. This isn't working. And then the group's starting to drop me and I got a bite. This is where I dropped back and suddenly like, oh shoot, I have some power here. I feel like crap still, but I have some power I can lean into. That's how they describe that. I mean, EPO is just what you're doing at altitude, but engineered. It's the same thing. You almost bog down early, but then you have this power late.

49:39Jared Ward: That's what I remember. And almost once you commit to like sinking into the effort, it like opens you back up.

49:46Ryan Sterner: Yeah.

49:46Jared Ward: It's the point where I would drop out.

49:49Ryan Sterner: If I tried one more, I didn't have to drop out. I could just keep doing it or maybe even start cranking down.

49:55Jared Ward: But you had to relearn the rules for what fatigue melt meant. Yeah. It was like every run I remember at altitude, even after I was there for almost the full three months, it was like, I'm starting sluggish again. Oh, shuffling out of the gate again. It was just interesting. You never feel good though.

50:08Ryan Sterner: Training at altitude, you just start feeling less bad.

50:11Jared Ward: Unfortunately, that's the truth, especially if you weren't born at Elevation.

50:14Ryan Sterner: Unless you're a huge responder.

50:16Jared Ward: All right, this is it. I got to pull out the rug. Bracken, I don't know what's going on right now. I had cleared my phone while I was waiting to start recording with you. 16 text messages. Talk about my anxiety going up. Four Instagram messages. Two Facebook Messenger messages. All since we started recording 51 minutes ago. Do you need to check your text and make sure you're good? I looked. It's all athletes. They know. They can sense. It's unbelievable. A couple of these are multi-texers. But anyways, I got to go. All right. You go do your thing. I'll see you later.

50:52Ryan Sterner: If anything resonated with you on today's episode and you're curious about taking your training to the next level, check out therunningpublic.com where we have a training plan to fit your needs.