Episode 654: Q&A

0:09Welcome to The Running Public, with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. Whether you are a brand new runner or you already have a great mustache, we're here to help you increase your running knowledge and present it at a practical level. This is The Running Public.

0:30When you're ready to take your training or racing to the next level, go to therunningpublic.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 therunningpublic.com and check out our offerings. We're off to a good start here. My co-host just disappeared as soon as he hit the record button. What was that about? All right. Now he seems to be standing on a chair or his desk. His headphones aren't in. You couldn't have done this before we started recording He seems very pleased with himself Alright Mission successful What was this about?

1:12Mosquito I got bit during our last episode I swear it's the same mosquito still in here And I just saw it The moment we pressed the button It came out from behind the little curtains here And I had to get it right then Or it's going to disappear There's too many hiding spots in here I'm absolutely making this up but don't mosquitoes only live for like 48 hours or something? Like male mosquitoes live for like no time at all? You sure it's the same one? I'm not sure. It's the same room and that's enough for me. Okay. All right. You kill things in your house. You're killing squirrels, killing mosquitoes.

1:47Never kill the squirrel. Bunnies? That I have confirmation of. Oh, yeah. We've absolutely not killed a bunny. We save bunnies in this house. Okay. Mosquitoes, absolutely. They're the worst. They serve no purpose on this planet. it. Are you a bug killer, like spider in the house? Historically, yes, but now my daughters want the spiders taken outside. Wow. They're lovers. Yeah. So now we take spiders outside. Makes a lot of sense. When you were at my house a few years ago and they were perplexed with deer heads on the wall, they weren't a fan of that. They just love animals and they have no concept of hunting.

2:26All right. So I'm taking control of this thing right now. It's already two minutes in. Yeah. Well, you spent the first minute jagging off or whatever you're doing over there. I have a blood smear on my ceiling right now. You seem very happy with yourself. I'm not. I'm going to have to clean that. It's going to dry over the course of the episode. But that thing was full. Of your blood. Must be mine. We're doing a Q &A today. We were supposed to do a Q &A earlier this week and then Bracken cannibalized the episode. I hope you got flooded with nonsense in your inbox. Well, we had some audio issues, Kirk.

3:06On my end or your end? We'll call it the Super 8's end. Yeah? So we had four different audio files and they didn't all line up. So point is, it took longer to get the episode out than anticipated. So very few people as of this point of recording have heard it yet. Shoot. Did not know that. I've been just living in the woods like a dirty hippie. So I'm detached from. Okay. It's out. It works. The audio is there as far as I can tell. But listen, this is the nicest hotel in the area. Do you see this fine art behind me? I do. That is fine art. The Super 8 here can run between 70 and 90 bucks a night.

3:48and there's one Cresco Motel, which runs like 50 bucks a night, but it looks like one of those, you know, it's like long-term rental. Yeah, I decided not to go to that one. Yeah, yeah. If you don't need to score drugs right now, this is the right one to be at. That's what I think. Yeah, the lady at the front desk asked me if I caught anything yet, which I always find that verbiage funny. Yeah, well, she might not be talking about animals. That's true. All right, Q &A. Do we want to do this on a timer and keep ourselves to a limit here or do we not? No, let's just shoot for brevity. We're horrible at that.

4:29You can't be trusted. Correct. All right, walk the plank, folks. Q &A. Let me see here. All right, I'm just going to start with the latest, which is pretty good. September 18th is our oldest one, which is only like six weeks ago. Not even. Seven and a half. Five and a half. Five and a half. Math. Yeah, we all know that. All right. This is from Kyle. Kyle says, Gentlemen, I have been listening to your podcast for several years now, and your episodes are always fantastic. My question, how long should a training block last before you switch it up to prevent a plateau? How significant do the changes need to be if your goal stays relatively consistent?

5:10Background, if it matters. I'm military and have spent the last 20 years mostly gray zone running to victory. I work to maintain strong running at the 2, 4, and 6 mile distances. I'm currently running my first real running plan, includes tempo runs, intervals, recovery, and long runs. And I'm experiencing great results in a relatively short amount of time. I feel like I can't just run this 6-week progression over and over, or can I? But I wonder how long before I should make changes. I also wonder if those changes are just tweaks, or do I make big changes to keep things fresh and progressing, despite the fact that my PT test requirements and personal benchmarks remain constant over time.

5:46I know what you're going to say. I'm going to let you say it. Then do it. Be me. Well, the answer is not. It depends. First of all, can always be that. So don't change anything right now. Wait as long as you possibly can to change anything. If you're still seeing progress. Yeah. So there is no definitive time. He said he's been doing it for five or six weeks so far. Five or six years. if you keep progressing, I'm being a little bit exaggeratory, but don't add more or change things until I think you realize you've plateaued and then start looking at new stimulus or a different approach or more stimulus.

6:28I'm guessing that's what you would have said. Yeah, I think plateauing is probably one of the most unreasonably feared concepts in all of fitness. If you're truly plateauing, you are most likely just under-training. That's my, is that a hot take or is that just a take, Kirk? I'm going to say it's just a take because I agree with you. Unless you're an aging athlete, there's an exception there. Yeah, and that would probably be the only true plateau is once you like, your decline physically is matched perfectly by an increase in training and you're just holding steady. Outside of that, I can't really think of a time you would actually plateau as a runner unless you have no intensity in your training.

7:14or all intensity and you just need to rest and recover. But if you just did gray zone training for years, you would keep improving. The improvement rates would slow down. If you just did threshold training for years, you would keep improving. If you do way too much spice, you'll have to back away at times and recover because you can't do that indefinitely. And if you don't do enough anaerobic work, like zero anaerobic work, eventually just running zone two to three every day will plateau you a bit. Yes. But if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably not doing either of those two. How long in your opinion, plateau you have to sit where you're like, hey, I don't think I'm improving anymore because week to week can't be trusted.

7:57First of all, you can't compare even like a zoomed in two or even three week period. Like I need to be rubbing my nose in the fact that nothing is moving for like four to six weeks? Kind of the same answer with, are you too sharp or not sharp enough? If you're doing, the more intensity you're doing, the less amount of time you need to sit in it before you realize something has to change. If you're running VO2 max or faster, twice a week, three times a week, probably two weeks. If I'm not improving in two weeks, like you've burnt this candle down, it's time to switch up the stimulus. Two to three weeks for sure.

8:32But if you're doing aerobic work, a lot of gray zone work, I don't know, two to three months. Right. It can be a while, but, but I still think the answer is don't change a thing. If your metrics are still improving for now. Yeah. Yeah. And when you do change anything, typically what I would recommend, Oh, if you smile, were you going to go there right now? Exact same spot. Um, and if you do change anything, honestly, the first place I would probably look, um, is I would draw out the, if you're doing eight by three minute threshold repeats, bump up to 10 or 12. If you're doing long runs of eight miles, try to bump it up to 10.

9:07If you're doing, I would almost take the same things you're doing and extrapolate them out further. And that might be enough there to get you a little bit more improvement before, again, maybe some sort of other stimulus would be needed. And if he's doing a bunch of tempo threshold work, he could be three VO2 maxi punchy sessions away from popping again. We just don't know exactly what he's doing, right? So there's more moving parts of this than you think, but it's actually gloriously simple. I agree. And if you have a simple plan, shout out to a band from our childhood. I'm just a kid. Life is a nightmare.

9:43Do I sound like him? You sound like you've been in the woods. I sound like I need to, yeah. Just sing into the trees. I need to return. The simpler the plan, the less you need to make big changes. You have duration, you have intensity and you have frequency. If you haven't maxed out how you can tweak those three things and you're still improving, you don't need to change your plan. You don't need to jump program to program. If you've got a complicated program, then things get complicated for how you switch things. But I think more often than not, people don't need to jump programs or change things up.

10:16They just need to adjust one of those three things. And like you're talking about with the reps, if you're doing threshold work and you've gotten 20 to 30 minutes in your workout, bum, try to accumulate 40 minutes bump it to 50 at that point it's going to be further away from threshold if you can sustain it comfortably ish for 50 minutes of work but it's still going to help you improve and then you play with intensity bump it back down to 25 to 35 minutes of work and run it a little faster you can do that cycle rinse and repeat for years so i just think we're in general in fitness too concerned about plateauing.

10:56Keep it simple. Stupid is the best thing you can do with training as an athlete and then tweak one variable at a time. Don't get cute. And also you don't even know really where you're so much for brevity, right? We're still on the first question. It's a good question. It is a good question. I agree with you. Gosh, what was I going to say? Oh, sometimes you don't even know, like you feel like you've plateaued, but you also haven't given yourself a true opportunity to test what your fitness has really become in a race setting, in a time trial. Maybe you're running similar splits in a workout, but it's coming to you a little easier.

11:29That means something. And then you go to hit your two-mile PT test and you're like, I just took 15 seconds off. Where did that come from? And so also you need the opportunity to prove it in a situation that matters sometimes as well. So I think that was important to say also. All right. You just described the exact situation that happened with an athlete that I work with this week. So for the last two weeks, I'll explain what's happening. We've only been working together for nine weeks. We've done a nine-week progression of just in a vacuum threshold work on his first workout of the week. And on his weekends, he's alternating three workouts or no, four workouts.

12:07And he's doing that twice. So A, B, C, D, and then work back through A, B, C, D. And really A and C are true quality and B and D are longish efforts. So he's on his second time through the weekend work, but he's in week seven and then eight. He started saying, I think I'm stagnating on my threshold work, plateauing. Should we switch it up or should we see it through? I said, well, we're coming back through time two of your long quality work on the weekends. I want to see what these next two do and then we'll decide. And he messaged again on week nine and said, I definitely have stagnated on the threshold work.

12:50I said, all right, let's just get Saturday done and see. And he messaged after Saturday and he said, it went so much better than last time. I didn't feel any faster, but my last buyout of two miles, I could push the whole time where last time I was dead before the buyout. It's like, this is exactly what you're describing. the work you're doing is not so intense that you're going to feel drastically night and day different from week to week but you're building this staying power that may not even show itself until you test yourself in a more intense setting and then suddenly something's there you go to push the gas late and instead of hitting the bottom of the the floor suddenly like the pedal just keeps going a little bit like oh my goodness there's more there i didn't realize it but you like you said you wouldn't realize it until you go to actually test it you just brought my point home.

13:38I love it. He just messaged. He's like, this is the reason why I need a coach sometimes because we get inside our head and we live workout to workout. We don't see the broad picture. Yeah. I'm glad you use that example. So now what do you do from here? Right. We keep Bracken's blowing his nose. You're a little stuffy. Yeah. Sorry if I'm a little nasally today. So then the question is, what do you do from there? Let's just draw that out one step further. Yeah. Well, for run it back. Well, he's, he's got a race coming up. Now we do actually have three weeks of sharpening before his trail 10 K, but if he didn't, I would run that threshold progression again.

14:21I would reload it because for sure your fitness has changed in nine weeks. We're operating under old assumptions about pacing. Uh, we're going to run that back in our Saturday workouts were going to change and progress a little bit. Cool. He's got a good, he's got a good base to, to jump from now. That's for sure. That's everything in this game. So is the non-sexy stuff. All right, Erica, I work with Erica. She texts me this question. Um, in light of the lovely weather for my long run, 20 miles, she says, which she did go on a 20 miler questions for your podcast is 20 miles on the treadmill. Really the same as 20 miles outside.

15:01Mentally, sure. You have to be semi-insane to commit to that many hours on the tread. So building some grit, but would the better route be train in the elements because it's more bang for your buck? Then she says, thanks for everything. Appreciate always having something to listen to on these longer days. And a side note, my plan is likely half inside and see if the rain lets up a bit to head outside. We had like a monsoon that morning. She was trying to figure it out. And she ended up doing half. She did half inside and half outside. That was what she ended up landing on the rain kind of let way.

15:33And then she went outside. We're on the exact same page with this. I already know this, but the reality is the treadmill and outdoor are not the same. Never will be no matter which treadmill you buy. Doesn't matter what model you get. It will always be lacking something that outdoor is lacking, but it will have something that outdoor is lacking as well. You can improve things on the treadmill better than you can improve outdoor. But the reality is you can't do all of your long runs on the treadmill because you do not hit the ground the same way. The impact is not the same and the stride's not quite the same.

16:09So I think you can get away with half your long runs there, depending on what type of athlete you are, maybe even more. But on a one-off situation, I wouldn't even second guess it. I wouldn't even bat an eyelash at it either, especially if like what surrounds it matters too like if she had gotten outside for every other run that week and this is an exception not the rule although what my goodness who's the chicago the american who led the americans at chicago who basically lives on the treadmill oh my gosh maury maury like dude trains on the treadmill like that's what he does and look what he did i guess he fell a little short in the back miles but like really did he well and realistically what People said he didn't have the durability needed.

16:55Debatable. What he didn't have was pace feel. He pushed a little too much at the wrong time and it almost worked, but it didn't. And he held it together and still ran really fast. His durability actually seemed fine, but the one thing you don't have to do on the treadmill is worry about your pace. And he has talked about, he's open with it. He is a one-stepper. He just consistently picks up the pace when he's in control of the pace. And so the treadmill is like a restrictor plate for him. He can just set it and not touch it and he doesn't pick it up. Otherwise, every single run turns too fast.

17:30So yeah, that's probably the one thing he has to work on. Yeah. Yeah. I just thought it was interesting just with the whole treadmill question. Like you can build really good fitness on the treadmill is the point. Great point being. Yeah. In a vacuum fitness. Um, so yeah, what surrounds that long run matters a lot. Uh, I would say if you hit every long run on the treadmill, you are going to be leaving something on the table. I don't think there's a question there, how much that's going to be subjective. The impact is going to be the hardest part, part in the rear chain engagement or lack thereof.

18:00I would say, um, I haven't had, I just had an athlete who was up in Canada and they got their first snowstorm and he messaged me yesterday and said, first snowstorm. I got to ask what, what can I be doing on the treadmill, especially on the quality days? is like, do I go outside and fight the elements or do I stay on the treadmill in a controlled space? And I was like, easy answer here. I mean, he's training for a half in February and then a full in April or May. He's running very in a vacuum metric-based type work. He's not terrain racing. It was like, the integrity of the quality is way more important.

18:33Get outside and slog for all of your recovery days. I don't care how bad it is outside, but if you truly have slick terrain or 30 mile an hour winds in 10 degrees, like go on the treadmill. It's going to be way more productive for you. And it's going to keep you mentally available as well. I think you go slog in conditions for your long run if there's no quality. I think you slog in conditions for your recovery or midweek long runs, those I don't care about. But if it happens to land on a day where integrity of the session matters, you're being smart and not being a wimp by choosing the treadmill.

19:04I think you're getting more out of that session. I've been a believer in that for a long time. But the irony of all of this is I would say if you labeled every run, a recovery run, an easy run, an interval run, a threshold run, a tempo run, a long run, I think you can get away with doing 100 % of any of those labels on the treadmill except for the long run. So I think it's the single most important run to be outdoors for. I agree with that. If you talk bang for your buck, there's not a better bang for your buck than an outdoor long run compared to the indoor long run. The discrepancy between the two, I think, will be the greatest in the long run.

19:44But for a one-off scenario, I would never, ever second guess it. I've done two-hour long runs on the treadmill a handful of times, and legs feel oddly fresh the next day. They don't feel the same way if I'm out on pavement doing that. I had one other thing to add, slipping my mind. I'll circle back if I think of it. Oh, I know what I was going to say. One thing about the treadmill, and when I've relied on it with regularity, meaning maybe once a week I choose it because one, I want to watch YouTube track videos or another. I've done that where I'm like, I want to catch up on NCAAs. I'm picking the treadmill so I can watch it.

20:25For example, I feel oddly fresher more consistently if like a session every week or two weeks is on the treadmill, it like almost keeps me available a little bit more. I take less damage, which is the point of hard sessions. We want to take damage so we recover and adapt. But I do know when the treadmill's been in the rotation, I feel like consistently a little bit better. Yeah. I - So there's something to that. Very much believe that if the only purpose of the workout is engine building, the treadmill's more effective. Because the purpose of a threshold session is not to take damage. Well, it's take the right amount.

21:00The right type. It's internal damage. It's not muscular damage. Metabolic damage. Yeah, and so in that sense, I think a treadmill for a lot of people is better. In fact, I'd be okay if you did all your threshold work on a treadmill. Truly. Jakob does. Does relies on the treadmill. And he wears his alpha flies only on the treadmill, which is interesting to me. Yeah. But yeah. Do you want to move on? Yeah, let's move on. I think we beat that one up pretty good. Yeah. Two questions down. So Cole says, love the show. I have run a couple marathons and a half. I think halves are a good distance for me.

21:35I am 55 with a family, so the training eats up the hours, as you know. But training to run half of something is a drag. It's not very inspirational. I propose race directors change the distance from 13.1 to 13.13, a mere three one-hundredths of a mile difference. How's my math? And call them black cats. I concede am a shallow person with no regard for convention and I'm asking race directors to do my work for me. I just would have more fun training for and running a black cat than training for half of something. Much love, Cole. What is a black cat? I don't know the reference. Am I just a boomer or...

22:13I mean, he's 55. I'm looking this up. I'm looking it up too. I'm not getting much. It's the wrong time of year to look it up. Halloween right around the corner. Black cat running in front of a car. I don't know. Whatever. This sounds like a you problem. I think running a half of something is actually the power of it for a lot of people. I've done a half. I'm ready to do a full. I've never heard anyone say this about a 5K versus a 10K. If you were to call a half, I mean, this is kind of a silly question. But if you were to call a half marathon anything different. 21K. You would just go to 21K? Yeah.

22:59It has to have a name. Yeah. I guess the marathon has a name because of the origin. So... It's... I mean, there's only two distances that are referred to, not by their number. The mile in the marathon? Yeah. So I don't... This doesn't move the needle for me. A 21K is... Respectfully, I don't care. A 21K is very unsatisfying to say and see on paper, though, too. That's such an arbitrary distance. In my opinion, that just feels silly, too. So I don't know. All right. Would you like to move on? I'll say that when British announcers say we're racing the 5 ,000, that sounds way more prestigious than a 5K to be.

23:42I agree. So the 21 ,000? I'm here to do math, Greg. 21K would be 21 ,000. I mean, if you say so. The 21 ,000 it is. That's what we're going with. That sounds like - Why black cat? Someone tell us. That sounds like you did something if you ran the 21 ,000. Yeah. There is something about posting your run in metric that's - Yeah. It seems more. 21 ,000. I'm putting my stamp on it. All right. Chris asks. Chris and I work together as well. He's been killing it. Dude sends me PRs every week. It's almost asinine. Granted, he's newer to all this, but Chris, Chris, I've never seen somebody said so many PRs in such a short amount of time.

24:24He's swept the board clean. Anyway. He's setting the PR for most PRs by an athlete in a single span. He's the PR of PRs. Yeah, for sure. And we took just gobs off his high rocks too. And he'll PR his 5K and 10K on his way to his 10 mile PR. He's like in that phase of improvement. He lost a bunch of weight and took his health and fitness seriously. And he's a busy guy too. But anyways, Chris is killing it. Um, Chris says, is there a magic distance run? If your only goal is to remain fit, run the occasional local 10 K or 5 K, maybe do a high rocks or a sprint Olympic distance. Try basically. If you aren't training for anything longer than the 10 K, then you never have to run further than X on your long runs.

25:0715 K explain yourself. I think it's the long run for non well-trained athletes. And it's the perfect medium long run for moderately trained athletes. and it's a good daily mileage for well-trained athletes. Nine miles, 9.3. That's a great distance for everyone to be good at running. Does your brain work in the metric system now? Yeah, I think so. It's within, it has limits. Like you didn't just say 10 miles, like you chose 15. Yeah, but try not to be so US-centric, Kirk. I try to expand my horizons in my old age. There are other countries in this world, Bracken? I have family in other countries now.

25:47I have to open up my blinders. 10 miles is a great answer. But 10 miles seems a little long for some people. It actually does. It really does. I think 15K. You know what? I don't think I'm going to elaborate on this one because I wholeheartedly agree with you. Okay. And I think the thing. I'm going to elaborate now.

26:06Because 15K, not saying you're going to run your best half marathon off of a 15K long run, but you're going to have a fighting chance of having a respectable race still. for those low mileage athletes, I try to get them up to an 11 mile long run before their half. Like the half is the biggest accomplishment they've ever done, which is fantastic. And I say, let's try to get you to 11. And they usually can see it through, through the half. I'm like, if I had to cut you off at nine and a half miles, I still think there's, yeah, it's going to suck at the end and it's uncharted territory, but you could probably draw it out with the right quality work in those other runs.

26:40Right? Yeah. So would you rather never go under Ted? but there's only so much quality you can do, or would you rather never go over 9.3, but all your quality sessions can be up to 9.3? And I'm racing a half? Racing a half. I'm running 10 miles the day before this half as well? Yep. It's easy for me. I know what you're going to pick. I know that. Nine miles of threshold three times a week? Give me that all day. Yeah, but you didn't give me a limit, or you didn't give me a specific about less quality. You just never go under 10. no i know but you said i could run 10 or over but limit the amount of volume in the well just by in theory like your easy day your cover day has got to be 10 your pre-race has got to be 10 yeah for me though like i think the perfect long run for a half is 16 miles to eight yeah yeah for sure none of this will be perfect so i might i think i'm gonna go the other side of it beautiful it's the last distance i'd have this conversation about yeah you couldn't go any further than this No.

27:41Yeah. You can speed run a half. Here's the thing. I do 10 mile recovery runs on a Monday and I have often very good Tuesday quality sessions the next day. So if you're built up to that, it's possible. It's not the best. I don't like the fact if I couldn't taper and that's what I don't like about it. Otherwise it's easy for me. If I didn't have to run 10 miles the day before my race, it would be an easy answer. Easier for a pro than an everyman to answer this one. Yes. Well, a pro would answer on my side. Correct. Yeah. All right. Let's move on. So Todd, Todd asks, adding to the Q &A queue if possible, is running math the same for cross training?

28:19Would two 30-minute zone two cross training sessions in a day equal 45 minutes consecutively? This is never going to die, this running math. Also, two 20s does not equal 45. Would two 30-minute zone two? Did I say 20? Yeah. Or at least I heard it that way in my congested ears. I don't remember 10 seconds ago what I said. Two 30s equals a 45 straight? Would two 30-minute zone two cross-training sessions a day equal 45 minutes consecutively? It's easier to find two extra shorter sessions to increase zone two time than one longer in my schedule. But how much is being left on the table, and is there a better use of that time if you can't necessarily add more running volume?

28:55I'm more curious about easy work. Double threshold is the clear answer on quality days, I would assume. I like this question. I'm going to try to not go deep here. I'm just going to say that on intensity days with non-impact cardio, I will still say that doubling is fantastic and probably about the same bang for your buck as running. But on easy work, removing the impact is going to negate the limiter of running, which means no, I do not think I would split it up into two shorter ones. I would take a longer session. Now, I know you said time's a limiter, but if time wasn't, one 60-minute over two 35s for me in a heartbeat.

29:35Well, I was going to have you address – I have a weed in my shirt. I got it out. Well, just address quickly your opinion on like the – we start seeing more benefit after 30 minutes myth, if you want to call it that. People like to say you're really not getting anywhere until you finally got to 30 minutes or you're not eating fat stores or you're not really seeing gain until you've gone through your glycogen. Any thoughts on any of that? I do not think it's as effective to do 10 six-minute runs throughout the day as one 60-minute run from a cardiovascular development standpoint. I do not believe that.

30:16So where is the tip-over point? I can't point to a precise number. but whatever possible, I try to exceed 30 minutes in one given shot. If my goal is aerobic development, if it's anaerobic development, you could go out and sprint for four minutes and have a great session and you're done. I don't have a strong opinion on this one. I don't have a strong opinion because I'm going to take what the athlete can give because anything's better than nothing with real people. I think that's all we really need to say. I just think this is the word this works important, but it also matters the least in the sense where like if this just works for your schedule and you can take big chunks of time for your threshold days and you can take big chunks of time for everything else.

30:58And this is how you're filling the cracks. Like I think you're really splitting hairs. We're not machines. We're not lab rats. The thing that works for your life and your mentality is great. I've said this before. If I do an easy session in the morning, I am far more likely to work out in the evening than if I don't do something in the morning and just wait for an evening workout slot. There is this concept of like motivational momentum and it's real. So grab your workouts where you can grab them, even if they're not ideal. Agreed. On to the next. Shoot. Jan. J-A-N. Hi there. I case you wonder about my English I am from Switzerland Thank you for your podcast You have a great style It's always entertaining when you get lost in Or get confused by your own statements That's the nicest negative statement I've ever heard about myself That hit me right in the right spot For some reason Swiss just cut right through the nonsense Oh yeah Jan Okay Jan how's that feel Jan I guess it could be Jan.

32:09Swiss with their sullen superiority. Jan. In the end, it's still always informative and interesting. The only annoying thing is your weird units of measurement. Miles' feet. Maybe someone should tell Trump that miles are a concept of the woke left, and then that will change quickly. Wow. The Swiss. Sullen superiority. We never bring politics into this podcast. I'd cut off my right arm before I'd bring politics into this podcast, mostly because I'm smarter than people who bring politics into anything. But my focus is on trail running. Kirk, solid superiority. My focus is on trail running. So far, I haven't run any ultramarathons, but I enjoy running longer distances and I'm planning to do 50 to 60K race in the future.

32:56Unfortunately, I usually only have time for three training sessions per week, two runs between 10 to 15K and one run between 20 to 30K. On the long run, I include 800 to 1400 meters of elevation gain, mostly in the form of eight climbs, yada, yada. Some of the climbs are steep, which puts me into zone four or five. During the shorter runs, I try to include a quality run in the form of threshold training, IG four by eight minutes. However, it often happens that my legs are still too tired from the long run. My question, is my long run too intense or the distance too long, too much elevation gain for just three training sessions a week?

33:30Would you recommend something different? And is it a problem if I frequently reach zone four when running uphill during my long runs? Thank you for the answers. I hope you got enough information. Kind regards, Jan. I'd like to know what Jan has available on the other days. Is it only time or is he able to cross trade and weightlift on the other days? Assuming all the information we have is all that there is, which is there's only time for three workouts per week. I would say that, yes, your big run is too big if you can't hit your next run. if you're only hitting three per week. Unless the staggering of the run, it's like you're running really big Monday or Sunday and you're trying to run again Tuesday.

34:09But I would reduce the long run down to whatever distance you can manage while still hitting the others and then seek to grow them all over time. I'm going to say keep it the way it is. Okay. Yeah. I think I'm going to say keep it the way it is. I think what Jan has is a spacing problem, which you alluded towards. Yeah. I think what ends up happening is Jan runs his long run and he works pretty hard. I'm okay with him getting to zone four on those climbs. Sure. 100 % I'm on board. By the way, yeah, I guess we didn't address that yet. That is cool with me. I'm guessing Jan's doing a long run. I would have the opposite reaction if he were running seven days a week.

34:54Also correct. unless that is his only other quality and it's planned into that long run for some reason. Yeah. However, my guess is he's hitting his long run. He's probably taking two days off. And then he's the first run after his long run. He's hitting his quality, right? I'm almost, I would bet my bank account on it. And you just can't make that first one after a long run. It's going to be clunky. It's like rust busting session. I would rather hit my quality and the next run be my long run. 100 % on board. Than the opposite. it. And so I think it's a puzzle piece problem and he could just shift them around and see if that helps.

35:29Yeah. I'm with that. Yeah. I would even do the quality the day before the long run if needed. But I think that that first run back, it's like the perfect candidate for a gray zone run. I agree. Build into it. Your legs will wake up, but starting at your intensity, it's really hard to do but tell yourself it's okay to be gray zone or sweet spot or sub threshold and just live in that for a little bit and save whatever quality for the next one but when you only have three to work with you got to get all three in but i like if he's thinking of going 50 to 60k he's just got to do that long run i don't know how soon like if he's not going to do that for a year or two okay i think it's a different different conversation for me but like i'm assuming he's going to be doing this this maybe in the next six months and then in this case Well, I would say then just back off the intensity of the long road, but it's not the uphill intensity that would leave you feeling trashed.

36:24You could work as hard as you want uphill and you're not going to be beat up the next day. It's the down and the long that's getting you. So I'm not worried about that uphill intensity. I agree. All right. Are you good to move on? Yeah. Zach. Zach and I work together as well. They like to text me their questions when we work together. So I had a thought. It might be interesting to talk it out on the podcast. With the St. George Marathon being a net downhill, which he already ran, do you think it would have been beneficial to do downhill training on the pavement to prepare for it? Provided that we had a longer training block to prepare for it, I'm sure doing lots of downhill running while trying to build mileage on such a condensed time frame would have been a recipe for injury.

37:09But if we had, say, six months or longer to prepare and my mileage was already up, would that provide an advantage? or do you think it would just be an injury risk with not a lot of benefit? I was thinking about how the downhill will take some of the effort out of running fast, but it'll cause extra damage and wondering if that would help the durability piece. Yes. Yes. So Zach's background, Zach has killed it. He has been running so well. He has had been in an injury cycle for years and years and years. We've gotten him to the highest mileage consistently he's ever done, feeling the best that he has ever felt.

37:44Zach, you can back me up on that. I don't think that's exaggeration. Anyways, we were taking risks on the mileage itself because he's running a marathon. So I took the risks there and I didn't layer in specific downhill work in this case because I just wanted to beef up volume and I didn't want to add in too many factors. And he's had a few things pop up, but he's always ended up on the right side of it. And so we did not do like any downhill focus, um, in this block. And I told him, I said, proven health, which we're starting to prove health here. I think this is, this will be step two for us would be if we're going to run another net downhill that we could focus on it.

38:29But I just wasn't quite comfortable with being like, we're going to go downhill today, brother, when we're already riding the line to start. so we didn't but the answer is yes 100 yes yeah yeah and for the reasons you outlined i think that your logic sound i think that you can build up some resistance that eccentric damage by working it in the gym and perfect world i would scale it like all my other speed work i would find like a one percent downhill road or trail and i would start there and i'd move up to three and I'd move up to five and then I'd eventually supersede the St. George profile for the last six weeks of training.

39:10And then I would show up to race day ready to rock. I would also, shocker to no one, tailor my footwear to a downhill marathon, which I believe the steeper the downhill, the less drop you want in your shoe because it just amplifies the downhill sometimes. So I would find it for some people, it's the opposite depending on how your your foot strike is, but I would use all those downhill workouts to test out how do I get all the benefits of the downhill and take none of the damage. I should add to the context that requirement is he's on the trails as well, going up and down. So he's getting descending already.

39:45I forgot to mention that. Like he is descending on the trails with frequency. So that factored in as well. I was like, well, you are going to get eccentric that way. It's not the same, but it is something. He requested even in his marathon training to keep the trails in because he's like, I definitely stay healthier if I'm still hitting some of my work on the trails. So we've been doing that. Well, you're doing three of the most dangerous things you could do as a distance runner. Train for a road marathon, have an injury background, and have a necessary downhill component. And he's a run streaker.

40:17Okay, you're playing with Flair there. But yes, You were correct. Something had to give there. All right. Next question. Scott, what time is it here? Listen, I understand the run streaking. I fully, fully do. But for every bit that it's good for you, it can be just as bad for people. Just inconvenient on some days of all things, if anything. Although it's the thing that keeps you training. Do you know I took yesterday off of running? I'm basically running like 30 miles this week, and then I'm taking next week completely off. I'm just, that'll be my break. And then I'm going to build to something.

40:53I don't know yet. But anyways, I was planning on an off day yesterday and I was going to get out of the woods and the lightning started coming down and the hail, the size of marble started coming down. And I scurried down my tree in a frantic mess, put all this stuff in my back. And I ran with my muck boots on over a mile through the hills of Iowa getting hailed on. I thought I was going to die. That would have counted as my mile for the day if I was a streaker. Yes, it would have. So technically I haven't missed a day this week. In case you're one. You're a road streaker now. I'm three days in a row.

41:24There was no hail. It was actually scary. I was in this big open alfalfa field and I'm like the tallest thing in it. And I'm sprinting across it. I would have army crawled. I should have. Yeah. I was even holding my bow by the string, not the bow because there's metal on it. In case I like, if that like saved me, I don't know. Anyways. Scott asks for the next Q &A. New Nike Apex Zero Drop, four pods. Mind blown or poop? I don't know anything about this shoe. I am intrigued by this shoe. So what Nike just recently did is they revamped their upcoming road line. They are basically taking the Vaporfly in its normal trajectory, but just kind of owning it, which is this is no longer our marathon shoe.

42:15It used to be choose which one works for your foot. but we're going to advertise these all for 5k through marathon. Now the Vaporfly is being stripped down a little bit more and being their speed shoe. And they're taking the Alpha Fly and making the Alpha Fly four with it, which is the every man super shoe. And then they have the Nike apex apex, correct? Yep. Which is their answer to Adidas$500, uh, agravic, not agravic us. What pro evil three. Now are they on? they want they're like hey we can make a$500 shoe too but it's like the it is the apex shoe it's for the apex runners I'm looking it up as you're talking I'm not ignoring you but it's maximizing everything they can maximize it's taking all their technology and it's putting it all into one shoe and it's zero drop now zero drop is misleading because you like we've seen Mizuno put out their Rebellion Pros, which is 40 mil legal, but it's not 40 mil across the heel.

43:23The shoe's behind me on the wall, but it's like 48. The two's fantastic, Kirk. You stay out of this. But where you measure from matters. So this could be zero drop from under the ball of the foot to under the heel, but in the midfoot, it could be like a 45 mil shoe. So my belief is that this will not be uniform thickness throughout the sole, so I'm not hung up on the zero drop. And their pros are already adopting it. What's their feedback? What'd you say? What is the pros' feedback? I haven't heard it yet. I've just seen it on feet. Basically, I think it's going to be nothing but good. Guess the price I'm looking at.

44:07Have you seen the shoe? It's a goofy looking shoe. Yeah. Is it$4? $360. $360. So I'm not concerned about the zero drop. I think it's going to be a fantastic shoe, but you're going to need to be fast to get most of the shoe out of it. And I think you're going to need to be relatively light. These crazy, crazy super shoes do not work super well for heavy runners. I don't believe. 5.9 ounce. The other crazy thing is that's kind of heavy for a 300 plus marathon shoe. What has this? I remember I had some Adidas Cubatos. It was basically a piece of rubber with an upper, and it was five ounces back then, or four, nine.

44:46And I was like, oh, my God. Felt like the lightest thing ever. This shoe is six times that size and barely weighs more. It's unreal. All right. We got about seven minutes. Let's bang this next one out. Greg. Greg says, Q &A, I started running about a year ago, background in gym, hiking, backpacking. I've worn zero drop shoes for the last five years, and my lower half has never felt better. I've been all in on ultras for a while. Ultras being the shoe, A-L-T-R-A-S. For a while, but your guys' shoe fetishes got me thinking I should diversify as my weekly mileage and speed gains are coming along nicely with consistency.

45:21What are your guys' thoughts on zero drop and low drop shoes for running? Not looking to fix something that ain't broke, but also want to hear your guys' rants on zero drop and ultra. I've listened to over 100 episodes, so I know you should just buy more shoes and try them, but I got a lot of expensive hobbies and inflation is real. So P.S. put some shirts on the website for us fanboys and girls to have an easy way to rep the podcast and support you guys. Oh, I thought he was going to say put some shirts on in your videos, Kirk. That's what I thought he was going to do. I don't post shirtless videos anymore.

45:48I'm a modest man. I don't post anything anymore. That's an easy way to not post shirtless videos. Yeah. I just don't think people care. Like, whatever. I'm just like living life now. People don't really care, do they? Anyways. I don't know. Go ahead. It's the background of my computer. yeah you shirtless you oh me your skull cap on in the gym repping out some weighted pull-ups is that what you think do you have dreams about that sometimes always yeah i can most most nights uh this is going to surprise some people i think in theory zero drop running is fantastic because it's really hard you either have to have horrendous running form or immaculate running form to stay healthy in zero drop shoes.

46:34Like you have to be running like a duck, just like never getting off the ground, just turning your feet over, hips sinking down, just like shuffling along to stay healthy and feel good. Or you have to have immaculate, pristine running form. All right. If you had to run every run in the zero drop shoes, or every run in carbon plated shoes, which one are you getting injured quicker with? uh uh quicker probably carbon shoes for me okay if there was a duration to it like i have to run at least 60 minutes each day i might get hurt pretty quick in zero drop but eight eight mil drop plus plate or yeah zero drop i don't care what if there's a plate or not you'd pick i think zero pick zero okay because i could do the two things i love in that i could do trails and i could do speed work yeah i would just give up easy runs yeah i do them uphill and then try to I don't know.

47:30If you grew up doing nothing but zero drop or you came to running and did nothing but it, I don't think it's that dangerous. I think it's hard for people to go from traditional shoes, which might be 8, 10, 12 mil drop, and then start doing zero drop. It's really the adjustment one way or the other that gets people. It's drastic swings in biomechanics hurt people. So I'm not going to tell you to start adding high drop shoes into your lineup. I would say if you're curious, if you're drop curious, find like a three mil drop shoe. They're running that. I'm going to go with his, if it, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

48:11If you're feeling good. Yeah. I'd love to find shoes that I feel healthy and good in. Now, are you leaving some speed on the table with a shoe that might actually work biomechanically with you well maybe if it's just purely for metric gain i think it is a worthwhile experiment it's very small doses to start but that is the thing that wasn't really discussed right he's just uh so if he said 5k i'd be like yeah go get a shoe and use it once or twice a week right so there's that component which i'm guessing there's a faster shoe out there than what ultra is providing you actually i know there is and so that would be the one area where i'm like well if you're gonna play just see but i would be using it for the very pointy end of the spear i wouldn't be like going out and recovery running in it well the reality is that faster shoes are a theoretical there's nothing faster than being healthy nothing And so if there's a theoretical better shoe for you, and this is the path that people go down and screw themselves up, is that just because a shoe has faster potential speed doesn't mean it's going to work for you.

49:25And if it doesn't work, it's going to be worse for you. So looking back now as an aged runner who's wise and grizzled, I wouldn't trade anything at the expense of health. I would give up all my carbon shoes. I would give up all my fancy race packs. I would give up anything I've ever thought would help me as a runner to just be assured that I will be 100 % healthy. Kerry, preach. That's what it all comes down to. I would sign a sponsorship deal with Ultra right now and never wear another shoe the rest of my life if I was assured I would just be healthy. I feel fast in zero drop shoes. The lower the drop shoe, I put on my first Ultras.

50:06I got a pair sent to me from free. I used to have a partnership with NordicTrack, and they had an Ultra partnership. And I was like, that's the ugliest, dumbest looking shoe I've ever seen in my life. I'm like, I'll just try it. And I put it on. I was like, ooh, ooh, ooh, when I was running. And it was the Escalante Racer. And I was like, that is a fast shoe. And I bought four or five pairs after that. I was doing my long runs in the Lone Peaks. And I even raced Big Bear in the Lone Peaks because I feel fast in a low drop shoe. So for me, biomechanically, lower drop works very well with my stride.

50:41So I kind of have a soft spot for it, even though I don't train in them currently. Go ahead. I have some things. Maybe I'll go back to zero drop for a little bit, play around. I think zero drop shoes, the same one, I got the Ultra 1 V3, I think was the first zero drop I ran in. And it felt so perfect with my fast running stride. That one thing they don't do is give you anything once you fatigue. I agree. But they complement you perfectly while you're running well. And so in that vein, they encourage you to get really good at the act of running well. So yeah, I'm not actually a zero drop hater.

51:18I'm a hater of making drastic biomechanical swings yeah I'm a high drop hater yeah I would avoid if I could only run in over 8 or less than 3 I would choose less than 3 100 % alright we're pulling the plug on this thing it is okay probably 8 or 9 done yeah that's good for us that's high volume we're volume shooters and then maybe Maybe we got at least an episode or two's worth of questions still in there, for better or worse. Good. Yeah. All right. So what's your deal next week? Do we have to tell people about anything coming up? Is next week the week you're gone or is it the week after? Well, I'm gone this week too.

52:05I'm like on a two-week. You're gone, gone. Like I'm not going to record. Yeah. It's next week I'm hoping to just unplug and just become like a hobbit or a hermit or whatever. Not a hobbit. I don't want to be a hobbit. I feel like you, yeah, you're just frolicking in alfalfa fields. That's very hobbitish of you. That's true. Return to my little mud hut. No. So next week I'm planning to be out. So you're going to have to drive the, steer the ship or whatever they say. Well, hope you boys and girls like more shoe talk. Oh, you've been chopping at the bit for a shoe episode. So you've been talking about it for months.

52:43We had one, one specific request for what I may or may not do, But just harden yourselves up, folks, that you'll have to steal yourself, that Kirk will not be here next week. Bracken, thanks for taking the reins. I appreciate you. Then I have no plans to be gone after that. Well, maybe I'm going to take a week. You should take a week. No, what we need to do is take a week together. Like a game. We are long overdue for a running public meeting of the minds and bodies. But we can record when we're taking said week. Yes. Yeah. Works nice that way. All right. Cut it. Cue the music.

53:22If 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.