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Summer Focal Points for Distance Runners
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Here is the first episode of The Coach's Notebook!!! We talk about the current events in Augusta University running and the necessities to be prepared for the cross-country season ahead. Leave your comments and questions below; we would love to see your feedback. Thanks for listening and go jags!!!
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Transcript
Introduction to Coach's Notebook Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the first episode of the Coach's Notebook. I'm Noah Shepard. I'm a senior at Augusta University. I run on the cross country and track teams under Coach Bergami, our lovely co-host.
00:00:15
Speaker
um And this podcast is about running. um we both like it a lot uh i want to coach in the future i coach burgamy has been coaching for a few years now um and this is an opportunity for us to talk about something we both really love so uh coach if you'd like to introduce yourself yeah hey i'm jacob burgamy i'm the head tracking cross-country coach at augusta i've been here for a few years and actually ran at augusta while i was getting my master's so i have a ton of experience here but yeah excited to be doing this
00:00:49
Speaker
Yeah.
Updates at Augusta University
00:00:50
Speaker
ah Coach, you want to give us a brief summary on what's going on at Augusta University right now? Yeah, I mean, right now everybody's home for the summer. um Augusta's doing a lot of construction to the athletic facilities. but oh But, yeah, everybody's just doing summer training right now, trying to build up for a good fall.
00:01:10
Speaker
ah But we're coming off a really good track season. uh we we finished it up going to nationals in colorado avery was out there in the 10k and the 5k he finished fifth in the 10k and was i think it was 12th or 13th in the 5k which was a performance that he wasn't super stoked with but like he came in seated eighteenth or 19th so he still overperformed relative to where he was seated and You know, he was racing against some guys that were fresh while he had a 10K on his legs. So, you know, i I think overall it was a heck of a championship for him. And I can say now that the announcement's been made that we're adding indoor track and field next year. And Avery's planning on coming back.
00:01:54
Speaker
oh So, you know, we're going to get another indoor season out of him and excited for really everybody to get an indoor season. Um, but yeah, we've got a lot of cool things going on. We broke a ton of school records this track season. Uh, I don't want to forget one, so I'm not even going to try naming them all off, but, well, we broke a lot of records. Uh, Emily, she broke the school record and conference, uh, championship record in the steeple and,
00:02:21
Speaker
I think she ran 1040 or 1041, which ranked her somewhere around 25th in the country, which, you know, we've we've never had a girl make it to track nationals and top 22 get to go. So she barely missed out.
00:02:33
Speaker
ah But I would imagine that's got to be probably the most impressive mark on our women's team history, considering how close she was. So that was huge deal for the program and excited to just keep building on that sort of stuff.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, as as a senior now, I've been here for about three years. um And when I got here, you know our program has been predominantly men's distance based.
00:02:58
Speaker
And our cross country team has been notoriously strong. um So it's been really cool to see how much the team has grown, ah both in you know women's cross country.
00:03:09
Speaker
Our mid-distance programs have gotten so much better. Our our sprints, our fields, like everyone has improved so much in my time here. So I'm excited to see where things go um with Coach Bergamy at the helm.
00:03:23
Speaker
But
Challenges of Summer Training for Freshmen
00:03:24
Speaker
today, i think we're trying to get into um some summer focal points to training. um Summer training is very different than when we're back in season, um especially for all the people that have been at Augusta for a year already. Whenever you're home by yourself, um training becomes so much more difficult.
00:03:49
Speaker
um And for all of our incoming freshmen, um This is a it's a big jump and often very different from what they're used to. So making sure we get the training right and that is communicated clearly before they get on campus is pretty, pretty pivotal.
00:04:07
Speaker
um So, Coach, how do you feel that you have to adapt whenever it comes to writing these summer training programs? Yeah. Oh, well, I think what you were mentioning about like all the incoming freshmen and it being different, I think that just points towards communication being huge and just, still you know, ah encouraging them to ask plenty of questions and make sure we're on the same page and have a clear understanding of how we want this to look. Because,
Coach Burgamy's Training Philosophy
00:04:34
Speaker
i mean, our, the way we do things is very different to a lot of high school programs because, you know, a lot of high school programs tend to be a little more aggressive than,
00:04:43
Speaker
we're kind of on the opposite end as people are going to realize just listening to us. oh So and just encouraging people to ask questions. um But from my perspective, just as a guy writing it all, I just try to err on the side of caution with everything, try to do a lot of low risk type training which basically just means we're keeping everything a little extra controlled not trying to force fitness just stacking b minus kind of efforts one after another um mean it doesn't sound very cool but honestly we're just trying to keep training pretty bland right now uh nothing that we do this time a year should really be catching people's attention on strava oh because you know we can always do more when we get back like
00:05:25
Speaker
A ah few years ago, I listened to a strength and conditioning coach just talk about his thoughts on training, and he gave an analogy that was comparing training to cooking. And he said, you know, you can always, if if you're cooking like a chicken or something, you can always take it out of the oven, and if it's not done, you can always put it back in a little bit longer. But once it's burnt, it's burnt. You have to throw it out and start from scratch. And that's that's really how I think we should be looking at training, especially in the summer, is – you know Once we get back, we're still going to have a couple months before we run a race that really, really matters because the cool thing about cross country is that there very little team implications on overall success for the year before the conference meet happens. So we're going to have a ton of time once we get back. And if we're a little undercooked on August 6th, cool.
00:06:14
Speaker
and That's perfectly fine to me. We can always turn it up a little bit after that. But I'll... I guess in my head, being a little undercooked at that point of the season is a heck of a lot better to me than being in a place where you've dug yourself into a hole Now we have to go and try and figure out how are we going to get you out of this and then manage the next three months of the season beyond that. So the overall goal, writing the training for the summer is just to write it in a way that I feel confident that y'all are going to get back to campus feeling good and in a position to continue making progress for the next few months.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah. And as the athletes, like, i feel like it's so important for those upperclassmen to clearly communicate what you're saying to um where, like, you know, regardless of what, however, you know, kind to coaches it's going to be a lot easier for some of those younger guys to look at their peers and ask like, Hey, what's going on?
00:07:16
Speaker
Um, so having upperclassmen and, and leaders in a group that are capable of clearly communicating, um, the objective of the training, ah I feel like is really, really important for our program to flourish.
00:07:30
Speaker
yeah um And something that helped me so much when I got here, you know, having guys like Hans, having guys like Tommy that, you know, preach to us all the time about how we're supposed to, you know, feel a little undercooked.
00:07:47
Speaker
We're supposed to feel comfortable right now. This isn't supposed to be a struggle in July. Um, it's a, it's an important, important thing to keep in mind and something that has been, you know, so integral to how we train.
00:08:02
Speaker
For sure. And it's awesome to see that you've kind of stepped into that role now, like after having learned from Hans and Tommy and those guys, that's, that's really cool to see how you've kind of over the years, just moved into that role. And now you're the guy that's feeding into those younger guys. And then I'm sure in three to four years, some of those guys are going to be the ones that are feeding into the new freshmen.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's really fun for for everyone involved. I love staying in touch with the fellows over the summer and and making sure that everyone's on the same page, especially for some of those young freshmen where it's, I know what it's like to not have a clue what you're doing.
00:08:38
Speaker
So having someone that's there to communicate with you and and be empathetic and understanding is always really nice. For sure. Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
So how, in terms of training, do you also adjust what we're looking at during the summertime? Like being able to clearly communicate, of course, is extremely important.
00:09:03
Speaker
But I know whenever we hit the summer, You know, I was talking to coach about this the other day where I get my nice, pretty little training plan that has all my minutes and all my paces for the week and how far we're going go. um But coach has to sit there and look at a a blank calendar and then figure out how he can get 40 athletes from June to October and November and still be in prime racing shape.
00:09:33
Speaker
So, How does training get impacted ah during this time? Oh,
Summer Training Strategies
00:09:41
Speaker
I mean, really just the way that I approach it is, you know, we're looking at it as just trying to set the building blocks for what we're going to do later. Like,
00:09:49
Speaker
You know, you and me have talked a lot about Renato Canova, and he's one of my major influences in coaching. And he describes this phase of training like building a house because he calls it – he calls this phase of training the foundational period, which, you know, most people call it the base phase. And either way, like, you can you can call it the same thing. It means the same thing. But he describes it like building a house because you've got to have the foundation for – you start building the rest of the house or you're going a pretty crappy house.
00:10:13
Speaker
oh So think of the summer as like laying the foundation so that when we get back and we get deeper into training that we can build it all the way up to the roof, which in the analogy kind of serves as the peak.
00:10:24
Speaker
I mean, Hans, he called it, getting fit to get fit. And speaking of Hans, I remember my first day coaching here, oh Hans came running up to me at that practice. And because, you know, we had been teammates before, so we were already friends, but he came running up to me.
00:10:41
Speaker
And I remember just talking to him and telling him I'd gone through his Strava for the entire summer and saw that he had a good summer and that he's looking really fit. And he stopped me and he was like, no,
00:10:53
Speaker
I'm in a spot to be really fit in a couple months, but it is not time to be fit yet. And I knew in that moment we were about to have a great season because he had done exactly what he needed to be or what he needed to do to be where we want to be.
00:11:07
Speaker
Because, you know, we're at that point we're fit. but we're not regionals or conference fit. We're in a place that we have the building blocks to get race fit, but you know it's only like during the summer. you know we're Right now we're four we or four months out from conference. we We don't need to be in PR shape right now. If we are, then that's probably something to be concerned about.
00:11:29
Speaker
oh so I guess to get a little bit more detailed on what training kind of looks like over the summer and what we're looking at, mean, for me, we're looking at two polar opposite ends that we're trying to develop and eventually funnel together, ah which is another Canova thing because his periodization model is called funnel periodization.
00:11:48
Speaker
But we're ah we're looking at basic speed, which during in the summer we're just developing through strides and hill strides. um We're not doing a ton of them, but we're doing them pretty constantly.
00:12:00
Speaker
oh On Mondays and Thursdays, we're doing strides after our run, either on flat ground or on a hill that works down to a sprint by the last one. ah We're doing hill strides after our Tuesday and Friday workouts.
00:12:14
Speaker
We're doing easier strides on Wednesday that, you know, even though they're not quite as fast on those days, they're still there. You're still turning over and hitting, you know, faster than at least 8K race pace. Yeah.
00:12:26
Speaker
So the only days that we really aren't doing something faster is, you know, your long run day because we do hilly long runs. you're Your legs are probably beat up enough after getting the kind of elevation gain that we're getting that the strides wouldn't be very high quality anyway.
00:12:41
Speaker
And then on the off day, we're not doing strides, of course. But... You know, the strides aren't a lot, but over time it adds up, ah especially if you focus on making them quality and going through the motions on them.
00:12:53
Speaker
And this is this is one area that during the summer, you know, we can actually have some fun and let loose occasionally. but But all of the strides and hill strides, you know, later into the summer, we...
00:13:06
Speaker
Usually progress them into a couple four hundreds around race pace or slightly faster that'll come after the fartlek or progression run or whatever. And all of that just bridges into the race pace work that we're going to do later in the season and sets us up to be able to handle those paces a little better.
00:13:24
Speaker
And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, we're just looking at and basic aerobic development, which for us, that's coming from tempos, progressions, fartleks, lots of easy running.
00:13:34
Speaker
oh building our mileage up gradually over the course of the summer and just keeping things on the controlled side because it's really easy to fall into what the guys on ah the second flat podcast called.
00:13:47
Speaker
It was something they referred to it as something like the, the American distance running downfall of running threshold work too hard or, You know, so something to that effect. But that statement is so true and you see it all the time because it's so easy to overrun this type of stuff and end up accidentally running your threshold effort fart licks at what is actually 8K race effort. Because, you know, especially for us in Georgia, like,
00:14:15
Speaker
You could be running something that is, you know, it correlates to what you think your threshold pace is, but it's really hot outside, or maybe you're just getting a little overzealous because it's early in the build and you're daydreaming about racing again. You're getting excited about the fall, but, but doing that and getting ahead of where we're aiming to be at this point could easily lead you to either an early peak or at least a lack of progression throughout the season. Cause you're already hitting race efforts during the summer if you're overrunning this type of stuff because there's not you know if you're really aerobically fit there's not a huge gap between threshold and eight k ten k which is what our guys are training them for oh and we've seen that before where maybe people got a little ahead of themselves over the summer and came back in crazy shape ran big prs early but spent the rest of the season either not making much progress or worst case actually regressing throughout the season
00:15:07
Speaker
oh I guess just as a tangent, not so much about, I mean, it's sort of about training, but the heat really is something that you've got to consider when you're training in the Southeast in the summer, because the heat can really turn the effort up on this stuff without you realizing, because like I said, you know, on paper, it might look like threshold pace, but if it's 95 degrees outside, you're probably running an effort that corresponds to 20 or 30 seconds per mile faster than what you're actually running.
00:15:33
Speaker
So it's pretty important to, either find the shade or get up early, even though in July here, it may still be eight degrees and 90% humidity at 6am. Yeah.
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah. It hurts whenever you wake up at 530 to go make a 6am workout and it's still miserably hot. Yeah, exactly. So in, in situations like that, it may even be worth considering hitting the treadmill whenever possible. i mean, I told you I've got ah Me and my wife ordered one. We have a treadmill coming in today.
00:16:02
Speaker
um And you know the the Norwegians do a ton of work on the treadmill because the snow in the winters just makes it impossible to do workouts outside. and You know, I personally don't think it's an awful idea to consider doing the same here just for the absolute opposite reason.
00:16:17
Speaker
oh And sometimes you just can't avoid the heat. And like later this week, my wife and I will be at the beach and, you know, no treadmill down there. So I'm sure it'll be hot and humid already at 6 a.m. for my Friday workout. And in a situation like that, you know, I'm just going to have to be honest with myself and my effort and,
00:16:35
Speaker
for for other people. It doesn't mean that you can't still get what you're looking for from that session. It just becomes significantly more important to know what tempo and threshold actually feels like. That way, when you're stuck in those hot and humid conditions, then you can still keep it at the right effort and not overextend yourself to hit a certain pace because the pace is all you know.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah, I remember whenever I was younger that my grandpa would phrase it as, um or he would break down the efforts as an ability to talk, where yeah when you're when you're at those like easy like light efforts, like let's say on an easy run, um it should be continuous talking.
00:17:21
Speaker
You should be able to hold a conversation very easily. Those tempo efforts should be, you know, phrases where you can get out, you know, a sentence or two. um And then whenever you get into the harder efforts, if you're if you're unable to maintain a conversation,
00:17:37
Speaker
Um, i shouldn't say maintain a conversation, but if you're unable to, ah answer any, any questions, whenever you're running a tempo, then you're probably not doing it right.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah.
Adapting Running Effort to Heat
00:17:50
Speaker
which is, I think, a ah good way to balance out that effort piece whenever you're experiencing the heat of the Southeast. Yeah, I love that.
00:18:01
Speaker
And, I mean, I've used that a lot as an example in the past, especially when you're, you know, you have groups training together. But the l i've I've used breathing a lot, too. i'll Like, just, you know, if I can breathe through my nose, then I know I'm, you know, probably – um I'm definitely below threshold if I can keep it breathing through my nose the entire time. Or like sometimes I'll count steps in and steps out just to make sure like I'm not having to breathe super fast to keep up because i mean, I love the talking thing, but when you're training by yourself, like I normally am, you might look a little silly when you're running through your face sentences out loud to prove you're at the right effort.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah. I was going to say that there have been a few times where I'm running out in a park And i'm I'm standing out there talking to myself going, you know, six fifteen six flat face. And everyone's staring at me like a madman. But it's effective.
00:18:54
Speaker
It's effective. Yeah. No, I've done it before, too. I normally try to make sure I'm not around people. And there's been a couple times I, like, turn a corner and somebody's right there. And I'm like, oh, crap. They think I'm crazy. Yeah. That'll do it. That'll do it.
00:19:07
Speaker
But I feel like this is also super important because like it's it's easy to look at a workout and be like, OK, we don't want to overrun this workout. But when it comes to easy runs, too, like that can also be so easily overran and overworked.
00:19:25
Speaker
um And considering those are our days to try and recover and let those adaptations actually sink in, um it it can really mess with the training schedule and the training cycle.
00:19:37
Speaker
So yeah how how do you handle that whenever you're talking to your athletes? Well, I know that oh you know that we do easy runs a little bit differently than a lot of programs do. And especially right now, like Z2 has become all the rage. Everybody on Instagram is advocating for it and whatever. but And I will say, I don't think that there's necessarily a 100% right or wrong answer. it's It's all in the context and how you apply it.
00:20:04
Speaker
But I will say that we don't do much of it and definitely not on a typical easier recovery day. i mean, we we generally keep ours significantly easier than a lot of programs. Like, we'll be around 7.30 pace for guys who can run sub-15 for five k or, you know, for the girls, we'll be around 8.15 8.30 pace for girls who can run 18 flat or faster in a 5K.
00:20:27
Speaker
And I do think that that approach has – It's a lot safer and it's allowed us to accumulate volume over time and build consistency in training without as much of a risk of injury.
00:20:40
Speaker
And i mean, you know, you think about it as Avery's a 1350 5k guy and he's often running as slow as eight minute pace. And I don't necessarily see a problem with that. I mean, him and most people on our team have been.
00:20:53
Speaker
continually continually making progress so i think it's safe to say that you know we're still getting some sort of like adaptation from that uh so i don't see a need for us to get aggressive or get greedy and start pushing z2 on that sort of stuff a lot of it is just being patient and you know a phrase i got from you trying to out discipline our competitors um And you know speaking of Z2, we've tried to push Z2 on some of our long runs occasionally. like we've We've at least tried it out. and yeah
00:21:23
Speaker
That corresponded with a time where we saw a significant increase in little nagging injuries or getting to a point of just feeling like we were dug into a hole. oh and I think a lot of that is just because The risk that you're looking at with pushing the pace on easy days is, you know, you're risking running just hard enough to where you're getting just tired enough that you can trudge through training, but not fully recover enough to adapt to the work that we're doing.
00:21:51
Speaker
So, like, you're still able to complete the workouts, just not actually... benefit from them in the way that we're looking. i' And this is true for the summer, of course, but really just like training as a whole, because my whole thought is that we're trying to find that middle ground in training where we're doing enough work to get better, but also feeling good enough that we can adapt to the work that we're doing. Like the message I sent into our group chat last week or the week before something like that basically said like,
00:22:19
Speaker
If you're feeling generally tired on a day-to-day basis, then that's a pretty strong sign that you aren't adapting to the work we're doing. And if you're not adapting to the work we're doing, then you aren't getting better. And if you aren't getting better, like i think everybody knows that that's that makes this kind of pointless.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah. Keeping the easy runs on the more cautious side, to me, really just allows us to have a better chance of not falling into that trudging through mud kind of feeling. Yeah, I think with the amount of volume we do,
00:22:47
Speaker
that it's really hard to try and go out there and stretch some of those those long runs, those easy runs into those faster pace ranges. um And to then recover and then run as much volume that we do at, you know, tempo threshold efforts.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah. Especially whenever we get into the heat of the season. Because that then compounds off of racing and everything else, school stress, things like that. Yeah. Where it makes it pretty difficult to manage all of those pieces at the same time.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah. But I think that... our Our next question um leads more towards ah nutrition side of things during the summertime.
Hydration and Electrolyte Balance
00:23:32
Speaker
um More specifically, whenever it comes to um hydration and things like that, ah fueling for these runs, because again, the heat has such a strong effect on the training.
00:23:45
Speaker
um so So when it comes to hydration, like what are what are some general guidelines for um to to treating the summer and making sure that we're prepared for the next run. Yeah. I mean, hydration's huge. And i would just say, you know, err on the side of drinking more water at this time a year than less. But I mean, and one, one way, if you really want to get dialed in with it is especially if you're running from your house, it's pretty easy. Like i will often go stand on the scale before I take off.
00:24:14
Speaker
And then when I get back, stand on the scale again. yeah, i'll You know, however much weight you've lost, you can pretty much equate that to, unless you stopped and used the bathroom during the run or something, you can pretty much equate that to water loss on that run.
00:24:30
Speaker
So if you've lost, you know, three pounds of water, well then that means you probably need to drink three pounds of water to replace what you lost. But then beyond that, like you also need to look at electrolytes oh and water.
00:24:42
Speaker
you know Element is huge. oh Liquid IV is great. If you're on a budget, then maybe just have some fruit after your run and salt your meals really well to get some sodium back in. But all together, make sure you're drinking during your runs. Make sure you're drinking after your runs. Make sure you're drinking throughout the day, especially if you're doing doubles.
00:25:00
Speaker
oh But I know like last summer, something that I noticed a huge difference in my training with was you know on double threshold days, I would make it a huge point to you know, of course I'm like drinking deer in my runs and, um, like the, the loop that me and Hans would do most of our easy runs on is like, you can, it can either be a 2k loop or a two mile loop. And we would set water out and we would just stop for a few seconds, every two miles or 2k, whatever loop we were running that day. And we'd sip water and we'd, we'd drink 30 ounces over the course of an easy run doing that.
00:25:33
Speaker
But, uh, Because we're in our little like world over here at Augusta University, I think it's hard for us sometimes to recognize like you know a lot of programs don't treat the running like that, where, you know, you know, if you have to stop, then you're, you're not doing it right. You know, if you have to stop in the middle of workout to get some water, then, you know, we're not putting enough effort in into this workout right now.
00:25:59
Speaker
Um, I think it's so funny cause like coach talks about progression runs and he'll, he'll sit a water bottle on his tailgate whenever he's doing these progression runs and every mile he's taking 30 seconds in the middle of the workout just to, you know, swig some water, check the effort, make sure he's doing it right and take off again.
00:26:16
Speaker
Um, yeah, maybe not, or like trying to keep it short, but making sure we're getting the water. Oh, but like, like on workouts, i mean, I'll say, you know, I've done a lot of my workouts on a one mile loop. And what I used to do, ah when I was in college was I would set, like you said, water on my tailgate and i would treat it like I'm a marathoner and I'd like run by and grab the water bottle. And, you know, maybe I carry it for a little bit and set it on the side of the trail and,
00:26:43
Speaker
come back and get it on my cool down or whatever. But I was, it was honestly kind of fun to like practice taking water off the table, like marathoner felt like it was preparing me well for the day that I get into marathons, which still hasn't happened, but you know, one day it's coming, it's coming eventually.
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah, but I think it it really underscores how we treat, you know, workouts and things like that. Like there are days where we go hard, oh but in large part, we're not worried about workouts because, you know,
00:27:14
Speaker
In for the grand scheme of running, workouts don't have as much of a direct correlation to racing as people like to think.
00:27:31
Speaker
You don't have to race workouts in order to race fast. Yeah. Yeah. There are those like specific times that we do want to. get into work Like, you know, we, like you during in track season, some of those more mile specific workouts, like we've, we've got certain times throughout the year that we want to hit it, but we're talking about two, three times in a buildup max. and when you're training for these longer events like cross, you know, it's, it's not something that you can do. And then the next week be back into it.
00:28:00
Speaker
So, you know, for, for those efforts, it, it might be something that we only do like one big time a year around races. And, out you know, ah I, I'm, I agree with you completely. Like, I don't think that you need to be racing workouts to try and get better. And that was something that I had to learn when I became an athlete here. Cause in undergrad, I was like racing every workout. And then I kept my splits and kept my logs from every time I had done those workouts before. And I'd compare them. And that was like,
00:28:28
Speaker
In my head, that told me how fast I was going to race, like it was some sort of math problem. And then came here and Coach Ward had the complete opposite approach. And it was, you know, a lot of my workouts were very unimpressive and they weren't, I wasn't doing things that I was looking at. And I'm like, oh yeah, I'm really fit. I'm about to go drop some crazy fast time.
00:28:51
Speaker
But I'm like stacking workouts constantly that I feel good in and building confidence just through the fact that I'm like accomplishing these things with ease. And then I go out and run a minute faster in the 5K when my workouts on paper are slower than they were a year before when I was a minute slower.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, and I remember um like a quote from Ethan Strand during an interview. I'm going to butcher it, so I'm not going to try and make it a direct quote. um But it was something to the effect of, you know, in talking with his coaches, um the the idea of his workouts wasn't to make him feel like he was going to go out and race his personal best in a 1500.
00:29:36
Speaker
um Oftentimes, he felt that the workouts were nowhere near maximal effort. And in that sense, he felt even more prepared because the way they talk about in their locker room, it's that that we go into these events um trained appropriately um enough to be, you know, enough to be dangerous, but we're not, we're not over training.
00:30:00
Speaker
um And that is something that is pretty huge. And what we're, we're talking about very loosely right now. um is avoiding overtraining during the summer, avoiding ah hitting those early peaks.
00:30:16
Speaker
um I remember in a Seconds Flat podcast, they had said um overtraining is two different components, under-fueling and under-recovering, both of which are very easy to do during the summertime, which is why i feel it's important that we talk about it in the first place.
00:30:39
Speaker
Under
Nutrition and Recovery
00:30:40
Speaker
recovering, I mean, sleep, food, those two things, as simple as they are, are so pivotal for performance.
00:30:51
Speaker
um Coach, how do you how do you try and encourage your athletes to make sure they're on top of that? Well, sleep, I mean, it's just something that we're constantly talking about and saying, you know, make sure you're getting your eight, nine plus hours. Like that is going to be critical for you. And, you know, I'm, I know that the people on the team follow me and see it, but, um, you know, anytime I see something that's talking about like injury risk associated with lack of sleep, I'm, I'm going to share that on social media.
00:31:20
Speaker
Because, I mean, there's there's plenty of studies out there. i was looking at one the other day that I had screenshot in my phone just from ah few years back, and it was ah the the stat that they came out with was, like, the increased injury risk that came with lack of sleep was, like, if you had – if you had an average of six hours of sleep, you had like a 70% chance of getting an injury over the course of, i think their timeframe was 21 months.
00:31:47
Speaker
And if you had seven hours of sleep on average, that dropped all the way down to, something in the 50% range. And then if you had eight hours of sleep, it dropped to like 33.
00:32:01
Speaker
And if you had nine hours of sleep, it dropped to like 15%. So, i mean, that right there alone just tells you, you know, how, how important it is to be making sure that you're on top of this and getting plenty of sleep. And of course, one bad night of sleep is not gonna, that's not going to get you a stress fracture, but they're talking about an average. So if you're, if you're consistently getting six hours of sleep, there's something significantly wrong that we need to address.
00:32:27
Speaker
Um, so the goal should be to try and get eight to nine hours as often as you possibly can. ill And then beyond that, just on the fueling side, i mean, as ah always told the team in our preseason meeting, i really want you to focus on taking in a lot of carbs, especially if your volume's going up, ah but really just for everybody in general because, you know, we're distance runners. We're running a lot. So the last thing I want is for you to be worrying about some number on the scale and trying to, you know,
00:32:57
Speaker
cut back on how many carbs or calories that you're taking in to try and meet some number. ill So really just make sure you're fueling your longer runs and your workouts because that's really going to go a long way and just – Allowing you not to dig as deep into a hole of fatigue. I mean, I know Hans has mentioned to me a handful of times that getting a nutrition sponsor and hyper light has been huge for him and his training, just because he's able to get dialed in with taking in carbs on his runs and making sure he's not getting into significant amounts of glycogen debt, which basically just makes it where you can put in the same work and not feel nearly as tired the next day, which bleeds into adaptation because
00:33:38
Speaker
If you aren't as tired from it, then you'll be able to adapt more fully to it. and that And there's a lot of research out there that, you know, like you and me both listen to David and Megan Roche's podcast, and they've talked a lot about that just regarding the fact that fueling your runs not digging into these levels of glycogen debt allows you to make bigger improvements and significantly lower the injury risk that comes with training. Yeah.
00:34:02
Speaker
you know for For the people that don't have a nutrition sponsor who maybe can't afford to get multiple gels or stuff like that a week, oh you could get even more simple with this. I mean, I used to eat boxes of raisins or have bananas with me on runs.
00:34:16
Speaker
oh Heck, i've been jogging along and eating an apple on a long run before. But um I know people on our team have used like honey or go-go squeeze. So there's there's plenty of options if you get creative. Just make sure it's carb heavy.
00:34:30
Speaker
Yeah. And like even sugary drinks have the same effect. You know, if you're drinking lemonade, that's doing the same exact thing as whipping up a ah powder into your drink.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah. I know that at one point Hans was using like high seafood punch or something.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, all that to say, there's ah there's a lot of different ways of doing it. And all of them contribute to the same overall theme that if you're fueling, you're going to be better prepared for not just, ah you know, the next day, but the next workout and the next week.
00:35:08
Speaker
um So staying consistent and staying on top of those sorts of things is so pivotal. Yeah. And that's not just within runs either. That's also just like outside of runs, you know, making sure you're eating plenty throughout the day and fueling for the next day's run.
00:35:25
Speaker
So from your perspective, um I know you're recruiting a lot of high caliber athletes. um A lot of them run really fast in high school, come in with big aspirations.
00:35:37
Speaker
How do you temper that that drive they have? Because many of them are hyper competitive individuals that want to go out and work and work hard. yeah And sometimes that, as we've talked about, that can be relatively counterproductive to what we want to do here.
00:35:53
Speaker
um so So how do you communicate with them and address the mindset of our program? Yeah,
Managing Competitive Athletes
00:36:03
Speaker
I mean, motivated athletes want to do everything possible to get better, but the goal is kind of to take these really motivated athletes and really competitive individuals and just teach them that the best thing for them is actually not to force things, but to actually just completely detach their ego from the workout splits or their Strava post or their Strava profile. And a lot of that, I mean, starts in recruiting because I'll tell kids about
00:36:28
Speaker
you know the athletes on our team and the progress they've made and the way that they approach training and all of that. A good example of that is JR. ah Last year he was a cross-country All-American and came into that build as 1455 5K guy, which you you know For reference, for everybody that's listening, that is not particularly close to what it takes to be an All-American caliber guy.
00:36:52
Speaker
Most All-American guys in D2 cross are running somewhere around 14 or sub-14. And... and you know Prior to that build, had never seen JR let guys drop him in a workout, but last year he bought himself a lactate monitor. He used that as a bit of a guide. and I remember on a couple occasions that we'd see two distinct groups on double threshold session or a tempo session or something like that, and JR would be running in the slower of the two groups, which...
00:37:21
Speaker
You know, funny point to that. oh Ninety nine percent of the time that was also i'll Avery would be in that same group and he was fifth in the 10K at track nationals. i'll But but either way, it was it was funny to see J.R. holding back like that because he's he's got that very competitive personality where, you know, before that semester, he ah he would always be.
00:37:43
Speaker
a guy that if somebody was feeling good wanted to pick it up, he's going to go with them because he's, he's competitive. But that lactate monitor told him that he, he was getting plenty of benefit from running five 20 pace. And that was fast enough to get what we were looking for on the session. And we talked a lot about that. mean, me and him read through Marius Backen's articles and research together, just talking about double threshold. And we, we talked a lot about what that needed to look like. And,
00:38:09
Speaker
he He saw from the monitor that there was no need to go faster than that, so he just let people go. and i mean It worked out pretty dang well for him. He went from a 1450 guy on the track to a guy who was crossing 5K on the grass in a 10K, and that is a split.
00:38:25
Speaker
and you know I mentioned how Avery would hang back, too. That's... That's been his way of running workouts through all of college, and he's gone from a 926 two-mile guy coming out of high school to a 28-minute 10K guy. oh And same for – can give you plenty of examples, but Thomas Rashar went from 1630 to 1420 in his time here, and that was always how he approached things. Caroline Pierce has gone from like 2030 as a freshman to 1806, and she's always trained that way.
00:38:53
Speaker
has Hans went from being a 1010-ish two-mile guy to – one of the best ultra runners in the world and that's always been his approach oh and like i said i can give plenty more examples but basically what i'm saying is you know we we talk a lot to recruits about the fact like these examples and that detaching your ego from the splits and not forcing things and instead just just checking the boxes works really well and on the opposite end you know i've I've seen a lot of progress stop before, maybe even regress when we've gotten excited about somebody running a PR and made their paces a little more aggressive to fit what we thought of as like a new level of fitness. And that's kind of served as a reminder to me that, you know, you shouldn't fix what's not broken.
00:39:38
Speaker
i'll If you're seeing breakthroughs at a certain level of training, that likely means that we should stay there a little bit longer at most, just make very small changes. um And I wish I could go back for some of those athletes and,
00:39:52
Speaker
you know, tell myself, Hey, they got to this breakthrough level of performance by training at this level. The performance shouldn't lead the training. The training came first and was what got them there. We, we don't need to drop their workout paces by 10 to 20 seconds, just because they ran a big PR.
00:40:07
Speaker
I mean, you know Back to Avery. oh Just walk through each year of his 5K PRs and you'll see he's made bigger jumps each year than he did the year before. like He was a 1450-something guy his freshman year, 1442 or something like that sophomore year, 1423 junior, and then 1351 senior.
00:40:27
Speaker
and He's still got a year of ah indoor eligibility left. and you know, it's like the progress has just been building on itself. But what's really funny about that is i have all y'all's workouts written out in different notebooks going all the way back to my first semester here. And I can go back and look on it and see that I've changed his tempo and threshold paces by at most five seconds per mile since he was 1450 Now, the volume of work has definitely gotten significantly higher, but we've never we've never tried to force things or get aggressive with the paces. We've just kind of let it happen and focused on stacking big volumes of solid workouts, and it's just compounded like crazy.
00:41:07
Speaker
Yeah, I know that with some of our guys coming in, The way I communicate that to them is like focusing on rather than, you know, outworking the people we have around us more towards out disciplining those around us.
00:41:23
Speaker
um
The Importance of Discipline
00:41:24
Speaker
And you had alluded to that earlier. and i think it's really important in a good you know, a picture to paint for them because it is so easy to wrap yourself up in those fast times, those fast workouts.
00:41:40
Speaker
But if we can reorient that, that hyper competitive edge towards, all right, I will perform these workouts to a T I will, I will do exactly what my coach tells me to,
00:41:55
Speaker
um and I will be better prepared for the next workout because of it. um That, you know, instills the the mindset that we want with our guys.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah. right. Well, just from an athlete's perspective and wrapping back to, you know, the overall goal of the podcast and talking about what the summer should look like i'll for you, what are some things that as an athlete you do in the summer to try and build good habits that are going to prepare you for the fall?
00:42:25
Speaker
I think for myself, um especially this summer, I've been trying to be more careful about when I'm doing these runs. um You know, talking about being in the Georgia Heat.
00:42:38
Speaker
Waking up early is just a necessity at this point. If I want to make sure that I'm getting in these runs at the appropriate effort range um and not having to adjust the paces drastically, then I need to be up early and active and you know ready to go.
00:42:58
Speaker
I think the other thing that I've really had to work on, um last year I ran into some problems where I think they were largely ah related to my diet and not that I, what I was eating necessarily, just that I wasn't eating enough.
00:43:12
Speaker
um It caused a lot of fatigue, made those first couple of weeks back on campus really hard. um So that has been huge for me where, you know, making sure I'm eating three meals a day that I'm snacking consistently between my meals.
00:43:29
Speaker
um And, you know, even if it's not the best stuff for me all the time, at least it's food and at least it's calories. And it's something that will, you know, make those, those runs easier to get in.
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I know that, um like how you mentioned getting up early, I know a lot of that means like, you know, because it's such a necessity to get up early right now, that also means having to get in bed early if we're going to actually prioritize sleep. So, you know, do you like during the summer, do you find it difficult to try and get to better? Because it's also like one thing I've kind of struggled with is I had to like buy blackout curtains and a sleep mask and all of that because it doesn't get dark here until I need to be long asleep.
00:44:15
Speaker
Oh, so how are, like, what are some things that you do to really focus on that? Yeah, i've had I've had to work on that a good bit. um I'm a bit of a night owl, so waking up early has been a struggle for me and is never a struggle for me in school because, you know, if I don't have class till 11, then I can get my shakeout in at 10 o'clock when it's not hot um and then go to practice like normal. So the summer has always been a weird time.
00:44:43
Speaker
But for me, it's just being regimented. um I know like a lot of my family also stays up pretty late. So being able to like tell myself like, okay, like this is what I have to do.
00:44:56
Speaker
If I want to be ready for tomorrow, if I want to be ready for the next day, if I want to be ready for the workout, then, you know, I got to go to bed early. got to make sure that I'm on time. Um, so that's been hard putting my phone ah far away from my bed when I'm trying to go to sleep is huge.
00:45:12
Speaker
Um, I'm way too tempted by a nice little doom scroll on Instagram to sure that I'm going to bed on time. So putting it on the other side of the room when it gets plugged into the charger definitely helps a lot.
00:45:23
Speaker
Um, that's been like, that's been my biggest issue too, is like, it's so easy to just lay down and You know, i've I've even got a time limit thing on Instagram on my phone, but it's so easy to just click open again.
00:45:40
Speaker
And oh so it's so easy to just like fall into the trap of, oh, I'm going to look on here and like just check and see if anybody's messaged me or something like that. And all of a sudden you're watching reels. And speaking of reels, you know, I did see a funny video the other day. I can't remember the girl's name, but she was on the Running Effect podcast the other day.
00:46:00
Speaker
But oh she made a video just talking about like, if you're trying to get injured this season, you know the best way to do it? Get six hours of sleep because you're staying up until midnight watching reels.
00:46:13
Speaker
And ah i was, it was also probably like 1030 at night and I was watching reels when I saw that and was like, all right, that's my cue to put this phone down real quick. That'll make you put the phone away fast.
00:46:25
Speaker
Yeah. But I mean, you mentioned like, during the school year, how you don't struggle with those sort of things. And, you know, so what are even though this isn't really summer related, but what are some things, oh, in season when you get into those tough points with classes and things are busy and stressful, what are some ways that you still focus on keeping yourself recovered while still balancing the demands of school and everything else?
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think the school part can make it difficult at times because, you know, if the schoolwork is pretty low, that probably means that I did a lot during the day.
00:47:04
Speaker
And then I had practice and then i had classes I went to. So normally by about 10 o'clock, I'm like, wow, I could really go to bed right now, oh which makes it a lot easier because the summertime for me right now is not like that.
00:47:18
Speaker
Until July, I've got nothing that I'm really doing. So, you know, I sit around, I take a nap every now and then. It makes it a little more tempting to stay up late. um But during the school year, um you know, just being able to set times where it's like, okay, at this point, I need to shut the computer off, which I'm pretty bad about, especially whenever it comes to my schoolwork. Like if I know I have an exam coming up and I don't feel comfortable with it.
00:47:44
Speaker
i'll stay up later than i should um just to to make sure that i'm prepared um but it's not great i'm i'm working on it i'm actively working it this year will be a lot easier my my schedule's a lot lighter so i don't have as many science classes that i need to stress myself out over good um but outside of that um the easiest way to combat staying up late for school, if that's the problem, is just doing it during the day.
00:48:14
Speaker
um yeah Taking time out of your afternoon before practice when you might take a nap and go, okay, I'm going to get this hour and a half work or schoolwork done. That way I don't have to do it after dinner at, you know, 830, nine o'clock.
00:48:27
Speaker
Because with our, you know, with our workouts, let's say we start at 430, there have been nights where I've gotten home at 8 39 and i i need to eat still so by the time i eat it's 10 o'clock and if i have an hour and a half worth of work to do and i have a class at 9 a.m m my school or my sleep is about to hit the wayside um so just being better about managing my time has helped me out a lot but that's also not something I'm great at either. So, you know, it's a constant struggle.
00:49:03
Speaker
thats And that's constantly a learning process. I mean, I'm long removed from being a college athlete and that's still something that I work on is like, sometimes I'll get to the end of the day and I'm at home and, you know, I've i've got some things that, or like some, some paperwork that I can do on my phone that I need to knock out before I go to bed. And it's like 10 o'clock at night and I'm pulling up, uh, arms on my phone trying to get some work done. oh so it's a constant learning process, but like, that's something that I've talked with athletes a lot about is, you know, we'll, we'll go through what their daily schedule looks like. And I know that our, our tutors in the academic success center, they, you know, they've talked to me about doing the same thing for athletes, but,
00:49:45
Speaker
I know that, you know, for a few athletes, I've sat down just gone through their daily schedule each day for the week. And I'm like, hey, here's some gaps that we aren't using to study that we can.
00:49:56
Speaker
And that's going to make it where you don't feel like you need to use 1030 to 12 o'clock at night for it. And another ga way a good way of managing that, like you said, is we have advisors on hand that can help us schedule classes where we can have time in the day to get some work done.
00:50:14
Speaker
You know, that doesn't happen all the time. And a lot of times you just get stuck in classes due time constraints. But normally you can manage to make a pretty easy schedule that allows you the time on the weekends or during the day to get your work done and not have it impact your sleep.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah. And the week, the weekends are a huge area to catch up to. I know that, you know, it's obviously appealing to be able to have your weekends to just like hang out and chill and not think about school and not think about running on Sunday or after that Saturday long run. But, but at the same time, like that, that can clear up a lot of stress from your week to get some stuff done on Sunday when you don't have anything else going on. And,
00:50:56
Speaker
knock a bunch out and then be able to go into the week feeling like you're pretty caught up and you're not stressed on monday trying to catch up on an assignment that's due on wednesday yeah because just as important as the actual action of sleep is um not being stressed due to assignments that you have upcoming that are lingering over your shoulder uh is just as important whenever it comes to you know making sure those adaptations stick Yeah.
00:51:23
Speaker
That itself just bleeds so much back into training. Like, cause stress on the body is stress no matter where it's coming from. i mean, I know you and me have talked about like the analogy of water in a bucket and you know, the bucket is how much stress you can handle and adapt to. And the more that that bucket can be filled with training related stress, the better.
00:51:43
Speaker
But if you're filling it with stress from, you know, procrastinating schoolwork or lack of sleep or whatever it's coming from, then you're leaving yourself with less space for training to benefit from.
00:51:54
Speaker
And if we, if we don't account for that and back off the training, then what can potentially happen when you're overflowing with this other stress is that, that, you know, analogy of the bucket, that bucket overflows. And when it's overflowing, that manifest as either, you know, getting overly tired, not adapting or worst case getting injured.
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah. And like, as a coach, I can only imagine how important it is to be aware of those outside stressors because like that bucket analogy, the same type of training and the same volume of training can impact the athlete differently depending on the outside stress outside stressors that they have coming in to the workouts.
00:52:34
Speaker
Yep. So, and that, and you know, we talked about communication earlier that just that bleeds back into communication, how important it is to just have an open line between athlete and coach and be able to talk about those things and what's going on outside of just the running and be able to account for that in training because it all bleeds together. It's all, you know, you're a human and we're looking for a response that makes your human body better at this running thing.
00:53:03
Speaker
And it's not like, it's not like you can just separate the running part from the rest of it. It's all, you're a human. It all comes together and it all has to be accounted for. yeah, I think, I think that's a pretty good place to just wrap it up as we slowly start to get away from things that are all less summer related.
00:53:21
Speaker
oh
Conclusion and Invitation
00:53:23
Speaker
But yeah, you know, this, I feel like this has been a great first episode. Excited to, you know, keep getting on with you and, you know, putting out more. but all But yeah, thanks for everybody for listening.
00:53:34
Speaker
oh If you enjoyed it, you know, go and subscribe and, listen to the next one, but you know, and glad you listened and, uh, come back for the next one. All right. Go Jags.
00:53:47
Speaker
Go Jags.