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11 | Training for Your Best Marathon with Aaron Boike
33 Plays2 months ago
Welcome Aaron Boike of Performance Running Gym to the show! Aaron is a great friend and mentor of Jacob. Together they are leading a training group out of Minnesota, this fall, that is gearing up to run the California International Marathon. This podcast was originally designed for the people within that training group, but is very beneficial for anyone looking to run their first marathon, finish their next marathon with a PR, currently training for a marathon, etc.
We talk about ALL THINGS relating to the training side of the marathon starting with the mental side, including 8 things Jacob wish someone would've told him before running his first marathon. From there, they dive into the tactical side of training items such as phases of training/their progressions, types of workouts to include in a training cycle, the 80/20 rule, strength training for runners, fueling tips, dealing with injury setbacks, and more!
This podcast was originally a live seminar that Aaron and Jacob did. The slides that go along with it can be found here.
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Transcript
Introduction and Seminar Overview
00:02:04
wegettodothis
Mr. Aaron Boykey.
00:02:07
Aaron Boike _ PRG
How's it going, Jacob?
00:02:08
wegettodothis
Going pretty well. I just finished an eight mile air. I was telling you I was running around with my head cut off a little bit because I'm very much in marath marathon season. Here we go. Perfect timing for what to talk about.
00:02:20
wegettodothis
And training's ramping up for me and I'm getting busier.
00:02:20
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Absolutely.
00:02:25
wegettodothis
And so this is, it's gonna be a good ah segue for us to talk about the marathon today. So, For those of you listening who don't know, Aaron and I did a seminar at Performance Running Gym about two weeks ago now entitled Training for Your Best Marathon. and We thought it'd be a good idea to essentially do the seminar in a podcast format again.
Listener Resources and Marathon Tips
00:02:50
wegettodothis
and If you were at the seminar and you're listening, obviously there was is a slideshow that went along with it. If you weren't there, the slideshow can be found at oakendurance dot.com slash PDF handouts.
00:03:04
wegettodothis
And you can download the slides there and follow along because this podcast is going to, you know, cover a lot of what we talked about and the slides are a nice visual aid for you to have.
00:03:15
wegettodothis
So training for your best marathon. You ready, Aaron?
00:03:19
Aaron Boike _ PRG
I'm ready if you are.
Aaron's Marathon Lessons
00:03:20
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Let's do it.
00:03:20
wegettodothis
Sweet. So today ah we're going to go over a bunch of different stuff. We're going to start with the mental side of the marathon. I'm going to specifically talk about the mental side and go into more specifically eight things that I wish I would have known when.
00:03:36
wegettodothis
You know, I was training for my first marathon or even my first like seven marathons, really. I feel like it took me ah a solid amount of rail marathons to really learn some of this mental stuff and, um, truly understanding, you know, why I was at the race in the first place and why I was training for it.
00:03:49
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, maybe we can get our listeners a little leg up on that trial and error period, right?
00:03:54
wegettodothis
Yeah. And, uh, and then we're gonna also, you know, speaking of the why, obviously Jacob here is very passionate about the why I feel like as long i'm kind of a broken record with that, because I've talked about a bazillion times now. So I'm going to also cover that. And then Aaron, and I'm going to jump in a little bit.
00:04:13
wegettodothis
as well, probably back and forth, we're going to try to make it pretty conversational, but we're going to then dive into the tactical side of training for the marathon. And injury prevention, mitigation, what do you do for recovery, nutrition, strength training, what's your base building period, like, you know, all of that stuff. So it's gonna be a good day. It's gonna be a fun time. And I'm hoping everyone really, really enjoys it. so We're going to go into eight things that I wish someone would have told me, Jacob Oak, when I first started running marathons.
Consistency in Training
00:04:44
wegettodothis
And we're going to kick it off right away with number one. One mile doesn't matter, but every mile does. This is a ah saying I came up with and probably a month ago and prepped for this seminar. And I was thinking about with all of the miles that we put into in training, there's going to be a lot of days where we wake up
00:05:06
wegettodothis
You know, maybe we want to snooze the alarm. Maybe we want to cuddle a cool down mile off a run. Maybe we want to shorten our long run, right? There's going to be a lot of days mentally and physically where you're going to, you're going to want to do that. Right. And I think it's important for our listeners to remember here that one mile doesn't really matter. If you, if you shorten one workout by a mile, if you snooze your alarm one morning and you start to run later, even miss a run, right? One mile is not going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of it all. Right. However.
00:05:36
wegettodothis
Every single mile really, really does. And I find that people fall into traps often in which they'll do, I'm going to, I'm going to skip this mile. And then that turns into two the next day and then three, right. And they fall into these traps of next thing, you know, we're at 50% of the total training plan we were supposed to do. Right. So that's number one, one mile doesn't matter, but every mile does remember that number two.
00:06:04
wegettodothis
something will come up. So this actually plays nicely off of this and off of that last one in the reverse almost because I've also seen a lot of people get really, really obsessed, for lack of a better word, with training. I got to hit every single mile. I can't miss any mile. I got to hit every rep. My coach does do four to six strides at the end of a run. If I did five, that's a failure, right? I've seen people fall into that trap too.
00:06:31
wegettodothis
All right, again, I'll remind you, something will come
Learning Process vs. Goal Achievement
00:06:35
wegettodothis
up. You will miss things. One mile doesn't matter, but every mile does. One and two play together very nicely. Number three, hitting one goal. This is an important one. Hitting one goal is far less important than what you learn along the way. And I don't know if, you know, it's partly because you and I are starting to just dive more into content creation or what, but I feel as though that specific message is growing. This idea that what you're learning along the way, the process, right? In training, that's way more beneficial and valuable to your life than the marathon you do at the end, right? Each day, each training run along the way. You know, we're talking about potentially six months plus of your life that you're dedicating towards an A race, right?
00:07:29
wegettodothis
You are going to be a different person when you finish that period than when you started. it And I think that sometimes it's hard to remember, but hitting one goal is just not as important at the end as what you learned throughout that whole process.
Avoiding Obsession with Numbers
00:07:44
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Absolutely.
00:07:44
wegettodothis
That's number three.
00:07:45
Aaron Boike _ PRG
It's all building towards bigger things anyway, right? So that one goal is far less important than the process. I agree.
00:07:52
wegettodothis
Number four, focus on effort, not on numbers. This is a huge one. I think Aaron and I both learned this lesson last spring.
00:08:04
wegettodothis
I don't know if you would agree with that, Aaron.
00:08:06
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, I definitely agree with that.
00:08:08
wegettodothis
ah we We both were coming off of a pretty good fall season and we're obsessed with chasing sub three in the marathon more than, you know, anything else, essentially.
00:08:22
wegettodothis
and just kind of got do bogged down by that that number. So like in workouts and whatnot, both of us were struggling on pretty much every single workout because we weren't hitting, quote unquote, the number we wanted.
00:08:25
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:08:32
wegettodothis
right Effort was maybe there. I don't know. I think a lot of times it was max effort for me trying to hit numbers, right? And that's a whole different conversation. But we weren't focusing on effort.
00:08:43
wegettodothis
you know we would go do ah If we went and did a training run and we were 10 seconds off our goal pace, that was a loss. That's not a loss.
00:08:48
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yep.
00:08:49
wegettodothis
right so I think as coaches, it's it's important for us to remember that too sometimes to focus on the effort, not the numbers in training. And that's why I like to work in ranges.
00:09:01
wegettodothis
And I know you're big on heart rate specifically, and we'll talk about that too, but it's my kind of two cents there.
00:09:06
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
Community Support in Running
00:09:09
wegettodothis
Number five on the slides, you'll see it's a community greater than. Another very big aspect of my life and career is hitting goals is cool and this could be even entrepreneurial, right? It doesn't have to do with running, but the people you're with are so much, so much greater than hitting one goal alone, right? I mean, if you think about the times where you've accomplished something and you're just at the finish line alone,
00:09:46
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. I think about last spring, I think we both ran into this trouble where we were so obsessed with this one goal, right?
00:09:47
wegettodothis
Right.
00:09:52
Aaron Boike _ PRG
We were so obsessed with this outcome. And for me, that meant not doing many workouts with friends. I wasn't able to jump in on other people's workouts.
00:09:58
wegettodothis
ah
00:09:59
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Cause I was like dialed in to say, I need my exact paces, blah, blah, blah. In reality, I think that took away from the experience and, and led to burnout more than anything. I don't know. What do you think?
00:10:09
wegettodothis
I agree. exactly I and did so many of my runs alone last year, last spring. And I'm such an extrovert too. And it's just, I got too fixated again.
00:10:20
wegettodothis
I'm like, I have to do this exact workout. Where for the past, I don't know, three months now, you know, it's end of September, I've been so much more focused on just running with the other people when I want to, essentially.
00:10:35
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:10:35
wegettodothis
It just makes it so much more fun.
00:10:37
Aaron Boike _ PRG
I mean, I know you and I, the closer we got to grandma's race day, even though we were both racing the same race, we got more and more disconnected because your coach said, you know, X, my coach said Y. And we were both like, well, we got to do exactly what our coach says.
00:10:50
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Cause our, you know, our goal is ironclad and is more important than anything. And I think we both learned a lesson there. Like the community piece really is important to us being successful, being able to run with other people, being able to get uplifted by other people.
00:11:02
Aaron Boike _ PRG
It's not a negotiable.
00:11:05
wegettodothis
Right. And I think you bring up a good point too with that specific, uh, what you just said about we, our coaches wanted us to do X. And I think this is a valuable learning lesson for us as athletes, but then also our athletes we coach and any, you know, anyone else.
00:11:21
wegettodothis
I talked to my coach about this specific problem. And what's interesting is he was very big on me ah focusing on community. He's like, yeah, and dude, if you want to move your runs, if you want to drop a mile to run with someone, if you want to completely you know change your workout, like, yeah, that's all good. That's totally fine. and I know you've talked to me about how your coach is cool with that. And you're just jumping in with a lot of my workouts right now, like every other week or whatever when we're doing them. And I know all of my athletes, I tell them all the time,
00:11:50
wegettodothis
You know, for example, if you, if you have a long run of 10 miles this weekend and there's a trail group run and they're doing two hours, you know, and you want to go to that, go to that.
00:12:02
wegettodothis
Yeah. It's a little bit different, but it's not that different and you get a different community factor from it. You know, so I think that's something too.
00:12:08
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. I mean, message to the athletes that we work with or or might be working with in the future is make sure that your coach knows, you know, I think that's what it came down to for both you and I this summer. jacob Our coaches, we just said, Hey, like, this is an important thing for us. Um, and, and open to that communication line and they understood and they can relate to that. Um, but if you don't tell your coach, you know, if you, if if my athletes don't tell me or your athletes don't tell you that that's a priority for them and they want to go to XYZ run, um, we're not going to build it into the program because our goal is just to build up the best program possible. But of course we want to do that in whatever context is going to make you most successful. And for most people that includes community. So just make sure your coach knows.
00:12:48
wegettodothis
Yeah, I agree. Number five, community. Great, man. Number six, this is one of my favorite ones to say because it I feel as though I sound a little blunt and mean when I say it at first. The marathon doesn't owe you anything. Pause for effect. Let's say that again. Number six, the marathon doesn't owe you anything.
Respecting the Marathon Challenge
00:13:12
wegettodothis
This is where we blur the lines a little bit of like, almost like therapist psychology realm. I really think a lot of people get into this, this trend of running away from things and you don't, if you don't want to think this deep, fine, skip ahead like a minute, but here's the thing. A lot of people will think that and they'll fall into this like, you know, subconscious thing of I'm going to run a lot and I'm going to do this marathon and it's going to reward me. Right. And that's just not the case. It's.
00:13:41
wegettodothis
a marathon, they're extremely, extremely difficult races. And we need to respect them from that mental aspect of it's not going to solve any issues we have. And then also we need to respect it too, in the sense of from a physical aspect, you can do all the training in the world and you can hire the best coach.
00:14:04
wegettodothis
You can eat amazing, right? You can do everything that you need to, to line up on race day feeling like a hundred percent and you may have a bad race. Like that can happen, right? So I just think having the understanding that the marathon, it it doesn't owe you anything. Running in general doesn't owe you anything, but um you know, I think, I think that's a big thing that we often skim over as well.
00:14:28
wegettodothis
Number seven, the marathon doesn't get easier. You get stronger. A little cliche, I realize that, but for the person out there who is maybe on their second, third, fourth, fifth, 10th plus marathon, whatever it is, understanding that, again, you need to respect this distance and you need to train for it adequately because it doesn't get any easier as we you know move through our training and as we move through
00:15:01
wegettodothis
life and whatnot, right? So you get stronger, but as you get stronger, you're still covering 26.2 miles.
Appreciating the Opportunity to Run
00:15:08
wegettodothis
It's a hard thing to do.
00:15:10
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Still a long way, no matter which way you slice it.
00:15:13
wegettodothis
Right. And number eight, personal favorite of mine, we get to do this. Remember that no one is making you do a marathon. No one's making you train for a marathon. You get to do this becoming clear on on, you know, why you want to do it in the first place is important. And we'll get into that in a sec. But remembering that, you know, we get to do this. And, uh, I know like Erin, you and I have talked about this at length, but it's pretty, it's pretty cool to be able to run an hour every day. There's not many people that can do it. Like, you know, we're talking about that on Tuesday. Not a lot of people can do that. Right. It's cool to run a mile every day. Some people are running two hours every day. Right. So just.
00:16:00
wegettodothis
Don't try to take it for granted.
00:16:02
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, it's so easy when you're in this world to get wrapped up in what other people are doing, right? And we're, as distance runners, we're surrounded by awesome individuals that are able to, you know, do amazing things and have these incredible capabilities. Um, and it's like that Instagram effect, right? Like we see what everybody else is doing and we compare ourselves to them. But in reality, if we're comparing ourselves to just the average person, whoever's person who wants to be active, like.
00:16:26
Aaron Boike _ PRG
The ability to run an hour is an amazing thing, right? And to to be able to run a marathon is this gift that like what 1% of the population is able to do. Um, and a lot of us are chasing goals that are, you know, a small fraction of a percentage of the population are ever going to be able to accomplish. So we can't take that for granted. Like that's a gift. That's something we, we owe gratitude to the universe or whatever we believe in for, because it's not something that everybody just gets to do. Like this is a privilege.
00:16:57
wegettodothis
Damn spoken from Aaron boy. He, the man himself, that is good. Real content right there. You're going to see that on Instagram. I promise you that those are the eight things. Listen, listen back on them. Think about what resonates with you just because there are eight things that I think I wish I would have known. Doesn't mean the right things that you necessarily need to know, but I'm sure one of them will resonate with you. So whatever one that is focused on it.
00:17:28
wegettodothis
Lastly, on the mental side of things, i the more and more I've been in this field, the more I've realized how important having a good understanding of why you're doing anything is so important.
The 'Why' of Marathon Training
00:17:43
wegettodothis
And I think oftentimes, there's you know there's a chart on slide four here that I'm referencing. we We focus kind of on what we're doing. So we sign up for, say, California International Marathon. And then we start talking about how we're going to get there.
00:17:58
wegettodothis
I'm going to hire a coach. I'm going to run 30 miles a week, maybe peak at 50 miles a week. I'm going to do a speed workout every week and I'm going to do a long run up to 18 miles. And I'm going to eat this. I'm going to get this much sleep, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then you get to the race or you get to even a long run in training, right? Cause it's more about training. You get to a long run in training or a workout at some point when it gets hard and you have this epiphany of why the hell am I doing this? It's hard.
00:18:28
wegettodothis
Right. And you have a decision to make there of keep moving forward in this long run or workout or not. And that's where the why comes into play. Understanding why you're out there in the first place and those hard moments. It's crucial. Again, getting up at five in the morning on a Saturday because you have a busy day and you have to fit in an 18 mile long run. That is not easy or normal.
00:18:59
wegettodothis
And it is very easy to not do that. do that right So we need to think about why are you doing that? As far as developing the why goes, an exercise I talked about at the seminar was go on a run sometime without headphones, start a run, and ask yourself, why am I running today? And then go run.
00:19:24
wegettodothis
And just think about that for a while. And then when you get an answer, ask yourself why to that. Five whys. So the five why game is the is the is my favorite for that.
00:19:37
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Awesome. Yeah. That's something I do with, uh, you know, every athlete that I work with, I work with mostly ultra marathoners. So people that are going beyond the marathon distance, a lot of them do marathons too, but, um, you know, we do races that have a drop rate above 50%. I mean, I have clients training for races that have a drop rate above 70%. Right. And if you don't have a strong why at these events, like just statistically speaking, you're likely to be a part of that drop rate. You're a part of it, part of that DNF statistic that DNF is did not finish statistics. So.
00:20:06
Aaron Boike _ PRG
I have all my clients right down there wise. I think it's so important. It's an exercise that's good for any type of athlete. They'll write down why you're out there and make sure you're reviewing those before your event, but also before your training runs. Like when you have a hard 18 miler and you're kind of questioning that decision, like what brought me to this point where I'm going to go out and spend three hours on a Saturday to go cover 18 miles on the road. Um, it's going to help to have those things written down and thought through, um, cause you're going to be believing in that you're doing the right thing. If you've got those wise thought through.
00:20:37
wegettodothis
I agree I love it.
00:20:40
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Awesome, so let's let's start talking a little bit about the nitty gritty of how we're actually gonna get this thing done. We've got our why covered. um We've got those eight reasons, eight things that are gonna help people kind of make good decisions as far as how they're executing on their training, their preparation, et cetera.
Marathon Training Phases
00:20:55
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Now let's talk about the details. So a typical marathon progression's got kind of three different phases to it. um The one that I think is the most neglected, and Jacob let me know if you agree, is that base building phase.
00:21:08
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, that base building phase, that's eight to 12 weeks where you're working up to that kind of 25 to 30 miles a week of easy base miles. It's okay to incorporate some intensity into that, but we're talking primarily base miles, probably like, you know, 90, 10, uh, or closer to a hundred for some people, just easy miles. And the goal here is to potentially prepare your body for what you're about to go through with the training phase.
00:21:35
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and Jacob, I'm sure you've worked with those athletes that just jump right to the training phase. They probably sign up with you, uh, as for, for coaching at, you know, let's say 12 weeks out from 10 cities marathon. Uh, what happens to those people, Jacob?
00:21:51
wegettodothis
Oftentimes the race doesn't go that well. And as a coach, that's hard. And actually as a coach, not to get off topic, but I've found I've gotten more comfortable now in those initial meetings telling them we have a problem right away.
00:22:06
wegettodothis
Whereas before I would have said, Oh, I could do this for sure.
00:22:06
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:22:09
wegettodothis
And then you get to the race and then the problem comes up, right? Uh, and you know, again, they may have done their base, but a lot of times it doesn't go amazing.
00:22:18
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. So, so, I mean, I think kind of lesson learned here, not that we're just trying to make this a big promotional podcast, but if you are going to sign up with a coach or started or, or, or think about that type of, uh, you know, training help. Don't do it 12 weeks out from your race, start it during the base building period. You know, if you're training for grandmas, now is the time to contact that coach. They'll be able to help you a lot more if you do that.
00:22:40
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, but nevertheless, no matter how you're approaching your marathon eight to 12 weeks before you start your training phase, you should be working up to that 30 miles a week. So, uh, again, for those that are training for like spring races, realistically, they should be starting to think about that base building phase. Like now, um, next phase is going to be the training phase. So this is what most people think of as like the marathon training block. And this is 12 to 18 weeks.
00:23:04
Aaron Boike _ PRG
where we're really focusing on race pace and volume building. Um, so there's really a couple elements in that and we'll talk about those in a second. And then lastly, of course, is our taper phase and that's two to three weeks where we're focused on recovery, decreasing our volume and getting ready for the best race performance possible.
00:23:21
Aaron Boike _ PRG
So let's talk a little bit about why we have these three phases, why they're beneficial in the first place. Um, so the first one, obviously we talked about that base building phase and our focus on this is building a foundation of primarily aerobic low intensity miles. So this is going to be 90 to 100% of our volume at or below zone two.
00:23:43
Aaron Boike _ PRG
We think zone two, that's really where our body is going to be in that aerobic zone. We're burning primarily fat for fuel. Um, and there's a couple reasons why this is really important to go through. This phase is really important to go through and it's important to go through with low intensity miles. And we'll talk a little later in the podcast about how to determine if your miles are low intensity, you know, moderate or high intensity.
00:24:08
Aaron Boike _ PRG
But why we're doing this primarily is to increase our capillary density. So that's literally our body's network of capillary um arteries that are delivering oxygen to our body. That network gets stronger when we focus on low intensity miles and we're doing that with longer duration.
00:24:28
Aaron Boike _ PRG
That's again why we have that eight to 12 weeks before our training phase. In addition to that, we're improving our body's ability to burn fat for fuel and metabolize oxygen. Super, super important. A lot of people think that a marathon is this high intensity anaerobic type ah event.
00:24:47
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Anaerobic meaning like without oxygen. Um, and it's just not true. It's, it's a highly aerobic event. Even a one mile race in reality is about 90% aerobic. So if people are jumping right to that zone three training, which is what a lot of people spend the majority of their time in, they're missing out on all of the benefits of an improved aerobic system. So we want to spend that eight to 12 weeks with primarily low intensity volume at or below zone two.
00:25:16
Aaron Boike _ PRG
In addition, this is extremely important for injury prevention. um i think you know Jacob, I think my biggest problem when I deal with athletes that come to me you know just 12 weeks out from a race, of course, I'm going to do my best to help them and I'm going to get them to that goal.
00:25:30
Aaron Boike _ PRG
but I tell them up front, Houston, we have a problem. like You have not been putting in the base miles up to this this point. We have 12 weeks to marathon race day, and we're gonna have to ramp things up a little quicker than I would like to ideally, because that base building period is where we're laying a foundation for strong tendons, ligaments, muscles, um all the things that are gonna support our joints and are ah keep us injury free.
00:25:58
Aaron Boike _ PRG
If we don't have that period ahead of time, we're definitely increasing our risk of injury substantially. So, you know, if somebody does come to me or or comes to you Jacob with like, so let's just say just 12 weeks out, we're going to try to mitigate that as much as we can with like strength training and the you know proper things that help them kind of hack the system. I guess it was what we would say, but nothing is going to be quite as good as that proper base building phase. So we're, we're improving our physiological, um,
00:26:25
Aaron Boike _ PRG
approving our body from a physiological standpoint, getting ready for that training block, and then we're also having huge benefits in terms of injury prevention. the second phase, now jumping into the training phase. And this is what people think of as like the meat and potatoes of the marathon plan. So this is 12 to 18 weeks out from marathon race day. And at this point, our focus should be shifting. We've already built up our base. We can already run 25, 30, maybe 35 miles a week confidently. Um, and now the goal is to focus on developing speed and be getting
00:26:57
Aaron Boike _ PRG
confident with our goal race pace. And this typically is going to involve some tempo work. So this is bringing in temple work of one to three workouts weekly. Um, Jacob, for you as a coach, how many temple workouts do you have your athletes working with and and how do you determine um how much tempo they're going to be doing versus low intensity within that training phase?
00:27:18
wegettodothis
it It depends a little bit on the person, but generally following the 80-20 rule that you're about to talk about, 20% of the mileage is at that harder effort, but that could be tempo or it could be strides or it could be anything else. So as far as how many tempo runs a week, I very regularly will have someone run an up-tempo run more than two times a week, and that would typically be a Tempo threshold, you know earlier in the week and then maybe a long run with some tempo ask work, but that's Pretty pretty rare.
00:27:52
wegettodothis
I would ever go above that Correct
00:27:53
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. So kind of what you're telling me is like, it kind of depends on the person, right? Not everybody's going to fall into the same, exactly the same protocol, but you know, working roughly with that 80 20 rule is kind of where you start. Yeah. And I think this is a big lesson learned for, for people that are looking at, you know, runners world magazine or looking on, you know, the internet asking for, for finding training plans. Um, you might not fit with that training plan perfectly. That training plan might have three tempo workouts a week. It might have two might have one that might not be right for you. Some people recover faster than others from up-tempo work.
00:28:28
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, I personally have discovered over the years that I worked the best with higher mileage plans that include more like 10 to 15% of my workouts at intensity. So I'm a little bit below what that norm is.
00:28:41
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and I think that's something you just have to figure out for yourself, something that a coach can certainly help with as well. And then.
00:28:47
wegettodothis
Right. And I, I also think that's worth mentioning, you know, for you and I specifically, we'll put numbers so people can kind of visualize this. When we talk about speed, tempo, whatever um are like, I would say bread and butter.
00:29:03
wegettodothis
you know, pace where we could kind of hold like our marathon half marathon pace, we could kind of hold all day is like maybe 730 ish right now, right? 730 to eight for both of us feels pretty stinking comfortable, but it feels like a little bit of tempo, right?
00:29:19
wegettodothis
It is very, very rare that you and I are running that pace in a workout, right? Most, it's very rare. And this isn't a base building season and I'm doing some like random pickups, right?
00:29:29
wegettodothis
But for like training phase specifically, we're usually either running slower than that or faster than that.
00:29:33
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Mm hmm.
00:29:35
wegettodothis
And I think that's another thing that people, ah you know, fall into is they just always run in that middle zone, you know, that gray zone, if you will, because honestly, it feels good.
00:29:41
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:29:44
wegettodothis
So I mean, you know, I get it. It feels good. You finish every run. Yeah, I'm running 745s for every one run, right? But that's the zone that you already kind of have mastered, right? If you want to improve, if that's what you're looking to do, then you need to run faster than that. And then those easier efforts, running those easier efforts allows us then you can run faster than that middle range again.
00:30:07
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, absolutely. and And kind of what the training paradigm based on the research is kind of yeah that we've gotten out of the research is that that middle zone where you feel like you're working kind of hard or it's a little bit up tempo. So let's say, yeah, like that seven 30 pace for us. That is like the gray zone, right? There's not a lot of good that comes with that um because we're not working at a low enough intensity to build up our aerobic system.
00:30:33
Aaron Boike _ PRG
We're not working at a high enough intensity to build up our anaerobic system and have neuromuscular development. It's just kind of this place of stagnation. So there is probably some value to spending time around that pace, but that's going to be few and far between, you know, maybe including that in a couple of runs where you're just focusing on race pace towards the end, but that should not be your bread and butter pace. Absolutely not.
00:30:56
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and then yeah, kind of the last thing with the training phase is building those long runs, of course, you know, building up in distance to prepare for the demands of 26.2. Most people are going to build to a long run, some between 18 and 22 miles. Um, and I think, you know, a lot of, there's a lot of different factors that determine what your longest long runs should look like. Um, I personally, you know, and I'll bounce this off you, Jacob, I personally don't like to have runners spending a lot of time above three hours. I think there's diminishing returns. What do you think?
00:31:25
wegettodothis
Yeah, again, it depends, right? I think that, I don't know. I like to use the the number of 90 minutes for people to just understand that for the most part, once you get past 90 minutes and sometimes even an hour, that's when you start doing a lot of drastic damage, drastic compared to under 60 minutes, especially if you're not fueling, especially if you're not recovering correctly, things like that. And so, um,
00:31:54
wegettodothis
I think it's more of like understand maybe that 90 minute threshold line to consider like a longer run, like just having that understanding. And then as far as like in training goes, again, it depends a lot on who you are and what do you need.
00:32:08
wegettodothis
I have some clients who they have to run a 22 mile long run before they do a marathon. And I've tried to talk them down from it, but I just have to do it.
00:32:17
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, it's a confidence thing.
00:32:18
wegettodothis
And you know, so, and then I have other people who are cool doing 16. You know, so I think it it depends a little bit, but, uh, it's, yeah, I don't, I don't think I have a lot of runners going above three hours in a training round though, if ever.
00:32:33
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, I think generally speaking, people put too much stock into how important the long run is compared to the rest of their week. You know, I think that people really should be trying to spread their mileage a little bit more and, and certainly not having like, I think the gold standard rule is that not more than, what is it?
00:32:40
wegettodothis
Yeah.
00:32:47
Aaron Boike _ PRG
20% of your, uh, or is it 50, 50% of your mileage, more than 50% of your mileage shouldn't be your long run. So if you're running a 40 mile a week, is it 20?
00:32:55
wegettodothis
It's 20, yeah, you got it right.
00:32:57
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Okay.
00:32:57
wegettodothis
It's 20, yeah, usually.
00:32:59
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Us ultra runners, we don't follow the rules anyway, so I don't need to know them, but ah Um, either way. Yeah. Like you shouldn't be putting in significantly more than 20% of your weekly mileage in your long run. So that's a kind of a good rule of thumb. Um, so then let's talk about the taper
Taper Phase Importance
00:33:14
Aaron Boike _ PRG
phase. So this is, this is probably the least exciting phase, but it is important. Um, you got two to three weeks before your marathon race day, where we need to focus on reducing volume in a progressive manner, roughly 30% per week to allow the body to recover and be prepared to perform on race day. Um,
00:33:31
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And usually during this time frame and this is backed by research we want to try to keep some intensity in the program during the taper phase i think that's a mistake that a lot of people make is they um decrease their volume and lose all of their intensity take their intensity out altogether.
00:33:46
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And really the, the marathon, there is an element of being sharp, I guess is the best way of thinking about it on race day. So you don't want to drop all of that intensity work altogether. You do want to reduce the volume of it pretty dramatically, but you want to keep a little bit of intensity in there so that your nervous system stays fresh and understands and remembers how to run the type of pace that you're going to want to to master on race day. Anything to add to the taper phase, Jacob?
00:34:12
wegettodothis
Yeah, I think you actually said at the seminar, you said something on the lines of six weeks out from a marathon. Most of the time when you're like doing like, you know, peaking and training, that's like the worst time would be the worst time to line up for the marathon.
00:34:26
wegettodothis
Do you know what I'm talking about?
00:34:27
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:34:27
wegettodothis
You said you said it very eloquently.
00:34:27
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:34:29
wegettodothis
um I don't know if you want to repeat how you said that, but it was really good.
00:34:32
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. Basically just like one of my coaching idols, coach Jason Coop, he's a ah famous ultra running coach. he He talks about that. It always gets worse. You always feel worse before you feel better, right? So when you're in the peak of your training, um, that four to six, maybe eight weeks out from race day where your miles are high, you're working hard.
00:34:51
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Like in theory, that's where you're actually at your farthest from performance ready. So, um, our goal with the taper is to get as far away from that, that mode is possible and and get your body fresh and ready to perform.
00:35:06
wegettodothis
I love it. Yeah, we'll, we'll dive into the taper a lot in the next seminar we do too. So be there November. I don't remember, but you'll see it on social November 11th, 6pm PRG.
00:35:14
Aaron Boike _ PRG
11.
00:35:18
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, so then let's let's talk about what are we incorporating into
Different Training Workouts
00:35:22
Aaron Boike _ PRG
this, right? So we've got a lot of different marathon training workout types that we're using to, uh, do our easy runs, tempo runs, et cetera. So, um, the five basic types that I kind of break it down to our endurance runs, that's going to be like your bread and butter zone two type run. And that's probably what most people are going to spend the majority of their time on is those endurance runs.
00:35:44
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and then we've got recovery runs and recovery runs are like an endurance run, but a little easier. So for my athletes, like I'm really big on heart rate training for more advanced athletes. We're probably doing those recovery runs in zone one, you know, this is going to be what your watch says is basically like a warmup.
00:36:02
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, for doing the whole workout for recovery run in that zone, recovery runs are great because they're adding aerobic volume without adding a lot of stress to your training plan. And, you know, I know you agree with this Jacob, like one of our biggest goals as a coach is to not overstress the body to the point where it's not adapting and recovering. So recovery runs are super important to incorporate into the mix as well. Yeah. And then temple run. So this is where we're going to be doing extended period at pace. Um, and this is a wide range, depending on how long the temple run is as to, as far as what kind of pace you're doing, but generally speaking, temple runs are going to be done a little faster than marathon race pace. Um, so Jacob, uh, had a ah workout that we did this last Tuesday that was programmed in by his coach. Um, and basically we was a two mile warmup. We did a six mile.
00:36:52
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, a little faster than marathon race pace and a two mile cool down. So they can be nice and simple like that. They can also be broken up into intervals of one mile, two miles at a time, three miles a time, et cetera.
00:37:04
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and then next we've got VO two max runs and intervals. So these are going to be shorter distance, uh, intervals than you'd have in a temple run temple runs. Usually you're doing big blocks of time, um, of a mile, two miles, three miles, even a mile is kind of low for a temple run, but usually you're doing extended blocks at pace for a temple run. A VO two max run. Typically you're doing somewhere between one minute up to.
00:37:27
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Gosh, three to five, maybe five would kind of be a stretch, but kind of one to three minutes would be kind of the general bread and butter of what you're doing for a VO two max type interval. Um, big benefits of the VO two max type intervals are that they're great for building what I, what I call neuromuscular facilitation. But that's a big word that I use all the time with my clients. They all know what it means. Basically it means you're making those mind and muscle connections, teaching the body the process, the feel.
00:37:55
Aaron Boike _ PRG
The innovation literally down to the the nerve level of how to run fast. It's just like any other skill, like riding a bike. In order to ride a bike, you have to get on a bike and do it. Same thing for running fast. If you want to run fast, you've got to run fast in training. It's not just going to happen. So these are workouts where we're far, far above marathon pace, doing it for short, short periods of time. And this is helping to bring up our body's ability to run.
00:38:22
Aaron Boike _ PRG
quickly and have the type of mechanics that we need to run fast and efficiently. Um, and then lastly, we're going to have Hill workouts. Now, Hill workouts are basically a type of VO two max or interval workout just done on an incline. Um, they're great for a couple reasons. First, like injury prevention. People are typically don't get hurt doing Hill workouts when you're fighting against gravity.
00:38:45
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, it's just harder to get to the type of paces where people are hurting themselves. In addition, they're really good for strength building too. If you do a, a hill workout, a hill interval workout every week, when you get on the blacktop for a flat you know stretch, like on the greenway close to our, where where we are here in St. Louis park.
00:39:03
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, it's going to feel amazing because your body is tuned to be able to do, uh, so much more than that. So, um, yeah, so those are kind of the main types of workouts, endurance runs. So that's going to be your bread and butter zone two type run recovery runs, which are going to be lower intensity. You know, if your heart rate person zone one.
00:39:20
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, if temple run, this is going to be an extended period, often a little faster or at marathon pace. VO two max runs. Those are going to be shorter intervals that help to build that neuromuscular facilitation, teaching your body and your mind how to run fast and then Hill workouts, which essentially are just a VO two max workout.
00:39:39
Aaron Boike _ PRG
on an incline. A couple additional things that we incorporate are strides. um And I love incorporating strides. There's a few different ways of doing it. Jacob, do you want to talk about how you incorporate strides for your clients?
00:39:52
wegettodothis
Yeah, for the most part, when I, when I think about strides, it's after a run. If it's during a run, I call them surges. It's my opinion. Um, but I incorporate them after a run. Think about if you were doing say 30 minute easy plus six strides, right? You use a 30 minutes easy. That's your run. Now you go 30 seconds stride, 30 second complete rest, 30 second stride.
00:40:15
wegettodothis
30 second complete rest all the way to whatever you're doing. I think I said four. As far as the actual stride goes, 30 seconds total, 10 seconds, start at a walking pace. By the end of that 10 seconds, you should be ah pretty much to like mile pace. If not faster, again, depending on who you are, don't go tear muscle or strain something. Um, hold that for 10 seconds. And then the last 10 seconds, cool it off to a walking face. Again, we're just opening the gate. We're working on some power dev, especially as.
00:40:43
wegettodothis
Again, you know we're spending 80% of our time, ah ideally, at a pretty ah comfortable, slower pace for us relative to who we are. right So opening this stride is important.
00:40:55
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and just to give an example, like Jacob and I, during our workout on Tuesday, we did a couple of surges, which are essentially like strides, but earlier in the run, we did a couple of surges before we kicked off our temple work. I think we did like three or four, um, just to help open up our gate mechanics, again, wake our nervous system up so that we're ready for the faster pace that's ahead. So strides can be used that way, or they can be used at the end of a workout, um, as a way to just build that power development, like Jacob talked about.
00:41:23
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and then we've also got downhill reps, and this is something that you don't hear about a lot in road running, but as a coach that coaches primarily ultra endurance athletes, we do these all the time. And I have runners before a marathon do downhill reps as well. So this is where we'll go out to a hill and we'll run downhill at a fast up-tempo clip. And we'll do that for 10, maybe 15 repetitions.
00:41:46
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And I use these to build durability. And this is not something that just any athlete should be doing. This is actually a pretty good way to hurt yourself if you're a newer athlete. um But for those athletes that are seasoned veterans are pretty injury resistant. um Ideally do strength training to help prevent injury. Downhill repetitions can be a great way to bulletproof the quads and the other musculature of the lower body so that they're able to withstand the power pounding of 26.2 miles. Um, and downhill reps are something that like for CIM, which the seminar that we did a couple of weeks ago was all based on training for CIM. I have athletes for CIM always do downhill reps because we've got those rolling hills in the beginning and you want to get through those with fresh legs so you can run fast for the flat miles on the end of the, uh, the race.
00:42:34
Aaron Boike _ PRG
So let's talk next about workout intensity. So how do we make up this volume and what type of volume distribution should we have? Um, Jacob alluded to earlier the 80 20 rule of running Jacob. Tell us what is the 80 20 rule?
00:42:50
wegettodothis
80% of your volume every week should be very, very comfortable and 20% should not be very, very comfortable.
00:42:58
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Awesome, so it's pretty simple, right? And the 80-20 rule is something that exists in a lot of different places in our life. If you Google 80-20 rule, you'll find 80-20 rules for business, for law, for all kinds of different things, and it works great for running as well. So 80% of our weekly volume should be that low intensity like Jacob talked about. Truly easy. This is not moderate intensity. This is not kind of hard. This is easy. This is low intensity volume and roughly 20% should be high intensity. So that's going to be those tempo workouts, those VO two max workouts, those Hill sprints, things like that.
00:43:35
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and there's a few different ways we can monitor intensity. And I think this is a good spot for us to talk about Jacob, how like our differences and how we coach. I, um, have always been a heart rate guy. So I love training off of heart rate. My opinion, it's the best modality because it takes the guessing and the thinking out of it and doesn't have any impact on if it's a hot day, if it's a cool day, et cetera. It's always kind of telling you a metric that is reliable and going to help to determine what intensity level you're truly at.
00:44:04
Aaron Boike _ PRG
um What do you do for intensity, Jacob?
00:44:06
wegettodothis
I'm big on RPE. And I think we talked about how, I think funny enough, RPE is one that you don't use as much and heart rate's one that I don't use as much, generally, right? Which again, is just, you know, everyone coaches differently, right? Not that we think the other tool isn't beneficial, right? I am just rating, rating up perceived effort. And I go on a one to 10 scale, 10, very, very, very, very hard, like sprint, right? Hardest effort, race, pace, whatever, however you want to kind of think about it, depending who you are. One is extremely easy and especially in base building. I'm huge on that scale, especially in base building. and I do switch to more pace though. ah Again, depending who you are, I switched to more pace later on in training cycles. And then I use heart rate.
00:44:54
wegettodothis
But I use heart rate as a metric to gauge usually post workout or before workout how your body is. So example, you wake up in the morning and your average heart rate is elevated five. Right. So your average heart rate is normally 40. And all of a sudden you wake up one morning and it's 45. Now I'm not saying you don't need to go do a run, but to me that's like, okay, that's a red flag. Right. Or you go on a run and normally your easy average heart rate is 140 and it's at 155.
00:45:22
wegettodothis
Like that's kind of how I use a heart rate, typically.
00:45:26
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. Yeah. I do have some athletes that I, I do everything on RPE and then I'll, I'll review their metrics afterwards and and use heart rate in that way too. But yeah. So yeah, RPE can be a really great tool.
00:45:37
Aaron Boike _ PRG
I think the key with RPE is to make sure that you're truly being honest with yourself, right? Cause so many people go out and they say,
00:45:41
wegettodothis
Correct.
00:45:43
Aaron Boike _ PRG
You know, okay, my workout today, I'm supposed to be at a five out of 10 RPE. That would be like an endurance run, you know, an easy aerobic type run that is kind of at your, you know, all day pace. Right. Um, and for a lot of people, they'll kind of let that stretch a little bit. They may, may end up in that, like, you know, that we talked about that, you know, seven 30 range for us where it's just a little hard.
00:46:04
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And people are thinking, Oh, that's going to be harmless, but that's not true. It's, it's actually building up more stress than we want it to in your, your training. In addition to that, you're not truly working the energy system that you want to be working. You know, when we go out for an endurance run, we want to be building our aerobic system. That's our primary goal.
00:46:22
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And if we're stretching that RPE to, let's say, you know, it says it's a five, but we're truly going at like a six that might seem negligible at the time, but over the course of a training block that can lead to, you know, really a ah much less, uh, effective training result.
00:46:39
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, so yeah, RPE heart rate, both good tools. And and I use RPE with some athletes as well, um, for power meters. So that's another newer one that came out stride pods. I don't have much experience with these Jacob.
00:46:50
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Have you used the stride pods as much of an intensity monitoring tool? I know you have some.
00:46:55
wegettodothis
Not to monitor intensity. No, very rarely have I used it for that purpose, but I know it's growing.
00:46:58
Aaron Boike _ PRG
and Okay.
00:47:02
wegettodothis
I know that it's the quote unquote best way to monitor intensity for bikers specifically.
00:47:09
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, so so this is a growing option, probably something you're going to see a lot more of in the next couple of years. um The stride pods essentially like analyze movement to determine how much power you're putting into the ground. um It can be a good tool for road runners to determine what their intensity is. And the big touted advantage to this is it gives you truly real time results. You know, if you start climbing a hill, your power meter is instantly going to tell you how hard you're working.
Monitoring Training Intensity
00:47:32
Aaron Boike _ PRG
um And you set a range kind of like you would set a range for your heart rate of what's you know okay for that type of workout.
00:47:38
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, so that's something we might see more of in the next couple, uh, next couple of years here. And then lastly, pace, Jacob talked a little bit about using pace. And I think the closer we get to race day, the more we tend to use pace to try to just make sure we're feeling good and comfortable and confident at our race pace. So I would say, uh, and maybe you'll agree with this, Jacob, we might start a lot of athletes out with, you know, heart rate or RPE for their intensity. And you know, within the last couple of weeks, we're focused more on a pace range instead of an intensity range for their long runs or tempo workouts.
00:48:07
wegettodothis
Yeah, I agree. And I think that, again, you know, take what we're saying with a grain of salt to use whatever one you like best, in my opinion, right? If you go up a hill, and you're using RPE, heart rate, stra or ah power as your metrics to gauge how hard you're working up that hill, all of those are going up, right? Your RPE as you go up a hill is going to go up, your heart rate is going to go up, your power is going to go up, right? So they all do.
00:48:35
wegettodothis
you know, the same thing in different ways. So I think just understanding that is important. And I also had something pop up in my head with the 80-20 rule that yeah I was going to say at the seminar, but I forgot, and now I want to. And um specifically with 80-20, another way I've heard it be described is that 100% of your results come from 20% of your work.
00:49:02
wegettodothis
Right. And the business world, we've used it that way. I think we should start using that a little bit too. And maybe it's 80% of your, I'm maybe butchering that a little bit, but you get my point and and I'm sure you've heard that too.
00:49:11
Aaron Boike _ PRG
80% come from the 20%. That's the most effective. I think that's the ah rule.
00:49:16
wegettodothis
Yeah. All right. 80% comes from the 20%.
00:49:20
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yep.
00:49:20
wegettodothis
So understanding again, with what what we were talking about earlier, running harder than that gray zone and easier, right? That's why you do it.
00:49:27
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:49:28
wegettodothis
So I think that's another thing to really look at that.
00:49:30
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, so let's talk a little bit about string training. Cause this is a hot topic. This is something that, you know, I think at this point, most runners understand that this is important. They maybe don't understand why it's important. They maybe don't understand exactly how they should be tackling
Importance of Strength Training
00:49:45
Aaron Boike _ PRG
it. Um, but I don't know. I don't really think there's much exception. I think that pretty much everybody training for, you know, anything, gosh, I mean, anything beyond a five K like string training is, should be a portion of their program. What do you think Jacob? ah
00:49:59
wegettodothis
I agree. I think strength training is non-negotiable. And more specifically, I think strength training, your legs and your core.
00:50:07
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
00:50:08
wegettodothis
I had my, I had a coach tell me yeah once in high school, and this, you know, I think this is more so just to not diss that coach by any means, because they learned a lot of really valuable things from them.
00:50:19
wegettodothis
But they told me, With all of the amount that we were running in high school, we didn't really need to hit our legs. We just said upper body is some core. I got the core part, right? But I do think there is a ton of value in hitting your legs. My calf was tight the other day on a run. I did calf raises during the run. It went away completely.
00:50:41
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yep. I've been there. Yeah. So strength training, super, super important. And you know what your coach said, I think that's such a common belief that people are thinking, gosh, if I'm in this, if I'm going to do any strength training at all, it's purely for vanity. I'm just going to work on my upper body. I'm just going to work on some crunches, things like that, because I'm already working on my legs so much. I'm already spending so much time on my legs that there's going to be no benefit to doing strength training.
00:51:05
Aaron Boike _ PRG
here's the Here's the catch. um With running, it's what's called a catabolic activity. Literally running is breaking down muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments at the cellular level. So again, running is a catabolic activity. It is causing breakdown in your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints. So what we have to do here is we have to actually do something to offset that. And that's what string training does. It offsets that catabolic effect.
00:51:35
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, so we get into the weight room and we're going to see a lot of big benefits here, especially if we are training our legs, hips, core, et cetera. We're going to see improved performance. That's going to be improved performance right down to the level of VO two max. There's great research to show. If you lift, you will have a higher VO two max than somebody who doesn't lift and trains the same way. Aside from that.
00:51:55
Aaron Boike _ PRG
It's going to improve your time to fatigue. So when you're out there running the marathon, instead of hitting that wall where your legs are heavy at mile 16, 17, 18, um, you might be able to make it through that whole race simply because you incorporated string training into your plan. And then it's also going to improve how your body moves. And I think that this is the one that is actually the most impactful it's improved. improving your movement patterns, which lead to better running economy. When somebody comes into our gym here at performance running and goes through a gait analysis, that's the next step is we want to figure out what strength training we should be doing in order to improve their running economy. And the next is going to be injury prevention. Obviously, like we just talked about, you're strengthening all those connections, those muscles, tendons, joints, ligaments, et cetera. So they are going to be more durable.
00:52:44
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And then lastly, maintaining muscle mass as we age. The older we get, the more muscle mass we lose. In fact, we lose 1% muscle mass for every year we're alive after age 30 if we don't do something to maintain it. um And that is absolutely true of runners as well as non-runners. Running is not and i wrote and i an anabolic activity, meaning it doesn't build up muscle. In fact, it does quite the opposite.
00:53:10
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, so next we're going to look into what areas marathoners should train. Jacob kind of summarize this already. So running is a full body activity. So realistically, we don't want to cut anything out. So many people cut out training the lower body because they're thinking they're already getting plenty of work on their calves, quads, et cetera.
00:53:26
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, it's simply not true. We need to strength train those areas probably more than we need to do the upper body, if anything. So we want to emphasize core. We want to emphasize lower legs, calves and tibs, uh, calves and tibialis anterior muscles. Those are the muscles of the front and back of your lower legs.
00:53:43
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, glutes, hip stabilizers, avid abductors and adductors. All of those muscles are going to be super, super important for performance. Um, and I don't know about you, but Jacob, but I has always have everybody work on upper body as well, simply because like the upper body does play a role in running and posture. So I think it's valuable. How about you?
00:54:02
wegettodothis
Yeah, yeah, I do too. I didn't mean to make it sound like I didn't necessarily, I will say I do a lot of times do less upper body than lower body and core.
00:54:10
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. Well.
00:54:11
wegettodothis
I would say that upper body makes up 33% of my total strength training per week, typically.
00:54:18
Aaron Boike _ PRG
I would agree with that. Unless somebody has a certain goal related to upper body, I would i would agree with that.
00:54:20
wegettodothis
Yeah.
00:54:23
wegettodothis
Yeah. And a lot of times I'll put it in as, you know, a single leg RDL with the shoulder press, right?
00:54:24
Aaron Boike _ PRG
um
00:54:30
wegettodothis
Things like that.
00:54:32
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. Finding ways to incorporate it without a whole nother exercise. Yeah. And how often do we want to strength train typically during the base building period? That's where we're doing our heaviest strength training work. We want to be doing two to three times per week during the training phase, reducing that down to one to two times per week. Personally, I do twice a week during my training phase. And then during the taper phase, bringing it down, you know, probably to once a week for those last couple of weeks, just letting the body recover as much as possible.
00:54:59
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and then what types of strength exercises should runners be doing? Um, plyometrics. So those are going to be like jump training exercises, jump squats, jump lunges, box jumps, et cetera. Those are super, super valuable for runners. The research when it comes to plyometric training is actually more, uh, sound and and well done than any other area of strength training for runners. So plyometrics clearly have a benefit. There's lots of research to show that.
00:55:23
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, we can also do calisthenics or body weight exercises. We can do free weight exercises, particularly heavy free weight exercises are very well researched to have an impact in running economy and injury prevention. And then we can also do isometrics, which I think most of the time come in handy for improving injury resistance and durability. Um, any other thoughts on strength training for, for, uh, marathoners, Jacob, before we we move on?
00:55:49
wegettodothis
Yeah, one other question that I get asked pretty often is when to incorporate it that I'm realizing we didn't we didn't touch on. So here's a little bonus material if you're listening to the podcast. People ask me all the time when I should incorporate it.
00:56:03
wegettodothis
in terms of my week layout, right? That gets into the training program side of things. For the most part, I'm on the train of hard days hard. So if you have a speed workout and say,
00:56:20
wegettodothis
you know, another day where you do hills and then a long run day. If you're doing two lifts, if you're doing three lifts, I would go on all three of those days. If you're doing two lifts, I would do it on the two days you have the speed workouts. I would try to do it five, at least five hours later, give yourself enough time to chill for a second, eat two meals, ah ideally post and pre, right? And then,
00:56:47
wegettodothis
recover enough to go and do the workout, almost like it's a completely separate thing. um I will say, since in this training block specifically, I've gotten a lot busier just because I'm kind of experimenting with more volume. I saw an Aaron, I felt like him a couple of weeks ago, because I've just been doing a lot. And there has been times now where I have to fit string training in and it it just doesn't work to fit it in on a speed workout day or a long run day. And there's been two weeks specifically ah where I had to put my strength training the days before the long run and the speed workout, which is like almost like cardinal sin, of what like not to do so that you don't go into the strength training or the long or the the speed workout or the long run, your 220% runs, right? Where you might go in feeling fatigued, right? And here is the cheat code. If you have to go that route, because sometimes you have to fit it in.
00:57:43
wegettodothis
If you do it within 24 hours and it's a workout that assuming is that your body can handle, right? You didn't like max squat or max lung or whatever it was. If you do that strength training workout within 24 hours of your speed run or your long run,
00:58:00
wegettodothis
You will barely, barely, barely, if at all feel the effect of the strength training yet. It takes roughly 24 hours for delayed onset muscle soreness to begin. Again, that's assuming that you will have a good strength training routine built in. It's a cheat code that I have discovered this block and it has been game changing because it's like this little like shadow window where you can get a strength training workout and go hit a hard workout and then After that, you'll get sore.
00:58:29
wegettodothis
It's pretty cool. I don't know what your thoughts are.
00:58:30
Aaron Boike _ PRG
i yeah no i I totally agree. That's a good cheat code. um I did that exact same thing last Friday, Saturday. We ran together last Saturday with the CIM group. And on Friday afternoon, I did a pretty heavy strength training workout. Like I'd say it's on the edge of what my body quote unquote can handle. It was, it was pushing it. Um, and I did that at about three, maybe four o'clock in the afternoon, um, woke up the next day feeling really good. And and we had a great run. I was able to lay down some tempo miles. Like everything was perfect by that night. I was like miserably sore, right?
00:59:01
wegettodothis
but
00:59:02
Aaron Boike _ PRG
It completely held off until like that 24, 36 hour mark. Um, and clearly I felt the workout, but I was able to get through my long run because of that proximity of time. Um, the other cheat code that I use is I actually did this today. I've got a big training run up in the superior hiking trail tomorrow. Um, I will emphasize more plyometric exercises and exercises that, that de-emphasize the eccentric or the down phase of, of the movements. So.
00:59:28
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Today I did like jump lunges, but I just did the concentric. So I just did the up phase and then I ended them with a standing position. We're getting a little like techie and nitty gritty here, but if you can find exercises that are mostly focused on the concentric phase, so like sled pushes, uh, box jumps, things like that, where you're just focused on the up phase, the concentric phase of an exercise, you are not going to be nearly as sore and you're still going to get a lot of the neurological and strength benefits of that workout. So that's another kind of cheat code.
00:59:57
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, that said, there's tremendous benefits to doing eccentric work as part of marathon prep. So I don't want you guys to do that all the time. Um, uh, next we're going to go dive a little bit into the fueling and then a little bit of injury prevention. Then we'll kind of wrap things up after that. So for fueling, I don't spend too much time on this, but fueling is super, super
Proper Nutrition and Fueling
01:00:15
Aaron Boike _ PRG
important. Um, I don't know your thoughts on this, Jacob, but my thoughts are 90% of runners during their training block are under fueling. That's what I see. How about you?
01:00:26
wegettodothis
It's by 99% it's pretty high I think
01:00:27
Aaron Boike _ PRG
ninety nine yeah yeah and I think the problem is that you know as runners, like we live in this fit world. right we we've We've got all of this information coming at us from all these different sources about diets and how many calories we should be getting and how much energy we should be consuming and whether carbohydrates are good or bad, et cetera.
01:00:49
Aaron Boike _ PRG
um And the truth is when you're training for something like a marathon, you just need a lot of calories, period. um So we really need to make sure that we're just meeting our caloric needs. um For a lot of the clients that I work with, I'm not huge on counting calories, but I have had those people that they just ironically under fuel and that results into them having a really lackluster training blocks. Their workouts don't feel good. um They end up sick all the time. Like there's, I mean, those are kind of the biggest, if you're getting sick all the time during your training, like that's a good sign that you're probably under fueling. So you can use a tool called MyFitnessPal or there's other apps on your phone that can help you determine based on your activity level, how many calories you need. And then just track for a few days or a week and find out, am I close to what I need?
01:01:34
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, so think that's first and foremost, make sure you're eating enough during your marathon training. Um, second, how do we fuel our workouts? Um, I like to fuel anything beyond 90 minutes. I like to start with 150 to 200 calories per hour. And there's a lot of different things you can use to come up with that 150 to 200 calories per hour. You can use gels, bars, liquid fuel like tailwind or scratch. um Hydration mixes like noon that have calories in them. Those are all on the table. And then how do we properly fuel recovery? So during the workout, we want 150 to 200 calories, making sure we're fueling anything that's longer than 90 minutes.
01:02:10
Aaron Boike _ PRG
After the run, we want to think about post run nutrition being really, really important to try to optimize your recovery within that first hour after your workout. If you are going more than an hour after your workout without putting anything in the tank, you are missing out and you are falling behind on your recovery.
01:02:29
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Way too early. So take advantage of that time right after your run is done. There's a few things our body needs. Number one, carbohydrates. If we've gone out and we've run for even 40 minutes, we've burned off the vast majority of our stored muscle glycogen. Glycogen is the stored form of carbohydrate that you have in your muscles. You burn that off first when you go out and run. That's one of the very first things that we're getting rid of after getting rid of the free blood sugar in our bloodstream.
01:02:56
Aaron Boike _ PRG
So, we want to replenish that. If we don't, we're going to feel terrible on that next run. Even if it's a couple days out, we're probably going to feel terrible on that next run if we haven't replenished those carbohydrates after the run. um that's going to The amount is going to vary based on the person, but typically somewhere between 50 on the low end all the way up to 100 grams of carbohydrates within that hour after the run tends to be appropriate.
01:03:18
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, I also really like to emphasize protein. Uh, protein is super underutilized by endurance athletes. It's super important for recovery. Um, we're still breaking down muscle fibers. We're still breaking down things that need to be built back up and protein provides the raw materials to do that. So super, super important to get some protein. A lot of different schools of thought out there as far as how much protein.
01:03:41
Aaron Boike _ PRG
but ACSM recommends 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day for athletes. So that's a good place to start. um And then I always encourage my athletes to make sure they're getting enough ah fruits and vegetables in their day, you know, five to nine fruits and vegetables per day. So they're getting those micronutrients, those antioxidants to help with recovery as well. ah Anything you want to add to nutrition, Jacob?
01:04:06
wegettodothis
I think that I would encourage, this is going to sound a little weird, but I would encourage you to try to find your upper limit of what you can take in during a run specifically. Go have a run where you take in too much. Please try to do that. I have yet to see that happen.
01:04:27
wegettodothis
like and actually find an upper limit where you either poop your pants or crap or a puke. But from eating too much during a run, you just realistically, like no one's taking it enough to do that. right And even if you know you i guess if you sat there and took in five gels,
01:04:44
wegettodothis
at like mile one of Iran. Yeah, you're probably gonna feel like garbage, but you get what I'm trying to say here. okay Test your limits in terms of if the package says that you can take one gel every 45 minutes, let's try doing 40, then let's try 35, then 30. I have seen on social media, I've heard from my coach, who is an Olympic trials guy, I've heard from or I've seen like Olympians talk about this, where A lot of them are fueling up every 15 minutes, every 5k, right? And they're running a lot less time total, right? And we are, when we're, you know, running two minutes per mile plus slower than that, right? So for me, I do every 25 to 30 minutes. That's kind of what I've been playing with right now. We did around last week of an hour and a 50 minutes and I took in over 500 calories on that run. And that was a gel every 25 to 30. And then I had a scoop and a half of scratch in my hand.
01:05:42
wegettodothis
Again, carb the F up. I really think it's beneficial during runs.
01:05:46
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
01:05:46
wegettodothis
Uh, and then don't do any runs fasted. I'm, I'm a pretty big believer in not doing that. If your goal is something that's not performance related, then I wouldn't do marathon training and not.
01:06:02
wegettodothis
And I'm not saying performance rate as in time either. So I'm saying more so like to put it bluntly, if you're running a marathon, say to like lose weight, we should have a different conversation about not training for marathon.
01:06:13
wegettodothis
Um, don't run fasted big fan, big proponent of that. And then immediately after runs immediately within literally two minutes, I have a shake in my hand that I am drinking.
01:06:26
wegettodothis
I know you do that too.
01:06:27
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yep.
01:06:28
wegettodothis
Usually. I'm huge on that. That's something I started doing this past year as well. I think I got that kind of from you. um um Immediately I'm taking a protein shake. and and du i've I've made it, it's even if it's like chocolate milk, something, 150 calories immediately and pretty much after every single run. Doesn't matter the distance. And then I have an actual meal.
01:06:49
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, I love that last tip. I mean, that's, you know, plan ahead, make sure you've got fuel on you. Make sure you've got a shake or something. Um, but yeah, Jacob, you probably did learn that from me when we were in Colorado training.
01:07:00
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Cause like we get back in the car after a training run and I had, you know, a shake ready to go immediately after some proteins and carbohydrates. I took it in probably within two minutes of the the run being over.
01:07:10
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
01:07:11
wegettodothis
Right.
01:07:11
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Makes a huge difference.
01:07:11
wegettodothis
I think you said, I think you said always be, I'm always thinking about the next run, something on those lines.
01:07:18
Aaron Boike _ PRG
yep
01:07:19
wegettodothis
Cause I stole that too, but yeah I mean, it's true.
01:07:19
Aaron Boike _ PRG
yeah yeah yeah
01:07:21
wegettodothis
Right. And I think, you know, like you said, come prepared. I think this is something that might also be a hot take. Look, Like we're all we're all very busy for sure, right? And most people who run marathons, they're just busy people and productive people.
01:07:36
wegettodothis
I think that there's gotta be a correlation between that.
01:07:37
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yep.
01:07:39
wegettodothis
um However, in my opinion, if you have the time to train for a marathon, something that is this drastic on your body, I don't care what the circumstances are, if you have the time to commit to training for a marathon, you have the time to commit to planning to fuel properly during the marathon.
01:07:41
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Dopamine seekers.
01:07:58
wegettodothis
and to fit in strength training, et cetera. I am a firm believer in that. You can make time. If you have the time to train for marathon, you have the time to do the other things. That's just my opinion.
01:08:08
wegettodothis
um I don't buy into the, oh, I don't have time for it, but then I can go run you know seven hours a week.
01:08:15
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, absolutely.
01:08:15
wegettodothis
I just don't buy it personally.
01:08:16
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Plan ahead. Yep. I'm all about that plan ahead. And I think just to bounce off of what you said with like figure out what your upper limit, um, you know, as an ultra marathon coach, we do that with everybody, right?
01:08:27
Aaron Boike _ PRG
We're trying to figure out how much can their body process during these runs and still be comfortable. And it's not something that you can just go out and test on day one and figure out because the gut literally is trainable.
01:08:41
Aaron Boike _ PRG
You are training your gut to be able to process more. So if you are out there on day one, taking in 200 calories an hour, you might find a couple of weeks later, you can take in 250 calories an hour.
01:08:52
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And that's just as comfortable as 200 was or even 300. And that's just as comfortable because the gut is literally adapting to taking in carbohydrates as you're out there. Super, super important.
01:09:02
wegettodothis
Yeah. And, and I think too, I, I know you mentioned 90 minutes, which is a very good starting place. Don't get me wrong. One thing that I've been doing and there isn't any research to back this this is just what I've been trying in my mind. I'm taking gels at that rate on that race day, right? I don't want.
01:09:21
wegettodothis
any possibility of one of those gels upsetting my stomach, right? So one of the ways I make sure I do that is if I'm going over 60 minutes, I take a gel because in the long run, I'm going every 25 minutes. So then if I have the, you know, double the length of that run, in my mind, let's practice right there to get a gel in and just see how the gut responds. So that might be a one I'm practicing using other types of gels and whatnot, but I'm usually doing that. And then also again, back to the feeling thing.
01:09:50
wegettodothis
it's going to give your body an extra boost, even if it's a recovery run. that's And again, that's my opinion. I don't know if you agree with that, but that's something I've been doing and I've been liking a lot too.
01:09:57
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Don't I? I do. Most runners are going to be out there burning 600 plus calories an hour. Um, taking that gel in is not going to cause any like body composition problems or anything. In fact, it's just boosting your recovery, boosting your performance and probably doing the exact opposite of, uh, when you improve your recovery, you're actually burning more calories. Your metabolic rate is higher. So why wouldn't we do things to boost our performance boost our recovery? It just makes sense.
01:10:23
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, so I want to spend not too much time, but just maybe five minutes on injuries. Super, super important topic to just address. I don't want to beat on it too hard, but why do injuries happen? First off 70 to 80% of runners will develop a running related injury each year. It's super common. And I think.
01:10:39
Aaron Boike _ PRG
ah Acceptance is an important part of this obviously we want to do everything we can to prevent it from happening the first place but it's probably going to happen to a majority of runners each year and how we address that injury is going to determine whether it has an impact on our training block or not.
Injury Prevention and Management
01:10:55
Aaron Boike _ PRG
The number one reason why injuries happen is improper progression and training. They've added too much volume too quickly, too much intensity too quickly, or a combination of those factors. Other reasons include muscular imbalances, weak or tight muscles. That's one of the biggest reasons we strength train. So we get rid of those muscular imbalances. They may have poor form or bad running mechanics. Another reason why we do strength training and dynamic warmups and those types of things. They may have improper footwear that's not agreeing with their gait or is not supporting their gait patterns. They may have inadequate recovery time or poor recovery habits like what we just talked about. Maybe they never fuel after runs. That can absolutely lead to injury. You are literally not giving your body the tools that it needs to recover from your run on Monday and then you go out again on Tuesday or Wednesday and you're hitting a tempo workout.
01:11:43
Aaron Boike _ PRG
You are setting yourself up for injury. You have not given your body the raw materials it needs to recover from that previous workout. So make sure that you are ah incorporating those good recovery habits when it comes to nutrition and also like sleep. Um, and then lastly, unmanaged stress. Um, stress alone is hugely problematic in terms of causing injury. So I really encourage my runners that are training for erases.
01:12:06
Aaron Boike _ PRG
to figure out ways to manage their stress as best they can. um Another thing I like to address is, is it an injury? A lot of times people have aches and pains in their training that are pretty normal. They might be they might not be to the point where we'd actually consider them an injury. um Example, I had a little bit of ah an Achilles issue that popped up a couple weeks ago. um I've had these in the past and I immediately started addressing it. We started doing some eccentric heel drops. I started doing some range of motion exercises.
01:12:35
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and immediately made felt better and I was able to get back out of my run right away the next day and it wasn't even an issue. So, you know, address the experts, talk to the the people, you know, that know how to deal with this kind of things early on. Talk to your coach, talk to your physical therapist, say, I've got this or that going on. What can I do to address it? I just got a message from an athlete today that's having like tight calf issues. Um, and I gave her a quick protocol to incorporate before her runs.
01:13:01
Aaron Boike _ PRG
And, you know, nine times out of 10, that is going to clear that issue up and it's going to be not problematic. A lot of people get so worried when they feel any pain at all that, oh no, this is the end of my season. And it's not. um You can address these things early.
01:13:16
Aaron Boike _ PRG
What happens if it does get to that point of a full on injury? You know, if it's more than a three out of 10, when you're out there running, we consider that kind of a full on injury. And at this point, ideally seek the help of a physical therapist. There's great physical therapists out there that can help you get back on your feet super, super soon. Sometimes they're even incorporating running into the plan to help you get better. We've got Dr. Michael here at performance running gym. Um, so he's my primary referral partner. Jacob, do you have any referral partners that you want to shout out for, for good PTs?
01:13:47
wegettodothis
Yeah, I'm a Leah Murphy or Nikki Williams, typically is who I refer to, or Dr.
01:13:51
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah.
01:13:51
wegettodothis
Magel.
01:13:52
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah, they're all great.
01:13:53
wegettodothis
Those three.
01:13:54
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, and then, uh, follow their treatment plan. Good PTs, like I said, are usually used to working with runners to get them back running as quickly as possible. They understand our mindset. Um, so that's the reason to seek out a PT that has experience with runners. And then lastly, how do we prevent injuries? so Strength training, super important, ideally with a professionally designed program. So, you know, find your resources, figure out if you need to work with a trainer or somebody to get a strength training plan that's specific to you. That is a great way to make sure you're preventing injury. and performing better, um, having a proper base building period prior to your training phase. I think that's honestly like maybe the number one, as far as injury prevention is making sure you're not just jumping right to the training phase that you've had that proper eight to 12 week base building period. Use your dynamic warmups to get your body warmed up before your runs. Have a proper training progression. Don't jump right to doing 20 mile long runs out of nowhere.
01:14:46
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Um, manage your stress and then make sure your, your recovering nutrition is on point. You're always recovering with proper nutrition after runs. Like we talked about earlier, as soon as one run is over, I'm thinking about how do I prepare for that next run to be awesome? And the first step of that is making sure I'm fueling the fire. Anything to add to that, Jacob?
01:15:06
wegettodothis
I think you killed that. I think you really did.
01:15:10
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Awesome. Good, good.
01:15:13
wegettodothis
Well, this was great. I hope that all listeners, both on the PRG side and that we get to do this side, gain something out of this.
Community Engagement and Contact
01:15:22
wegettodothis
In the future, if you're listening to this, we have group runs pretty much every Saturday now that Aaron and I are co-hosting. They all start at 8 a.m. They're either at performance running gym or prize brewery. Try to come and hang out and meet some people.
01:15:37
wegettodothis
Um, in addition to that running your best marathon, including the taper and the race specifically seminar will be ah November 11th from six to seven.
01:15:49
wegettodothis
Aaron and I are doing this at performance running gym. There will also be a podcast episode to follow that one as well. So watch out for both of those. Other than that, use this as a resource.
01:16:01
wegettodothis
We're here to help. Aaron, do you have anything else you want to add in?
01:16:02
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Awesome. This was fun. No. Yeah. Reach out if you guys need any additional assistance. I'm always happy to take questions. I know Jacob is as well. So um thanks for listening.
01:16:12
wegettodothis
Thank you all for listening. We should probably plug our handles actually. So if you need anything from me, jacobatoakendurance.com is my email. Coach Jacob Oak is me on Instagram and the podcast that I co-host is we get to do this pod on Instagram or we get to do this on any of the podcast platforms too with the number two, Aaron.
01:16:34
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Yeah. So I've got a couple of different ones to show shout out on Instagram. I am at trainer on the run, um, on Facebook and Instagram for performance running. It's at performance run gym. You can check us out on there and then you can check out our website to look at our services and and look at the gym and memberships and that type of thing at performance running or excuse me, performance run gym.com. Again, that's performance run gym dot.com.
01:16:59
wegettodothis
Sweet. All right. Thanks, Aaron.
01:17:01
Aaron Boike _ PRG
Thank you, Jacob.