Training Tuesday: Listener Questions

0:08Welcome to the Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. It's Tuesday, folks, and you know what that means. Training Tuesday. We are going to take every rabbit hole, follow tangents, use useless metaphors, get lost in the weeds. This is Training Tuesday.

0:33When 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. Kirk. Yes, sir. I had a thing happen with my body this week that I haven't had in a while. Well, you're a little young for menopause, so what is it? Well, in a while indicates that it or implies that it's happened before, and I have not yet gone through menopause. All right, continue. I thought I was free and clear after the Red Bull competition.

1:15Oh, gosh. And I did easy run Monday. Then I played basketball. And then I did, instead of going 10 by 3 minutes like we talked about, I did 2 by 15 minutes. That's a very different workout. Similar time domain when it's all said and done. But I had less time to get the workout done in. So I just had to cut out all the rest and run it slower. So like two by 15 minutes with like three minutes or something in between? I took two in between, yeah. And I woke up demolished the next day. Was it threshold effort? Slightly under. And you were demolished structurally? Yes. Outside of my glutes, my hamstring insertion, my ankles, it's like everything that wasn't quite done recovering from the Red Bull thing lost their minds after I asked the next thing of any substance from it.

2:06I got through the easy runs the next two days just fine. And then basketball plus two by 15 minutes at like, honestly, like in between half marathon and marathon effort, wrecked my glutes. And I'm not a glute-based runner to begin with. It was just really interesting how just all the not healed things just lost it. I think basketball was where you went wrong. Well, for sure. Not the session itself on top of the Red Bull event. That'd be my guess. Yeah. But those two things just exposed these areas that really got worked jumping off that boat that I didn't know yet because I hadn't used them hard yet.

2:47But using them hard, just like it lit me up. Huh. So today as you sit here on your sword, Duff, is that how it is? Yeah, but it's the far outside of my glutes, which is very weird and rare for me. See, that's where I get fatigued and sore, right there. Okay. I don't, but it's like I think it had to have been the landing slightly sideways off camber, off the boat, and then trying to just like really put out right there. And it's just weird. I haven't had this in a while where I thought I was recovered, did a quality, and realized I was smashed. Yeah, you're no spring chicken anymore. No. And this week, some of the West Dallas Central basketball players were doing some morning sessions with their coach, and they joined us for morning basketball.

3:32So we had high school kids. And Central's team has become very good. And suddenly the level of athleticism in the gym changed. And so the level of effort changed. And yeah. The old dog was flexing. Here I am. The old dog was flexing on him a little bit. No, the old dog was trying to hang on by the skin of his teeth. Yeah, well, I hit an 800 and 400 meter session. I think I alluded to what I was going to hit. Yes, you did. and oh man did I realize I didn't want to when I got going and you know how you always know your fitness know how I know my fitness is good but I'm riding the line whether it's this isn't training riding the line I think it's you know I got four and a half hours of sleep last night and I got you know it's it's life plus training and I got done my first round and my splits were slow they weren't as quick as I was expecting there's a big headwind seemingly in all directions you know how that happens sometime you're like how can this be yeah and you're like that doesn't make sense like i'm running in a big circle like city block country road block but somehow it's in my face the whole way but so i just convinced myself you know one rep being you can be nice to yourself and run slower than you plan but inevitably in those days two things one One, I think it was a 52, 55 degree morning.

4:52It takes a little bit more for this body to warm up. And two, it takes real effort for my body to warm up. Like I actually need to get high heart rates and get uncomfortable before things finally open up, which I didn't remember it being that difficult decade, a decade ago. So then sure, rep two was faster and felt perspectively easier. Rep three was more of the same. I was working hard and not really enjoying it, but the splits opened up and it continued that way. And I closed very well and worked very hard, but the warmup process is longer. And I did kind of a half-ass lazy warmup, you know, 30 thirties, but didn't put much effort into them.

5:34I wasn't really feeling like being punchy in my dynamics beforehand. And then I took off and I was like, this is terrible. and it's like no like I think if I were to go run like an all-out mile or even like a 5k right now that I really cared about I may do like two or three by 400 like I do like four by 200 meters before a mile like actually and I'd probably do two by 400 before a 5k so it actually feels approachable when the gun goes off like I need real work before the work happens is all I'm saying Yeah, this is something that used to be nice to do in college. It gave me an extra feeling of confidence, and now it's become mandatory.

6:14If I'm running faster than threshold pace for a race or a workout, I must go 60 seconds or longer at least one time before the workout. I did 30-60 in the warm-up, 30 on, 60 off, and it wasn't long enough. I didn't get to real work in that. No, it's interesting. You have to break the crust free. And it doesn't happen in 30 seconds or less. At whatever stage of life it happens, it's got to be different for everyone. But I am firmly to it. When I've run my road miles, when I want to run a 5K time trial, even if I want to do interval work faster than threshold, certainly once I get VO2 max and faster, I have to go 60 seconds minimum on at least one rep.

7:00and then my body's like gets the system shock out of the way in the panic and it loosens up it's like all right we'll work for you it's 100 yeah and usually in that warm-up bit it's like am i working too hard this actually doesn't feel very good i'm gasping my legs are starting to already want me to slow down and you're like but that's because that's what you're doing you're breaking through the crust then because it inevitably that never feels good in the warm-up when you're doing your first bit of work and so it was a good reminder that yeah i need more but you know it's the it's the catch 22 of like i was kind of feeling lazy and i didn't want to but then my first couple reps were the sacrificial lambs and so it's like where you're gonna sacrifice somewhere might as well the absolute worst this has ever been for me is that fourth of july road mile because it's so hot right and the last thing i want to do is hold an effort at that point and so like forcing that to happen is always the worst part of my yep any warm-up is that and on that day it was like 60 seconds flat the moment i hit a minute i stopped but then i got done i was like how am i ever gonna race and then after the race all i could think while i was dying there was oh i'm so glad i did that warm-up yep you remember the days when they took two athletes in each event to state and track the top two and then i think if you were in the top the extra qualifier if you were in the top eight in the state but didn't make it they'd take you as an extra qualifier time wise I believe.

8:24Yeah. Anyways, my coach knew something. And so I happened to be in the mile, my junior year at sectionals and Chris Salinski was in, or no, my senior year, Chris Salinski's in the, in the final. Well, there's one spot. Uh, and Brent Ryder, if you remember Brent Ryder, he won state in four, 14, I think that year. And then there's me who's the guy who can't keep up and Chris Salinski wasn't as good as Brent in that event quite yet. Anyways. So my coach is like, listen, they're going to go out hard and you got to hang on and you have to be ready. You're going to go warm up. And I, he'd never told me to do this before in my life.

9:00He said, you're going to run hard 400 meters, like harder than race pace. I want you feeling like you just sort of raced a little bit. Like I want you running hard. I was like, why? He's like, you gotta be ready to just go. That's your only chance. And he was right. And I had never, and I thought I'm working too hard. I don't feel good, but I didn't know. And then the race happened. I hung on for dear life to the coattails of them. And then I lost them in the last hundred meters and I took third and didn't go to state, but I learned like, I actually had a really good first half of the race. And it was, I think it was because of that.

9:33Yeah. And that's as a 17 year old kid, I might've been 16 at the time. Yeah. There's something to it. Our, our cross country team used to do things like this and they call it steady state pickups or whatever, but they'd hold a pace at race pace or faster for a couple of minutes and then stop. And I wouldn't do it when I ran cross in college because I only did that, that my senior year, but I wouldn't do it I didn't have confidence in my fitness that I could even do that and then come back and race but that year in track we did a couple meets in the middle of the season where we were trying to like avoid burning out physically or mentally where we just ran like open 400 and four by four or we ran just open eight four by four we didn't do anything else other than like a brief little short event.

10:14And that four by four went so well coming off of a highly anaerobic effort where you'd be warming up for the four by 400 thinking like my legs are noodles. I just don't have, I don't have any energy left. My meter's at zero. I don't even want to get through this warmup. And then you'd sit there at the start line waiting for the baton to come in. Like everyone's so fast. This sucks. And you take it and you go out and just wait to die. and you never really tied up. It's such a, like so many people are afraid to leave the race in their warmup or tire themselves out for the race. And I understand that if you're under fitness and under mileage, but the way to do run your best, I would say, gosh, even in a half marathon, that type of effort, I think I'd still want some extended warmup in my warmup, like presses, but for sure, 5k, 10k, anything underneath that's like real work.

11:06Yeah. And it really changed my mentality on things to that. From that point on, I started doing 300 meter in one 300 meter press before every track race for the rest of my life, which in college 300 meters is taking you 50 seconds or a little slower if you're not running hard, hard. But like it's running hard enough that you get that lactate feeling in your hamstrings. That's what I needed to get. The moment I felt that start to accumulate, I'd hold it for like 10 seconds and then I'd pull the plug. it's like if it got that first push out of the way like there's some refractory period there where it's not going to come back the same way and i don't know if that was science but it was like i felt it and that's that was enough for me and then i went on a string i just pr'd the rest i pr'd every 800 for the rest of the year it was beautiful but it was getting that first bad feeling out of the way it opens the pathway without having to do it during the race because sometimes if you have to open the pathway during the race you never access really where you need to get.

12:06Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, I remember like, like even in this session, um, like I think I opened in like two 32 and 69 or 70 and I wanted to be under two 30 and under 70. Right. I told you, I think I told you this maybe off my, I don't remember. And by the end I ended up closing in two 22 and 61. And I honestly probably felt better doing that than I did opening in two 32 and 70. Also made me wonder if I can run like 55 seconds right now in a quarter. I don't think I can, but it made me curious. That would be very fast. 57. For a 40-something ultra runner. I'm not an ultra runner. You knocked that off.

12:47What have you gone after recently? You quiet down over there with your logic. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying you couldn't. I'm saying that would be impressive. An ultra runner doesn't run 12-mile long runs, which is what I've been doing lately. An ultra runner runs ultras. Exactly. Oh, God damn it. All right. Hey, okay. Anyway, putting a bow tie on that, for a long time, I was five to six by strides, acceleration, building up two and then past race pace. And now if I only – like if I had to choose one or the other, I would take two strides and one hold, minute or longer, over five or six strides.

13:30I would take like a 90 second to two minute push and then a couple of strides. Yeah. Your kids run across country. Yeah. Ayla decided last minute to run across country for her middle school this year. She's a sixth grader. And we always knew she's our runner mentality girl, but we didn't know. You never know with her what she's going to do. She just is so uniquely herself. And she's so into soccer. And she's solely focused. Like I'm going to go to college. I'm going to play professional soccer. Like that's, that's her mindset. So, uh, she decided to do it. A friend of hers signed up. So she signed up and this is the most ridiculous cross country season I've ever heard of.

14:14I can predict what it is. Three races over the course of two weeks. I was going to say two races over the course of three or four weeks. Yeah. Last Wednesday, this past Monday. And now today, they're racing a mile and a half or two miles. First one was at Grant Park, where I assume you ran. I ran. And 1.8 miles. 1.8. And then the next one was in Waterford, and it was 1.5. And then - Lisa, what's today's distance? 1.8 at Greenfield Park, which I know you've been to. Lisa, quit eavesdropping on our conversation. Get a life. He's down the hallway preparing for her around right now. Lisa, get a life.

14:53Kirk says to get a life. Sorry, Kirk. Mind your own business. And mind your own business, he says. She said, now she's going to stand here and listen the whole time. So anyway, it was very interesting. So Ayla's the one back when I did Tennessee Mile the second year. She jumped in. They allow people to just experience the course. She was like four or five. No, she had to have been six at the time. You showed me pictures of that. It was awesome. And it's a 1.1 mile loop with 340 feet of vert per loop. And she ended up doing seven loops. 7.7 miles and over 20 over 2000 feet of vert and uh it was hilarious and awesome and she was just like joyfully doing it so and she's always that kind that just like enjoys running but she doesn't she's never like said i want to race so she did it in her first one she just decided she was going to run with the other girl on the team at the time there was one and so they just ran together until that girl decided to take a walk break.

15:51Okay. And then she just kind of picked it up through the end there. So they were like, I don't know, 180 girls and she took 77th. That many? Well, wait till the next one. 1 ,200 kids at this next meet. In one start gun? No, with between all the girls and all the boys. They run sixth and seventh together and then eighth. But she had like 360 girls. How fun is that to watch? 335 Lisa said Lisa go home I am home so this time she decided I'm going out one notch harder and then in the third race I'm going to go out one notch harder so that's just what she did but she got competitive in this one and the last 800 raced girls all the way in it was just cool to see that look on her face where she's locked in and she's fighting it was cool to see so what percentile of the field she finished what the 75th percentile the first race or something yeah and then what would you the first one she was 77th out of one something and this next one she was 70th out of 360.

16:53okay so big improvement on that 330 yeah and still went out slow but the first one she averaged 857 pace for 1.8 miles and the next one she averaged 753 for 1.5 like she still has she got done and she was tired from sprinting in but like she was totally fine so she's just gonna she's gonna find her limit from below and that's fine We're not pushing her one bit. I love that. But today, last one, her goal is to go out a little harder. And she's just, she's a dog. And so eventually she's going to be to the point where she's just going to like thrash herself on the course. But she's finding it from the safe side.

17:30And that's, she is a rarity because most kids absolutely find it from the exact opposite side. Out of the gates every time. You never hear kids approaching it this way. Like, I'm not going to try my hardest today. I'm just going to feel it out. like most most like are going way over their head and they're a half mile in already screwed and then hanging on for dear life that is 99 of kids well she's she's an interesting combination where she is a brute of an athlete she still plays on a boys soccer team in middle school and she is the most physical player on every field she's ever been on she is just such an aggressive human being.

18:09Same as she was wrestling. She has one direction and it's forward but she's also a thinker. We don't want to tell her this quite yet because we want her to work hard but she's brilliant and every teacher who's ever had her knows that. So she's like the weird thinking man's brute. The rare combo. So in soccer she's really heady but she's also like a destructive force. So she's already thinking through. I was watching all these people start out and they went too fast and I'm not going to do that so i'm gonna do this and this and this so we just let her do her thing and support it but it's funny to watch her the first time i mean they probably went out at 12 minute pace for the first mile in her first race because she didn't want to leave her friend behind she's just such a she has weird dichotomy between being like an absolute animal and like a really sensitive thinker i'm gonna rip your head off in a smart way yeah eventually yeah she she analyzes it and as soon as she decides to like blood's fine that's fine let's do this that's cool man that'll be fun And well, good luck to the Crocker family tonight.

19:09You coached Hale. Yeah. West Al's Hale, which their home course is Greenfield Park. So we're going on your stomping grounds. We never ran. Well, I didn't know the area very well when I coached here. So we stuck to this concrete and bike paths and stuff. So we never ran repeats in the park. Isn't the roads around the park we ran? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This park for people, it doesn't matter, but just for imagery, it's literally like, do you say kitty corner and the rest of the, or do you say catty corner? Nobody says catty corner unless you're weird. Some people say catty corner. Well, they're weirdos.

19:40Kitty corner. Like soda and pop and Coke. What do you call it? Kitty corner. No, soda, pop, and Coke. Soda. Yeah, I'm soda as well. But you should be calling it pop from where you're from. We don't do that in Milwaukee. You're a refined man. Anyway, it's kitty corner from the high school. So it's this great park and it's right there. So anyway, that's where we're going to be this afternoon. Okay. Three-week season. They had one week of practice. One prior that she wasn't there because she hadn't signed up for it. So she had a three-week cross-country season. I love it. That's about what the attention span should give a child of that age.

20:11Probably. It is crazy, Kirk, some of the kids who are already running mileage and running hard and in vaporflies or dragonflies. It's already in middle school. Insane. I believe it stems from the parents. I mean, I'm surprised your kid isn't running in dragonflies. No way. Full speed suit or basketball shorts. No in between. She's in baggy soccer shorts and tall soccer socks. Love it. Folks, we've kind of just landed on something here with our weekly cadence of episodes. Leave it to us to take 20 minutes to get to this. However, I think what we're landing on here is we're not going to force guests unless we are very, very, very excited to chat with them.

21:02And so we won't always have guests, if you've noticed, on our second episode of the week. However, we're probably going to just keep chomping away at Q &As for our, you know, abbreviated long-run episodes now that Bracken's back in school. And we'll teach you something on Tuesdays. And we're going to, unless our Q &A queue becomes empty, we're going to hit this cadence for at least a few weeks until we got these knocked out. but this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of when we do Q and A's, you're reminded that you have questions and then you send more questions. And then this is like shooting ourselves in the foot here.

21:36So who knows how long this could go on for, but that's what we're doing. And I hope you're on board for it. So without further ado, it's from Ryan. I'm curious what you, uh, Oh, he says, thanks for the kudos, brother. I must've given him kudos on Strava. Uh, you actually reminded me that I've been meaning to send you a potential fun Q Q &A question. I'm curious what you and Bracken would consider the worst workouts you ever had from your past. Could be any way you choose to interpret worst too. So it could be A, a workout you planned to hit a certain stimulus and it completely missed the mark or B, a workout that you despise doing because it's so painful or C, your own interpretation of worst.

22:14So worst workouts you've had. First place my trauma memories went were doing max heart rate tests. Every time I've done a max heart rate test workout, like not lab based, but a coach prescribes it, you wear your heart rate monitor and your goal is to see a max heart rate. That is by far the worst feeling workouts I've ever had in my life. I've done them at least at every university I went to, which unfortunately it was three. So I had to do it at least three times. And I know I repeated it at two of them. So I've at least five of these and all five were horrific to endure. Anything else come to mind?

22:54Just by sheer difficulty. The really difficult ones were the OCR ones. Honestly, pace-based workouts were never the worst for me. You can get to a really bad spot in a mild-paced workout or a 5K-paced workout, but because it's so specific in scope, hold this for this amount of time and then take this amount of rest. Usually, there's a bailout option. When pace deviates by this much, you're done. And my type of toughness is handle something for a specified limit and be done that moment. That never struck me as the worst afterwards, even if it was bad in the moment. But the long OCR, grindy, multi-part ski hill work, those got brutal.

23:38Because you get to the point where it's like, I'm breaking down, but that's the point here. And now I've got to sit in it. The sit-in-it workouts are the hardest for me. Max heart rate. I mean, it comes with a label. You know where it's going to end. Yeah. You're going to sit in it and feel horrible, horrible. Oh, I'm working so hard. I can't sustain it. And then you're going to kick on that to see what you can spike it at. And that's where it gets. Or like, you know, a max heart rate test uphill is a beautiful way to do it. Set it to 15 % and fight until you literally can't anymore. I don't remember the rest on the workout anymore.

24:12But the first one I did was my freshman year at Campbell. And we did 800-meter time trial, short recovery, 400-meter time trial. And by short, I mean three minutes or less recovery. All out kicking 800 meters. Less than three-minute rest, all out kicking 400 meters. Take your heart rate after both. That was so bad. starting the 400 when you're not recovered from a time trial from the eight is just like i felt like we all had our eyebrows like upturned with like tears welling in our eyes like why do we have to and then just sell out and go that that was that'll be forever seared into my mind remember what kind of splits you ran for that one i think it was like 159 or two flat and then like 56 painful yeah maybe 59 like you were fading so bad those last 200 meters you You were churning, but there was no power left.

25:09I think both of these are going to come as a surprise. Okay. And by worst, these are just dreaded because the effort is so high. So same camp as you. That's what I think of. I'm sure I've had a few workouts I bombed and I changed the deal on, of course. But that happens. That's part of a big training cycle. But chutes and ladders. Chutes and ladders gets me every time. it always puts me into a place where I typically start a little too fast, even though I think I'm being conservative. And then I'm trying to maintain my pacing or even increase. And I generally positive split that session no matter what.

25:46And it induces a level of effort out of me. It sneaks it out of me every time where I end up like seeing Jesus and dreading it after three reps and I still have five to go, uh, shoots and ladders, which is, uh, for those, I'm sure if you've been listening for a while, you know, the session, but take a pretty punchy hill. I use a ski hill, probably 150 feet of gain. And it's, I used to do it up down at race effort and then only get half rest. So a rep might take me two and two, two and a half minutes, only rest a minute 15 and hit it again, or go down, up, down or up, down, up anyways, those crush me.

26:23And so that leads the way for me when I think that's on the paper. Oh, you're muted. You're still muted. I have just become the worst at muting myself. You're honestly, you've done it three times today already. Yeah. This last like two week stretch, which coincides with school starting back up, Kirk. I'm teacher brain. I'm underwater here mentally. And I'm not even teaching a subject matter that requires intellectual problems. Mostly fun, yeah. We would climb at or above threshold and then descend faster than race pace. I mean, I'm not even looking at my heart rate. It's way past threshold. Yeah.

26:57At or above race pace. Either way, it's basically VO2 max intervals on a mountain-type hill. Yeah. And then you had to overwork on the descent. That was the purpose. And it hurt. And then the other one, which to this day, when I program it for myself, straight up mile repeats with three minutes rest. And the main objective is I'm trying to run close to 5K pace for five by one mile with three minutes rest. And that is one of the more painful workouts. And the reason it's so revealing, like a 5K time trial is going to tell you right where your fitness is at. I am telling you five by a mile VO two max effort at five K or faster pace with three minutes rest is so revealing of where you're at.

27:47And you'll know by your third mile repeat, if like you're in the fitness, you think you are, you're not. And so five by one mile with three minutes rest, which seems generous, the three minutes rest, super approachable, not with this intention. And so those two are the worst and they're such game changers, but I have to use them sparingly. So those are mine. Yeah, that's true. I had two really bad mile repeat sessions at Bigfoot High School's track that will never leave my soul. What happened? Just fighting to try to hit a pace and not quite being there and starting the rest already dreading I'm not going to be ready for the next one.

28:24Mile repeats are long. If you're nailing a mile repeat, you have to run hard and fast and with purpose from step one. And if you're fast, you have to sit in it for five minutes. And if you're not as fast, you have to sit in it for six, seven, eight, nine, 10 minutes. That's painful. Yeah. Yeah. Those are bad. So those are mine. So if you had to pick one of these to never do again, what of all the workouts you've ever done, if you could get all the fitness elsewhere, what workout would you drop from your repertoire of these two of all the things we've talked about or everything you've ever done, the worst workouts, What would you never want to do again?

28:58I could get rid of chutes and ladders and still find a way to get that fitness separately. Climb hard, descend hard. Yeah. Chutes and ladders, there'd be workarounds. Mile repeat fitness. Like if I'm running 5K to half marathon, like that session fits the bill for all of those race distances. That needs to be around for me. Okay. I would never get rid of chutes and ladders. I don't enjoy a lot of that workout, but I love the workout and I do not dread that workout. I would, I would drop, I would never do another max heart rate test if I could. but I would drop the mile repeats in a heartbeat. No use for them.

29:30I hate them. I've become kind of a road cat lately. So I really like the objective metric nature of things these days. Yeah. Road cat. That's not a saying. It is. No, that's not going to catch on. It is not. All right. Scott says question for the pod Q and a, we've all heard the saying Hills pay the bills. And I 100 % agree. My question is this, Would you consider easy miles on hills the same as quality workout miles? I live in Greenville, South Carolina, actually traveler's rest, and have a plethora of hills at my disposal to run my easy runs on. In most cases, I've got trails that I can run from 45 to 70 minutes and get 500 to 1 ,000 feet of gain with no problem.

30:12Some are steep, so they require power hiking on easy days. And so I'm just wondering if those easy runs with EG are the same as quality. Thanks, Elevation Gang. No. Yeah, no. Definitely no. No, because quality is based around intensity. So if you're running them at any intensity that would get a heart rate response, then it's not easy. And if you're not, then it's not quality. Like we, we, people, some people have been upset that we use the word quality because everything's quality. No, one person, Ian Hosick. Yeah. Get out of here, Ian. Yeah. If you're seeing heart rate response, it's not easy.

30:48And if you're not seeing it, it's not quality. So that, that's what I would say for that. Can you build strength? you know, stamina, endurance, resistance to impact while running aerobic hills. Absolutely. And we love it, but it's not quality. And you will not replace quality. And you absolutely can do recovery on terrain with up or downhills. All of that is fine, but I'm sticking to the purest term of quality means that there's, there's a high, there's a high heart rate response with intent. Usually, uh, you know, within 10 beats per minute of your lactate threshold or higher. I'm going to stand by that.

31:23Quality gets the heart rate up. Generally past zone three, I think. That's it. Let's move on from that one. Kirk, I had a t-shirt back in middle school that was an and one basketball shirt. It said, skills pay the bills and your flap broke. Did you wear them with your JNCOs? No, I paired it with my and one basketball shorts. Or your Zubas? I was out of that by middle school. Probably fifth grade was the last time I had Zubas. And you're a little younger than me. So you were a little, the times were changing. Yes, they were. Yeah. I have Zubas now though. Green Bay Packers. Do you? Nice. Good for you.

31:57I actually don't have any Zubas. I've known them a couple of years ago. All right. Brian asks, this one is for you. And I hope that you have an answer for this. And if you don't, it's okay, Bracken. Brian says, hey guys, I was wondering if Bracken could give us a follow-up to the Aletheia run device that he was trying a while back. Did it point out any flaws in his stride? Is he still using it? Is it worth the cost? Okay, that's a blast from the past, and I haven't thought of Aletheia in a long time until I had a consult last week and told someone they might need to look into the Aletheia Run.

32:34But I haven't used it in a year now, but I liked it. so aletheia run is a refresher for people is a wearable device that's you can clip onto your shorts or you can wear it on their little elastic belt that they give you but it sits on your lower back directly between your hips and it measures and gives real-time data and after the fact data on your stride every piece of it it does what garmin does with ground contact time and everything like the ad vertical oscillation, but really what it's designed to do is show imbalances. So it actually charts with these, like a light graph, like a webbing sort of design.

33:16Like a webbing, yeah. And it just shows your pattern of balance and power output when you're running. And then it shows there'll be a discrepancy in that pattern left versus right. And it shows how your imbalances are manifesting in your stride. And I really liked it, but it coincided then shortly after with an injury. And so I put it away and it's in a drawer dead somewhere. And I need to pull that back up. So if anything, I need to reach back out to those people and talk with them. They were great. They're so smart. And just, I really enjoyed my conversation with them too. Back, back. So, so thank you for the reminder.

33:54All right. Ben asks, here's a fun one for Q and a is the tale of the tortoise and the hair really about slow twitch versus fast twitch muscle fibers. Please discuss. I would say, No, it's about hubris. Go ahead. Continue. Just about hubris, about arrogance. That's all. But do you think turtles have slow twitch muscle fiber and the hare has fast twitch muscle fiber? I think that hares absolutely have a high preponderance of fast twitch muscle fiber. But are tortoises sprinting? And we don't know that. Like, are they at max capacity and that's why they stop and rest so much? Are they actually very high?

34:31Yeah. Yeah, are they high concentration and percentage of fast-switch muscle, but they're slow? They're just bad at it, but that's why they rest so much is they're just blowing out their anaerobic system constantly? Or are they just all slow twitch? If they were slow twitch, why would they ever have to stop and rest, Kirk? Well, turtles are cold-blooded, I believe. We're talking tortoises, though. I assume tortoises. Turtles are fast. Turtles are fast. I assume, are tortoises cold-blooded? Well. Yes. Are you sure? So I think maybe like a tortoise on a hot day may be more fast twitch than like a tortoise on a cold day.

35:09They can't change their muscle fiber. I know, but they can change their top end potential probably. I agree with you, but I'm saying the tortoise could have a little more punchy giddy up on a warm day than a cold day. And that has to be noted. Okay. All I can do here is spitball here. I have no scientific backing to anything I'm about to say. but I'm going to say all reptiles are fast twitch predominantly. Yeah. Watch a gator move. And they have to rest constantly. Yeah. I don't think there's any benefit to most animals having slow twitch unless you're an endurance hunter, like a wolf. Yeah. So I'm going to say that the tortoises are actually predominantly fast twitch.

35:51They're just genetically inferior at moving fast and their biomechanical efficiency is just non-existent. I'm asking, I'm like a wildlife outdoor guy, right? You know, like I'm like a woodsman and I'm like, are tortoises reptiles? They are, but I had to ask myself, um, to confirm, uh, what we need to do is a muscle biopsy. I'm like a, like a three toed sloth and we need to do like a muscle biopsy. I'm like a tortoise. And then like, oh, this is nonsense. And then AI says tortoises predominantly rely on slow twitch muscle fibers, which allow them to move slowly with remarkable metabolic efficiency.

36:30Whoa. Come on. Then why do they rest so much? Ask why sloths are so slow. That's the slowest thing I can think of. Does it give you any good slow metabolism? Because they eat a diet of leaves that gives them very little energy is what AI says. Okay. AI, you're not quite there yet. I think it's because of their digestive system. I would assume it could take like a month for them to digest a meal fully. And so they just have no availability of energy. Is that true about sloths? I wouldn't say it's because of leaves. I believe so. I've watched a lot of Wild Kratts with my kids. Okay. We're sort of learning, but really not.

37:06I think they are misers of energy. I think there's nothing available to them, so they have to milk it. I don't think it's because of their diet. I think it's because of their energy conversion rates. But like the jaguar jumps up the tree and is like, that sloth is my meal. Like that sloth has no options but to eat. None. Yeah, like he can't change his mind and burst. He's just, that's it. That's it. I wonder if they're bored constantly. If I move that slow, I'd be so bored. All right. What if your thoughts move that slow too? We could go on and not. Then they're never bored. All right. This is the real good stuff today.

37:38This is. Just like the conversation about flies reacting and moving so quickly and their lifespan is so short that you trying to slap them with your hand is just like a slow motion joke to them and they can react and move. Easily, we think we're so fast, but they're moving and fast forward. with their three-day lifespan. You maybe. I'm a fly assassin. We are sloths. The fly is like, these freaking Neanderthal idiots. Anyways, let's move on. Dylan asks, possible Q... Although, Kirk, I'm not moving on. By that logic, that slap is like a three-month stretch of their life. That's true. And you're not wrong.

38:22That's why you got to get... They were under attack for a year. They had time to think about their exit strategy. You know how to kill a fly, right? Clap directly above it. Clap directly above it. The only way it escapes is if it leaves the correct way, and it hardly ever does. It flies right into your palm and you squash it. Then you have to deal with fly guts, but that's delicious. Dylan, possible Q &A question. What would you guys recommend for tendon injuries? I've been dealing with posterior tibial tendonitis in my left foot now for a while. Also, any thoughts on orthotics? I believe I've heard you both talk about them before, and you were not very much a fan of them, if I am recalling correctly.

39:01First of all, go back and listen to our episodes on tendon regeneration rehab injuries. We've had several different doctors and PTs on that have talked about this, and they're going to do a better job than anything we can give in like a 30-second answer, but we will still give you a 30-second answer. Go listen to Dr. Jared Franciosa, Dr. Patrick Bottenfield, and Dr. Ben and Pete. In our past year and a half, we've had all of them on, I would say, roughly. And we discussed with, I think, all of them in some capacity, those things. Yeah. But the short answer is load them slowly and actually slowly in eccentric movement with weight and build up to more concentric work and isometric work and then return to plyo and then to activity.

39:57Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. That's what they respond to. Load them with weight. Yeah, load them. And holding isometric holds, negatives, respond very well to that stuff. Yeah. But there is some really good info in those episodes. And one of them, I think it was Dr. Jared Franciosa, maybe, who's an athletic coach. I think we went and did a deep dive on that with him. It was like the main focus of what we talked about. Which I think was one of our more recent interviews with PT. Brett. Are we talking to him twice or once? once. I've had Dr. Patrick twice where I interviewed him. You were out. I think I did out.

40:36Yeah. All right. Brett says, a quick question. I don't know if you guys talked about it. Someone that is conditioned and running. Brett, type full sentences. This is Brent Milks. He likes to just get his thoughts out there. So if I sound, I'm going to do my best. A quick question. I don't know if it, if you guys talked about it, someone that is conditioned and running little better than your average runner, what stops them from actually doing a sub 15 minute 5k. If he or she is sitting at an 18 minute 5k, is it the lactic acid that builds up to prevents that person to push harder? Or is it the type of motion to go that fast that they need to practice in it?

41:17And it could be for any distance, even half marathon. If someone's an hour and a half would stopping them from hitting sub hour. That was how it was written, but I think you get the gist. So if someone is not elite or sub-elite, they're just above average, what's stopping them? Why is this 18-minute 5K or stuck there and never going to be a 15-minute 5K or what's the barrier? There are two options. One's encouraging, one's discouraging. Well, one is the reality, unfortunately. Let's start with the positive. You might be under-trained. You might have a certain component to your training systems that are underdeveloped.

41:52It could be aerobic capacity. It could be anaerobic capacity. It could be biomechanical efficiency. But Kirk, the cold water on the situation is what? You don't have it in your DNA and you never will. You're not as talented. Yeah. It's like saying, why is someone playing their local band, but it's never going to play Carnegie Hall? Like it could be training and coaching and it could simply be that that's not your greatest skill set. Yeah. I think it's, I mean, here's the thing. I'm assuming in the vein of that question, he is saying, I'm training hard and with purpose and doing things relatively well.

42:27Like, here's the difference. Jakob Ingebrigtsen follows whatever he feels like doing. He has quality on Tuesday, and he has quality on Friday, and he does a Saturday long run, and he picks the workouts out of a hat. And the workouts, there's 200 workouts in this, and they're all over the place from tempo runs to 100-meter sprints. Jakob Ingebrigtsen runs, what, 1315 instead of 1259 by random selection. And I'm not, this is not hyperbole. I think you get Jakob Ingebrigtsen within 20 seconds of his capability in a 5k because of one reason and one reason only he's going to respond because he's talented as heck.

43:02Do you, do you agree largely with that point? I agree completely with that point. Okay. So Jakob Ingebrigtsen does the right double threshold training and does the right race pace work when it's time. and that brings him from literally workouts picked out of a hat running 13 15 to getting dialed and running sub 13 that's all the difference it makes so like the right training plan if you're training consistently and hitting one to two quality sessions a week taking all your other runs easy and hitting a long run if you have those components in your plan uh you are seeing close to your potential already the next training plan or trying double threshold isn't going to make you a 15 minute five care if you're an 18 minute five care who's training with regular purpose.

43:42It's just not. And so that is the very ice cold water reality of the situation. Sorry. And Kirk and I are the example of the dead middle of the road of what you're talking about. My first competitive mile race I ever ran in sixth grade was like 545. That's very fast for a regular person. My high school career, we trained 18 miles a week or something. All intervals, I ran 426. College, I trained beautifully for the last half of my career. And now I've stacked 15 years of running and I ran 418. All of that's very fast and it's not much different than each other. And it's light years away from what it would have taken to be elite.

44:23Light years. And so like we were above average from the start and we were below elite from the finish. Like there was never, we had a range of what we could do with our training, but to go from 427 to 418 and be super proud of it is a real thing. And it's also shows like, there's not that much difference in training in five years of work. That's keeping you injured or healthy. Five years of work. You went from 427 to 418 with more mileage. Technically 426.9. Okay. Okay. Let's get it right. But the point is we're above average and we are below sub elite and we can't change that no matter what we do with it.

45:01And the guys who come from soccer and run 415 their first year of track are going to be the 350 milers. Yeah. Because they were elite from the first time they ran. Same. I mean, and the version of the conversation is the reality. I know, like, I'm going to be circling the 15-minute waters and I'm never going to see 13 anything. No matter what, even if I quit my jobs and dedicate everything to it and I'm recovering, I might find 15 seconds. Maybe. Would you agree, Bracken? maybe I find 15 seconds. Yeah. 20 maybe. At most. I mean, I ain't going to cut it. I ain't going to cut it. So that's the truth.

45:39That is the truth. Yeah. All right. It is. The truth hurts. But there's gobs of time to be found in a marathon. In the shorter stuff, or the longer stuff, absolutely. But it still won't go from sub-elite to elite, or from average to sub-elite. That just doesn't really happen. And even that being the case, we do this all, and we listen to these dumb podcasts, And we still train and sacrifice sleep because it makes us better human beings. And life is more important than being a 15-minute 5K. As does, it's important to put in perspective, though, what a goal should be. 18-minute 5K runners should dream about 15, but shouldn't focus on 15.

46:16They should focus on 1730. 1759. The difference between 18 and 15 is a world apart. Just like between Kirk and I and 13 or 14 flat. Like it's a different universe. We don't think about 14 flat. I don't think about 15 flat. I would say 18 down to 15 is the same as 15 down to 14. Yeah. Or 13, 30 at most. Yeah. Okay. We're getting long-winded. We only have 10 minutes left. That's okay. Will. My man, Will. Will, I have been working with here for a while and Will is killing it. Lawyer by day. He just picked up running. He's running his first marathon. and he is one of the more dedicated people I have ever worked with.

47:00Will, you're killing it. Question for the pod. What are long-term attainable goals for the normal runner to set for themselves? Could be a marathon time. Could be a weekly mileage. Totally open for interpretation. Curious about your thought. So it sort of follows what we just talked about. Will, I can just speak to him specifically. Very interesting situation. Got his crap together, whatever that means to you folks. Decided I'm going to take my health seriously. lost a bunch of weight, worked his tail off to do it in the natural ways, picked up running, decided, I want to try getting faster. And your boy, Will, is getting faster, right?

47:36He's starting, gosh, Will, sorry, I don't know how old you are in your 30s, maybe 40. Anyways, so he's seen really good improvement early. But let's say his baseline is, let's say just for sake of conversation, his baseline is he started at a nine-minute marathon pace, right? That's where he's starting. So to piggyback Milks' question, does a super talented person start at seven-minute marathon pace? It's just like where their starting point is. Or does Will, who's let's say starts at nine-minute pace, can run seven-minute pace eventually? Yeah, this isn't going to be a super specific answer, Shocker.

48:15But I don't believe in putting a cap on progression. I believe in putting short-term goals in place. So when I say 18 minutes shouldn't, They should dream about 15 minutes, but they should think about 1730. That's what I'm talking about. A nine-minute-per-mile marathoner should dream about four minutes per mile, right? But they should think about, they should plan about 840 per mile. Right. Worry about step one. You just set the next attainable goal, and you don't stop setting the next attainable goal until it's become apparent that there is no next attainable goal from a time perspective. Then you change the event or you change the type of goal you're setting.

48:57But we don't know because there's plenty of stories of people that were overweight and ran certain time and now they're an Olympic trials qualifier. That's a thing. They just didn't know where their talent was to begin because they were so impeded by other things. So don't set a ceiling. Just set a bunch of sequential goals that are going to lead you to your ceiling eventually. It's a great answer. And that's what we've been – that's all you really can and should do, which is what him and I have been talking about. We worry about the pace targets for the next one. And then we worry about the pace targets for the next one.

49:26And we comb through, you comb through training data and say, this is indicating you are here and the progression continues. And where will it end? I don't know. I don't know where it will end. You see people, you're right. You see people go from a 430 marathoner who eventually break three and run in the 250s. You see it. Average everyday people who figure it out, whether they figure out the mental toughness side or the nutrition side, or they lose some weight. So it's a good question. As far as weekly mileage goes, I mean, you could be a 100-mile-a-week guy at some point if that's where it led you.

49:58He sure has proven his durability. We've had no injuries. I'm going to knock on wood as we've ramped up in any of this. So that doesn't seem to be a good factor. It's the same answer. Same answer. No upper limit attainable short-term goals that are going to progress you towards finding an upper limit. Being fast and high mileage do not have to be the only people that apply for that. You can be slow and high mileage. You can be medium and high mileage. Yes. I was reading the next question ahead of time. We're going to get to this one. It's about shoes. I think somebody might be putting me at my place a little bit.

50:30Oh. No, no, never mind. He didn't. No, he didn't. It's just if I were to be sensitive, I could take it that way. Matt asks, shoes. I'm a longtime competitive OCR athlete who has been all in on hybrid events since 2022. I have also been a running store employee since 2022 and thus have a lot of interest in your convos around shoes. I want you guys to dive in on super shoes once again. After the make a decision for life debate on plated versus non-plated, I must speak my mind. As Bracken said, the new wave of non-plated shoes with super foam and aggressive geometrics have taken over the training space.

51:06I feel there's a genuine confusion about what plates do for these shoes. My take, my store's take also, being plated shoes cause extra rigidity and thus extra load or calf complex. Most people don't need, capital letters, a plated shoe, but they hear their favorite podcast hosts say that's the only thing they run in and thus go out seeking new plated shoes. Most runners belong in a Brooks Ghost or something other boring trainer. For 90 % of the runs they do. This is not to be argumentative, just hoping to clear up the confusion most runners have that the plate is what makes them faster. My opinion being foam and geometry of the shoe is the biggest factor.

51:46Thank you guys. Love the pod. This is exactly how you approach a thought that may differ from ours. This is a very well-articulated and courteous question. So thank you for that. This is constructive criticism. This is wonderful. So two things. First, in defense of you, Kirk, all you could do in that question is take what you have in front of you and extrapolate it for life. You have a shoe that has worked wonders for you. why would you give it up? Right? Well, yeah, the spirit of the episode was there's no gray area. I have to choose. I had to choose, and I chose. I chose what I chose. But the reality is that this person is also right, and we're seeing things change right now.

52:32So I don't know if anyone saw, but the Adidas Adios Pro 5 just got released to run testers. And they have gone the route that the Evo Pro went, and they are replacing their glass rods or their carbon composite rods with an energy rim around the outside. This is a containment rim. It's just a perimeter. And all it's doing is giving shape to the foam and it's giving the ability for the foam to have energy return and structure. And so now the carbon plate isn't needed and now it's not overly rigid anymore. Or they're learning to tune the foams and give it just like the minimum effective resistance from a plate or plate-like object rather than the plate is the magic and we make the foam compensate for the plate.

53:20They're kind of doing the opposite now. So the shoes are going in a direction where it's going to be more holistic in there. And that's what every reviewer has said is that a lot of people are going to be able to use this Adios Pro because I can heel strike in this. I can run how I want. It's going to help me rather than the plate wants to be run one way. So he's right. Long term, we're going to see drastic changes in how these things are applied. And the carbon plate does cause as many issues as it helps. Yeah. Yeah. And I could never give that blanket advice to like the masses. Sam was talking about that.

53:56It works specifically for me. And there have been some very like super critical foams, pre-plate era where you're like, this shoe boings. This shoe gives me something back. Like I fully agree that the energy and then also some of like just the absorption capacity happens. It's the foam that's doing most all of that. The propulsion, the little extra icing on the cake comes from the plate. But it's certainly not necessary and probably much more safe and forgiving to be running in super foam sans carbon plate for sure. but there's a whole sector for whatever reason, like I don't struggle with lower legs, soft tissue issues and they can handle them.

54:37They even plate or no plate, you pair it with the right foam for me. And suddenly it's still a smooth ride that I don't even know the, notice the plates in there. And there's versions of shoes like that too. So he's totally right though. Most people should be plodding around and they're Clifton's. I'm over that shoe. They're ghosts or they're glycerins and saving the spicy ones. for their one pillar session of the week and maybe a quality long run. He's absolutely correct. Yeah. Do you have more to add to that? I'm going to shy away from talking more. I mean, yeah. You put me into a corner. What did you choose?

55:11That's what Trail is going to find, is they're going to get away from plates entirely, and they're going to find just ways to support the foam. I'm looking at the next question. It's just going to be a little bit more involved, and it's quite, it's three, four screenshots for the one question. We ain't doing that right now. Okay. Last one we're going to address is from an athlete. I work with Dave, David Kahn's, David got into the London marathon. This is very exciting. Going from Florida to London. He says, thinking ahead to London as my first true road marathon, which I'm still stunned. I got in first time via the lottery.

55:53Right now I plan on wearing the Hoka Clifton since I know that shoe won't wear me down on the back half. With the Clifton Pro launch, I'm very intrigued but have never worn any sort of super shoe. Question. I have eight months before the race. If I were to go with the Clifton Pro or any super shoe, how much acclimation would I need or should plan on? I also don't want to race in a new pair or a worn out pair used for training. Is there any rule of thumb on breaking in a new pair ahead of a race two times target race distance question mark excited and want to make the most of this opportunity i will answer quickly because i answered him in real time and then you can give me your answer and i said david buy that shoe yesterday and getting it immediately uh and you can use it for a pillar session of the week or a long run you want to use it right away and i said david heaven forbid this shoe works great for you then wear it out and get a new pair a month out and get a couple runs in it.

56:47And now you know your shoe and you know, it's going to work. And if it doesn't work for you, you have plenty of time to find other options. So the answer is like, if you're curious, like today is the day you start as soon as possible. Don't wait till the last minute. That is the last thing you should do. So that was my advice. I agree with that. Especially when people are traveling for races. I think there's no sense haggling over cents or dollars. when you're already traveling across the ocean. Yeah. It gets folded into the budget. If you can get there, you can get one more pair of shoes. That being said, I am really not sold on taking an existing shoe and trying to superize it.

57:29I haven't seen it work ever. We have the Mafate and the Mafate X. The Mafate X was kind of a dud. We have the Kinvara and the Kinvara Pro. The Kinvara Pro was kind of a dud. We have the Clifton and the Clifton Pro. and early reports are the Clifton Pro is fine, but it's kind of a dud for what you're paying for because what they do is they take an existing shoe and then they find a way to incorporate a plate into it. And that requires more things. And because it's not a purpose-built shoe, the shoe gets heavier usually. It gets bulkier and it sometimes loses the thing that made the original shoe work really well for people.

58:07So the Clifton worked well because of its geometry, because it's foam type and because of its weight. You change how the foam reacts when you put a plate in it. You change the weight by adding more to it. And generally you get a firmer, clunkier shoe that doesn't do what the original shoe did. And you'd be better off just finding a purpose-built super shoe. So that's my personal take on these. I think the blank pro version or X version or carbon version is almost always going to let people down because it'll never feel like the shoe you loved. It's better to have a totally different shoe. I have no experience in one turned over to the next, the second rendition of the super version of shoes.

58:46I could see how that'd be a thing though. But I still think it's worth a try. Clifton Pro, Costmore is heavier, is firmer, and is stiffer. All those things I just said are not what people loved about the Clifton. So it's a different shoe. You have to think of it as a totally different shoe. yeah that's if i had you're gonna pay 165 plus for that shoe if i had to spend 165 on a shoe that would not be on the list okay but every foot is its own foot see if you can test it out at a running store first i mean the alpha fly 3 is such a safe super shoe buy yourself a pick i found them for 129 bucks somewhere yeah go buy the alpha fly 3 i think it's a safe super shoe it's adios pro 4 pro 4 sure all of these things are on sale right now because all the new ones are coming out.

59:37Everything's on sale. Everything's on sale. Everybody gets a super. Okay. We're done today. This is it. We're finished with our podcast recording. I got to talk shoes. I'm happy. Yeah, you seem happy. I got to go. I'm going to go slog through a midweek long run, which will probably turn into a shortened recovery run. That's what I'm about to do. Good job. I have a leg builder tonight. Don't say good job. I haven't done it yet. You're heading out to do it. Intent means nothing. You don't know that. I was actually good jobbing the mindset of I might turn it into a recovery run rather than force the issue.

1:00:10Thank you, Bracken. All right, folks. Well, thanks for your questions. Thanks for listening. We've been getting still more questions, more messages in our runningpublic.com inbox. It's unbelievable the amount of people and interaction we have on our IG page, which we're not active on. So thanks for being interactive. It means people are listening and caring. It warms my heart. So we'll sign off on that. 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