Episode 220: Ask Matt Anything on Running- Are You on the Niggle Bus?
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Welcome to another "Ask Matt Anything" edition of the Purple Patch Podcast. In this episode, Matt answers your voicemails and emails on all topics related to run performance.
In this installment, Matt answers your questions related to:
Running with a high heart rate
Coming back from injury
Dealing with the incessant niggles
Fostering a lifelong love of running potential in children
Arriving on race day injury-free and ready to run healthy
Episode Timestamps
0:00-02:10 Welcome and Episode Introduction
02:10-The Meat and Potatoes
02:10 -Question 1 from Brett: I tend to succumb to injuries with the required running mileage in a leadup to IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3. I have heard you talk about the multisport approach for run performance and I’m a bit skeptical. I’d love insights on how I might think about these coming months into race day to help me arrive healthily, but also race-ready.
You can't just get away without running, we need to have that, of course, because you are running off the bike. So we want to develop tissue resilience. At the same time, we want to avoid the big risk of injury. I would encourage you to build out a lot of your conditioning around swimming and cycling because of your history of injury.
13:12 - Question 2 from Carol: Any tips on helping my child get the most out of her running potential?
I say to him, "Did you try your best? Did you have fun?" And then I let his coach lead. He takes care of that. That's not my role.
22:11 - Question 3 from Van: I’m coming back from a fractured tibia and I still feel residual pain and discomfort in the area, mostly to the touch but not during exercise. Is that relatively normal on the return from running?
If you can think about the next six to 12 weeks as really patient progression, an opportunity to reinvent or evolve your running form and your technique. Build out a huge reservoir of tissue resilience, where you can do a whole host of your running really easy, but probably with quite high frequency running almost every day, and just really trying to almost fly under the radar in your fitness build. So I would say the next six to 12 weeks, don't worry about pace, don't worry about building fitness. Instead, think about building the body's readiness to take on training.
29:22 - Question 4 from Theo: I feel like my heart rate is much higher than most people. When I'm doing a very easy effort, my heart rate will still read 165-175, even creep up to 180. My max heart rate is just under 200. And so my question is, when it comes to zone two running, or easy, long runs, should I really be forcing myself to stay in what is calculated as zone two? I'm 29 years old. Or, is it okay to stay out of that range and go a little bit more off of perceived exertion?
The vast majority of your runs should be conversational. In other words, you should be able to chat. And that's probably your best barometer of intensity. You are leading the conversation.
36:58 - Question 5 from Alice: What do you do when you're on the niggle bus? And by that, I mean, constantly wrestling with minor pre-injuries?
We need to first look at the program and really take stock of how much load you're putting on your"chassis," so that tissues, muscles, and ligaments absorb the load and intensity that you're doing.
Ask Matt Anything! Head to the Podcast Page at PurplePatchFitness.com/podcast and leave a concise question for Matt. Tell us your name, where you're from, and ask your question. We'll get to as many as we can in future episodes.
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Full Audio Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:00
I'm Matt Dixon, and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help timestarved people everywhere, integrate sport into life. Hey guys, Matt here and a little bit of fun. Today, I am going to hand off the microphone to our producer Carrie Barrett, who is going to ask some questions and lead me through another episode of Ask Matt Anything. And it's all focused around running today, which is really fun. So I get to have a little bit of an easier journey today, I've got to say, but I will be providing the goodness, we've got some great cracking questions. Now one thing before we do get going, I want to ask a favor. If you love this education, and the education that we get to bring to you free, it would be really, really nice of you. If you can give us a really nice little review. But also share it with your friends and encourage them to follow or subscribe to the show wherever you'd like to listen to your podcasts. It really helps other people find the show, and allows us to spread the good word. Anyway, I will hand off the mic to Carrie and say hope you enjoy the show, the Purple Patch Podcast.
Carrie Barrett 01:23
Thank you, Matt. And as he mentioned, my name is Carrie Barrett, the longtime producer of the Purple Patch podcast. And over the last four to five weeks or so Matt has been asking for your questions as it relates to running. And as usual, you did not disappoint. So today, we feature a multiple array of questions as it relates to running and triathlon, coming back from injury, how to even develop a child's love of running in a healthy way. And maybe even a little skepticism about that whole run, walk, multisport approach to running. So in fact, why don't we just kick it off with that question, which comes from Brett in Columbus, Ohio.
Brett from Ohio 02:12
Hey, Matt, it's Brett from Columbus, Ohio, in the lead up to an Ironman and I've never really had a great run off the bike in either an Ironman or even a half Ironman. And I think a large piece of this is the setbacks and I guess injuries I tend to succumb to when I work up my running mileage. And I've heard you talk about the multi sport approach for improving my run. And I'm a little bit skeptical, a little bit confused. And I just really would love some insights on how I might think about the next four months trying to get ready for race day, and hopefully arrive healthy, but also race ready. Thanks again.
Matt Dixon 02:54
All right. So that's a great question to set off the show because I think it really strikes at the heart of something that we should all collectively think about when we when we approach running, and particularly when we approach running for race performance. So let's first take a step back on this and establish what determines success. And there is so much focus around oh, what zone should you be running in? And what metrics should you monitor and should I be tracking my sleep, etc. But ultimately, the recipe for any level of athlete is that you want to consistently nail highly consistent training. So that's the key thing. And you want to do that with a SMART program that's supported with a whole bunch of good habits around nutrition and sleep, et cetera, et cetera, so that you can avoid ultimately niggles and injuries. And you can show up vibrant, because ultimately, for you, as you get ready for this, you are looking to maximize your training load while achieving positive adaptation. So in other words, your tissue wants to be healthy, and you want to arrive to race day, fundamentally healthy, it's much better to do a little less training really consistently, then it is up and down with big load, and arrive with niggles and injuries all the way through the journey there. So I always think about being vibrant systemically, being as fit as you possibly can from a cardiovascular and muscular resilience standpoint, and ensuring that your tissue is healthy. So that's what we're looking to do. Great. So then the question is, how do you get there?
Matt Dixon 04:38
Well, in order for you to be successful in a half Ironman distance or an Ironman distance, you need to have big cardiovascular conditioning. So yes, it's true. You need to be fit. That's why the journey is not easy. It requires commitment and you got to do a whole bunch of training ,even within context of your timestarved life. So we need cardiovascular (big heart and lungs) conditioning, we want to get fitter. That's one part of it. The second part is that you need high muscular resilience. So in other words, a big challenge, particularly as you go through to the middle to the back end of the bike, and all of the run portion is a breakdown on mechanical fatigue, you just can't keep going with good running form and good pace, it tissue breaks down. So you need to not just be fit from a cardiovascular standpoint, but you need a whole bunch of muscle resilience. And in order to achieve those two things, you've kind of got four levers. The first is strength. And that's really good and important, it's part of the program, but ain't gonna get your race ready. The other levers that you have as a triathlete is swimming, cycling, and running. And the good news of these is that they work collaboratively together. And so in other words, you don't just work on your swim on your bike and on your run mutually exclusive, you need to think about them as working together. So let's break them apart --swim, the swim offers a great opportunity to really build high cardiovascular endurance. In other words, in the swim more than anything else, really, you can drive your cardiovascular conditioning. And also there is a window of opportunity to spend a higher portion of your total training load at higher intensity, because it's really low risk, 90% of your weight is displaced. So I love swimming, not just to build and get ready for swimming, but to use it as a tool to actually stress and therefore force adaptations around cardiovascular conditioning. We can get a lot of benefit out of a relatively limited time that most triathletes, amateur triathletes can afford to spend, because the logistics of life on swimming. So that's an important component. The Bike also offers a huge arena to work on all of the cardiovascular conditioning, but also on muscular resilience. So in other words, that is our main central vehicle to develop general conditioning, as well as the opportunities to do some high intensity work, either mechanical through low cadence, high torque work, or of course, high high intensity intervals. But a lot of your bike training, a higher portion of your bike training is at the low to moderate intensity. And then we come to the run. And your run is the piece of the puzzle in which you have the highest risk of injury. At the same time, what you need to do is develop tissue resilience, you've got to be able to resist the mechanical fatigue. So in other words, you can't just get away without running, we need to have that, of course, because you are running off the bike. So we want to develop tissue resilience. At the same time, we want to avoid the big risk of injury or die. So that starts to lead us to a part of your answer over the four months going into your race, I would encourage you to lean on the first two disciplines, and so really build out a lot of your conditioning around swimming and cycling because your history is injury. So what we need to do is thread the needle with an evolved approach. What you have done historically hasn't worked. In fact, if you go through my step by step that I just talked about, you've been failing at step number one, you haven't been arriving healthy, particularly around tissue health. So I encourage you to really build your program around swimming and cycling, and then just take an evolved approach with your running. And what does that mean? Well, the first is that you need to be brave, you need to think out of the box. And here's how I would do it. Number one, I would take a high frequency approach with your running, I would really limit how many big long over distance running miles you do. And that's counterintuitive. It's paradoxical to the common literature out there on what it requires to get ready for Ironman or half Ironman. So many folks thinks I've got to do the big run because I've got to run a marathon or half marathon off the bike. But I would get there from a tissue resilience standpoint, by really limiting those long distance training runs, and instead, try and run really frequently. And that might include doing more than one run in a day, a little run off the bike in the morning, maybe a little shorter run in the afternoon, you build tissue resilience through short and easy. The second component is adding a little bit of a strength component by maybe doing some hill based hiking or running. You can leverage the treadmill on that but it's really, really valuable. It puts the body position in good posture and it tends to activate the posterior chain. So that's an incredibly healthy and low risk way of building tissue. resilience, most people don't like to do it because it doesn't give them validation. Whoa, I broke through him was a victorious in this challenge, but it's really, really beneficial. And then any of the moderate runs the medium distance up to any long distance runs that you do choose to do, I would really try and seek soft surface a lot of trail running a lot of variable strength base running really, really valuable. Is that it? No, the last thing, and this is where it's really important. Integrate walk breaks into your training, we have a mantra of never running a bad step. And so shift to a tortoise and the hare mindset, where you want to ultimately be able to run at a higher sustainable pace. But take very frequent walk breaks that enable you to reset emotionally and practically, and come back to good form base running. If you do that over the course of many, many minutes leading up to ultimately several hours in an Ironman, you end up running faster. And that's the goal. So why would shift your perception on walk breaks from a sign of weakness or giving up to actually a tool to leverage to help you run faster for longer. Now, in all honesty, this all sounds great. And it's actually not that hard to do. But at the same time, it's really tough to do solo, athletes have a hard time because of their natural drive, ambition. And ego tends to lead them to run a little too hard, a little too long. Limit walk breaks, go to convenience, and they don't lean into the other disciplines. And so while this isn't that hard of a thing to accomplish, it really is beneficial if you are part of a program or a culture, which enables really good accountability community of like minded people that are doing the same thing that are mentally challenged with it doing at the same time. And of course, some oversight, education and course correction from a coach or coaches. And so I would say if you are looking to do this, this is a great time to actually say, "Let's embed with a run walk strategy program with someone that understands the benefits of triathlon as an overall ecosystem, not just swimming, cycling and running, but instead swim bike run." And I think that you can be really, really successful. All right, those are my thoughts. I hope it helps.
Carrie Barrett 12:53
All right, thank you so much, Matt. Let's switch gears a little bit and go from the athlete focused question, actually, to now a parent focused question - who wants to provide a healthy lens on running for her young child.
Carol from CO 13:11
Hi, Matt. This is Carol from Colorado, my 11 year old coming on 12 is a really great runner. She loves it and is part of a good local club. But I want to do all I can as a parent to help her maximize her opportunities ahead. Are there any tips you have for me as a parent in helping her make the most of her running potential?
Matt Dixon 13:31
Well, what a timely question. Okay, great. I was just talking about this the other day, and I have to be honest, I have a 10 year old Baxter, who is going through exactly the same type of scenario right now he plays baseball, he is absolutely in love with swimming. He wants to do water polo. And he's finding his way in sport. And of course, as a parent, and parents, Kelli and I want to do everything we can to support him and help him on his journey, etc. And there's a strange paradox that occurs. "Come on son, you can do it" at the same time wanting to be hands off and understanding that it is his journey and not my journey or Kelli's journey. So the first thing I would say with this question is we actually did a couple of seasons ago, two whole episodes around children and performance. And I'm going to add those shows to the show notes. The first one was about the absolute value in delaying the time for your child to become over specialized into a single sport. In other words, the case around multisports, many sports for athletes as they're growing up and developing, ultimately, leading to greater success. And the second one was actually around a guide to how to be an effective parent to foster your child's love and benefits that they can gain from sport. And so both of those, of course are really valuable maybe for you. And so I'd encourage you to go and listen to those episodes that are a little bit older, but they're going to be very helpful. Here are a few things to answer your question to get us going, at least today. But the first and this is bold and capital underlined, Keep it Fun. Your role as a parent is to basically enable the child to have exposure. And so in other words, go and try a whole bunch of different things. And then in the areas, whether it's playing guitar or being a part of a play, or specializing in a certain sport, whatever it is, is to be there for support. And so I think that we as parents want to provide our children with opportunities for them to explore their passions and put them a lot of things in front of them. And then as they dance, and they find the things that they start to, like, you want to be at their back as their support, not charging the way, not parting the crowds, but actually be behind them as to support, you aren't that agent, you're not trying to carve a route that's going to secure some college scholarship or any professional endeavors. I think we should first ground ourselves with the value of sport. Sports are amazing for children, they're really good for their health. They also provide a great opportunity for cameraderie for a passion development. And also, they're a wonderful venue for lessons that apply to all parts of life, commitment, follow through execution, collaboration, teamwork, navigating adversity, and failure, and all of those things that in a safe environment your child can go through. And I think that that vehicle of this is a really good thing, no matter what level your child is, it's really good for them to go through because it's going to help them develop as a human being. And that's the value. That's why we should be encouraging our kids to participate, to grow and to commit in sports. Because ultimately, things like, Oh, they're gonna go on and be something great to go on and get a sports scholarship. Well, firstly, the chances are, they're not no matter how good they are when they're young. And secondly, it's not us as parents that are in control. It's them, no matter how much natural talent needs to displayed when they're young, intrinsic motivation from the inside of the child, that is where it's going to come from. And no parent can infuse that on their child, no matter how much we laugh, and we see opportunity, it's going to come from the inside. And so chill, and enjoy the ride.
Matt Dixon 17:49
The kids that end up making it in parentheses, that really "make it," those are the kids that do it because of intrinsic desire. And along the way, this winding journey that it takes, it's going to require a whole bunch of environmental luck, coaching luck, and other luck, that's going to lead them. And it's only going to happen if they actually love it and have fun, because the journey takes years. And it's going to include some winding roads and dips in motivation and cul-de-sacs of setback and challenge. And so all we can be as parents is with them as support, we can love them. We can stand back and focus all of our energy into two things. Number one, did you try your best? And did you have fun? And it ain't easy. It's not easy. Look, it's really tough for me. My boy Baxter loves swimming. Now I was a swimmer and a swimming coach. And now obviously a coach in a broader context. And as I go and watch Baxter swim, I can see things I can see how he can improve technically, maybe improve his mindset and how he's doing stuff. So what do I do? I can see it right there. You know what I do? I say to him, "Did you try your best? Did you have fun?" And then I let his coach lead. He takes care of that. That's not my role. My actions? I drive him to practice. Kelli drives into practice. We both go to meets. I give him high fives, I cheer for him, but I also cheer for his friends. And then I work the barbecue and I cook overcooked English burgers and give them to Americans that expect so much better. I love the swim meets and then when he's finished coming home to analyze do I tell him where he could improve and go wrong? No. "Did you try your best? Did you have fun?" And you know what? He smiles, he cries, and I'm there if he didn't do well. And the truth is, wherever he takes it, I'll have his back. But he's not going to take it anywhere because of me. And so I encourage you to maybe take a similar mindset. I will say one other thing about your question that's important. You have an 11 year old, almost 12 year old who is showing natural talent and is running very fast right now, with particularly female athletes, but across both genders, 11 to 12. There is a huge challenge for many, many athletes coming up as they transition to 13,14, 15. There's the broader world that starts to exploit the emotional and social commitments that start to come out. And a lot of people, a lot of kids really start to change. And then there are physiological changes, and a lot of adversity. And so often, a lot of athletes actually go through freshman to sophomore year in high school. And sometimes the body is evolving and changing, they might even slow down a little bit and they have competing demands. And so who knows, but the key is if we can avoid comparisons, and if we can avoid external chasing, and instead focus on keeping it fun, personal accomplishment, doing your best, self improving, and loving the journey, that is the greatest chance that no matter what happens over the next 3,4,5,6 years that your kid will stick with it, or find the thing that they truly love that might be outside of running and that's okay, too. I hope that helps.
Carrie Barrett 21:49
All right, thanks, Matt. Next up is a question from Van in California who is coming back from injury, but still might be feeling some residual pain from a fractured tibia and wants to know if some of these pains that he's feeling are normal or not.
Van from CA 22:11
Hey, Matt, Van McCarty, here a few hours south of you. In San Luis Obispo, California - running and returned to running post injury. Nine almost 10 months ago, I fractured my tibia. Been a long road back many hours of pool running, some elliptical. Finally feeling like I'm able to run again. I did do Oceanside 70.3. That was my longest run in 10 months. Went slow but pain free, which was a success. My question is, I still feel residual pain, discomfort in the area, mostly to the touch but not during exercise. Is that relatively normal on the return from running? The last thing I want to do is re-fracture that tibia because that was a nightmare to come back from. Thanks again, Matt. Love the show. Bye.
Matt Dixon 23:04
All right, thank great question here. And I should preface this, of course, I haven't been guiding your medical care. And it's good that I haven't been because I'm not a medical doctor. I haven't even seen your scans. And even if I did, I cannot give you medical advice. And so, the first thing is make sure that you're staying in communication with your physical therapist or medical doctor that's been overseeing your journey so far. But I will give you a few global components. I think there are two main things. The first is the good news, assuming all is normal. And that's a pretty safe assumption. Your bone now is strong, it's not going to re-break. Okay, that's one thing assuming everything is normal. When a broke bone fuses, it's very, very strong and you don't have any real risk of re injuring. Now, I will say as a tangent, what can happen as athletes returned to training and ramp back up, there is a risk for other injuries occurring because many athletes lack the patience to rebuild patiently. They remembered themselves as an athletes who they were the day before the injury occurring, and they want to get back to that as quickly as possible. So there is risk for every athlete returning from an injury like this to actually injure themselves in other components, but at the sight of the bright there's very low risk of anything happening there. Secondly, is very, very common to have sensations, little niggles pains, discomfort around the sight joint of any injury, and that's not normally a red flag, as long as any discomfort or pain or awareness is under a four out of 10. Typically, that's normally okay to drive on normally okay to carry on with your training progression. So that's the first thing, that's a little bit of global advice. And again, I say that as a general rule, I still encourage you to work directly one to one with anyone who is overseeing your care. I can also say the key right now is this is an opportunity for you. The biggest mistake that I see athletes make is accelerating back to where they wanted to be way too quickly. And instead, I think your mission is not just to get back to where you were, but you want to get back and beyond above that level. And this is an opportunity for you to leverage. And you want to do that really patiently. So if you can think about the next six to 12 weeks as thinking about really, really patient progression, an opportunity to reinvent or evolve, your running form and your technique, build out a huge reservoir of tissue resilience, where you can do a whole host of your running really easy, but probably quite with quite high frequency running almost every day, and just really trying to almost fly under the radar in your fitness build. So I would say the next six to 12 weeks, don't worry about pace, don't worry about building fitness. Instead, think about building the body's readiness to take on training. And in six weeks, eight weeks, 10 weeks, whenever you really feel like it's ready, then you should be in a place that you can do, quote, any training that you want. That next block of work that you're going to do that high frequency very easy running tissue resilience is a hugely valuable thing that only a situation like this is anything ever gonna work for you. You never do it in the normal world. And so leverage it, it's a very patient build up, very cautious on high intensity, high frequency running most of it conversational and soul filling any extended duration running 50, 60, 70 minutes or above go on trails, soft surface. And then on the outside, I really encourage you to build in and integrate multiple sports, swimming, biking, the rowing, ergometer, even some elliptical training so that you can then work on some of the higher end cardiovascular conditioning, and some of the muscular resilience without it being risky. And so yet again, we come back to those walk breaks high frequency really easy build up the reservoir of tissue resilience, and then you should be good to go. So I hope that helps.
Carrie Barrett 27:51
Well, before we get going on the next question, which is about running with an abnormally high heart rate, I know Matt would like to say a couple of words about our sponsor InsideTracker.
Matt Dixon 28:04
I do want to say a word about our partner InsideTracker. Because this is the vehicle that enables us to give you free, unabridged content that's going to help you and your performance. Now, it is one of our most important partnerships because it is grounded in helping you guys, the athletes, and of course fitness enthusiasts optimize your return on your hard work. It's going to set you up for not just your best performance, but also longevity of performance across both sport and life. I want you to do what you love and love what you're doing for a long time. And I think that the insights and recommendations from the team at insidetracker provide a sense of clarity and focus on the key elements that are going to help you excel, all you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch. And at the code purplepatchpro20. And of course you get 20% of everything at the store. Now, if you want to accelerate these insights, reach out to us grab a coaching consultation from another team at Purple Patch, same email, as I mentioned before info@purplepatchfitness.com. Let us know that you want to schedule a consultation to go along with your insight tracker assessment and we will get cracking.
Carrie Barrett 29:16
Okay, let's get cracking on that next question from Theo.
Theo in CA 29:23
Theo here in San Francisco. I have a question about heart rate and running. I feel like my heart rate is much higher than most people and when I'm doing a very easy effort, my heart rate will still read 165, 175, even creep up to 180. My max heart rate is just under 200. And so my question is when it comes to zone to running or easy long runs, should I really be forcing myself to stay in what is calculated zone two in the 145 -155 range? I'm 29 years old. Or, is it okay to stay out of that range and go a little bit more off of perceived exertion? I know I have a tendency to push hard and possibly overrun and overtrain in general. So should I really be more disciplined at forcing myself to stay in those ranges from my heart rate? Or is it possible that my heart rate ranges are just much higher than others? Thanks.
Matt Dixon 30:33
Oh, Theo, you got one of those bunny rabbit hearts, don't you? It's really good. Okay, let's see, this is a wonderful question. Heart rate creates a lot of confusion for people. And so, let's go through a little bit of mechanical physiology and anatomy on this to help you a little bit. So, inside your body, you have a certain reservoir of blood. And blood has a lot of roles of delivering nutrients, obviously, delivering oxygen to muscles so that we can create energy. Also, it offloads a lot of negative byproducts, including carbon dioxide that we then eject out through our mouth goes to the lungs, we get rid of, et cetera. So you want to think about it a little bit like a system, like a radiator is a closed circuit system, at least we hope so. So in other words, blood is circulating around your body. And you've got depending on your size, somewhere around five or six liters of blood that is just constantly oxygenating in the lungs, going to the heart being pumped up and around the body around these veins and arteries and veins that are driving around back through the lungs, get rid of the co2 back to the upload the o2 boom, boom, we carry on around, so it's circulating, and the heart is your pump. And we only have one pump, okay? Now, you want to think about it just like a pump, and each heartbeat, your pump, your heart is going to eject a certain output of blood, just a little bit of blood, boom, boom, boom, so the heart fills up with blood, and then it pumps it around and into the system. Now, if you happen to be born with a big pump, anatomically, and then you're not only more loving, because you've got a big heart, but you actually obviously, it's a bigger chamber, higher chambers, more blood can fill. And therefore with each pump, you can eject more. On the flip side, if you happen to be born with a little pump, and then the smaller chambers will fill with less blood. And it's going to reject a little less. But demand, wherever the demand is, let's say that Johnny and Jill are running down the road. And they're running at the same physiological cost and demand is x. If you've got a little pump like you do, and with each heartbeat is going to inject less blood to keep up with that demand, your rate of beating has to go up. What does that mean? What it means is that you've got a high heart rate, yeah, boom, boom, boom, boom. So you're still ultimately delivering and that's your total cardiac output, you're delivering the same amount of blood per minute, but it's coming through more frequent beats of a smaller pump. Okay, now, big pump, small pump, not a big deal. I happen to be born on the other side, I've got a big pump. So what that means with me is I really struggle to get my heart rate much over 165 beats per minute. In fact, if I'm up in the 170s, goodness me that is my max. So that's just what I was kind of born with. And I probably have conditioned it with a whole bunch of endurance training, a little bit of chronic fatigue. And so I just can't get my heart rate up there. My two brothers are exactly the same. We're about this via threshold 163, 164 max effort 171, 172 Boom. A former pro athlete that I worked with Linsey Corbin, wonderful athlete, multiple Ironman champion, one of the top athletes in the world. She used to race an Ironman. So nine hours of racing, and her average heart rate was about 175 beats per minute. That is scary for me. But for her, she's got a little pump, one of the best endurance athletes in the world, bum bum bum. Good to go. So what does that mean you should do? Well, the first thing that you shouldn't do is follow some middle of a bell curve algorithm. Keep your heart rate under 140 because it's not appropriate for you. Instead, I'm going to make it really really simple. The vast majority of your runs should be conversational. In other words, you should be able to chat. And that's probably your best barometer of intensity. Now with this, it's important. Many athletes tend to creep up intensity and run too fast. And you mentioned that in the question. So here's, here's the key. When I say conversational, it's not you answering my questions with 1-3 words. Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I'm conversational. That's not what we're talking about. It's you leading the conversation. If we were running next to each other, you can talk all about your family history, your dreams, what music you like, what you're watching on Netflix, what your goals and aspirations are for your sporting endeavors, what your niggles are, you're leading it, and I struggling to keep up with you can go, good, good, sounds good. In other words, you lead the conversation. And the chances are that your heart rate will be higher than what many of the textbooks say one of the natural algorithms say 220, minus your age and all of that stuff. And it doesn't matter because it's appropriate for you. Alrighty, now, the one place that you should keep a lid on it, is on the really easy soul filling, run some of the recovery runs. And that's where I would probably add some walk breaks in there, and perhaps keep your heart rate under 150. Still at a higher level than what the textbooks would say. But just that cap of saying, I really need to keep it easy. And that's a good cap for you. I hope that helps.
Carrie Barrett 36:42
And finally, today we have a wonderful question from Alice in Arlington, Virginia, who is just experiencing some random niggles and is asking Matt's advice on whether or not it might be injury whether or not this is normal. And of course, his advice.
Alice from VA 36:58
Hi, this is Alice from Arlington, Virginia. I'm a 42 year old runner. Not very competitive, but pretty consistent, done a few 50 K's couple marathons. My question is what do you do when you're on the niggle bus? And by that? I mean, constantly wrestling with minor, shall we call them pre injuries, maybe a sore heel one day, maybe the next week, it'll be a sore butt. Sometimes it's bilateral. Sometimes it's unilateral. And nothing actually seems injured. But a lot of times things don't feel quite right. I have been lifting a couple times a week, pretty consistent mileage. So just wondering where I'm going wrong. Thank you.
Matt Dixon 37:42
All right, Alice, let me try and help her great question. And as I hear your question, I feel like I have met you hundreds of times before you are right in the middle of a typical Purple Patch athlete that arrives, is a little frustrated, a little annoyed by the niggle buss, as you call it, which is so terrific. And aspirational, loving the sport, challenging yourself, but always wrestling the almost injury scenario. And as I think about this, I'm like, let's break this mold. Because running should be fun. It can be fun for anyone. Now, many people don't believe that. But it can be fun. And injuries are not a part of running, running is higher risk. But if you can get your recipe right, you should be mostly pain free, able to have fun, and not always be on that cycle of injuries. So there is an objective component here. And that's that you need to take stop and review, which is why you asked me. We need to first look at the program and really take stock of how much load you're putting on yourself can quote "chassis," so that tissues muscles, ligaments absorb the load and intensity that you're doing. So the number of runs, the duration of the runs, and particularly some of some of the single runs, are you running too long, and maybe not running those in the right way or maybe not in the right surface? Or is your intensity too high. And sometimes that's too many interval based workouts in a week. Or, bringing up the bottom as we call it running too hard on the easy days, which is a real culprit of absolutely magnifying total load, just running a little too strong on the easy days. So I encourage you to take a really objective review. in your situation, I would probably only hit higher intensity once a week at most. I would be doing a lot of your longer distance running on soft surface if it's at all possible. And I would make sure that your a lot of your running is pretty short, really easy and conversational. And I talked about conversation on what that means in the prior question. So if you skipped parts of this for to this part, and then I encourage you to go back and listen to that, okay, so the first thing is you want to look at your program. And of course, a coach can help you do that through a consultation, we're happy to have a consultation, look at what you're doing, and say, Hey, this might be able to be evolved, et cetera. But that's a key component. A second component is nutrition. And we have to talk about this because with athletes that are training, particularly athletes that are training for longer distance running or triathlons, the vast majority of folks that we see accidentally are under consuming calories, so they tend to actually eat less than what the training demand is. And that can cause a whole bunch of tissue health challenges, as well as systemic health challenges. So that's one component to look at. And then a big one is really a question for you is, are you always 100% of the time consuming calories within a short window after the workout? I think that's a really important component, protein, and carbohydrate, really, really important. And finally, one other part to look at is your global stress and your sleep, are you actually really consistent on getting to bed at a similar time, getting good quality, sleep, getting enough sleep, etc, some of those components, because that's where restoration and tissue rejuvenation occurs. So that's really important. Other things that you can look at - Another question for you is, are you spending the majority of the time that you are running two feet off the ground? Are you running well, in other words, the best interpretation of good form that you can elicit. And in this, I think that it's important to come back once again to walk breaks, they are hugely valuable for the vast majority of athletes that we work with. The key is to reposition their role in your program. So many people think about walking as a sign of weakness or giving up, but instead reposition it as a really important tool to help you run better, and ultimately help you run faster. So we always talk about running as well as you can, for as long as you can. And then before you start to accumulate too much fatigue, or your form starts to drop off, integrate, walk break, to reset, and then do that as often as you can. So run as good a form as you can for as long of a period as you can reset with a short break and do that as often as you can, over the course of your training runs. And there's a much greater propensity for you to develop lower risk, lower mechanical fatigue, faster running while you are running, and overall getting to the end result with higher value training. Okay. You could look at your shoe choice, making sure that they're really padded, really comfortable, good shoe for you. Many people try and go lighter on shoes, and or gimmicky on shoes that is not recommended something really padded. I have no affiliation at all, but the for the niggles and injury bus people, the first place to look is typically Hoka shoes, I think they're very good, they do solve a problem for a lot of people. Don't be afraid to look like a clown and go for a really padded, comfortable shoe that can really help you. Avoiding long runs on the hard surface is really important. And as I talked about prior, really ensuring that you're not allowing that easier, low stress intensity runs to become too hard. Okay.
Matt Dixon 43:42
The one couple of the one final point that I would just add, this is a wonderful opportunity for you to think outside the box and leverage multiple sports to get ready not trying to convert you into a triathlete by any means. But the vast majority of purple patch runners tend to hit great fitness and faster running therefore, improved results in their races by adopting other sports in their running training. So a lot of them leverage a bike, they can do it outside or of course on the stationary bike or on a bike and a trainer. That's really, really valuable. They use rowing machines, they use hiking, heel base strength base hiking, some of them use an elliptical, there are lots of opportunities but leveraging multiple sports to get ready for running it is the catalyst. Okay, so you are on the edge, but let's remember running shouldn't produce constant niggles. So the simple truth is your recipe isn't quite right. And I will say that you are the prime candidate you really might benefit from an individual deep dive as a coaching consultation or even getting a part becoming a part of the program. And I will say in this is true, I say this without out been overly sales here, but the run squad program, we literally designed it for folks exactly like you. Because niggles are not fun, and running should be fun. And so it does take a little bravery to really come up poor self reflect, and most importantly take action to evolve your program. But you absolutely can. And I will encourage you to say there is an improved path that will not only help you arrive to races injury free, but an enable you to absolutely love your sport. And that's the best part, isn't it? I hope that that was helpful.
Matt Dixon 45:44
Guys, I thoroughly enjoyed that. Fantastic, thank you so much for your questions, I really appreciate it. And I will just hand it off to Carrie to let you know where you can find Purple Patch. If any of you guys want to have a conversation with us, you can reach out to us, we are happy to talk about how we can help you. Whether it's via consultation becoming a part of our newsletter for our free education, or of course, getting on pot involved with one of our programs or individual coaching. Feel free to reach out. Carrie, we'll close it out and give you all the details. But until next time, take care.
Carrie Barrett 46:19
It is always an honor and a pleasure Matt to co-pilot these episodes with you as you answer questions from the listeners and from athletes across the globe. From Ohio to California to Virginia today. We we all have a lot in common and that is we love multi sport and we want to do it as long as possible. So thanks again for your advice. If you want to know more purplepatchfitness.com is the website plenty of tabs for you to click on including free resources, blogs. And as Matt mentioned, you can even schedule a coaching consult with one of our coaches. I also strongly encourage you to follow the Purple Patch podcast on your favorite podcast player, just hit the plus button and never miss an episode. And of course, please rate, review, and share these episodes with your friends if you think it might benefit them. Until next time. Thank you so much for listening to the purple patch Podcast. I'm Carrie the producer, and Matt Of course our fearless leader. We'll be back next week with another fantastic show
Matt Dixon 47:35
Thanks so much for listening. This has been the Purple Patch Podcast. If you like what you hear I would really appreciate it if you share with your friends and even go the extra mile and head over to Apple podcast subscribe rate and review the show. The Apple podcast link is in the show notes. Your support and positive reviews go a huge way in increasing our visibility and also the exposure to timestarved people everywhere who wants to integrate sport into life and ultimately thrive. Don't forget you can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Cheers
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
running, athletes, question, injury, sport, niggles, swimming, matt, tissue, purplepatch, training, breaks, cardiovascular conditioning, ironman, heart rate, opportunity, higher, component, pump, bike, time-starved