Training Tuesday: Can Footspeed & Ultra Endurance Coexist?

0:09T.J. Szymkowicz: Welcome to The Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. It's Tuesday, folks, and you know what that means. Training Tuesday.

0:15Scott Holtzman: We are going to take every rabbit hole, follow tangents, use useless metaphors, get lost in the weeds. This is Training Tuesday.

0:33T.J. Szymkowicz: 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.

0:47Scott Holtzman: Again, go to the running public.com and check out our offerings.

0:51T.J. Szymkowicz: There's only one day, one way I know where you are at all times. Do you know that way? What's that? Any guesses? My backdrop? up? Well, I mean, that would be a dead giveaway. Then I'd know you're at home. No, I guess. What is it? Your wife's Strava.

1:04Scott Holtzman: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She, if I got to go down that route. What do you mean? I mean like if someone wanted to find her, they could. And that's why she ended up having to make a lot of runs like private and she had to do that privacy thing around our house. But yeah, she's not hard to find.

1:25T.J. Szymkowicz: And if you can find her, at least you have an idea what state you're in or what country you're in because you were traveling this last week. And honestly, we're all in our own little worlds. And I was like, I forget where Bracken's even going. I just know he's not here. And I was like, oh, yeah, California. Because I saw Lisa Strava.

1:42Scott Holtzman: California was interesting. So I've said it on here before, but this week showed me without a doubt, just confirmed to me that I have some examples in my life of what dedication and routine look like that are not typical. Okay. So we had a 5.30 departure time on one of our flights and 5.10 on the other. And my mom completed her workout and walk prior to each one of those. Which meant getting up at two?

2:17T.J. Szymkowicz: One and two. Yeah.

2:19Scott Holtzman: Uh-huh. And Lisa, we got there and she was like, you know, my shin's kind of been bothering me. So I brought my cushioned shoes along and we'll see what I even do here. And her first four days were 8, 8, 9, and 13. Yeah. And after the second eight, she's like, I might be back in like a mile or two because my legs are dead. And she came back in nine and the next day followed up with 13. And my dad's out at the local fitness park doing his body weight calisthenics because he didn't that. And he brought some exercise bands along. And we're there. My brother's got an almost two-year-old daughter. And we were at story time at the park.

3:00Scott Holtzman: They have a library that butts up to a park. And we went to story time with her. and as we're there my mom's like hey your wife just ran by like 10 minutes later i look on the other side and my sister is running around the other side of the park i just i'm surrounded by people who it's not a decision for most of the time and that that's it was very clear on this trip because this is an easy place to just slip into an easy lifestyle huh well what does that

3:30T.J. Szymkowicz: Does that cause you to do any internalization? I always just wonder why I am the way I am. Don't we all?

3:39Scott Holtzman: We could continue. I suppose I set myself up for that. The way that we're wired, I've had this conversation with several people unrelated of why nature wins out. Nurture is important, but it's like a one deviation thing. You can move people worse. or better, but you can't really change who they fundamentally are. That's my

4:03T.J. Szymkowicz: belief.

4:04Scott Holtzman: And that's only been cemented by having kids. You parent them all roughly the same and you get three totally different products. But anyway, my nature is the exact opposite of my wife's in terms of our relationship to exercise and training. And I wonder what can you do about your internal wiring. That sounds like a cop-out. It's not. It's just me feeling like a philosophizer. Well,

4:35T.J. Szymkowicz: I mean, that way to put it though, think about it with your case. You are a competitor and you thrive on the events and being competitive at the events. And without that, it takes away most of the enjoyment out of the process for you. But if you were to put Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan to just go shoot free throws and practice drills on their own without ever a game, would their dedication be nearly the same? And the answer is I would assume no. I'm not comparing you to Jordan in your own right, maybe, but you understand what I'm saying. Same hairline. So I think for you, the way you're wired as a competitor, if you're in your dad era and you you have all this focus on other people and things, an injury, then why would the discipline be there given your nature?

5:24Scott Holtzman: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I had started working out prior to going out there and I didn't do anything for our entire vacation.

5:32T.J. Szymkowicz: I didn't run a step outside of chasing kids around.

5:35Scott Holtzman: And I was on the plane coming back. And for the first time in a very long time, I was like, man, I missed this. and that hasn't been a feeling I've had very often since foregoing competition so you miss you miss doing nothing or you miss training I miss being able to just go do the thing yeah we we have one of those days with like 30 ,000 steps where you're just from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep you're never not moving we walked all around San Francisco we walked and saw all the touristy things. And the next morning I woke up and I was like, my feet and hips are tired. And Lisa's like, you want to run?

6:15Scott Holtzman: I was like, I honestly don't know. I'm probably going to be miserable by the end of it. And I don't know if I want, that was day two. I was like, I don't know if I want to set the tone for this trip of just being like, sorry, I'm not going to go play at the park now because I walked eight miles one day and then ran eight the next day and now I'm a miserable wreck. And I didn't like that. I want to say no to things because I'm lazy, not because I'm worried about what would happen if I did it.

6:47T.J. Szymkowicz: Yeah. But also on the flip side of that, like clearly in Lisa's case, like her body, it was a liar. Meaning like how I feel today has no bearing on how I feel tomorrow. How many, I can't tell you the day before a race, how many people have sent me a text saying, my legs felt terrible in my shakeout run today. What do I do? And I'm like, perfect. Congrats. Great. You're ready. Like one of those things where like Lisa felt sluggish and not good. And then, but then she's like, I feel good enough to do the next day. So you also have to like, be aware of that situation where like, today's a liar. I think today's always a liar unless it's a good day.

7:21Scott Holtzman: Then it's, then it's always the truth. you know today your body always lies to you right up until you haven't been training and then you do something and you feel terrible she's earned that right to feel bad on nine and go do 13 the next day because she's run 40 to 50 miles three out of every four weeks for the last three years maybe the last 10 years i don't even know what it is so anyway it this isn't this is already getting long-winded but it was interesting to come back and be like i think i want to train Yeah, you're healthy. And that's the nice thing. This was the best my body's ever felt traveling.

7:58Scott Holtzman: Traveling's always bad on my lower back, my neck, just ankles, everything. Outside of that one morning, everything, I felt great. I always feel like traveling exposes what's wrong in me. Nothing popped up. I just feel good.

8:15T.J. Szymkowicz: Okay, well, put it to use and make yourself feel bad again temporarily. I did yesterday. I ran, I lifted. I did basketball this morning. Then I ran. Don't, don't you feel good taking control?

8:25Scott Holtzman: Don't that feel good? I do. And it showed me right away that doubling is absolutely my thing. Doing two of anything. It just, it's instant momentum. I felt way better doing a second workout than I had off one. After taking time off, which is kind of says a lot. Well, it was a lift for the second one. It's not like I ran twice. That would have made me feel horrendous, but yeah.

8:46T.J. Szymkowicz: So maybe it's time to shoot for something that doesn't require, you know, 60 mile weeks and three hour long runs maybe it's time to shoot for something which maybe we could talk about with how things have been going with me but your natural wheelhouse which is probably like letting bracken eat turning it over yeah i think so the paralysis by analysis has gotten me

9:07Scott Holtzman: in the past and uh don't let the uh like the perfect be the enemy of the good kind of thing like all of that just ignoring all of that i've said it several times on here like let's just do simple stuff. Now I think it's just, let's just do fun stuff. Yeah. And let fun build fitness. I don't think that's always the route, but I think that's absolutely the route for me now because I haven't been racing either way. So I might as well do the fun thing, which will encourage me to train more.

9:35T.J. Szymkowicz: We've had this conversation. We don't need to dwell on it, but I also think there's this very lucky, small, I think small sector in the fitness space, in the running space that doesn't have a slight compulsion, that doesn't need it to feel normal, that doesn't need it to make them a better person. I have a compulsion of some point. I need it to feel like myself. I need it to be a better person in some regard and all of those things. And then there's the few who do it because they enjoy it, which I do, but there's not all these other attachments to it. And I think most people are lying to themselves if they're like, I don't have a compulsion with getting my workouts in.

10:11T.J. Szymkowicz: I don't need it to be in a good mood this day. That's most of us. You are the exception, I think.

10:17Scott Holtzman: I think so.

10:18T.J. Szymkowicz: I do. I really think so.

10:20Scott Holtzman: Yeah. For 30-some years, my entire motivation was either fear of failing in competition or burning desire to succeed at competition. Yeah. Those are the only two. And they were paired together, right? They're opposite sides of the same coin. It was solely a performance-based driver. That's it. Even college, I think I'd won off-season because as soon as there were no races, it's like, I'm a college athlete and I have no interest to train this summer. That's not a – which is why I couldn't be a D1 athlete, right? That's why I couldn't cut it. That's not a D1 mentality. I didn't want it so badly that I cared when I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

11:04Scott Holtzman: It wasn't until running full-time for my living that I trained year-round every year.

11:09T.J. Szymkowicz: I didn't know that. Well, I have good news for all the ultra folks out there that you don't have to be slow forever if you're running ultra-type work. I was talking to Bracken before, and this isn't really going to be the – we'll talk about this until it's done. I'm sure you guys are sick of hearing about it, but I had done 250Ks within seven weeks of each other, leaned into, you know, the three hour long runs and chasing vert and rarely ran. I never touched 5k pace. I was mostly running marathon effort type stuff and feeling pretty sluggish. Like, just like, I don't think I have a fast twitch muscle in my body left.

11:47T.J. Szymkowicz: And so after this last 50k, I said, I'm going to do the fun stuff. Like Bracken just said, like I'm gonna do the workouts that sound fun. And what sounds fun is short and spicy and over speed training. I didn't even take a break after my last 50K. And Bracken, training has been clicking for me on the speed front like you would not expect. And I think it's all because of foundation. And yes, I have a natural tendency for turnover back in my college days. Not the turnover you had though, more of a mid-range distance guy, mid-distance guy. But I've just been shocked with how well my body's put up with high output stuff like almost instantaneously.

12:25T.J. Szymkowicz: And so fitness is fitness. And I think it, the way to trap yourself would be low mileage, speedy stuff all the time. But the way to keep all the doors open is like higher mileage, a lot of like low and mid grade work. And you can, you'll have decisions to make from there at all times. At least that's what I found out.

12:42Scott Holtzman: See, I think that's good news for fast runners who are contemplating or trying to be talked into going long because they're afraid to lose it forever or, or people who have felt like they had to work to get fast in the first place. And now my buddies want me to run a marathon or want me to do an ultra or there's, we've talked about it before the difference between speed and true speed. Like there's being fast and there's being fast. They're not the same thing. It's like running a fast 5k has very close, very close to zero correlation to your 100 meter time. I agree. Now, there will be people who fight me on that.

13:19And one of the most famous coaches of our generation was Alberto Salazar.

13:24Scott Holtzman: And he would have fought me on that. He timed Mo Farah and Galen Rupp on their flying, which means rolling start, 100 meter dash times. And they tracked that over time. And Mo Farah famously went from 12 seconds down to like 11-1 or 10-9 or something. Rupp was right around there too. They were right around 11 flat and a rolling 100 meter. And that correlated to them winning championship medals and everything. The thing where most of us are forgetting is that they went from running 13 flat to 1250. They could now close in 53 seconds at the end of the race instead of 55. They were already fast.

14:04T.J. Szymkowicz: They just weren't speedy when it mattered. And you can argue that being able to close in 53 when you used to be able to close in 55 has everything to do with your aerobic foundation even more than speed. And you just didn't have to work as hard as you used to to get to 400 meters out. So it's like you could even argue like that's still irrelevant.

14:22Scott Holtzman: And Gaila Rupp was the best runner in the nation in high school before all this started. These people were already fast. And that's, I mean, that's running. Let's just say he was struggling and was running 1330s. That is two full minutes faster than almost anyone who listens to this show could ever run. it's probably three minutes four minutes faster than most people would ever dream to run and this was when they had so-called like no turnover we had a a guy that i went to high school he went to west alice hail and i was at west alice central so we competed against each other we were the same age we competed against each other all the way up through and he was the goofiest slowest footed gangly runner I'd ever really seen.

15:06Scott Holtzman: And by the time he was a senior, he ran like 1612 in a 5K and he ran 938 in a two mile. And by the time he graduated college, he was a 10K guy and he was running 31 minutes or something. And he ran a 353 1500 as a 410, 411 mile with maybe no ability to run a 60 second 400. Yeah. But he could run 62 and a half for four in a row. Like there's a different, that is no one that listens to this podcast would be upset with running a 410 mile. Nobody would. So he's just, he's faster than any of us would ever care to be. And he was legitimately slow footed. So there is speed and there is running fast. I agree.

15:53T.J. Szymkowicz: I mean, that's still a little confusing for some, but you're right. There's people listening right now they can run faster 400 than that guy could. Yeah.

16:00Scott Holtzman: Without question. Well, it's why sprinters can't run a good mile. Yeah. Right. Like you don't, anyway, point is the people who have been hard gainers to run fast in the mile or a 5k or the people that that's been their life. Those aren't the candidates to get worse at running fast when you move up to an ultra. Yeah.

16:20T.J. Szymkowicz: Okay. Well, that's, I think I'm glad you said that then point point being, I guess if you were fast previously and then went up to the ultra, it won't go anywhere, I think, is the comfort. And then if you've been living in the ultra domain, just know that if you typically just go out and run slow. Granted, I was doing a lot of threshold work. I was doing a lot of like power output uphill could translate to flat speed, right? Like there's all those things, but you can always come down from it. And it can happen pretty quick, racing down from it. And I was curious what your take was. So I'm trying to decide what I want to do because I have another like month and a half of like maybe two of like where I might focus or try to hop into a race or even time trial.

17:03T.J. Szymkowicz: And so I did two sessions recently. And I'm curious as to what your thoughts are because that whole, when is the last time I talked about trying to go sub 15 in a 5k? It's been two years. And now I'm thinking like it might be fun to just go see where I can do in the mile, which would be another deviation of speed work. um so i did the last two sessions i had done and i want to get your take just i'm not in sub 15 shape right now that but i'm much closer than i thought i would have been okay and so what do you think you would run in a 5k right now well i ran 10.03 for a two mile buy-in today for my speed work and i held what did it cost you i still went 68 down to 64 in my quarters afterwards

17:46Scott Holtzman: When you crossed the line at 10.03, could you have done one more lap at that? I think I could have. Okay. So you can run 15.40 in a 5K, no question right now.

17:56T.J. Szymkowicz: I don't think there's a question, no. So I did five by one mile last week with three minutes rest, which is generous. And I said, I'm going to run sub five until I can't or I hit five reps. Well, I hit five reps.

18:10Scott Holtzman: And I went 457 down to 453. So for five reps.

18:15T.J. Szymkowicz: They basically are 58, 57, 57, 57, 53. And I worked pretty hard. But I said -

18:20Scott Holtzman: Recall I'm 1530 shape for you, would you say?

18:23T.J. Szymkowicz: That's what I'm wondering. And then this two mile buy-in, 1003, I went 503, 459. Worked hard, but held back.

18:32Scott Holtzman: And so how far off am I? You could be faster than 1530. I don't know how much. But 1530, I say, would be a safe, aggressive bet.

18:39T.J. Szymkowicz: I feel like that's five minute pace, 459 pace, roughly.

18:42Scott Holtzman: Yeah.

18:42T.J. Szymkowicz: There's still 30 seconds to figure out there. That's a lot of time. But I'm just realizing it's not a fool's errand to think about it again. We have no track races I know of locally. The Twilight 5000 isn't happening this year here or hardly anywhere. They kind of killed that series, which is a disappointment. So I may look for a USATF certified 5K. There's some bigger ones in the fall. Be on the roads, but whatever. But I don't know. I haven't run further than 10 miles in one shot, and I'm loving it. It's great. That's cool. Yeah.

19:13Scott Holtzman: That's it. Well, all of that being said, we do lose our speed someday. Correct. And I think you do use it while you still have it. So I see zero reason not to go use it, run a mile, run a 5K, and then decide from there what you want to do.

19:29T.J. Szymkowicz: Do you think we lose speed because we stopped giving it? I mean, we're going to inevitably all lose speed no matter how well we train it. But I'm trying to decide. I don't know. I feel pretty twitchy right now. as twitchy as I did pre 40. And so is it just cause like, there's been no big setback. Is it just like, Hey, this really what, where the drop off happens for people is they have an injury, they get set back or life gets in the way they miss training. And then it's really hard to regain it as you, when you're an older athlete, or is it like, it's just literally like a second per mile every year.

20:04T.J. Szymkowicz: And suddenly it's then the slope really exponents. I don't know.

20:08Scott Holtzman: I mean, we lose elasticity, we lose the recoverability, all those things add up over time, but you can slow or stop that degradation by training. And we lose our torque quickly, like how fast, how well we put the power down initially. I'm sure when you're running your 62s right now, you're not blasting off the line like you did in college, but you're still running the same time. we don't get up and go like we used to but we get to where we were and it'd probably show up in a 200 more than it would have in the Forbes so like yeah you're not doing it the same way but as you've increased your engine over time you cover for some of the twitchiness with some some efficiency and some staying power and some mechanical improvements and I think there are ways to slow that atrophy and you haven't even been doing plyo yet i don't think you haven't been doing speed drills you're doing this off of

21:12T.J. Szymkowicz: engine gen genetics foundational strength work i mean yeah power output's good but not explosive power no uh but thinking back to like you when you were doing your ultra training and then you were still hopping in mile road races and such yeah i mean think if you really if you're honest with yourself and don't be humble like if you if you wanted to go pursue something short even after doing. How many miles did you do in Tennessee mile? Uh, 33, 31, 33, say 33. And in the same time you'd run like four 20 something in the mile, I think in a road race and relatively the same time domain. Like, I don't know.

21:48T.J. Szymkowicz: It may feel the fast stuff might feel unfamiliar. Initially. It might feel uncomfortable. You might feel like you have to reach for it, but what you realize is you can still sit in it. Like I'm very uncomfortable running five K pace, but I'm realizing like, Once you get past that, ripping a scab off, it's like, oh yeah, I can do this. I just have to remember the fitness is there to back it up. It's just jarring initially.

22:13Scott Holtzman: Yeah. Yeah. The thing that is hardest is mechanically doing it, not handling it. And that can be fixed in a few sessions. Even the last time I ran a fast mile, let's say I ran 425 in a mile when I ran a 50K. They were seven or nine days apart, whatever that was, that time period. I was running some fast, hard downhill intervals, like empty the tank hard to try to beat my legs up for that 50K. And I did a few VO2 max style uphill workouts. And that mile didn't even feel that mechanically bad. I had to chill going out the first 200 because it cost me too much to go out fast. But I didn't have any of the upper body fatigue that I've had in a mile in the past when I'm doing just regular threshold work.

23:04Scott Holtzman: The driving power going uphill and the crazy overstriding going downhill, that was enough to have me in some semblance of mile shape. I didn't do any prep work for that. I didn't usually if there was a mile looming, I go run a couple 200s or 400s, just even in the last week leading up to like a week out, maybe one or two workout. I didn't do any of that. and it didn't feel that foreign. The times I've done a mile and felt foreign, I did another one a week or two later and it felt infinitely better. I think engine stuff translates so much better than we expect it to. The other thing was I was doing really hard rowing at the time.

23:43Scott Holtzman: Really hard. I did some finishers of just like blow it out on the rower. And I think that helped with that crazy anaerobic effort. For sure. You ever blow up on a rower?

23:54T.J. Szymkowicz: it's holistic about as bad as it gets it's like the assault bike as well once you once you tip it's over so i think the the sentiment i would like to share about this is traditional i'm not saying this route is for everybody but traditional training cycles and patterns etc would be you know you train for something long you race the race you maybe you take a week or two down or off and then you pick the next one and you build to it and you race the race and etc i think you can still take your break after a long event whether it's half marathon or marathon ultra i don't really care but there's also this like weird area where i didn't take a break and i just went i mean turned the page and hard pivot to like i'm gonna ride with this platform i built for the ultra yeah i'm gonna take like an easier week following it but i'm gonna get i'm gonna like snap my fingers and change the script.

24:48T.J. Szymkowicz: And I think a lot of you out there who've been training for the long stuff, you get done with your fall ultra that you're training for. And I'm sure many of you have that on the calendar or a marathon or whatever it is. And then you say, no, like this isn't the end of my season. I'm going to take this hard work and I'm going to actually roll into a quick speed block and hit some punchy stuff and see if I can't hit lifetime PRs on things that I've worked really hard in my ultra build. Let's let that pay off. And so I've never done an ultra and then like went right into training the next week and then jumped into punchy stuff every week.

25:22T.J. Szymkowicz: And I'm three or four weeks removed. And I'm like, I think I could go rip right now. And I'm not saying it's going to be a lifetime PR, but I'm saying, I don't know if I have any of those left in me either. But like, I just think there's this whole place, like it's not ultra rest, go back to another ultra, like take advantage of everything that took you to get to that ultra start line. And if you're curious about some shorter stuff, it will be there. You've done 99 % of the work. All you need to do is put the speed icing on the cake and you might be surprised. So that's what caught me off guard is how quick it came around and how much it helped set me up.

25:55T.J. Szymkowicz: And so I think some people should consider that.

25:58Scott Holtzman: Yeah. I think there's two important pieces here. The first is that you have to be fit to do this. You have to be in pretty good shape. Otherwise your body needs too much overall recovery. But once you have great overall fitness and durability, if you're not working the exact same system or the exact same motion or the exact same muscle fiber type, you're not as damaged in other ways. Simple examples of this are people who double after races. I don't know how much doubling you've done after races, but I've had times throughout my career where I have gone in on that. The concept of you're going to need to recover either way, get a secondary workout.

26:40Scott Holtzman: Now, if you run something really fast, like a mile, then you do some threshold stuff afterwards. And if you do something really grindy, you do some speed. I used to do some 400s after OCR races back in the day. And I've done a 90 minute hill and carry session after a road 5k once. And I get done with these races thinking, I can't do that thing anymore. And then I do the next type of thing and it's still running, but I'm way more available for that than if I had to just go out and do more of the thing I just did. And I've never done it. And it's, it always, it's took me by surprise every time, every time I'd be like, Oh, I think this is the time it's not going to work.

27:17And then it's, it's okay. And switching modalities changes that, what would you say? That interference effect, the interference effect almost helps you.

27:29Scott Holtzman: It's not the interference effect, but you're working something different. And it's not necessarily as impacted as the other thing you were doing. Like if you went for long runs right now, you'd probably feel worse than you do running 400s. I absolutely agree with that.

27:43T.J. Szymkowicz: And the reminder was this, this like zone five VO2 max, like I forgot what it was like to gasp for air. You know, when you get to the end and you're starting to reach for a rep and things are actually starting to like lock and tighten up on you and your breathing is like, you can't even get it back sort of feeling. And then you finish the rep and it takes 20 seconds for you to stop seeing Jesus. And then you're like, holy smokes, that is foreign. When you talk about like feeling something different than like just going and grinding on the trails for three hours or hitting 45 minutes of uphill work, it was like, it was like different stratosphere of fitness.

28:18T.J. Szymkowicz: It almost felt like, like totally like what I did before, like this is not like counteracting or it's, you don't know, you know what I'm saying? So what you're saying is absolutely true. I felt that.

28:30Scott Holtzman: Yeah. And I can't stress enough how this is not available to some people. That same time period I was talking about when I ran that 50K, I tried to pick up training several times and it was like three weeks before I could pick up training. I tried different things, even rowing. I tried some non-impact cardio. I was trashed. My knee hurt. I had a hamstring thing. My system was fried. Well, if those things, structural problems, of course, then it's out the window. Yes. And all around energy was bad. But if you don't have those things going, if you've earned through durability and training and race history, the ability to not be utterly destroyed everywhere, just specific to that event, you were destroyed, then you can pivot.

29:16Scott Holtzman: And I think there is power to, even if it's not ultra to mile or 5k, like 10k stuff, marathon block, pivot and do some fast stuff. I think pivoting and doing fast stuff can be very regenerative to people. Very regenerative. Same thing like getting done with a track season

29:31T.J. Szymkowicz: and going and hitting a long run or some classic tempo work.

29:35Scott Holtzman: It can just be regenerative. I almost said degenerative. It can be regenerative. It allows you to, kind of like we were talking before, just have fun. Like, oh, this is play now. It doesn't feel like work, even though it absolutely is work.

29:51T.J. Szymkowicz: Well, I would argue saying that maybe you weren't structurally broken or something after your last ultra, like a knee was bugging your hamstring. But like if that week after you raced up like a Saturday and you were doms to heck and you were real and didn't want to do, didn't want to do nothing. Yeah. It's a double negative, but it comes to Thursday that next week. And what if, what if I'm coaching you and I put, you're going to go six by 400 to three minutes rest on Thursday and you're going to run them fast and have fun. I bet you that brings you back out of the post ultra. like I feel terrible, like the system shock and just something that's like, that's free, like six by 400 or three minutes rest.

30:29T.J. Szymkowicz: That's not even a workout by standard, like typical for us. I feel like that could almost even propel you like out of the sludgy funk post ultra. I'm not saying you should do that or condoning it necessarily for everybody, but sort of the approach I took and I was just surprised that it worked to be honest.

30:47Scott Holtzman: Well, it's going to, where it's not, but it will be clarifying. Sure. We've had both sides. I did that. I did that after Spartan World Championships one year. I cramped out of the race three hours into the race and was destroyed and then raced the next weekend and had a fantastic race once my body woke up.

31:05T.J. Szymkowicz: Really?

31:06Scott Holtzman: And then I had another year where I tried doing this and just pooped the bed. It wasn't there. There was nothing there. The button had been pushed. My legs were... There's just no energy anywhere. It's just a heavy blob, like sandbags instead of legs. You know, you rolled into that workout to just, let's just go feel it out. And you realized that that wasn't bad. Okay. Then you know. And if the workout six by four with three minutes, if that didn't work, you know, like, okay, I really need a break. No, good point.

31:38T.J. Szymkowicz: Well, that's really it for my -

31:39Scott Holtzman: It can snap you out of a funk to pivot hard.

31:41T.J. Szymkowicz: Yeah. Or the opposite. Like you said, if you've been running 5Ks and short stuff and you're like, I'm just going to go grind for a little bit. I've done that approach too, and it's felt almost as refreshing as what I'm currently talking about.

31:52Scott Holtzman: It can be as simple as cleansing your palate. We've all had that. You lose the taste for something, and you've got to have something else, and it's so refreshing to get that other taste. You get back from vacation. You're like, I'm tired of having that. I just need a good home-cooked meal. It's like, ah, that was so great. And then I'm not going to have any of this for a while. And then three weeks later, you're like, you know what? I'm just going to go work out today. And it tastes great again. yeah the same thing happens with workouts from time to time even if it's not structural even if it's not a physical thing sometimes you just cleanse your palate other times it quite literally

32:25T.J. Szymkowicz: balances the equation and makes you feel better yeah it makes me think like the um like if you are in a big ultra build or a marathon build but like every three weeks it's like a complete left field like you're gonna go do 10 by 400 with three minutes rest and you're gonna rip them like an Olympian, which you would argue would translate hardly at all to a five-hour race, but maybe the palate cleanser workout, you could call it, I don't know, reinvigorates, resets. You hear about this in other sports. You hear about this with weightlifters.

33:02Scott Holtzman: Whatever their main thing is, let's say that they're a powerlifter. They go and they hit some sort of Olympic lifting block for eight weeks in the offseason and don't even touch their big, heavy stuff. And then they come back and they're like, man, I'm better than ever. Or vice versa. Someone just goes and does a bodybuilding block for a while just because they're burnt out. And they come back and they're better feeling than ever. And very quickly, they're back up to their numbers and then they exceed it. You hear about this in ball sports a lot. This lineman spent all off-season doing yoga or jujitsu or whatever.

33:34Scott Holtzman: Now they come back, their balance is better than ever, and they didn't lose the strength like they thought they did. And then there's the sport-adjacent things where you hear mountaineering or ultra runners who they spent all off season for the first time schemo. And then they come back out and they're ripping heads off. And sometimes the breakaway rounds you out and gives you the fire back and shockingly doesn't trash your fitness the way you think it would have.

34:01T.J. Szymkowicz: That was my exact experience finding OCR. I mean, for years, I was running 16 teen and rode 5Ks, just road running. Found OCR a year later, I'm 45 seconds faster in the 5K, running less traditionally and doing weird crap like carrying buckets in these stupid tire drags you had me doing and grip lock off holds and all this stuff that like, how would running with a bucket for five minutes straight for max distance translate to a better 5K? I don't know, but it did. How does running up the ski hill translate to a faster 5k? I don't know, but it did. Like that exact thing couldn't be closer to my experience.

34:44Scott Holtzman: Well, then one of the key things that we've talked about a lot is that when you pivot away hard, it's important to keep some semblance of the thing you're going to be able to need to do later intact. Everyone needs a different amount of that thing, but to be a fast runner, you have to have some fast work in there. both mechanical and anaerobic. And something you've always done is something I've always done, which is from time to time, we run really, really hard uphill. Yeah. And from time to time, we run really, really hard downhill. And I think that piece is probably that piece that keeps speed available to us at a pretty quick pivot.

35:28Scott Holtzman: Because downhill, I mean, downhill training is a thing for sprinters. slight grades, you know, like one to three, five, maybe 6 % hills. People are just over speed training, just ripping. They want to over stride. They want to just be, it's like the opposite of running with a parachute behind you. It's just loading your system differently. That is a thing that sprinters do. And the way that you rip down hills when you're trying to bulletproof yourself in the way I do, because we don't live in the mountains is to just run it obscenely hard to create the damage. That's speed training, right? That wasn't the purpose, but it was a side effect of what we were doing.

36:09Scott Holtzman: And the same thing uphill, 30-30 workouts uphill or runs where you run threshold to the base of the hill and then blast to the top so your quads are gassed and then run downhill to recover. That's also speed work. We used to do that in the off season at Whitewater. We would do this at Witch's Tower on that hill. We would run progressively faster uphill intervals, and we'd blast the last 30 meters to the top. How many times have we blasted the top of a hill so that we could have heavy legs for a descent? So the intent wasn't to be available for speed later, but the byproduct of doing some of those sorts of training is that there's some carryover.

36:47Scott Holtzman: People who wanted to run ultra and then run a 5K or a marathon and then a mile, whatever the thing's going to be. You have to have some semblance of the skill or system requirements of what you're going to do later.

36:59T.J. Szymkowicz: Yeah, that's a good point, man. Maybe that's part of it. And maybe that's a good takeaway for people in like long sloggy builds right now is like punchy uphill work and punchy downhill work is a must. And it will keep the other options available to you once you decide to pivot. Right. And you're right. We both do that in training. I had done a lot of three minute repeats uphill, which you could argue translated a lot of hard downhill running at sub five pace at times, which that pacing was available to me. So it's a good point. How often did you rip downhill in the 250Ks you ran?

37:34Scott Holtzman: How often combined in those two builds did you run intentionally hard downhill?

37:40T.J. Szymkowicz: I mean, not saying it was the focus of each session, but probably a dozen times. Right.

37:46Scott Holtzman: So even if you did a speed sprinkle session a dozen times in an off season, you'd feel confident stepping onto a track. I think I ran some twos and fours. It wasn't a full session, but I did it here and there. You'd be like, yeah, I could jump into a race. You kind of did it in disguise during this session, during this block.

38:03T.J. Szymkowicz: I saw this as a tangent, but I saw this on Instagram. I don't know, yesterday about this dog-assisted 5K situation. Have you seen this? They broke 12 now. Yeah, 11 something. So clearly it's reaching the masses because it got fed to me. But the guy that – so basically you're attached to your dog by a bungee. Literally. Can't cross it. is that what it's called okay can't can't cross canning or canning can across candy cross and so the dog must be quite the athlete to start with it looked like medium-sized dogs anyways and the dog runs in front of you and pulls you along and it's a true 5k like this is a thing maybe i've been living under a rock breck and i don't know but it's it's a niche weirdo thing that's starting to gain popularity.

38:47T.J. Szymkowicz: Well, it looks like fun. But anyways, when I saw the time of 1150 something, right, was the world's record can across. And the guy who, the guy and the dog, the dog clearly deserves the most credit here. But the guy that ran 1150 something is a 1459 5k, I believe. So he's roughly in the shape that I'm in, maybe a little bit quicker, but barely, and runs 1150 something in the can across 5k. And I'm thinking, what would that do for overspeed training? 1156. And how could that... So he's running sub like 345 to 350 miles just to have the turnover to keep up. And then that dog running that fast while pulling his legs and body behind him.

39:34T.J. Szymkowicz: That's incredible.

39:35Scott Holtzman: Yeah, it's like almost not... It's not purely mechanical, but it's almost purely a mechanical contest at that speed of just being able to tolerate that type of forward progression.

39:46T.J. Szymkowicz: I mean, think, so that does come out to like 340 something per mile pace. I'm pretty sure. And change. Well, four minute miles would be a 1230, 30, 1228 maybe. So he's running like 440 or 348 miles for three in a row. 348. That's your treadmill at almost at like 15 and a half miles an hour. Who could even keep up with that mechanically?

40:11Scott Holtzman: Yeah.

40:12T.J. Szymkowicz: Anyways, that's such a tangent, but like my mind was kind of like trying to make sense of it.

40:16Scott Holtzman: It's really hard to even picture it.

40:18T.J. Szymkowicz: Do you like lope? Do you like - It's long. Yeah, it's kind of like trampoline running, kind of. That's what I would envision it.

40:25Scott Holtzman: So you've walked out. I don't see, but I've seen clips of him. If it's the guy I'm thinking of, he's been around. There's a couple people who are legitimately fast, but I think this is the guy that has done this before. So the dog deserves the most credit here, right? There are some people who are going to be mad about this, but just like how High Rock's mixed pro doubles, the limiter is how fast can the female run in these world records attempts. That's how this is. The limiter is how fast can the human run. You're holding the dog back. It's just, can you be less of an anchor to it than the person next to you?

41:01T.J. Szymkowicz: And then like the desire of the dog to just keep yanking on you, yanking, like just driving, like trained so well. And I just, it's hard to fathom. Anyways, we don't need some more time on it.

41:12Scott Holtzman: You can't lose focus and they can't want to go anywhere else. They have to follow the course. Wild to me.

41:16T.J. Szymkowicz: I'm going to look this up on you. I bet you tonight when I got some downtime, I'm going to look up CannaCross on YouTube because - I may be saying it wrong. I've never heard someone say the word.

41:24Scott Holtzman: I've just read it a bunch. There's this running group in our area, Southeastern Wisconsin, that puts on a lot of these, not this kind, but 5K through Ultra and one of the divisions is the dog, running with the dog division. And they have specific harnesses. They have stuff in their store for anyone wanting to start out. It's like a whole little mini culture over here.

41:43T.J. Szymkowicz: Okay.

41:43Scott Holtzman: Well, the more you know. Anyways, I sidetracked us, but worthwhile discussion. So I think if I'm listening to this episode and people are talking about this, what I'm going to want to know is, okay, so what do I need to do? To maintain. Maintain what? What you felt. I want to come off of an ultra and be pleasantly surprised. Let's say I decide to pivot to something fast. Instead of just a pure recovery block, I'm going to take a pivot block. Assuming recovery from the damage. Yep. I want the Kirk feeling during this like, oh, that's a pleasant surprise. I'm faster than I thought I would be. This feels better than I thought.

42:26Scott Holtzman: What do I need to do during the ultra build or the marathon build? to be able to feel good, let's call it half marathon or let's say marathon or longer race build with 5k or shorter speed aspirations afterwards. What do I need to do to feel the way you have felt these past three weeks?

42:47T.J. Szymkowicz: Well, we kind of touched on it already, but without question, uphill speed work, I think would be number one. Uphill work with purpose and power output. Cause it's going to, I mean, it's going to translate to everything you do. It really is, as everybody's heard, de nauseam, speed work in disguise. But it really is a power-generating stride, and that will translate to fast turnover work and also pay off for hopefully your hilly ultra, right? And even the marathon, you could argue, would be a great efficiency tool to have in your belt. So without question, like punchy uphill work where you're really reaching at times.

43:21T.J. Szymkowicz: I mean, you can grind and do threshold work, but I'm talking like I did a series of a couple of workouts closer to the races, like 5 '2 uphill. like a five minute interval is like a, and I was running them in like a VO two max fashion. That's mile repeats for me. I'm just doing it uphill. I was doing three nineties and I would stay in threshold the first six. And then the last six, if I wanted to reach you, but I reached, right. And so I think that, that, that time domain with a little bit of rest in that like three to five minute range uphill, you can even go shorter than that. But I would say that would be my first thing.

43:55T.J. Szymkowicz: And it's like the best of both worlds. You get your cake, eat it too. What do you think?

43:59Scott Holtzman: I think that's good. I think that mechanically you can throw in extra strides or some little sprinkles of speeds, 4 to 8 by 200 meters, 3 to 6 by 400 meters. Run them at mile pace, a little slower, a little faster. You can throw those in throughout the week. But for the true ultra runner, the thing I've had most success with, and I'm going to throw Spartan Beast preparation back in the day into the ultra category because we were preparing up to four hours. Yeah. So I had a lot of personal success with fitness by having some sort of speed workout happen somewhere between the first five and like 40 minutes of my planned long hill workout or long run.

44:49Scott Holtzman: We had talked a couple of weeks ago about what if you just did like a one mile time trial or a thousand meter time trial or 400 meter time trial and then go do an easy long run. Like, is that the most ultra specific thing ever to get in a huge fatigue dose and then just go run easy with everything exhausted? I never did that, but I have like, I used to go to Lapham peak when prepping for Tahoe and things back in the day. And I'd run four hundreds on the flat cross country ski trails, hard mile pace or faster, two hundreds and four hundreds. And I would do whatever, let's say four, two hundreds at mile pace in college.

45:27Scott Holtzman: what would their rep range be for you?

45:29T.J. Szymkowicz: How much rest?

45:31Scott Holtzman: 200 slow jog.

45:33T.J. Szymkowicz: Gosh, we would do a good number of them. We'd probably do 12. 16 to 20? Yeah. Yeah, probably 16. Yeah, 12 plus, I think a one, that was definitely 16.

45:43Scott Holtzman: So I would do 12. In 400s, I would do six, six to eight. And so you would stop right as it started to get to the part of the workout where, all right, now I'm going to have to start to really focus and dig down or my times are going to start to become slower. I may have been running at an eight to nine effort at this point so far, but it's going to start requiring more out of me. I cut the workout right then and I'd take a five minute slow walk jog over to the hill and then I'd begin my 90 minute. I'd try to target 13 miles worth of work on those days. So not a long, long run, but not a regular run.

46:26Scott Holtzman: And it was all with vert. And I got a lot out of those workouts.

46:30T.J. Szymkowicz: I can't think of a long run other than when you came here and we did a long run on the roads from my house the morning of my wedding. But we never got together and just like, let's go to the ski hill and just slog for two and a half hours. It was always something like we did chutes and ladders up, down, up, down, rest a couple of times before one of my first 50Ks. we did together another one was a loop on the ski hill with pretty good intensity start flat climb descend finish flat do six rounds of that then we still had an hour left of 75 minutes left of going up and down sometimes with carries sometimes not it was always a buy-in situation like almost like a buy-in long run and it made it feel 30 30s one time up the ski hill 30 seconds

47:13Scott Holtzman: over threshold 30 seconds under and then bomb descended yeah and then recover we get rid of that as soon as it got to the point where this is going to get bad, then we just, now, all right, now let's go get our 60 to 90 minute easy to moderate work in. Yeah.

47:29T.J. Szymkowicz: Very productive.

47:30Scott Holtzman: I think those right there, they don't have to be done every week for sure. But every other week that can be a focus during the long effort or during the hill session to just work some of the reps way faster. Take your rest because that hour afterwards is going to be very ultra specific. having just really depleted yourself.

47:51T.J. Szymkowicz: I got a guy who's running the Wild Duluth 50K in September, October. We just had a call last week, Scott, and he's got a five-mile trail race he really likes doing and has done it a few years in a row. And it falls three weeks out from Wild Duluth 50K. And I said, well, Scott, we're going three hours that weekend regardless. He's like, well, I don't have to do the five-mile. Do you think I shouldn't? I was like, I think you should. I think you should go do that five-mile. You should race it. And then you're stuck putting in two-plus hours on feet. There's nothing more. ultra training specific than that.

48:20Scott Holtzman: Right.

48:20T.J. Szymkowicz: Like, let's use it to your advantage. That's great timing.

48:22Scott Holtzman: The most ultra specific training in my book, outside of back-to-back long runs or an ultra race, is to do something very anaerobic or demanding and follow it up either the same day or the next day with something easy and long.

48:41T.J. Szymkowicz: I agree.

48:41Scott Holtzman: I used to do that with stadium races. that specific build I was talking about where I did that mile in my 50k both relatively well I ran the Dallas stadium sprint the AT &T stadium came back the next day and did like 16 or 18 on the trails with vert midwest vert but that that's that's ultra training but day one is not ultra training at all it would seem counterintuitive to ultra training until it was paired with the easy long run. And those 18, the first six of those 18 felt like the last six of a normal long run. That's super specific to your event, but you've also maintained your speed.

49:22T.J. Szymkowicz: So good. I like to plug in like the split double, which is now when I think about it, it's a way to have your cake and eat it too, which is a peak training day for an ultra. And the morning I just wrote a program, it was five by one mile with three minutes rest, your AM session and it's like, work hard. Like I actually want you to beat yourself up. And then yeah, you still have three hours on feet that night or get home, eat, get off your feet. I'm like, how you got your speed in. So you covered that box. You got your punchy heart rate work in, you covered that box. And now you get your extra tired leg long run in, you check that box.

49:56T.J. Szymkowicz: It may be one of the biggest hacks to keeping your speed too. It may not feel like it when you're done with your long run that afternoon being like, Oh my God, I am so slow and tired. But like you did sharpen that arrow and it's still there. You may have forgotten about it, but it's there.

50:10Scott Holtzman: And it's a potential answer to the question of how long is long enough for an ultra. There's a lot of coaches, us included, who are hesitant to program people past four hour long runs. Now you start getting into 24 hour races and longer and yeah, we have to program things like that in, but we don't love it. But you have to get to that point of moving slowly, but efficiently on very fatigued legs. You can't get there in a three-hour long run unless there's quality in the long run. But quality three-hour long runs are very damaging. So the closest approximation of how do I get ready for that without doing a six or an eight-hour long run is smash yourself anaerobically or muscularly with a leg builder workout or a huge lift or something.

51:00Scott Holtzman: But in this case, we're talking speed work. do some legit speed work and follow it up with your easy long run now every step of that easy even if it's just two hours or it could be three every step of that is useful because you're practicing how to run easy and slow without dawdling because you're working to keep your stride good that's the downside of running a slow easy three hour long run like for you and I running slow and easy we're not like using good form track runners are notoriously horrible at jogging with good form.

51:33T.J. Szymkowicz: Yeah.

51:34Scott Holtzman: Because they're trying to rest their muscles entirely for the next rep. So they don't use a good running form for it. And I think we bring that into long runs. If you dawdle for the first hour of three hour run, like was that really productive? This allows it to be productive.

51:49T.J. Szymkowicz: You're just reminding me of something. And that was so stupid. I didn't think about this. Is I generally did like a threshold based focus session on a Tuesday, whether it's flat or uphill. But then every Friday was like usually uphill on a quality day and it was short and punchy and digestible because then I would long run the next day on tired legs. And now that I think about it, none of that was done flat and fast, but most of my Friday uphill work was punchy.

52:17Scott Holtzman: Yeah.

52:17T.J. Szymkowicz: Because I knew I was going to slog the next day anyways. And so maybe that is part of the key right there. Now that I think back, it was like, yeah, there was a punchy uphill session on pretty much every week. Was I really doing like the equivalent of 800 meter repeat sometimes uphill? maybe I was and not even realized.

52:32Scott Holtzman: I know for a fact, I work harder uphill on my ski hill reps than I do on track reps. I'm running faster on the track, but I'm running smoother. I will fight up a ski hill. I never fight on the track. Do you ever fight on the track? Not like going uphill, I don't. No. No. But there are times on a ski hill where the last rep or two at the very top, I'm entirely full. Like I'm just fighting to get the rep over because 20 meters ago, I ran out of juice and I'm out of power and I'm just thrashing myself, finish the rep, then I can walk down the hill. We never, ever do that on the track. Rarely, yeah.

53:14Scott Holtzman: Not to that extent. So I think systemically, you may be working, not maybe, you are working even harder sometimes uphill than you do on flats. You're not getting the mechanical advantage, but half of speed is mechanical and efficient and half of it is engine. Those are some painful sessions when you have a big hill rep and you, maybe you miscalculate

53:34T.J. Szymkowicz: just a little and you fall 30 meters short, right? Or you're finally, your button's been pushed and you're already, you look down and you're already completely redlined on a heart rate front and your legs are gone. Oh, that might be the, when I say half of the equation, I mean, one of the two

53:50Scott Holtzman: things. It's not a 50-50 divide of speed between mechanical efficiency and engine, but there's only really two components.

53:58T.J. Szymkowicz: By the way, I ran in, um, at first time I was just like, I'm playing, I'm having fun. I'm experimenting. And this week I went out, I don't know if it's stupid or not. Yesterday I went out for a 10 mile recovery run in the Hoka Rocket X trail, the Rit, the shoe that I was like, I'm going to see how this feels on the roads. I want to know if this shoe is super. that's the fastest trail shoe that exists for sure the superiest even on the roads it was like yep i'm fast like it felt better than like a lot of my road shoes so anyways another vouch as long as you don't get too sweaty downhill slippage in that shoe uh it'll start moving on you but it's a it is a super trail shoe it really is not but technically you'd lose it all you would with any shoe you'd lose the superness if you're cutting left and right a lot yeah uh on a bat in a vacuum

54:43Scott Holtzman: it is the superest trail shoe I've ever won. So that's going to be what I'm going to close with. And I meant to say this earlier, but there is a new wave of running shoes coming out, Kirk. And we are going to see, I think this next year will be the single greatest year of running shoe advancement we've ever seen. Or refinement maybe is the key, but it's an advancement via refinement. Almost every shoe is coming out with their refined trail racer, road racer and these new super trainer slash, like they're perfecting the plateless super shoe now. Every shoe so the shoe that Tom Evans used to win, the ASIC shoe that he used to win Mont Blanc they're now coming out and Mount de Coast has theirs coming out and the Norda 055 just came out and the The Rocket X4 is coming out.

55:39Scott Holtzman: And I don't know if it's the Rocket X Trail 2 or a different version, but that's coming out soon. And New Balance just put out the Super Comp Rebel. They've always had the Super Comp Elite and the Super Comp Trainer. And the Trainer's been going nowhere, and they just put out the Rebel, which is the Rebel is one of their most popular shoes ever. And they just made it borderline super but plateless. Anyway, this next year, I think we're going to see so many people find their unicorn shoe where they're light, they're supportive, they're stable, they're fast. It's going to be a crazy year of shoes.

56:14Scott Holtzman: I can't wait for it.

56:16T.J. Szymkowicz: I'm here for it. I've already found one. I wish I would have chose it for my last race.

56:19Scott Holtzman: And the Hoka Cello, by the way, it slaps, as they would say.

56:24T.J. Szymkowicz: Yeah. 10 years ago. Oh, my gosh. It's such a good shoe. Everybody go out and buy that shoe, except the 10 and a half. Save those for me. so you should get them you'll love them it'll make running fun again make running fun again make running fun again that's got to be already which apparently for me means get new shoes it can never hurt all right i don't know i did i guess we kind of a free flow today but i'm satisfied if you're satisfied yeah it's good to be back look forward to seeing you again on thursday yeah we don't know that we don't have a guest lined up uh for thursday either so i think we We haven't heard you much because you were gone last week, so we should do just us again.

57:06Scott Holtzman: Yeah, thanks for holding down the fort. I appreciate it. And I need to go listen to this barefoot runner this week and come back with some takes on Thursday.

57:13T.J. Szymkowicz: Yeah, I got a few messages about it. A couple people looking to reach out to her, actually, after the episode and wondering her contact info.

57:22Scott Holtzman: Excellent.

57:23T.J. Szymkowicz: Yeah. All right.

57:27Scott Holtzman: if anything resonated with you on today's episode and you're curious about taking your training to the next level check out the running public.com where we have a training plan to fit your needs