Training Tuesday: Speed Maintenance for Ultras - Part 2

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. Bracken, are you going goth on me? Oh, you noticed, huh? It's been a theme lately, and now I'm beginning to wonder why Bracken Cracker has black fingernails. They're dark blue, Kirk. Okay, through the screen they look black. It's not coming through. I'm also colorblind. And there are lighter blue polka dots on it, which would not be a goth trait.

1:12I'm okay with it. I would love you the same. So you're not going goth. Then why are we consistently painting our fingernails or somebody doing it for you these days? Because Mira has opened her nail shop. Okay. And she's terrible at it. So I am a repeat customer so she can get some practice. It blows my mind. I've said it on here before, but she's so artsy. She's like artistically talented. she's a good painter. She's a good artist and she is horrendous at painting nails. She just slops through it. She has like no attention to detail. I don't understand it. I had to make her redo it three times because I wasn't happy with the product.

1:51Well, there are two other females in your house. Yeah, but they don't care. This is her nail salon. Okay. It's been like, I'd say in the last two months, your nails have been painted as often as they have not been. I would say when I see you. How does that serve you in real life, like grocery stores, at the racetrack, let's say? Got a lot of double takes at the racetrack. Is it a conversation starter? I know most people there at this point. Yeah, they understand. A lot of people there have kids. But the double take from everyone first, and then a smile and a laugh. I think if you just put eyeshadow on, or like a darkened like like eyeliner i think i think you would complete the look and it could be a niche like the goth runner dude like that could be like your new thing it could be that could be how you break through just keep keep an open pass pass keep an open mind bracken i forget about them though and then because i talk with my hands i notice people looking at them yeah i can i can see that and that's how i know because you bring your hands up to talk because I can only see you from the clavicle up when we chat and you're always waving your spirit fingers at me.

3:06And I meant to ask you about them earlier this week, but I didn't find the right time. So I figured I'd ask today. Yep. Yep. The salon is titled Nailed It and she has absolutely not nailed it. She's on the struggle bus with this thing. I don't get it. She seems to want an easy cash grab and she's not grasping the fact that if she's terrible at this, people aren't going to, word of mouth is going to kill her. I say, well, you're spreading this to thousands and thousands of people right now. So this is bad advertising. Don't go to nailed it. You will not get your money's worth. Toenails would be a safer start because you can usually hide those a little better.

3:41But all right. She doesn't want to touch my feet. I don't blame her. So what are we doing today? Well, we are doing, we don't do this very often. We are reacting to people's reactions to our last episode. The last time we did this, I want to say it was running math. We got some reactions. Running Math to date is one of the two most controversial statements or episodes I've ever made on here. We got the most comments and messages about that, mostly in good spirits, but yes. So I don't know what you're referring to because I haven't gotten the comments or questions. So you're going to spring these on me.

4:22Do you know what my other most okay so of all the negative messages i get or people just not being negative but messaging me to tell me i'm wrong outside of the running math episode what is the single most hated or controversial thing i've ever said on this podcast uh you do have some takes on doping and illegal drug use which i could see some people reacting to i get some messages but But I've never received an angry, upset, or generally people say wanting to educate me or wanting to explain why they use. I've gotten those after your rant. So that's not it. Is it going to catch me by surprise?

5:07No, this is one that people are actually upset about or just telling me, like, you're wrong. That's bad advice. Stop giving it. Tell me. I don't know. The cooldowns are overrated. The single most overrated aspect of running the cool down run. It was that it is the least bang for your buck. And if you have to cut anything, cut that. That was your vein. And I agree with you. Yeah. And then someone this week sent me a screenshot of a book they're reading. And they highlighted a section. And it says that an exercise physiology professor did this study and talked that a cool down does not reduce DOMS and the cooldown is largely a myth and highlighted it and said, there you go, you're justified.

5:51The cooldown is a great way to get an extra miles under duress if you're training for something long and healthy, right? It can be bonus mileage that can be very productive if you're running long stuff. But I agree, especially when you're lacking fitness or health and why add an extra 15 minutes if it's only going to set you back an extra day? Like, duh. Anyways, we're not here to talk about that, are we? I digress. We are not here to talk about something negative, actually. These were positive, genuine questions I got. Three from people that I work with and one from someone I don't, which the episode only went out yesterday afternoon to get four reactions, four people reaching out with a specific question about it.

6:34Tells me that I should at least pay some attention to the question. And so here we are paying attention to it. And so yesterday's episode was primarily about, or this week's episode was primarily about, can you and how do you maintain some semblance of top end speed while training for an ultra? Can you train for one, pivot around and know like, yeah, I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be fast after this. It just might take a session or three or a week or three. And they had questions about it. So I I wanted to react to those questions today. Classic. A lot of people asking. A lot of people asking.

7:14So two of the questions were a version of the same question. Okay. Well, obviously. And so I'm lumping those. You know how often I listen? First of all, I feel compelled to write podcast reviews when I'm not approving. They're doing a bad job. It doesn't really matter. But I never do it. I'm like, that's not a good productive use of my time. And the amount of time I have a question for something that I've heard and don't write in because I'm not going to take the time, but it crossed my mind. And if that happens to me, every podcast I listen to in which it does and I don't reach out, there has to be a multiplying factor of 10 on the people that do reach out versus don't.

7:58And so you have to imagine how many people have these same questions. So I'm glad that we're doing this, I think is what I'm getting at. Okay. So two of you who are listening are going to hear your question posed slightly differently. It's because two of you asked essentially the same questions and I'm combining them together and streamlining it. So that's what we're going to lead with today. So that's why your questions could sound a little different. And so the question is essentially, what is the fastest you would ever consider working at as speed maintenance maintenance for a long distance runner.

8:29So if you're going to do some sort of maintenance, we talked, you should do some sort of speed work, whether it's in disguise or not. What is the fastest pace or effort I should feel safe working at as an ultra runner? And then the opposite of that, what is the slowest work I can get away with that you would still consider enough stimulus to be fast when I come out of this? Which that right there, the first part is interesting. The second one is like the ultimate ultra runner mindset. Okay. If you're going to make me do it, how slow can I get away with going while still getting some speed benefit out of this?

9:01And do you have like, did you have concrete answers come to your brain right away? Because I do, as you ask those, I have them right away. Uh, the first, for the first question, how fast would I consider working? Like, would it be safe to go up to 800 meter pace or 400 meter race pace or whatever? I had a concrete answer to that and a very wishy-washy answer for the second one. Well, the first one I think we're going to agree on. And if we don't, great, We'll have a nice chat about it, but there's nothing too fast. I mean, other than all-out 100-meter sprinting, there should be no governor put on the pace work that you're doing, whether it's top end at the end of a stride or you want to run some 200s at the end of a session or to buy in because it feels good to open it up.

9:41I don't think there's a too fast range. If you want to slap something on it, mile pace is probably safe. But I don't even think it needs to be that. What do you think? My answer is the same. No upper limit. Don't be an idiot. I will say that the upper limit is as fast or as hard as you can run while being mechanically responsible. You don't want to pull a hamstring. You don't want to overstride and have something flare up in your hip. You don't want to tear a calf. What you should not be doing is doing standing still starts on week one, day one. You may never have to do a standing start ever as a distance runner.

10:21You should be jogging into this, accelerating, building up, and then have a gear shift and go. But the gear shift is the least important part of this. So you could take 100 meters to build up to the pace you want to run for 100 meters. You could take that much time. That would be my limiter. It's how fast do you get up to speed and then stop before you reach whatever stride it is that would take you a bridge too far. You just don't want to run poorly and you don't want to hurt yourself. uh i exclusively do rolling starts now i think that is age i don't think i do uh i shouldn't say that in longer stuff like if i'm gonna go for like two mile repeats or reps i'll standing start it but like anything that you would consider like speed work like outwardly i i'm a rolling starter now and you see all the pros doing it too by the way like when they're doing track repeats and everybody's rolling starting these days well it starting a race used to be very glorified.

11:17There was an amount of importance put upon how can you get off the line in a race. And Jakob Ingebrigtsen, I don't know if he's revolutionized. He's mastered proving that you don't need to start a race fast. And I think Mo Farah revolutionized how you need to start a race in order to be successful. Maybe some track head out there will find someone who did at first, but Mo Farah in championship races used to be famous for just dropping right to the back off the start in 5Ks and 10Ks, just right to the back. Jog off the line, move out, let people go past, just avoid the nonsense and not even come close to ever burning a match.

11:55And Jakob does pretty much the same thing. He almost never goes to the start or goes to the front. Even when he's chasing world records, he gets out quicker, but he doesn't snap into pace ever. Yeah. And so if they're not doing it, I mean, his 5K pace is faster than my college mile pace. So why did I ever have to? And I would say that in college, we ran 90 plus percent of our intervals as a dead stop. Yep. We did back then. But our 5K, 10K group rolled into everything. And I had a negative reaction to that watching it. Come on, that's not, you don't need to do that. And then later on, I re-examined that.

12:38Where did that come from? What was my logic for saying you need to start and work on, you need to get off the... No, that compromises the entire interval, actually. Yeah, because you start a race from a dead stop. So you just assume you should practice it every single rep. I mean, it's simple as that. But have you ever been in a race where you compromised your entire race by getting a poor reaction to the gun? No. No, because we're not sprinters. Yeah. And I ran primarily the 800 meters in college. Never once did my start matter other than indoor track. In the age. Where you do not want to get caught.

13:19Indoor 800. But that's the only time. You don't want to be caught in a weird position indoor. But that was more about holding your ground than it was like sprinting off the line. So anyways, no. That is a long answer. There is no upper limit. Just don't put yourself in a bad position. Well, I guess it goes back to just being smart with the rolling start. You don't need to blast. If you want to run your 200s under mile pace, it's not a blast off the line. It's a 20 meter rolling start into it. Hit your lap split when you cross the start and roll. I agree with you. But there were times in my last ultra build where I'm like, you know what?

13:58I'm just feeling sluggish and I just need to wake. I need to slap myself. and I threw in 16 by 400 meters with a lot of rest at some point, like as my staple session for the week even, because it was like I could just feel I needed something different. And those were all done faster than 5K pace. So yeah, do we want to give any more context or structure to that or just leave it at that? Leave it at that. I think that you err on the side of slower at the top end speed and slower at the starting speed. when you're doing these and let yourself comfortably build faster because anything you choose to do, if you're asking that question, how do I start adding speed in as an ultra runner?

14:42Any pace you choose is going to be a good stimulus because it's significantly faster than what you've been doing. So start easy and build it. The thing is to say you want to do, you're like, I'm just feeling sluggish and I can tell I'm losing turnover. You feel that way. And so you decide I'm going to go do four by 800 and then four by 400 and then four by 200, a classic track speed ladder, right? Even though you're in a 50 K build, heaven forbid you do that. It beats you up a little bit in its own way, but you're still going to go out on the weekend and get your two to four hours in on the trails and not lose or be any worse for it.

15:19So I don't even think it's, I don't even think you're giving much up. If it's the focus of what you're doing every week, I think you are. But like, if it's a, Hey, every third week, I want to move quicker because it feels helpful and important. You're not losing anything as long as you're doing the rest of your week as you would. It's not even a risk. You could call it very purposeful training. There's no downside other than injury. So you avoid that. In fact, if we go back to marathoning, ultra-marathoning, long trail racing, when we were in college and moving out of college, the pro groups were doing uphill all out, like 10 to 20 second sprints.

16:01Some of them still are. For muscle recruitment purposes, because they knew at the end of the races, when they were really fatigued, you're more susceptible to cramping or running out of just usable muscle if you haven't activated it along the way. Because they weren't doing high-level fueling and they weren't doing as much strength training or plyometric work. This was the olden days. They knew that sprint training was a way to activate things and actually bulletproof your legs for at the end of events. So you're actually helping by doing this, even not from an efficiency standpoint or a mechanical standpoint or anything like that.

16:41Even back in the day, the pro coaches used this in lieu of strength training or plyometrics. They would do it uphill and they would blast for 10 to 20 seconds. There you go. They still, people are still doing that. Yeah. I mean, they just don't in their own right, rely upon it from a strength standpoint. But yeah, really there's, I've never ever, this is one of the only things I can talk about and say this, that I've never, ever heard of an athlete adding this in and regretting it. Barring they stay healthy. Barring injury. Okay. And you shouldn't injure yourself doing it. If you don't work at the highest of limits.

17:16Um, yeah, I wouldn't be putting on spikes and going to the track. I would say we don't need to be doing that. Stay in your typical quality day trainer, right? If question for you, if you're not doing a standing start and if you're staying mostly within yourself, but you're pushing the limits, where are you most vulnerable for getting hurt from the first step you take to the last step you take? Where is your most vulnerable position in your mind if you're not doing a standing start? Well, I'm going to just say from where things have gone wrong with my knee, it's been reaching towards the end of a rep, actually, when I start to break down.

18:00But I'm having a good one, and I'm like, I'm going to lean into it, and I do. That's when something will happen. Yep. It is right as you gear shift to the last gear or right as you decelerate where you start to relax and let go, but your pace is still fast enough that it requires good, solid structure. Those are the only two points where you're really even at risk. So if early on you stop before the last gear change and you bring yourself in for a plane landing rather than a parachute landing, you're going to be fine. I'm glad you brought that up. So you eliminate one of the risk factors is what you're saying by rolling starting.

18:40And then, I mean, people do like to kick home on their last rep of something. And I'm still for that. But if your body gives you any sort of cue, like maybe not today, don't. Yeah, the speed work is not the time to set a record or have a great finish to a workout. This is not the time. And it's certainly not the time. Month one. I wouldn't even say week one. Month one is not the time to do it. No. So then I guess we got to get to the trickier question, which I still have a concrete answer to what's the slowest speed work I can get away with. I want to be pretty blunt about it, but I think it depends on your level of fitness.

19:20So I think this is a more of an it depends answer for me. Yeah. And that's why I said one of them is a classic, it depends. But let's start with nada, it depends. Let's just say if you had to draw the line and give a blunt answer, what would you say? I want to tell everybody 5k pace again, because I just think grabbing that efficiency is so important, but I'm not. I'm going to say that it must, must, must be faster than half marathon pace. Otherwise don't call it that. And I would rather you be even closer to 5k pace. So I guess I just made it muddy, but at minimum, but I'd rather draw the line.

19:55All right. I don't think it's speed work unless you're going 5k pace or faster there. I said it. I think we've got to be going 5K pace. We've done this episode, and this is the one we really, really struggled with giving a hard and fast line. But for the purpose of this, for coming out with real speed and efficiency, you're right. It's 5K pacer faster. But because I'm recommending doing this in such small little bites that they're not true workouts, I'm going to say mile pace. Well, so you're going to go even faster. Faster, yes. I'm going to go faster. That's the slowest fast stuff you should do.

20:33If I'm adding in 100, 200 meter intervals, uphill sprints, things like that, I don't think I'm getting the bang for my buck unless I'm running mile pace or effort or fast. Now, 5K is the answer because you could do what you did, which is 16 by 400 or 20 by 400 or 12 by or whatever. It was faster than 5K, but nonetheless. But if you just ran 5K pace for enough of those reps, that's enough to get it. But if people are doing short reps, 5K pace is not challenging for 200 meters. I agree. And you may never get to the point where you're actually recruiting a high percentage of your muscle fibers because you can coast 200 meters at 5K pace.

21:12Most people can't coast 100 meters at mile pace or 200 meters at mile pace early on. Eventually, you should get – I think every runner should get to the point where mile pace doesn't feel fast until you go longer than like 600 meters. That's funny. 600 oh look at us kirk but it should get easy but early on i think mile pace is the champ the first pace that's like okay i have to actually work even on a short rep early on but 5k stimulus is the right answer or fast i'm just i'm i seem like kind of a shit-eating grin on my face because because this answer is all that anybody needs to hear that's wondering what they need to do and it's actually run hard and actually run fast.

21:56It's like, can I get away with marathon pace? If I'm never even going to come close to that in my ultra, I'd be like, sure. But like, you're missing the point. We're missing the point. Now the, I might just give the opposite of the same answer that I gave for how to be safe. Like avoid the stride that makes you reach for speed on the slow end. Take the, it has to be the first pace that makes you leave your comfortable running stride where you start to like, I've got to engage to do this for you. It might be different than me. And it might be different than Lisa or Jess or our parent, like each, we're all going to have a different pace where we leave our comfortable running stride.

22:33Okay. There's that stride I'm running. If you just were on a treadmill and someone's bumping up the pace, tick, tick, tick, 10 seconds at each one, 10 seconds, 10 seconds, you're going to run your form and then you're going to run your fastest version of that form. And then one of those ticks up is going to make you change your form to now run. That's the one. That is the pace where speed starts at. I'm glad you differentiated between accessing it and systems work in a sense. Because I'm looking at it purely from a, my whole workout is designed. I'm doing five miles of this work today. How fast am I running my 800s when I'm doing 10 of them?

23:15And you're thinking - That would give you a different answer. You would say 5K pace. 5K pace. But what you're talking about, which is very so true, is like, if I'm going to do 10 by 20 seconds on a gradual hill, you better not be running 5K effort on that. You're going to be leaving a lot on the table. So you're absolutely correct. It depends on if it's an addition to a session or a quick stim on top of a midweek long run, or if it's your whole deal that day. Yeah. The other way to look at this, I think the two to three pace deviation idea works well for ultras where you're an ultra runner. So now move down 50K starts ultra one deviation down.

23:58I don't know. Do we count marathon as a deviation? Only if maybe because ultras are typically on terrain and marathons aren't. So there's a pace component, but I would say no, I would say half marathon still. If you're a mountain or technical ultra marathon is a pace deviation down. If this is a runnable ultra marathon is not a true pace, it's a half deviation. So you either go down to marathon or half marathon for your first deviation. And then 10 K is your second. If you're a technical or, or slow ultra runner, you're just doing volume. You're not doing anything else. 10 K is enough early on stimulus to pace deviations away that you're going to get something out of it with 400 meter reps.

24:35I agree. Now with 22nd hill reps, but you might need three, You might need to go down to five. If you're running fast ultras, you're running some rail trail ultra half marathon, 10k pace. I don't think that's getting you away from it enough. You need to do three deviations, get it down to 5k. And that's your minimum starting point where you are absolutely working at a foreign stride to what your typical training looks like. If you are a threshold based ultra runner where your quality work still does threshold or even if it's high in the threshold, well, call that 60-minute race pace. Now, one deviation down if you're fast is 5K pace, if you're slow is 10K pace.

25:20Two deviations drops you down to 3K pace or 5K pace. That's where the, again, this is the floor where it starts. So two to three deviations is a relatively safe place for day one, week one, in my opinion. Do you, well, first of all, two things I want to bring up. One, it's interesting because we were both, well, you were more of an 800 meter, runner, but a miler as well. We'll just call it 1500. I was a 1500. Uh, in hindsight, I probably would have been a good three care or five care as well. But, um, anyways, I was 15, eight, uh, in our 1500 meter training, let's call it mile training. We never, we like, what would three pace deviations below that be like a hundred meters?

25:57We are 200. We never did that. We only, the fastest we ran as 1500 meter guys was like 800 meter pace in our training, which I find interesting in hindsight. We only went once in a while, we might hit some flying 150s or something, but we never, it was like one pace deviation for us 15 guys. What did you guys do? Well, we generally did our quality work at faster than race pace. As did we. We almost never did race pace. So our normal work was a deviation below anyway, or half a deviation. I was running, my PR was 153. I mean, that's what, 56 and change per 400. So 28 seconds is race pace for me for a 200.

26:42I ran most of my 200s between 26 and 29 seconds. So add or a little slower. I mean, add or a little faster than race pace. but I think when you get down to shorter races, the deviations change a little bit. It just gets more cloudy. I don't even know if we need to spend time on it. I'm just reflecting back and being like, we ran our strides hard though. As did we, as did we. Yeah. We were running 12, I was certainly under 13 seconds for hundreds for our strides. That's pretty hard. That's hard. With a ramp up into it. That's hard. by the end of our strides we were one notch away from all outs you're running under 50 second 400 pace that's quick yeah yeah hey juice and we'd rip we had some some workouts we'd rip a few reps yeah but there's like the 800 the true 800 camp and then there's like the 1500 strength camp and that's what we all fell in um and we were for right so there's a difference we've raced up the mile um yeah anyway you're right though we didn't crazy exceed but our skill work that we had really exceed.

27:49And prior to, prior to reps, our strides got fast. Again, we did most of our strides stopping one notch below 100 meter race pace by the last like three or four strides. Yeah. Um, I was going to ask also then my second thing was, um, for your ultra, uh, athletes, do you prescribe true speed work as standalone sessions? Because I often, and I'll just set you up. I often do, and it may be once every three or four weeks, and it would be a pillar early week session. It's always coupled with a threshold session later in the week. So it's never a standalone, like that's all you're doing this week. But I often get comments like, why am I doing this 864 speed ladder when I have a 50K on the books?

28:34And I answered, of course, similar to how we're answering this today, but I do prescribe and it's not a pillar of every week, but it is in there. So we stay in touch. So I'm just wondering, do you ever prescribe the standalones? I would say not as often, not as much as I should. But when I do, I do it for people who aren't blasting downhill intervals. I do believe in the power of ripping downhill, like I talked about on Tuesday. So the people that get that are the ones that are not ripping downhill. So I guess my coastal athletes get it more. The people with big mountains get more speed work for me because when they rip a descent, it's a three mile descent, which ripping it means it's closer to flowing and you're just running hard and you're beat up by the work, but you're not like when we run it, I've watched you run.

29:25You ran, I think you ran a sub 50, 400 meter in a workout we did. Did you not? Or right around it? You were certainly sub 60. I think I ran like 53 seconds and that was after climbing. That wasn't just a, I think that was it. Yeah, that was an up and a down. To finish the rep. It was somewhere around 53, 52. Yeah. And I was holding on in like 56 or 57 seconds, getting dropped by you running sub four minimum. Like that's, that's what I consider ripping a downhill where you are using a stride. You would never, ever, ever use in a race unless you somehow had legs left on the final descent in the finish line was at the bottom of that descent.

30:03Like this, that is, it's a nonsensical. there's no race advantage to you running a 53 second downhill 400 and training other than we need to beat the ever loving snot out of our legs because we don't have three mile downhills to do that we were so for for midwest people that are doing that i don't prescribe much speed work we were one two on that segment for a long time and then somebody decided to log their downhill ski day uh oh and uh i don't i don't like i'm not going to take the time to go flag that one So we no longer hold the one-two position on that. Tell it to Lisa. She loves doing the Lord's work.

30:42Lisa, get to it, lady. All right. So anyways, but like Ian Floyd, for example, who we've had on here, I don't have his training up in front of me right now. But we've for sure been doing some one-mile race pace reps over the last six weeks. We may have got down to 800 meter, which is purely theoretical for a guy who is prepping for a 200-plus-mile race. like 800 meter pace is theoretical which i think is important here to note that we don't really care if you target a pace it's an effort it's an exertion that's a good point because most people don't really know what their mile pace is it's an effort like i believe i could hold this pace or this effort for six minutes we'll call it a mile etc it doesn't have to be a science i'm just checking here he's alternating some speed work and non-speed accumulate eight miles plus four by 400 meters at mile pace that's spicy what did we get up to four by we started with four by 200 at mile pace as a finisher uh these are finishers on aerobic days yeah five oh yeah we did get one we worked up to five by 150 at 800 meter pace spicy little nugget so yeah i i do it and he does 100 as i should uh yeah i mean cocodono was his last race okay 250 my bad 250 So this isn't race prep work, but there is some power to just being better at running fast.

32:10Sure makes running slow feel a lot better by comparison. He's not trying to pivot to anything fast right now. It's just get better at running fast, you get better at running slow. So do we have two questions on top of these or just one other one now or feedback from the episode? I mean, how many do we have to get to? So now we have one more. I just don't know how much time we could spend on this or not. Do you have more you want to say about that high end and low end? What's floor and ceiling for what you consider necessary stimulus for returning back to regular fast racing after an ultra? Well, I think I just want to add to that, that on top of that, like in my opinion, like the staple of whether you're training for a 5k or you're training for a 50k is like the threshold component.

32:56The, all the rage still needs to be like a large chunk of what you're doing. Even if you may not barely run in that in your ultra, like it still means like, should you be doing your float style work? Should you be doing your long interval reps? Should you be doing your in and out stuff? should you be doing quality long runs with 40 minutes of tempoing in it yes yes yes and yes and so like the classic mindset of being like i'm an ultra runner i'm just going to go out and run my six to eight miles i'm gonna do a midweek long run of 10 to 12 and i'm gonna go three hours on the trails and i'm just gonna get mileage and you are leaving so much on the table and so because you're just not working the correct systems at the correct intensities and so i think i just want to say that all that still like pretty high output work still must be done in these builds for you to see anything close to your real potential.

33:44So it's not like, I don't think any plan should not include that no matter what. So, and that would be, you know, like for me running threshold stuff, like I'm running half marathon pace. Like I have to run in the, whatever it is, five twenties to get the correct stimulus. Like that is still turnover work and feels like real work. And sometimes on a sluggish day feels like speed work. So like, I just think it's important to remind people that systems work, your zone four thresholdy, long grindy, floaty stuff absolutely should be in irregardless if you're worried about your speed or not. Yes, I agree with that.

34:17This is not something you are subbing something else out for. This is an addition you are sprinkling into your week. Nothing is allowed to get removed for this outside of maybe 10 minutes of that day's run early on. Yes. And I did want to note when I said, you asked, is he doing this as a buy-in? And I said, no, this is a finisher to an easy day. I wanted to explain why, because that's exactly the opposite of what I said in the episode, which was, as an ultra runner, get this done up front, fatigue your legs a little bit, and then go do your easy run or your long run. I wholeheartedly believe that works really well.

34:57But Ian's last race was a Cocodona 250. He took two weeks of R &R and then three weeks of returning to running plus doing strides. And now he's doing consistent build of miles plus some mini speed work at the end of it. What I don't want right now is to shortchange a warmup, do some speed work. Maybe something goes wrong. and even if it doesn't, now go do your run fatigued because we're trying to remove all lingering fatigue from his leg. So he's doing it at the end for now. He will switch over to doing it at the beginning of medium, long, and long runs once he's back up to full volume and feeling like, yeah, I'm fully back.

35:37So important to clarify because that would have sounded like you just talked about one thing and now you're doing the opposite. Yeah, last thing you want to do is fatigue a guy who's already fatigued before he goes out for his recovery run. Yes. Okay. Coca-Cola gave you all the fatigue you could need for the calendar year. Yeah. That would be a whole subcategory of ultras we could address someday, but I think there's very few out there doing it that are listening. But it shows how important this is to us and to him as an athlete that he requested this actually. He said, I feel like I need to work on some of this.

36:11This is a 250-mile runner, and we are working all the way down to 800-meter race pace. once now he's on a he's firefighting so he does his two day on four day off kind of shifts but once every six days he's touching 800 meter a mile pace love it freaking love it so it is important to us we do believe in it so we move to the second question comment yes so the second one was also a great question because this is a logical reaction to this episode is okay so let's say i'm prepping for an ultra and i want to do this you talked about the option to do it uphill or to do it flat, which one actually is there a better one?

36:52What should I be doing and how do I choose which one I'm doing? Should I be doing uphill really hard accelerations or 20 to 60 second reps? Or should I just head to the track and do this in a controlled place where I can not worry about my footing and just try to run perfect stride? Should I do this on the treadmill? What is best and what situation would dictate if I choose one versus the other? I love it. I assume this person asking and most listening are going to be on terrain with elevation change. Is that a pretty fair assumption with most of these? This was not an athlete of mine, so I don't know.

37:29But I have to assume if you're asking an ultra question, you're not the rare individual who's trying to do a road ultra or a pancake flat ultra. um so i think the best bang for your buck is in a vacuum on a treadmill uphill that's what i think is the best bang for your buck if you have to choose one not what i expected if i had to only pick one if i said you were only going to do flat stuff on the track or you or the roads are only do uphill and you you put my back against the wall i'm picking the treadmill in a vacuum and i'm taking, I'm taking that classic 16 by 400 meters with decent rest, like 90 seconds rest.

38:09Like I want to turn over. Great. Now I'm going to do 16 by 75 seconds uphill with the rest and I'm putting out and I'm at 15 % or more. I, if I had, if my back's against the wall, yeah. If I could do a little of it all, I would say, yeah, let's do that. But I, yeah, I'm going to say treadmill. So that's my bias lens. Remember what I said last episode? I said, in hindsight, I did these punchy uphill sessions on Fridays and then did long runs the next day on Saturday. And there's probably something to that why I kept my turnover. So I'm very biased here. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say.

38:44First is I don't disagree with you. Every point you made is solid. It's good info. The second is it's great how our bias shows through here because you keep defaulting to borderline full-scale workouts. and I keep defaulting towards mechanical speed. Yeah, that's a good point. So that your answer makes a lot of sense because you want to get a full interval rep in. 400 meters is a full interval range. That's a full interval duration. So you're choosing to do it in a place that is controllable, allows them to just focus on the work, and doesn't add pounding to their week. Assuming that, yeah, you're going to be on the trails later that week on the train you're racing on.

39:25Yeah, of course, that has to be balanced out, but yeah. I looked back by the way. So the best climbing legs I've ever had was pre Tahoe Spartan race world champs in 2019. And they got to the top of the climb in like ninth or 10th. And for me coming from here to go to altitude, that's real for me. I was three seconds behind Atkins at the top. Granted he was sandbagging his first climb as he does. But point being, I looked back, I was curious in this last ultra build. So like three weeks out, I did a 60 minute max gain on the treadmill, right? Which is brutal, but two weeks out four by four by 75 seconds uphill, just like the classic four by four by 400 meters.

40:06And just point being, it really translated well. And what did I do? I did that at 30 % power output anyway. So I was actually doing this in prep for that and it worked out very well. And I didn't even remember doing that session. I'm like, huh, four by four by 75 seconds. Interesting, Kirk. So continue. That's just a by the way. No, that's great. That's powerful stuff to hear. This was years ago and you were still translating your track speed workouts to a mountain. I was, yeah. And to people who weren't in the Spartan world, just to kind of paint a backdrop for that, to be top 10 to the top of the first climb at Spartan Race World Championships was legit running because we had in that race, there would have been one, if not two athletes who had been on Team USA's mountain running team.

40:53There would have been, I think, two individuals who have been on a podium, at least one who's been on a podium, multiple podiums and wins at Golden Trail Series overseas. And there would have been one individual who currently is running professionally for Salomon. Oh, no, the North Face now. And just was overseas racing last week. we had several individuals who have raced at a national championship for their individual country either on the track cross country or road so we had it was not the deepest sport in the world but the top 20 was legit and top 10 was pretty elite and they can all run uphill so to be top 10 to the top of the first climb which is it's a 30 minute climb that was real I can tell you it was ahead of me it wasn't just like oh I went to a tough motor and I got to the top of the hill it was killian hobie atkins kemson veerman john albin albin luna lima uh maybe botrys got there before ryan woods woodsy and then maybe it was on team usa yeah and so that would have been the crew i could be missing somebody in there but anyway it doesn't matter but ryan woods 1355k ran for nike farm team under gags and ran for team usa mountain running we know johnny luna lima he's currently running professionally we know john albin all world trail and ultra run like again like this is just albin was doing albin was doing 400s back then albin was going to the track and doing 400s weekly i believe wasn't he yeah at one point yeah it was when he was prepping for his road marathon he did uh but he was he's also a speed work believer yeah okay we can move on but uh well so what is your answer that's a guy who jumped into a road marathon earlier that year and ran, he hadn't run a road race ever, or this was his second ever, never run a marathon.

42:52He ran 226 on a course with either 800 or 1 ,000 meters of vert. So 2 ,500 feet of gain, yeah. Yeah, it was for sure over, it was at minimum 1 ,800, if not 2 ,000 feet of gain, and he ran 226 in his debut road race. Yuck. So what's your answer? Anyway, back to this. Okay, so my answer to this is different but the same. My answer to any question, which is if I could only run on one terrain ever for my quality work, for anyone outside of a roadrunner, my answer is uphill. Yeah. Because even if it's a slight uphill, I think it's better to get the full range of uphill work than to have no uphill work whatsoever.

43:35So I choose uphill speed work as well. I don't think there's any issue with doing it. In fact, more often than not, in some training blocks, I've done this flat. But finding a hill that you can run up, I think is so powerful. What you don't get on the treadmill that you get from outdoor speed work uphill is having to propel yourself in the rear chain engagement. And that's what I super, super highly value about uphill fast work, as well as the impact reduction. it's hard to hurt yourself uphill outside of that first spring into it step, which is again, why we, we roll into it. So you don't hurt yourself, but you have the impact reduction on the treadmill.

44:17I have it outdoor uphill, but I'm getting having to fight for it while you can run cleaner and smooth pace on the treadmill. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm good with the outdoor hill running. Of course. I mean, yeah, I just think logistically like it, like if you lived West, if you lived Rocky mountain long climbs and you literally went hard 75 seconds uphill and then just like chilled and then kept going and then descended for your cool down. Great. But like, I'm thinking logistically here, like I'm going to be to the top of the Hill already. I'm going to have to find a way to get back down, which is fine, but then it just gets a little more messy.

44:52But, um, but again, your shortest thing you would, can you'd be thinking about for these workouts would be the longest I'd ever program for this type of work. So I can even do it in the Midwest. And so what I would recommend doing for either of our situations for athletes, if they really want a holistic approach to this, is I would have A and B sessions. And A session would be like below, 6 % grade or below. And B session would be like 15 % or higher. I'd ignore douche grade for the most part. Maybe douche grade would be like perfect for the lowest, but something very, very runnable where I would run one week and the next week I would go very steep and I would thrash myself up the steep stuff.

45:38And I would just use that to round myself out. What do you consider douche grade on the treadmill? Because I've often asked myself this, like what grade, what percent incline is douche grade? Because 6 % feels like douche grade to me. I was going to say it's 8 to 10. Somewhere in there. I was going to say on a Nordic track, it's higher because it bounces down a little and that removes some of the incline. I was going to say anywhere from 6 to 10 % feels like douche grade to me. But I didn't even know. Maybe is there a technical percent incline that it actually is? Is there like a definition to douche grade?

46:08Looking it up. Hang tight, folks. Yep. Definition of douche grade. That is what I've Googled. A trail incline that is roughly... Oh, this is way tighter. Okay. Well, AI overview. So take it with a grain of salt. Roughly five to six percent. Oh, gosh. generally quantified at around 5.63 slope. Okay. So set your treadmills to 5.6 % incline. I didn't know 5.63. It's that much of a science. I'm learning something. You're going to have to use some shims to get that 0.63. Some shims. Let's see. Douche grade. Oh, a recent trail conference in Italy placed douche grade at about 5.63%. You can't say about 5.63.

46:56Well, there's like, you've already rounded to tens of hundreds, thousands and millions of. Oh, but there's, there's a secondary term, Kirk, tourist. Tourist? Douche grade. What's that? Just enough of an incline that you're moving uphill, but not enough that you'd actually notice. What's that? Like two to 4 %? Two to 3 %? I guess. I guess anything above zero and below 5.6%. So can you look up definition of tourist grade? Would that help? Would that get you anything? I don't think so. All right. I don't even know if this is a real thing. Sounds fake to me. this is important stuff yeah are there any other terms besides douche grade i never use any other term like what if a hill is 15 is there a phrase for that what if it's power hike and 40 is there a phrase for that this is just the one douche grade phrase and that's all we have to describe 5.6 i think i think that well it's interesting because i've heard of the goldilocks incline and that is whichever one is steep enough at which point hiking becomes more efficient than running but one of the sub definitions of douche grade I saw is that it's considered the Goldilocks zone where you're still able to like cleanly run up it, but it's still definitely a hill.

48:04So even Goldilocks got used in two different definitions. One of which talks about cleanly running. The second, which is when you can no longer cleanly run uphill, but hiking is hyper efficient. Approximately. Or as Goldilocks where you can hike or run and it costs the exact same. You know, we could make something up. I mean, we could come up with a running public dictionary and we could spread the word that way. We just decide. We can decide. So neither of us said flat, and I want to strongly emphasize here that flat is never a bad choice. I agree. But our target audience is going to be inherently less skilled at flat running and more fatigued from high volume, and so uphill is safer.

48:47And? And it really does drive rear chain adaptation. As a caveat, no, as a, as a, and, uh, don't be doing this on your technical trail. Like don't like the, you're negating the point. Like, let's say you're like, okay, I'm going to go do 400 meter repeats on my race terrain. Um, you're, you're missing the point here because of the nature. Now, is that still purposeful? Of course it could be purposeful to go run hard fast, uh, at intensity on your given race terrain. But when we're talking about like mechanical efficiency, like you can't be taking 90 degree turns and jumping over rocks like we're talking about true efficiency work like there's a place for a 45 minute trail tempo where the goal is get the heart rate up and keep it there and that's going to be half marathon effort or slower that's different yeah so i just want to be like we're not translating this to the terrain really at all no yeah you cannot run true speed work where your goal is to run well if you have to think about where your feet are hitting.

49:50I do not believe that. Maybe the most skilled runners on earth could, but even then it's not worth the effort. It's not worth the risk. You want to just forget about everything other than pure mechanics. And that right there would be the only reason I would say do it flat. If mechanics are one of your biggest motivating factors, you want to be a better runner, then it has to be a very slight incline, like 4 % or below or flat. I like your thing. If you have to worry about where your feet are hitting and paying attention to that for safety reasons it's not the right terrain no do run your technical terrain i will never deny people no you gotta be on it yeah but this is not the purpose of this workout so kirk have we done well enough to answer those two and a half three questions over the course of the last 52 minutes unbiasedly yes or very very biously yes but i'd like i would let you rarely hear someone answer a question about themselves by prefacing like, listen, I'm unbiased here.

50:47That was tongue in cheek. I would like to use you as the scapegoat for needing to have a very short weekend episode today, but it's my fault that I actually need to go now because I'm hosting family this weekend and I've got things to do. So I couldn't get to this recording as early as we needed to and that's my fault. So I'm so sorry, guys, that you're going to have to listen to two podcasts on your long run. It's my fault. Send me a message. Fine. Next week, I'm on vacation, but I'm making these episodes work. So you still have us both times next week, but who knows what the time duration is going to be.

51:21So get used to it. If anything resonated with you on today's episode and you're curious about taking your training to the next level, check out therunningpublic.com, where we have a training plan to fit your needs.