Welcome to Episode #172 of the Mile High Endurance podcast. Mile High Endurance is your weekly connection to coaches, experts and pro athletes to help you reach your endurance and triathlon goals.
We're your hosts coach Rich Soares and 303 Chief Bill Plock. Thanks for joining us for another week of endurance interviews and discussion. Thanks for choosing to spend some time with us.
A couple of weeks ago we took notice of an eye-popping marathon win by pro triathlete Sam Long. Sam finished the Napa Valley Marathon win in a time of 2:32:33. We wanted to find out what he's doing to improve his run and what his plans are for the rest of the year.
We hope you enjoyed last week's episode "Train Your Brain" and our guest Tom Griffin from Halo Neuroscience helping us understand the science of the motor cortex's role in muscle memory, transcranial direct current stimulation, the studies, and the new design of the Halo2. Thank you also to Alex Hutchinson and his NY Times best seller "Endure" for the content for the Endurance Trivia.
Announcements:
Sponsor - iKOR Labs:
Today's show is supported by iKOR Labs. iKOR is a clean, natural source of recovery enhancing CBD that protects your body from the stresses of training, improves recovery from intense efforts and helps you maintain a positive mental state. It is the most bio-available CBD product on the market, iKOR is a protective anti-oxidant and highly effective anti-inflammatory. It is used by world class professional athletes. Save 20% by using the code "endurance" at checkout and consider saving even more by doing auto recurring order. Go to www.ikorlabs.com for more details.
Last Week's Guest:
Thanks to last week's guests, Franko Vatterott and Matt Smith on the topic of training camps. If you are interested in the Park City, UT Sansego camp you can save $100 off the registration by using the code MHE100. If you haven't heard that yet, check out last week's interview on episode - #170.
In Today's Show:
Sponsor - Riplaces:
Our interview is sponsored by Riplaces. Riplaces are an elastic lace system that integrates a bungee loop with a plastic core to connect the loop in each eyelet of your running shoe. The bungees come in 5 sizes to achieve custom tension for the perfect fit. The bungees and the cores come in a variety of colors and styles to help you personalize your set. Or, you can choose the MHE logo package. Pro triathlete proven and endorsed, use the code MHE25 to get that 25% discount. Go to www.riplaces.com for more information, or go to the MHE Sponsor Discounts page by going to www.milehighendurance.com, or directly to https://www.riplaces.com/collections/mile-high-endurance
Interview Introduction:
Sam Long is a Boulder-based pro triathlete. He is 23 years old, but has already completed 11 Ironman races. He grew us as an avid skier and mountain bike rider. In High School he found a love for endurance sports and turned pro shortly after doing his first Ironman at the age of 18. He is one of the youngest pros on the Ironman circuit and we think he has a great career ahead of him. Let's hear from Sam "Go" Long.
Sponsor - Halo Neuroscience:
Our post interview discussion is sponsored by Halo Neuroscience. The Halo Sport from Halo Neuroscience will help you learn the technique and form to get faster. 20 minutes of neural priming with the Halo Headset gives you an hour of neural plasticity to work and lock in the muscle movement that leads to strength, power and endurance. Use the code "MHE" at checkout to save an additional $20. Pre order now and your regular price of $399 is $299. Add the MHE code and your price is $279.
Training Concept: Train Slow To Go Fast
This is a concept that never used to make sense to me. It seemed logical that if you want to run fast in a race, you need to run fast in training. I still remember debating this concept with a friend of mine while training for my first Ironman back in 2009. We considered ignoring our coaches' advice and run as hard as we could in all training sessions. The hypothesis was that if you trained hard all the time that the effort would eventually get easier as you got faster.
Of course, I did not abandon my coach's prescribed training. I would do the easy efforts, but secretly objected to the notion that I could be getting any benefit from easy effort. It didn’t stop there. In a subsequent season, I purchased a generic online plan written by Joe Friel. I still remember the base season training that called for zone 1 efforts and the description read "This should be a very easy effort. It may seem embarrassingly slow, so best run alone." Again, I frequently complied but secretly objected.
Over the course of my athletic career, I experimented with different plans and sometimes no plan at all. Some plans took the completely opposite approach and were intensity intensive. One in particular was nearly absent of easy efforts and almost exclusively moderate or hard efforts. The plan was stingy with rest days, giving me a day off every three weeks. Within three months, I was sick as a dog.
A few years ago, I did some work with a highly successful athlete and coach, three time Nordic ski Olympian Jim Galanes. We were collecting data for his company EPT (Epoch Performance Training) and using FirstBeat software. He reminded me of the concept of going easy to go fast. He was the first to really hold me accountable. On my frequent "easy" days, if I went to hard he would call me out and tell me that my heart rate or pace was too hard. He would tell me to jog or walk fast if needed to bring my heart rate below the easy ceiling. He said to trust him and stay below the ceiling and eventually, within a few weeks, I would see my pace increase at the same heart rate. He said, stick with it, be patient and you will be rewarded. I was skeptical.
I followed the advice. In the early weeks I would jog very slow and often see my heart rate float above the ceiling. Out of self preservation and a desire to not get chewed out by Jim, I would slow to a fast walk to get my heart rate to drop back below the ceiling and then begin the easy jog again until my heart rate would float back up again. Jog, the walk, then jog a little slower, then walk a little faster, back and forth until my heart rate would settle in. Two weeks, no change. Three weeks and still jog and walk and jog and walk. Somewhere in that fourth week, I was able to run easy with no walking and kept my heart rate low. By the fifth week, my 10min/mile pace dropped to 9:45. By the sixth week, it dropped to 9:30, and then 9:15 at the same heart rate. This sets me up for the build phase of my season.
The easy training is complimented by high intensity sessions 1-2 times per week, or about every 1 out of 5 training sessions.
https://running.pocketoutdoormedia.com/train-slower-race-faster_52242 - Train Slower, Race Faster: Matt Fitzgerald
"Studies on the training intensity distribution of elite runners have found that most elite runners run at low intensities most of the time. For example, a survey of male and female runners who competed in the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathons revealed that the men did almost three-quarters of their training slower than their marathon race pace, while women did more than two-thirds of their training at slower paces.
Why do the fastest runners do most of their running at slow speeds? Because they run a lot, and if they ran a lot and did most of their running at high intensities they would quickly burn out. But you can also turn this answer upside down and say that elite runners run slowly most of the time so that they can run a lot. Research has shown that average weekly running mileage is the best training predictor of racing performance in runners. The more we run, the faster we race. Keeping the pace slow most of the time enables runners to run more without burning out.
The training intensity distribution of the typical age-group runner is very different from that of the average professional. This was demonstrated a number of years ago when researchers at Arizona State University asked a group of 30 female runners to describe their training. According to these self-reports, the women did three easy runs, one moderate-intensity run, and 1.5 high-intensity runs per week. But data collected from heart-rate monitors that the researchers gave to the women to wear through one full week of training told a different story. In reality the women did less than half of their training in the low-intensity range, almost half in the moderate-intensity range, and less than 9 percent in the high-intensity range."
https://trailrunnermag.com/training/training-plans/heart-rate-training-train-slow-race-fast.html -Train Slow, Race Fast: Yitka Winn
“Between 95 and 99 percent of the energy used for endurance sports, including competition, is derived from the aerobic system,” says Dr. Phil Maffetone, an endurance coach who trained six-time Ironman champion Mark Allen. “This is true for events lasting more than a few minutes, and races from the mile to the marathon, and beyond.”
Many runners, however, spend the majority of their training hours inadvertently running anaerobically—that is, above their MAHR.
According to Maffetone, anaerobic running can actually decrease the number of aerobic muscle fibers. It can also flood the body with damaging levels of lactic acid or the stress hormone cortisol, reducing its ability to recover between workouts and increasing the chances of injury."
Elite coach Joe Friel recommends this 30-minute time trial:
http://www.fleetfeetstlouis.com/news/train-slower-to-race-faster - Train Slower to Race Faster: coach Tim Cary
"You don't have to do all runs so slow. Meb, when he came to FLEET FEET this summer, said he runs his long runs at 90 sec/mile slower than marathon pace. That's only his long runs, not all of his runs. His other runs hit different intensity levels. The long run is simply the foundation. There will be normal road run days which are medium length and medium intensity, and there are hard days that are very high intensity but very short in duration. It's about putting in the right ingredients at the right time."
https://www.runtastic.com/blog/en/how-to-run-faster/ - Dr. Jason Karp
"Mitochondria are the enzymes that catalyze the chemical reactions involved in aerobic metabolism. The more mitochondria your muscles have, the greater your muscles’ capacity to use oxygen and the faster pace you will be able to sustain. The most efficient way to make more mitochondria—more factories, more assembly lines, and more workers—is to run more. And to run more, you have to slow down your runs, because there is an inverse relationship between training intensity and duration: The faster you run, the lower the total amount you can run."
Video of the Week:
Endurance Trivia:
Question #1 - According to Dr. Jason Karp, which of the following are benefits of training slower?
Question #2 - According to Dr. Phil Maffetone, anaerobic training can result in:
Question #3 - Joe Friel's MAHR test is performed as:
News:
Upcoming Interviews:
If there are any questions that you want to have asked of these amazing guests, DM on social media or email me at rich@milehighendurance.com. Tell us your question and who it's for and we'll include it in the interview. If you would like to remain anonymous, explain that or we'll give you credit for the question during the interview. Eg, "this questions from listener, John Doe.
Closing:
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