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Episode 101: Inbetweenie - 6 Takeaways from Running a Marathon that Apply to Any Excercise Goal
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In this episode of the Movement Logic Podcast, Laurel shares six universal takeaways from training for and running her first marathon—and how they apply to any long term, challenging, exercise-related goal. Whether your goal is to build strength, increase stamina, or just feel more capable in your daily life, this episode explores fundamental training principles, helpful mindset coaching, and empowering tips to help you reach a long-term, physically demanding goal.
Rather than focusing on the details of marathon training, Laurel distills what she learned about goal-setting, accountability, program design, recovery, and the fatigue that can sometimes hide progress. She also calls out the overwhelming and often contradictory fitness advice targeted at women, especially during perimenopause and menopause, and urges a more individualized and practical approach to training.
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00:58 Why I trained for a marathon and what I learned
04:17 Takeaway #1: Have a realistic, measurable goal
13:34 Takeaway #2: Programming is a hypothesis
21:05 Takeaway #3: Accountability helps you follow through
27:50 Takeaway #4: Fatigue can mask your progress
35:45 Takeaway #5: Recovery reveals your fitness
42:00 Takeaway #6: Strength supports everything
RESOURCES
Episode 9: What Are the Best Exercises for Strength?
Episode 85: Inbetweenie - Boosting Recovery: What Really Works
Episode 70: Inbetweenie - Do you need a deload week?
Episode 90: Capacities for Longevity Part 1: Strength
Episode 94: Capacities for Longevity Part 2: Power
Episode 98: Capacities for Longevity Part 3: Cardio
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Laurel Biebersdorf, strength and conditioning coach. And I'm Dr. Sarah Court, physical therapist. With over 30 years of combined experience in fitness, movement, and physical therapy, we believe in strong opinions loosely held. Which means we're not here to hype outdated movement concepts.
00:00:15
Speaker
or to gatekeep or fearmonger strength training for women. For too long, women have been sidelined in strength training. Oh, you mean handed pink dumbbells and told to sculpt? Whatever that means, we're here to change that with tools, evidence, and ideas that center women's needs and voices.
00:00:32
Speaker
Let's dive in.
Marathon Journey and Boston Qualifying
00:00:49
Speaker
Welcome to the Movement Logic Podcast. My name is Laurel Beaversdorf and I'm here all by myself with a little in-betweeny episode for you today in which I hope to share a few takeaways from my training for and running my first marathon, which I did a few weeks ago.
00:01:06
Speaker
In this episode, rather than get into the nitty-gritty of how I trained for a marathon and talk a lot about running, which I love to do and would gladly do, I'm instead going to share six what i believe are universal takeaways for how to train for a long-term, physically demanding goal. And we'll talk about what those goals might might actually look like.
00:01:33
Speaker
So before I get into it, i do wanna share, if you haven't on social media following my marathon journey, If you've heard past episodes, my goal was to, yes, run my first marathon, but I actually escalated my goal to I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which was a realistic goal. And I'm happy to tell you that I think I accomplished it. I ran a three hour, 35 minute and 30 second marathon, which is nine and a half minutes below the qualifying time for my ah gender and age group.
00:02:04
Speaker
Nine and half minutes faster than that cutoff is probably going to get me into the Boston Marathon. So I think I did it. And ah i just felt really profoundly grateful when I was done, mostly for the support that I received from my husband and also for the fact that I have a life in which I am privileged enough to be able to train for a fucking marathon because that is no joke.
00:02:28
Speaker
So my biggest takeaway from all of it was profound gratitude and a sense of fulfillment. It was really a worthwhile endeavor. Anyway, so you have a little bit of background. Okay, that was the goal. I reached it.
00:02:39
Speaker
I'm going to share some universal takeaways.
Universal Takeaways from Marathon Training
00:02:41
Speaker
that I gleaned from training for this marathon that I might have understood before training for this marathon, but i they really crystallized for me in this process.
00:02:51
Speaker
So what I hope you hear in this episode are ideas that you can then apply across whatever training context you are currently involved in, any exercise that you've decided to devote some time and energy to, any goals that you might have. Maybe maybe your goals, let's talk about goals, maybe your goal is that you are gearing up for a race. Maybe it's a competition. Maybe you're going to compete like one of our Bone Density Course alums in a downhill skiing race against your your children um and you want to perform well at it. So that could be a goal. That's like
00:03:26
Speaker
my goal for the marathon. Or maybe you're like Sarah, who is working toward a very specific performance goal. Sarah is working on being able to deadlift 200 pounds.
00:03:38
Speaker
Or my friend Caitlin Casella, who just a couple months ago couldn't do a pull-up and now can do like several pull-ups. She was working on getting her first pull up. But maybe your goal is not performance driven.
00:03:50
Speaker
Maybe your goal is not competitive in nature. right Maybe you are gearing up for a physically demanding vacation. Maybe it's a hiking trip. Maybe you are gearing up for a physically more involved period of your life, retirement. like You're retiring and you know you're goingnna have a lot more free time to do some stuff that you weren't able to do as much of when you weren't retired, like renovate your house.
00:04:15
Speaker
focus more on gardening, take trips, take care of your grandchildren, whatever it is. Maybe you are getting ready for pregnancy or birth, or maybe you're trying to build your capacity back up postnatal.
00:04:29
Speaker
There are so many more goals that you could create for yourself around exercise that would be potentially goals that you would have to work toward long term and that would be physically demanding.
00:04:41
Speaker
By physically demanding, I mean that in order to reach your goal, you're going to have to make a significant, maybe obvious change to your physical capacity from where you are currently.
Tailoring Training Plans
00:04:52
Speaker
Here's the thing, the specifics of these goals, you know the changes we're trying to make, albeit they will all be different depending on the goal, they all have this thing in common. all right So they all are probably going to take some time, maybe not just one month, but like several months, maybe several years, depending on how big the goal is right and and where you're starting from at baseline.
00:05:14
Speaker
They're all going to require a real shift in what your body is capable of doing now. and It's very likely that in order to reach this goal, you are going to have to have some kind of a plan, some kind of a routine, which you can be consistently engaging with.
00:05:33
Speaker
All right. So for me, marathon training was this type of a process where I was trying to make a very obvious decision. measurable change to my capacity. This process became a lens for me to understand how training works a little bit more clearly for me. Okay, and this is important.
00:05:55
Speaker
I think it's really easy to passively consume advice online about the best tips for optimizing your training, to fall into a pattern of consuming information about exercise and training, and to become mired And a lot of conflicting advice, a lot of confusing advice.
00:06:15
Speaker
Currently, there's boatloads of advice aimed at women who are perimenopausal and menopausal. And Sarah and I are going to say a lot more about this in season seven. But research supports very few of these.
00:06:30
Speaker
claims about special ways that women should eat, but also exercise and train. Research robustly continues to support the notion that probably the most important consideration we need to make for creating any type of plan to reach some exercise-related goal is individuality.
00:06:54
Speaker
So does the training plan match the individual? Here's some things that it should match. It should match the individual's goals. Man, woman, any stage of life, doesn't matter nearly, nearly as much as whether or not the training matches the individual's goals, preferences, experience.
00:07:15
Speaker
skill level, access to equipment. Does the training plan accommodate their injuries or history of injury, their overall health status?
00:07:26
Speaker
These are definitely ways that we should guide our plans for achieving hard-to-reach exercise-related goals, and probably not as much how old we are, we're male or female, or gender neutral, or if we are at a particular stage in our life like menopause or perimenopause.
00:07:49
Speaker
But if you've been online and the algorithm knows that you're a woman around perimenopause or menopause, you probably have been fed a lot of content about how do you optimize your everything for menopause and perimenopause.
00:08:03
Speaker
And it's easy if you're not up on the research for the takeaway from many of these claims to be that you're doing it all wrong. That basically everything you understood about exercise is all wrong and that you need to be doing it totally differently.
00:08:18
Speaker
It's highly questionable, but it's hard to wade through these claims, especially when they're made by scientists or doctors. So look, I think it's wonderful that women are getting more attention as it pertains to exercise, especially women in their you know perimenopausal and menopausal stage of life.
00:08:34
Speaker
I think that that is a good thing. But we got to ask if a lot of this attention is wrapped up in the fact that we are operating in a capitalist economy and if what is being sold to us in the form of this advice about how to exercise, depending on our demographic, is actually just another money grab.
00:09:00
Speaker
by people who are unfortunately often misrepresenting research to sell you solutions. to problems they often create.
Questioning Exercise Advice for Menopausal Women
00:09:09
Speaker
Okay, but this is not what this in-betweeny is about.
00:09:11
Speaker
Sarah and I have a lot to say about this, and we're gonna say it in season seven, but for now, know this, it's way too easy to burn through energy, in my opinion, about the best, most optimal, rightest way to train based on what demographic categories you fall into or based on just different advice coming from competing sources.
00:09:30
Speaker
I consumed a lot of advice while training for my marathon, I listened to a boatload of podcast episodes and read a bunch of books along the way. i genuinely find it enjoyable to be consuming a lot of information about what I'm doing or what I think I'm doing, even when a lot of this information can contradict what I'm doing or pose some type of alternative approach. I guess I've been around long enough in the industry to know that just because someone is telling me that the way I'm doing it is maybe not the best way doesn't mean that I have to change that way. So I didn't let it affect my approach, right? And the six takeaways that came from this four-month process I underwent training for the marathon ah wrapped up in what I think will help
00:10:20
Speaker
guard you against that concern that you're doing it all wrong. These takeaways, I think, are going to but help you feel more confident every step of the way in your training.
00:10:30
Speaker
Here are the six takeaways that I think could apply any exercise-related goal involving a long-term process of making a significant change to your capacity in order to reach a relatively tough goal.
00:10:43
Speaker
Okay, so number one, have a goal. Have a goal. Have a goal that is reachable given your current level and the timeline in which you hope to achieve it.
00:10:53
Speaker
This might mean adjusting your timeline, right? And bonus points, I think, for your goal if it is specific enough to be measurable or observable.
00:11:04
Speaker
So in other words, objective. Bonus points if your goal is specific enough to be objectively measurable or observable. Because this will make it easier for you to track your progress and know that you're making progress.
00:11:18
Speaker
So have a goal, a reachable goal with a reasonable timeline, bonus points if it is objectively observable or measurable. We're going to talk a little bit about how to make goals that feel less objective, more objective.
00:11:33
Speaker
Okay, number two, programming is a hypothesis. Test each week and adjust your hypothesis. for the following week based on what happens.
00:11:45
Speaker
So programming is not a plan written in stone. Number three, accountability helps you follow through. Find it.
00:11:55
Speaker
Find the accountability. We'll talk about ways to stay accountable. I'll share with you how I stayed accountable. Number four, fatigue can mask your progress. to the point where you aren't sure you're making it.
00:12:08
Speaker
So if you are training fairly hard for a good portion of the week, that fatigue is going to lead to some meh days, some days where you don't feel like you are progressing.
00:12:21
Speaker
You actually might even feel like you're regressing. Just be aware that fatigue masks progress and fatigue is a normal and natural outcome from training.
00:12:34
Speaker
specifically when you are training at a level that is going to make a change to your capacity, there will be fatigue. Fatigue can mask progress. Doesn't mean you're not making progress. It just means that it's masked by your fatigue.
00:12:47
Speaker
Number five, being recovered reveals your fitness. When you're recovered, you are going to feel like you have more fitness. But here's the thing. The recovery didn't instigate the change in your fitness.
00:13:01
Speaker
The training did. Training is what drives the change. And all meaningful training causes meaningful fatigue. So don't be afraid of fatigue, but when you are recovered, enjoy it.
00:13:14
Speaker
Enjoy that shit. It's fun. It's fun to feel fitter. Number six, strength supports literally everything. I probably don't need to tell you that audience, but it's a no-brainer for any goal you're chasing, even if your goal pertains to a very different adaptation, like cardio-respiratory fitness, running a marathon, strength supports every damn thing.
00:13:39
Speaker
All right, so let's get into each universal takeaway one by one.
Setting Realistic and Measurable Goals
00:13:45
Speaker
The first one was have a goal. So my goal for the marathon was to finish the marathon with a certain time.
00:13:52
Speaker
I had a pretty difficult goal to achieve. I gave myself about 50% chance. And as I continued training, my chances that I gave myself really didn't change at all. Like marathon day, I still gave myself about a 50% chance.
00:14:08
Speaker
Right. So I kind of had about the same amount of hope throughout the entire process, which I think is kind of a good thing. Right. I didn't discover that my goal was out of reach. And I also didn't discover that it was easier than I thought.
00:14:24
Speaker
It was about as hard as I thought it was going to be. Now, I might have underestimated myself the entire time because I actually easily achieved my goal. But that's not the point. The point is that the goal for me while I was working toward it actually felt pretty hard.
00:14:38
Speaker
But it didn't feel completely impossible. I knew based on past race performances that had a shot. So this is important. You don't just come up with some goal that you'd like to achieve without it being rooted in reality. I didn't just go, I want to run the Boston Marathon having just started running, right? I knew what I was capable of from past races.
00:14:58
Speaker
Right. You don't go from not strength training at all to I want to deadlift 200 pounds. Like, why don't try deadlifting a little bit and see if actually that's something you even want.
00:15:11
Speaker
Right. That's the other thing about goals is like sometimes we create goals that we then realize we don't really even care that much about. So here's where I'll say it's OK to change your goal. I never felt like changing my goal of trying to qualify for Boston, but I've definitely created goals for myself where I'm like, I don't really care that much about that anymore. Like I had a goal of doing a muscle up for a while and I was like, I don't know if this is possible given how much time I have to devote to this goal.
00:15:37
Speaker
And I wasn't willing to devote as much time to to getting a muscle up as I was to running a marathon, probably because I didn't find it as enjoyable as running. But It's okay to change your goal. Whatever your goal is, though, despite whether you change it or not, try to come up with a realistic goal that is tough but achievable and give yourself enough time to reach it.
00:15:57
Speaker
And also, if you can make your goal objectively observable or measurable, it's going to help you know that you're making progress. It's going to be encouraging. And it's also going to help you know if you're not making progress.
00:16:09
Speaker
Here's where we can talk about if you have one of those goals that is a little harder to pin down some type of objective way of knowing, right? Like, let's say you just want to be fitter for retirement. Fitter. um Fitness.
00:16:20
Speaker
What is that? So you're going to pick some markers. What does it mean to you? What will it look like for you to be fitter? And here's where you can decide potentially on the types of capacities you want to focus on.
00:16:35
Speaker
Maybe they are, for example, strength and cardiorespiratory fitness. Maybe you want to be stronger. That would fall under the umbrella of being fitter, right?
00:16:47
Speaker
How will you know you're stronger? Well, you could get a read on how strong you currently are. right How much can you currently lift in a couple of different exercises? Choose some exercises that you would like to be stronger at.
00:17:00
Speaker
Find out how strong you are now and then to decide how much stronger would you like to be. So Sarah tested her strength a number of times in the deadlift by training the deadlift and realized that she was as strong as she was in the deadlift and then decided that she wanted to get so much stronger that she could deadlift 200 pounds.
00:17:17
Speaker
It's very specific. It's observable and measurable and trackable. So if you're just looking to be fitter, pick some exercises, maybe some upper body and lower body strength.
00:17:28
Speaker
Decide how much stronger you want to be in them. Like how much do you want to be able to lift for a given number of reps? so You could be like, I can currently strict press 15 pounds 10 times.
00:17:41
Speaker
I want to be able to strict press 25 pounds 10 times. Now that's a lot stronger. right? You could also do the same thing for the row, for the deadlift, for the squat, for any exercise. And maybe if it's general strength you're trying to improve, choose one exercise from the major categories of exercise.
00:18:03
Speaker
I'm going to link some episodes in the show notes that we've recorded in the past that can be great resources for you to listen to for understanding fitness in general and how you might go about elevating your total body strength and what exercises you might want to focus on.
00:18:20
Speaker
And then along with fitness might come cardio respiratory fitness. like you just You want to have more energy for exercise. You want to have an easier time sustaining physical activity for longer. right This comes down to potentially noticing, for example, how challenging a certain bout of cardio feels and then working on it until it doesn't feel as challenging, right?
00:18:43
Speaker
Maybe it's having a time goal, a pace goal, a distance goal that you want to be able to achieve. Maybe it's biking, maybe it's running, maybe it's hiking.
00:18:54
Speaker
The point here is find a goal that is objectively measurable or observable, right? and work on it. Bonus points for tracking it each week and writing down what happened so you can see your progress over time.
00:19:08
Speaker
Purportedly, the women who sign up for bone density course, their goal is to build bone. But I think many of them are looking for changes to their strength that is then reflected in their daily lives, where they just want to feel stronger in their daily lives.
00:19:23
Speaker
I want to feel stronger in my daily life is a phenomenal goal. But it's not it's not as trackable as the spreadsheet we give them for the six exercises that they're working on each workout and the two workouts they're working on each week and the six blocks of training they're doing with us over the course of six months.
00:19:43
Speaker
that they are tracking their progress in. And as they see their progress in each of those exercises, each of those workouts, each of those weeks, each of those months, over the course of six months, develop, they know they're getting stronger and they feel stronger in their everyday life, right? So that's what I mean by create a measurable, observable way to follow through on your goal.
00:20:08
Speaker
You can do this with cardiorespiratory fitness as well, where you can work on improving your ability to sustain exercise over longer periods of time. All right, the second universal takeaway, programming is ah hypothesis.
Training as a Hypothesis
00:20:24
Speaker
Hypothesis is a scientific term, and strength training has been scientifically studied, but training isn't necessarily ah science. Training is equally an art. The reason I say programming is a hypothesis is that and a hypothesis is a best guess that a scientist makes based on what they expect to happen in an experiment.
00:20:43
Speaker
But it doesn't really mean anything until that hypothesis is tested. And that's the same thing with programming. Programming means nothing until it's tested. In science, hypotheses evolve in response to data.
00:20:56
Speaker
They don't evolve in response to hopes and agendas. And I think training should work the same way. Your program should adapt in response to what actually happened to you and how it landed for you.
00:21:08
Speaker
Not on what you wish would happen week to week or what your coach wishes would happen week to week. It really should be based each week on how the last week's training landed for you.
00:21:21
Speaker
Okay, so let me back up and also share with you that I wrote out the whole program for training for my marathon in a spreadsheet before I started training for the marathon. And then what I did is I tested each week, week by week, and I adjusted based on what happened.
00:21:38
Speaker
So my training approach was responsive, and that's how I approached the entire process for the full four months. Start with a plan that seems reasonable and that seems sound for you.
00:21:51
Speaker
That might be a plan that someone writes for you. It might be a plan you write yourself. It might be a plan you work together to write with someone. It might be a plan you're given and then you kind of tweak. But you should start with taking a guess. Will this work for you?
00:22:04
Speaker
Will it suit your lifestyle? Will it accommodate your preferences? Will it take you towards your goals? Does it take into account your experience and skills? Does it Accommodate your access to equipment. Does it take into account your injuries and your overall health?
00:22:18
Speaker
Okay, then you test it. Every week you test whatever the week's plan is and you continue to adjust based on what happens. The training plan I wrote was reasonable for me, but it definitely wasn't exactly right. Like it needed to be changed every single week, sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot.
00:22:38
Speaker
I was responsive week to week. because I was able to see what worked and what didn't. I was able to feel how my body was responding to the training, whether that was positively or negatively. Programming is your best guess based on your available data from what happened the week before. and Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a skeleton plan. It also doesn't mean you shouldn't want something to happen.
00:23:02
Speaker
I think you should. That's the goal, right? The adaptation you're trying to create to reach the goal is what you want to have happen. And having a skeleton plan for how to achieve that goal gives you a framework to fill in the details.
00:23:15
Speaker
But the way you get to the goal is really testing each week's plan and seeing how it goes and then adjusting the next week based on that. So programming is a hypothesis. I could also say programming should be responsive.
00:23:29
Speaker
Sarah's goal is to deadlift 200 pounds. This is hypothetical. Let's say one week she's supposed to do four sets of five at a specific weight, but she's tired. She's not recovering. So she drops the weight by 10 or 20 pounds.
00:23:41
Speaker
Does this mean she moved away from her goal? No. It means that her training was responsive. And it means that she protected her progress by adjusting in that responsive way.
00:23:53
Speaker
So did it work? Right? Programming is hypothesis. We test the hypothesis of a week's plan. We go, did it work? It's not the same thing as did I make progress this week?
00:24:03
Speaker
We might be experiencing some fatigue from the training we did. Progress can take longer to show up, but it is more about the logistic possibility of you doing what was written.
00:24:14
Speaker
And is the fatigue you're experiencing from what you did preventing you from doing the plan? Is one of those workouts interfering with a whole bunch more that come after it?
00:24:24
Speaker
In general, are you able to do what's written, right? And if not, is there something about the program that can be changed so that you are? Okay, here's the thing. I think if our energy went into testing and adjusting based on the results we see, right? it In other words, if if our energy went into taking action, rather than passively consuming a lot of advice and then suffering from that paralysis of second-guessing everything because 16 different people are saying 16 different things, I think we're much better off taking one way that sounds reasonable and just doing it.
00:24:59
Speaker
Because the learning is in the doing. The change making is in the doing. The next best choice comes from what happened from the doing. Longevity is in the doing of exercise.
00:25:11
Speaker
There should just generally, in my opinion, when it comes to pursuing a goal related to exercise, just be more doing.
00:25:21
Speaker
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00:25:32
Speaker
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00:25:47
Speaker
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00:25:59
Speaker
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00:26:15
Speaker
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00:26:32
Speaker
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00:26:45
Speaker
Okay, takeaway number three, accountability helps you follow through.
Strategies for Accountability
00:26:50
Speaker
Now, I've mentioned that I had some ways that I held myself accountable to running this marathon.
00:26:56
Speaker
And really the ways that I think keep us most accountable, and there's so many different ways to do it, the ways that keep us most accountable to ourselves is when we are able to tap into what it is that we base our identity around.
00:27:12
Speaker
What motivates us based on how we identify our identity and who we think of ourselves as as a person. So for example, I have built the identity in myself of someone one who follows through on doing what they say they're going to do. That's very specific. I do what I say I'm going to do. and Okay.
00:27:36
Speaker
So this means that if I say it out loud to someone, I'm much more likely to do it. Now I told Nathan, I was going to try to qualify for, but i actually asked him if that was okay with him.
00:27:49
Speaker
was like, are you okay if I run a marathon? First of all, because this affects you. And second of all, are you okay if I actually am kind of intense about it? And We go to this very flat, cool course in northern Michigan in May, and I try to qualify for Boston because I'll have a better chance of qualifying for Boston if the course is flat and cool.
00:28:08
Speaker
okay But I told him, right? And I also told Sarah, and I also told my dad. Those are three people I told who are very close to me. But then I also told Instagram. And I have long used Instagram and my page on Instagram.
00:28:22
Speaker
to hold myself accountable. I did it for getting my first pull up. I did it when I was studying for the CSCS. And I did it again for this marathon. And by the way, I just applied to a master's in kinesiology. I hope I get in.
00:28:35
Speaker
It's an um applied sports science track. I'm very excited about it. And yes, I will probably use social media to hold myself accountable for that, too. I used it for when I got my prereqs for PT school. Like, I've long announced things on social media as a way to say it out loud so that I do what I said I was going to do.
00:28:54
Speaker
Now, that might not be you, right? Because that form of accountability might not work with your identity. What are your values? What is important to you about how you show up?
00:29:08
Speaker
What causes you to show up, right? When the weather's bad, when you don't want to, when you'd rather do a thousand other things, what makes you show up anyway, right?
00:29:19
Speaker
I see all sorts of strategies in bone density cores that people use to hold themselves accountable. People are showing up to the live classes. People are posting in the Facebook group things that are coming up for them.
00:29:32
Speaker
People are sharing their personal goals. People are purchasing, investing money in equipment. They are rearranging their houses. They are submitting form check videos regularly.
00:29:46
Speaker
These are all ways of backing up your commitment with action. They're all ways of holding yourself accountable. And there's so many more that I haven't given an example of. um Accountability isn't about perfection or fear of failure. It's about giving yourself every chance to show up when you don't feel like it.
00:30:06
Speaker
It taps into things I think we naturally care about, which is reinforcing our identity, social capital, financial investment, right?
00:30:17
Speaker
Using those tools, and pulling those levers to reinforce a habit is a good idea. So figure out a way to hold yourself accountable. And no, accountability is not the whole picture.
00:30:28
Speaker
There are other factors outside of our control that will interfere with our ability to train, for sure. So If you are unable to remain consistent for whatever reason, it's not necessarily because you failed at finding accountability. That's definitely not the case.
00:30:42
Speaker
But it definitely cannot hurt, and it can be a massive help. Another thing that stood out to me in this whole process was that there were a lot of ups and downs, but even more days that were just meh.
00:30:56
Speaker
Meh. Lots of average days. some below average days ive but a lot of just nothing nothing special just another day of running i learned how to keep going anyway i had some ways that I held myself accountable.
00:31:09
Speaker
In addition to creating a goal that is objective in the sense that it's observable and measurable and that's also realistic. And then if you also remember that programming is hypothesis and you're responsive to your exercise week to week, accountability will only add to your ability to stick with something.
Understanding Fatigue and Recovery
00:31:31
Speaker
All right, next, fatigue can mask your progress. Here's where we could talk about the fitness fatigue model. The fitness fatigue model was developed in the 1970s by Bannister and colleagues, and it explains how performance, your ability to do a thing, is influenced by both your fitness as well as fatigue, fatigue you are experiencing while performing the thing.
00:31:57
Speaker
High fitness... with high fatigue doesn't feel like fitness. When you have high fitness and high fatigue, you don't feel fit and your performance probably isn't going to reveal your fitness.
00:32:08
Speaker
You first have to lower your overall fatigue to reveal what it is that you've actually built. That's what good programming does. It drives an adaptation that is in the driving of it accompanied by some fatigue.
00:32:24
Speaker
The fatigue is allowed to dissipate to some extent, sometimes not fully, but to some extent, so that eventually, maybe not that very week or even the next week, but eventually that fitness is revealed.
00:32:36
Speaker
And that's what keeps you moving forward. Fatigue is a part of training. It's a normal byproduct of training. It's nothing to be afraid of. However, it's something to definitely keep tabs on because it is a massive clue as to how recovered you are.
00:32:52
Speaker
Fatigue can let you know how to proceed, but it should not always Or I would even say it should rarely be a red light. It should rarely be the reason that you shouldn't exercise unless it is just too much, right?
00:33:08
Speaker
Training with fatigue doesn't always feel great. And it can mask your progress and make it less fun to train because you know you're going to maybe not PR that day or run a little slower. That was me. Like, I ran two minutes slower.
00:33:24
Speaker
than what calculators predicted I should be running. For my slow runs, I was supposed to be running between, and I think it was like a 9-15 minute mile pace and a something like that.
00:33:37
Speaker
But instead, I actually ran 11 and 12 minute mile paces months. Many of my, in fact, I would say the vast majority of my slow runs when I was training for a marathon was two minutes slower than what, you know, coaches probably would have told me to run based on calculators that they use.
00:33:55
Speaker
I was too fatigued to run faster than that. But I also knew that I didn't probably need to run faster than that to get the types of a adaptations from those runs that I was trying to get. So I just ran really slow.
00:34:06
Speaker
Fatigue can obscure fitness, but know that despite feeling it, you're probably making progress if you're consistently training. And as long as you feel recovered enough to do the type of exercise at the type of intensity you're looking to do it, it's okay to train with some fatigue.
00:34:26
Speaker
The reality, I think, is that with any long-term, maybe slightly more ambitious training goal, if you're trying to make a change, right? you're probably going to feel fatigue.
00:34:37
Speaker
Sometimes that fatigue will cause you to have to rejigger your hypothesis, right? To change your programming a little bit. Sometimes it might cause you to have to pull back on certain workouts.
00:34:48
Speaker
Sometimes you'll surprise yourself, you'll feel fatigued, then you'll start exercising and you'll have your best workout yet because training can actually reduce the perception of fatigue, which is cool. As you train more, your work capacity improves and you are more fatigue resistant.
00:35:04
Speaker
which will mean that you will not suffer the same fatigue cost for the same amount of work that you used to. But just know that when you have those meh days, when you expect progress but don't see it because you feel fatigue, that is not because you are regressing.
00:35:19
Speaker
That is not because you're backsliding. It's because fatigue masks progress. So you are, in working towards your goal, largely working on managing your fatigue while continuing to train.
00:35:30
Speaker
Takeaway number five, kind of the other side of this coin, recovery reveals your fitness. Again, check the show notes for episodes we've recorded on a lot of the topics that are coming up in this episode. I'm not going to cite each one, but know that there's a whole episode on recovery and a lot of other topics that I've named. So recovery reveals your fitness.
00:35:50
Speaker
We learned with the fitness fatigue model that training drives fitness. Training is accompanied by fatigue, fatigue, masks, fitness. During the recovery period, what happens is that our body returns to baseline, so we don't feel the fatigue anymore. This is a lot like getting sick, like getting the flu, right? When you get the flu, you are not at your normal capacity, right? You are experiencing the flu, which is accompanied by a great deal of fatigue.
00:36:21
Speaker
And then you recover. and you return to baseline. Now, where getting sick is not like training is that when you train, you stress your body, you experience fatigue, you recover and return to baseline.
00:36:36
Speaker
But within that recovery process, what's happening is that your body is also adapting. It's growing itself tougher, better, stronger, bigger,
00:36:47
Speaker
whatever it is that you're working on, what capacity you're working on, so that you are super compensating and achieving a level of fitness that is more elevated than the one you began with. So when you get the flu, your condition declines, you recover, you return to baseline. With exercise, you train, you experience fatigue, your capacity temporarily declines.
00:37:10
Speaker
In the recovery process, it returns to baseline and then it gets bumped up a little bit. OK, pretty cool, right? Recovery reveals your fitness, and oftentimes it reveals your fitness beyond what it was.
00:37:23
Speaker
at your previous baseline. So when I trained for the marathon, my training cycle involved a lot of peaks and valleys in terms of weekly mileage, right, where I would build up to a tough week of training and then come away from it for a week and then build up again to an even tougher week of training. And when I say tougher, I mean on paper it was tougher, but my capacity had been elevated to the point to be able to tolerate it. So it didn't necessarily feel tougher to me because I had elevated my capacity to be able to tolerate that higher level of toughness. That's progressive overload.
00:37:58
Speaker
But prior to running the marathon, I experienced my peak mileage week, where I think I ran a total of 47 miles, which is the most mileage I'd ever accomplished in a week.
00:38:09
Speaker
And it makes sense that it would be because ah I was training for my first marathon. I'd never trained for a marathon before. You end up racking up a bit more mileage for a marathon than you do for other race distances. And so it was 47 miles. And then what I did was I did a three-week taper in which over the course of three weeks, I decreased my weekly mileage.
00:38:29
Speaker
So I went from 47 miles in the first week of my taper, I went to 40 miles, which is a small decrease. But then I went to 26 miles, which is a very big decrease. And then the week leading up to my race on Saturday, only ran four miles.
00:38:41
Speaker
Now, in that 47-mile week, I did not feel all that fit. I did some things that I was like, wow, I can't believe I did that. right I ran 16 miles of a 20-mile run at my goal marathon pace.
00:38:55
Speaker
which was very confidence boosting. Did I feel fit while running that? No, I felt like it was extremely challenging. I didn't feel fit. I felt sore. I felt tired. I felt heavy. Honestly, if someone had asked me to run a marathon that Monday, I don't think I could have finished it.
00:39:09
Speaker
It probably would have injured myself. Even though the training I did on that peak week drove my fitness levels upward for the marathon, I definitely did not feel fit.
00:39:19
Speaker
I felt very tired. So fatigue is not the problem, right? It's normal. It's a byproduct of training. The presence of fatigue usually means you've been doing meaningful work.
00:39:30
Speaker
But I had to give myself that recovery leading up to the marathon so that my fitness could be revealed. And so all of this to say, i think we live in a culture where we become almost kind of afraid of fatigue. Like we've learned to associate it with some other negative outcomes of living in our culture, which is burnout or dysfunction or you know, chronically being in pain all the time.
00:39:54
Speaker
But in training, some fatigue is really a sign that you've applied a stimulus to your body, like signaling it to adapt. And so the goal should be to avoid fatigue, but to manage it intelligently and know that when you are recovered, you are really experiencing your fitness without the fatigue over top of it.
00:40:13
Speaker
And even when you're feeling fatigued, that fitness is still there, right? That fitness is still there. So the three weeks leading up to the Marathon, my recovery revealed my fitness. How does this apply to like a non-performance-based or a non-competition-based goal?
00:40:30
Speaker
It applies in the sense that you are going to feel like you have some really good days and you should notice what led up to that in the days or even weeks prior.
00:40:42
Speaker
Did you have some more time off from training? Is it possible that you were simply more recovered? This can help you spot trends and help you make sense of the ups and downs.
00:40:55
Speaker
If you are training for a performance or competition of some kind, you do want to look into the taper. You want to taper for strength competition, for a sporting event, potentially not a very long taper, but definitely not a marathon length taper unless you're running a marathon.
00:41:14
Speaker
But tapering, giving yourself that recovery period is going to make a big difference in your performance. I say that recovery reveals your fitness so that you can make sense of those peaks and also those plateaus where it's meh, where you might be actually training under some fatigue, and also those valleys, right, where potentially you are too fatigued all the time. You need more recovery because you're experiencing setbacks from excessive fatigue, right?
00:41:43
Speaker
Don't confuse setbacks due to excessive fatigue with setbacks due to a lack of consistency, though, because we can have setbacks that result from a lack of consistency, chronic inconsistency that have nothing to do with being fatigued. In fact, they have more to do with experiencing detraining, a decline in fitness as a result of Stopping training or not training consistently enough.
00:42:07
Speaker
And also don't be surprised that on those weeks where you can't train because you got busy at work, say there's a week where you just you didn't train at all because you were busy at work or on those weeks where you're to You meant to exercise on vacation, but you were too busy enjoying your vacation. right Good for you. right but when you come back from that week off, or even two weeks off, or even three weeks off, do not be surprised if you actually feel fitter than you did before heading on that break.
00:42:36
Speaker
That is proof that recovery reveals fitness. Also, don't be surprised that if you continue to take weeks off that you will experience a decline in fitness because too much recovery, it basically means not enough training, right? There's going to be an episode linked in the show notes called Do do You Need a Deload Week? Deload weeks are a type of planned recovery.
00:42:56
Speaker
Sometimes I think recovery periods are excessively planned when life is throwing so many opportunities for recovery at us all the time that are unchosen, that are unplanned. So Go ahead and listen to that episode. Do you need a deload week? We get that question a lot.
00:43:11
Speaker
All right. And then finally, my last and final takeaway, strength and supports everything.
Strength Training for All Goals
00:43:17
Speaker
What strength does is it makes us stronger. Duh. But what this really means for something like running a marathon or something like going on a tough vacation or something like giving birth, having a child, or retirement and doing a whole bunch of new physical activities that you maybe didn't have time for is it just makes you more durable.
00:43:35
Speaker
You can handle more. It's going to take more to break you. So I haven't been running very long, as I mentioned, just about two years. I didn't get injured in this training cycle, maybe because the training plan was appropriate. That's a huge part of why I didn't get injured, but also because I continued to strength train throughout the four months that I trained for a marathon.
00:43:57
Speaker
I also think that, you know, whether or not you're injury prone has a lot to do with genetics. So I also want to say that like it wasn't just like, oh, the smart choices I made, right? Like I i tend to not be very injury prone at baseline. But I had been injured before from running and I wasn't this time. And I injured my calf and I've talked about that the past, but I really focused a lot on calf strengthening for this marathon cycle.
00:44:18
Speaker
My calves are so big right now, you guys. I can't, like some pants don't fit me anymore, which I'm so happy about. Like I've hypertrophied my calves. They're amazingly big. Juicy. But I focused a lot on strengthening my calves and I had zero Achilles or calf concerns, which makes me so happy. But here's a little surprise insight that I got from this program. My hip flexors could use a little bit more stimulation because my hip flexors were the most painful muscle on my body for half the marathon.
00:44:47
Speaker
And they actually contributed significantly to my RPE. my perceived exertion to the point where if I had had hip flexors that could tolerate running better, I think I would have been able to finish in a faster time.
00:44:59
Speaker
My hip flexor slowed me down. So guess what I'm going to be incorporating more of in my strength training program? Hip flexor strengthening. All right. So strength supports everything. I'm not going to go too much into this one. We've got lots of episodes linked for you in the show notes about that. But just know that no matter what your goal is,
00:45:18
Speaker
If it's ah strength goal, duh. But like if it's a cardiorespiratory fitness goal, if it's a lifestyle goal, you're going to want to be strong. You're going want to be strong as a support for that goal because it's going to make you more durable less breakable.
00:45:35
Speaker
It's probably in many regards going to make you more efficient. It's going to give you better balance, better proprioception, possibly better mobility. All right, let's review. Six takeaways Laurel gleaned from training for a marathon that could potentially apply to any tough exercise-related goal that you have or outcome you seek. Number one, have a goal.
00:45:56
Speaker
Number two, programming is a hypothesis. Number three, accountability helps you follow through. Number four, Fatigue can mask your progress. Don't let it discourage you.
00:46:08
Speaker
Pay attention to it, though. Number five, recovery reveals your fitness. Enjoy it, but realize that when you feel fatigued, your fitness is still there. Recovery will reveal it for you.
00:46:21
Speaker
Strength supports everything. Thank you so much for joining me on this in-betweeny episode of the Movement Logic Podcast. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend.
00:46:32
Speaker
Do you know a friend who is working toward an exercise-related goal? Share this episode with them. Would you like to learn how to strength train?
00:46:43
Speaker
We have a free bone density mini course, Barbell 101. linked for you in the show notes, where we walk you through some of the most important tools for getting started with strength training and using barbells.
00:46:58
Speaker
We're going to teach you three exercises using barbells. We're going to teach you exercise technique to do those exercises safely. We're going to teach you how to use some crucial tools in strength training.
00:47:09
Speaker
to know what weight to lift for you. We're gonna teach you how to build up to lifting heavy in those exercises. Click the link in the show notes to take our bone density mini course, Barbell 101.
00:47:22
Speaker
That's all I have for you this week. I'll be back in your ear two weeks from now with another hot topic in another in-between. bye