Episode 275: Run Ready - An Evolved Approach to Get Faster and Stay Injury Free in Running
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For those who are new to running, the training requirements for a marathon or other running events may seem intimidating or overwhelming. Alternatively, even experienced runners may face challenges with injuries related to race preparation.
No matter where you are in your performance journey, there is an effective way to approach training for an endurance running event without overloading on hours and intensity, and risking your health and performance.
In today’s episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon aims to evolve your approach to running training using his innovative method designed to help you improve your speed, prevent injuries, and enhance overall performance in all aspects of your life, regardless of your level or experience.
In his analysis of the typical training methods used by runners, Matt highlights the reasons why they often fail to meet their race goals. He proposes an alternative approach to marathon training that uses a prescriptive combination of strength training, running, and supporting multi-sport workouts to enhance overall fitness, endurance, and durability.
Matt provides examples of this innovative and proven strategy that has helped countless Purple Patch runners and athletes optimize their training and racing.
Adopting and applying the lessons from today may require some courage and a shift in your beliefs regarding how to prepare for running performance. However, if you have ever been afraid of the training process, prone to overuse injuries, or struggled to surpass performance plateaus, today's discussion will undoubtedly be beneficial for you.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 02:59 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
03:06 - 05:49 - Matt's News-ings
05:56 - 47:14 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 275: Run Ready - An Evolved Approach to Get Faster and Stay Injury Free in Running
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Full 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 time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:22
Let's build you a platform of health so that you can perform, you want to take the right actions, you want to put your focus in the right place, and you want to build the right habits so that you can get the results that you deserve. InsideTracker can help you refine where to place your effort and focus. By assessing your biometrics and aligning it with the recommendations from the team of scientists and experts at InsideTracker you can define your path forward so that you can get success. You're also going to get powerful, measurable results. You don't need to be a Purple Patch athlete to get involved. While we leverage it with our athletes, you are free to get involved on the run train as well. Head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch that's insidetracker.com/purplepatch and use this code Purple Patch Pro 20. Purple Patch Pro 20 It gets you 20% off everything at the store. Yes indeed, many folks have taken advantage of it as well. If you need help from us, feel free to reach out to info@purplepatchfitness.com, we're always happy to help you navigate the best resources for you. All right, we're talking about running today. It's a good one, enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 01:32
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon. And today, we dig into running. Perhaps you're registered for an upcoming running race, maybe a full marathon or maybe you love the concept of a running challenge, but you're intimidated by what you feel is the necessary running to get you ready to be successful. Or still, even perhaps you've experienced prior struggles on your running journey due to the common niggles and injuries that we associate with getting race ready. And so today, let me shift your thinking a little bit. I'm going to evolve how you think about training for running races. I'm gonna reveal our approach that has delivered so much joy and success to our runners and athletes. It's also one that's enabled folks to get faster while also reducing the incidence of injury. All the while we keep in mind the context of performance, and ensuring that we integrate this program into life. We want you to be a time-starved runner, so that you can thrive, but also amplify how you show up as yourself in work in life. I think it's going to be a good one. It's all about running today. But before we get going, let's do Matt's News-ings
Matt Dixon 03:06
Yes, folks, Matt's News-ings. A quick one today. But a few weeks ago, I announced the addition of our new coach Nancy Clark to the Purple Patch team. And she is by all measures a wonderful coach for both male and female athletes. She's got extensive experience of helping athletes of all levels achieve great personal performance. But in addition to Nancy being a great coach, she also happens to be an expert on all aspects of female performance in health. And that includes how to train around your period managing through a lot of the noise and distractions and frustrations and challenges of perimenopause and menopause and so much else. And we just got busy, as soon as Nancy came on board, we got busy outlining our rest of year education for our Purple Patch athletes. And these are going to include very regular Live Office Hours where Purple Patch athletes can come in and ask and answer any questions and leverage her as a resource to help them on their journey of health and performance. So why do I tell you this? Well, I tend to because I think that this is a great example of our lens of how we see our responsibility as a coaching organization. Yes, we're going to try and help you get faster. And we're going to deliver training that integrates into your life so that it empowers you to have the best program for you to get faster. But we also feel like it's our responsibility to educate you to almost be a filter for you for all of the distractions and the noise out there and enable you individually to focus on the things that are going to elicit the results for you. And that gives you control. It gives you a little bit of happiness. And that's why we're so excited to have Nancy on board with us. And so in addition to this, and just the nice value add because All of this content to Purple Patch athletes, all of these opportunities to work in NC is free, that's just an addition of becoming a part of the squad or being individually coached, but if you would like to work with Nancy individually at a deeper level, she does have a few slots open. And she's going to help you get faster, but she's also going to enable you to optimize your health, and also invest in your future self. She's got just a few slots available. And so if you're interested, if you're an athlete, and you're either interested in becoming a part of Purple Patch globally, as a part of our try squad, or one of the other squad programs, or you'd like to work with Nancy individually, feel free to reach out, we'll set up a free consultation for you info@purplepatchfitness.com. All right, Barry, we're talking about running today. Let's get on with the show it is ladies and gentlemen, the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 05:56
All right folks, the meat and potatoes today and I am going to be discussing running. Now much of what we talked about today, I'm going to be mostly focusing around half marathon and marathon distances, but I want to make sure that we're aware of this, that the concepts that we talked about are absolutely applicable to every range of running race that you might decide to take on 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon. And then even at the extended duration, 50k, 50 mile 100k, 100 mile, goodness me, that sounds crazy to me, anywhere in between. In other words, if you are listening today, and you are preparing for your very first 5k, you're going to benefit from the lessons of today. On the other end of the continuum, if you're one of the lucky folk that are getting ready for the challenge of UTMB over there in Chamonix, or the Western States trail running race, or even the highly demanding Badwater Race, or summer event like that, you will benefit from today. Central to our discussion today, if you happen to be signed up or registered for a full marathon or half marathon, you will certainly benefit from today. If you're fearful or frustrated by your running progress, if you're susceptible to overuse injuries, if you've struggled to break through performance plateaus, you will benefit from today. But the reason I start like that is to apply the lessons that we go through today, for you to adopt them and integrate into your program, I promise you, it's going to take a little bit of bravery. No, it's probably going to take a lot of bravery. It's going to force you to shift your beliefs on what you probably think is necessary to prepare for running performance. The good news is that the one guarantee and have are very few guarantees in life. But the one guarantee I do have is this approach that we outlined today works for male athletes, female athletes across all levels. And I'm going to be sure that as we go through today, I'm going to highlight a few accessible examples that can hopefully paint the picture of how it has worked for so many different types of people.
Matt Dixon 08:13
Now, it would be remiss of me if I didn't mention this, but all of the elements that we break out today, that we're discussing this meat and potatoes are central to our run squad program. So you can find details of that on the website if it interests you. And also I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about strength and conditioning, particularly around our case study Shalone. And the strength that we talked about today is actually drawn directly from our strength program. So with our case study today, we didn't do any fancy pantsy strength, Shalone just followed our strength and conditioning program. And that's great. And in fact, he followed the race-build component of it, in our case study example today. And so that is the right strength training for him and any other athlete in the weeks leading into race day. And that's very different than what you might do in offseason or in early season. So that strength program is drawn directly from our strength program. Again, details are on the website. If you're interested in any of these, just let our team know info@purplepatchfitness and we'll be delighted to try and sync up the right program for you. But with that in mind, let's talk about a case study. Let me tell you a story. And it is my mate Shalone. Shalone arrived to Purple Patch frustrated. He was highly committed but frustrated and to paint the picture of Shalone he's a very athletic guy, his background is in team sports. But he was really committed and he was ambitious to really go and in the long term nail a marathon and so far he completed three races in total, two 10ks and one marathon. Okay now, each one of these three races he had crossed the finish line so start to finish he completed them all but he never arrived to the start line healthy. He consistently has had to train through injury and race day including self-prescription of plenty of anti-inflammatories and very intricate tape jobs, all just so that he could get from A to B. Now for a reference point to give us a little bit of a barometer of the level of runner he is he's pretty strong I would say, his 10k times was somewhere around 42, 43 minutes for a 10k. And his goal in the marathon, something that he didn't succeed in that first round was to try and break for hours, so we call that a pretty good runner. His program to get ready, prior to Purple Patch included four to five weekly runs. Okay, one of those runs tend to be focused on distance accumulation. After all, he was getting ready for a marathon. Another one was focused around some type of speed training or interval-type training. And then the remaining sessions were pretty simple endurance runnings. In other words, they were just focused around distance or time accumulation. So far, strength and conditioning, he did do strength, it was pretty basic. It was sort of similar to what he used to do when he was playing team sports, go to the gym, go and do some weights training, going some resistance training, core central movements, nothing revolutionary, relatively repetitive, but he could say to me, Hey, I do strength, but there wasn't really any rhyme or reason to it. And so he came on board. And as an aside to the central message to this case study, I think it's timely for me to pause here. One of the things that I love about Shalone is his openness and willingness to try new things. So really quite brave and really quite open. He said, look, I'll put myself in your hands, I'm willing to do any activity, whatever it takes, I just want to try and crack the code, I want to learn how to run healthy and learn how to run faster. He was ambitious. So even if he didn't have expertise, he's like, I'll do it. Don't worry, I'll take it on. And that makes it really fun.
Matt Dixon 12:09
So when Shalone got involved, involved with us, we were about, I looked back and I tried to find this I couldn't quite remember, but somewhere around 13 or 14 weeks, leading into a half marathon he was registered for. And then following that about the same distance, following our time following about another 14 or 15 weeks, he was registered for a marathon, that was the big race, he sort of had two key races about three months or so getting ready to a half marathon, another three to four months to get ready for a marathon. So a pretty good runway and opportunity for us to intervene if you want to call it that. And so here's the approach that we took with Shalone. The first was, I asked him to absolutely minimize any tougher running. So I said to Shalone, that we're going to go through a plan of consistency. You're running four times, maybe five times weekly, we're going to up that to six or seven runs every week. But many of those runs are going to be shorter and easier. And we're not going to inject any speed running into them. So that was the baseline of the program. And the reason for that is I wanted to sneak as I called it, fitness gains, and also tissue resilience. So we did a lot of consistent running a lot of them short, and all of them plugged on to other disciplines and very, very easy. We also integrated any longer run, and by that, we defined 60 minutes or more, was going to be done on a soft surface, he lived really close to great trail running so we did all of his longer runs on trails, but we kept it all relatively low intensity. So that was his running. And he looked at that approach. And he said how in the heck am I gonna get faster at running if you ain't letting me run faster? And I'm just doing a whole bunch of easy short running.
Matt Dixon 14:03
Well, the second element of the program was we infused the Purple Patch strength program. And of this year-round cyclical program, we pulled out the race build. And we said we just want you to follow the race build. Now that race build had a heavy dose of what we would call therapeutic exercises in so lot of joint mobility, a lot of core stability and coordination work. And then just a little bit of explosive work, what you might call Safe Plyometrics, leaps, bounds, etc. And there was a lot of coordination. So there was an element of athletic improvement that we were seeking for and getting Shalone to really become stable use some of the supporting muscles, but we weren't really driving at this phase of the program driving to that core strength improvement. And it was really different for him. He said to me, where are my bis and my tris, where my big chest presses and everything and those weren't there. And yet, he found that strength program quite challenging from a proprioceptive standpoint. And he was even getting a little bit sore after the initial few sessions. But there it was, just the infusion of our, let's call it just regular strength program, the race build element.
Matt Dixon 15:21
So that was the core central program but there was a big element that we infused into it as well, the multi-sport approach. We had two elements and when I tell you this case study, so you understand, it doesn't need to be our example of rowing, or cycling, they just happen to be the modalities that were accessible for Shalone and something that piqued his interest. But you could use the elliptical trainer, you could use lots of different elements to get a multi-sport approach. What he did was one or two sessions a week that were very short, 15 to 20 minutes, but very short, high-intensity rowing. So they had a running ergometer at his gym, that's where he did his strength work. So those were easy for him to integrate without much more time utilization. He then also embraced one to two bike trainer workouts a week. Now he was following our on-demand bike sessions so that he could really try and learn and improve his posture and his technique, his pedaling. And he really enjoyed the coaching element of that but also had some very structured interval-based training, particularly focused for him around lower cadence, what we call strength endurance work. So a lot of resilience for that. And all of that wrapped together, going from just running with a little flash of strength to now really consistent, running more runs a week, really focused strength and the addition of one to two short rowing sessions, and one to two bike trainer sessions, his total hours remained the same. And that was my puzzle to work out. There were more ingredients, there were more things going into the program but the overall time commitment was no more. Now, as he went through the journey, he was enjoying the multidisciplinary approach the challenge, he felt like he missed a little bit of his heavier strength training, at the same time, he was really, really consistent. And he said every day feels like a surprise. So we enjoyed it. It it wasn't getting stale at all. And when we arrived to his first key race, which was the half marathon, he was very fit, very healthy. He didn't have any sign of an injury anywhere. But he understandably said, I'm under run, I feel great, but I'm just not sure if I'm able to maintain the running, I feel great when I'm running, but can I really sustain it for 21 kilometers, 13.1 miles. And that's very normal. But I explained to him that he had cardiovascular conditioning and muscular endurance, he just didn't have it from the classical approach. And so I asked him just to have no expectations, go and run without a watch. And just believe in yourself and feel the pacing. Now we went through a whole race strategy, we'll talk about that a little bit, in a little bit later. But the result for him? Remember what it was when he came, give or take 42, 43, 44 minutes, and a 10k, he couldn't get under four hours in the marathon, had a little bit of a catastrophe there. A lot of injury, he arrives, really, really healthy. He went and did a half marathon and he ran 1 hour and 36 minutes. 1 hour and 36 minutes, to me that is highly impressive. In fact, to be honest, it caught me by surprise. The great news he said I loved it. And I felt pretty fresh at the end. A little bit of soreness the next day. Well, now, he had a platform, a platform of health, a platform of consistency, a recipe that he realized could deliver some faster running. And now he repeated the process but this time getting ready for a marathon. And that was a wonderful platform to build on. So to get ready for the marathon, he could benefit and draw from the tissue resilience gained from the last three months. And now just up the focus a little bit on running. So to get ready for his marathon, we didn't introduce a little bit of running speed and intensity. We did do some longer duration running still on the trails, because of course he's getting ready for now 42 kilometers 26.2 miles, but we still kept most of the running very, very light. And most importantly, we ensured that he retained focus on strength and conditioning. And we also retained that multi-sport higher intensity training.
Matt Dixon 20:08
So on the strength, what we did is we said, look, for your own sort of confidence and familiarity, we're just going to repeat the strength program. Typically, we don't do that. But we said, Let's just follow the race build again. You know it works, it's accessible, let's just replicate it, we think we can get away with just going back and repeating that again. Something that you don't typically do, and certainly what he's not going to do now, he's now into a full strength program starting a full annual cycle again. But in this case, just because I want to be transparent, we just replicated a strength program. And then on the rowing, we did even more demanding slightly longer rowing sessions and we also maintained those focus interval sessions on the bike with an even heavier and higher load on prescription with that strength endurance work. So his total hours went up a little bit, but only two to three hours a week, well within the arc of what he could sustain. But it was built off of a bedrock of a really successful half-marathon program. So we went through, we developed, he arrived at the marathon. And of course, it was the same emotion again, I feel really good, I'm healthy, I don't have any injuries. I'm now half a year without injuries. But Matt I'm under run. I'm just not ready for this because I get it for a half marathon but a marathon 26 miles, are you kidding me? I would have thought I would have had to have run 22 miles to get ready for 26. And on and on, this always the natural emotion. And I completely understand that. But I asked him again, please have no expectations. Use the watch as a feedback loop to give you pacing to make sure you're not running too hard, too early. But generally run by feel, go and enjoy the moment. And we laid out a strategy. Well, do you remember is big goal? I'd just love to run under four hours. Well, Shalone, he did that, he ran 3 hours and 36 minutes. To me, that's a very, very good first time, I know it was his second marathon but for me, first time Purple Patch marathon. His new goal, he wants to qualify to the Boston Marathon, something that he would have just thought otherworldly, just six months ago. So what happened in this case, in our story, what happened was some out-of-the-box thinking, and a whole host of bravery from the athlete.
Matt Dixon 22:39
So let's break the mold. Let's trash the norm. Let's imagine that you're getting ready for a running race. Maybe it's your first 5k, maybe it's bad water, maybe it's a full marathon, whatever it is, we've got all different levels of athletes and experience. But let's imagine that you've registered for a running race. But you have no access to the history of running, to the cultural norms, to the media that feeds our inboxes and tells us how we should be doing stuff. Let's say that you're just faced with a really simple challenge. I've entered a race and my job, my goal is to get from A to B, whatever your distance is as fast as I possibly can. Well, that's great. Now imagine that you make an attempt at success there. And in your first attempt, you do what is absolutely logical, you run a ton. And maybe you do a little bit of high-intensity work because you understand and appreciate that high-intensity intervals are going to boost your fitness pretty quick. So you put some harder running in there. But imagine you do it once, and your journey is interrupted with injury or frustration. You think, Well, that was unfortunate, so you register again, the same distance, maybe the same race and you do it the next year. And you follow that same relatively logical approach, you run a bunch, you add some high intensity, and the same result occurs, you get injured, you get frustrated. Maybe you do a third time because you're stubborn. But at a certain point, your journey is interrupted with injury and frustration. Now if you had no other influence and expertise, you might right at that point, pause. And you might think, Huh, this ain't working, is it? It's not working. And you might even think, perhaps there's a different way, perhaps there's a better way. And that to me would be logical. If you repeat something and it's not working. And then you try and think about things in a different term. But many athletes don't do that, many coaches don't do it. And the reasons they don't are understandable. There's a heavy influence of media and coaching plans that are out there promising you to tell you the right way. And you look with your swivel head and you look at what the pros and elites are doing you think I've got to mimic them. Or maybe your best buddy that's got really great success, and he happens to be really resilient. You think, well if it's great for Johnny, it should be great for me. And so this concoction of imprinted norms drags you out of a little bit of invention and out of the box and bravery and just forces you down this repetition. And people fall into performance plateaus and injury cycles, and despair and frustration, they just don't break through. But let's go back, let's go back to our utopian world, imagine you had no influence, there's a high chance that you wouldn't just keep doing the same thing. You might say bravely, let's think about terms that are a different way to go about this. If there's a logical mindset, you might take out a piece of paper and you might think, okay, I need to get from A to B as fast as I can. So what are my needs to be successful? Well, I need to be fit. Yeah, that's true. So I need some cardiovascular conditioning. I need good muscular endurance, that's true. Okay, that's a second component. I probably need a certain amount of skill acquisition to do the activity, and that's very true. Because fitness and muscular resilience won't naturally make you better if you're highly inefficient, or an economical. A great example is me, I'm pretty fit, but if you put me on a set of cross-country skis, my performance isn't going to be great. And so economy is going to be important. And maybe you intuitively understand that, yes, some strength and conditioning will be good, because that's good for my posture, my health, and my muscular strength. And maybe I'm gonna do some higher intensity work in there somehow because I know that that boosts up my fitness pretty quick. It's raising my overall performance potential. So you've got these elements, high intensity, strength and conditioning, improving economy, cardiovascular conditioning, muscular endurance. So we can wrap all that up in: you've got to be fit, you got to be strong, you got to be resilient. And you got to be trained to operate at the highest percentage of your maximal output that you possibly can. And that's the goal. And boiled down to brass tax, that's what training is.
Matt Dixon 27:09
But guess what, if you enter any distance race, a 5k, or 10k, all the way up to 100 miles, there is no rule in the terms and conditions that says, to prepare for this race, you must only run. And isn't that liberating? There's no rule. We are unshackled. So the backbone of your approach to get ready for running racing, I believe, should include and be built around running, because that's the sport-specific activity. If you want to become a better biker, you'd better do a whole bunch of biking. If you want to improve at swimming, you better do a whole bunch of swimming, if you want to become better at running our subject today, you better run a ton. But we should also acknowledge that running is weight-bearing. And by definition, when you run, both feet are off the ground. If both feet are not off the ground that's walking. So when you're running, both feet are off the ground. And that means when your foot comes down, it's going to have to absorb a whole bunch of load that goes up through the lower extremities all the way through to your lower back. And that creates a lot of muscle trauma, a lot of risk, a lot of load on your bones, as the body is decelerating in reaccelerating again. So this is a sport that creates by definition, trauma. And that's important for us to acknowledge. And that trauma is amplified when you're running very high intensity, or you're running longer duration, particularly at the end of that longer duration when typically your form has started to decline because of fatigue. And that's where the risk occurs. So that is the opportunity with some broader perspective, to evolve your approach.
Matt Dixon 29:04
And this is exactly what we did was Shalone. Let's come back to the case study. We did really frequent running, typically easy, quite often short. And what that did was enable us to build tissue resilience, to ensure that his runs were executed with the best version of good running form that he could do, and ensure that we reduce the amount of time in fact, we tried to make never that he would run under the deep fatigue. So this enabled his running action to be really good with a high programming of skill acquisition because it was frequent and the body loves frequency, has short memory like a goldfish, and also reduced injury risk because he didn't run under those environments that are amplified risk, higher intensity, poor form, et cetera. So Shalone over many, many weeks, ran a lot because it was really consistent. But he ran a lot not in single hero sessions, but in the emphasis of accumulation. And he avoided deep damage, muscle trauma, just doing enough to stimulate growth, but not enough to have high risk. So that was the running component, the central component of the program. And then we added a specific stress around strength. And that strength, just months from the race, it was focused more on stability, movement patterns, and athleticism. And in boosting economy through explosive movement Plyometrics, what you should label safe Plyometrics, then leaps and bounds help directly. And peer-reviewed research shows this, helped directly his running economy. And so therefore, it helped amplify the results of his running training built through consistency, where he became more efficient or more economical, therefore he had more miles per gallon, he could go longer at any percentage of his operational and he had an extended time to fatigue. And that became really, really important. The corner stability work and the stabilizing work we've done and his muscles helped him retain form when he was getting out of gas and tired towards the end of his race. And then the intensity that we know is important, the hearts of pump, you need to train it, you need to do high intensity, we want to get boosted muscular endurance, we got that through other modalities. And that's where we ripped up the rulebook. Rowing has a really nice cross-pollinating effect to running because it's predominantly a leg-driven sport. And it's a safe environment. Of course, you need to get medical clearance from your heart from your medical practitioner, but it is a safe environment relative to running to do very hard efforts. And then the riding, delivered, yes, the same cardiovascular conditioning with high intensity but also had the added benefit of huge muscular endurance. And it had a direct link to his running performance. So the output of that is Shalone, getting very, very fit, but also benefitting from a refreshed approach.
Matt Dixon 32:21
And so while I had to persuade him of his readiness before his half marathon and then again for his marathon because understandably, he felt like he was under run. And I can appreciate that, because a lot of his running the majority was kind of short, kind of easy, and just built around consistency. So there weren't any of those big hero sessions to build on. if I can do that and then I can race fast. But what he had centrally was great fitness, improved strength, greater resilience, and he was run fit enough. Now in addition to this from this platform, in his second phase of the year, when he transitioned to marathon training, he could actually start to run more, because he was adding that training on a platform of great consistency and health. So the fact that he had achieved high consistency months before, enabled him to be more run-able or run-ready. And that's how you build up total running volume over many, many months. In fact, if you look at a professional athlete, that's how they do it over a decade of progression. And most of the really seasoned great athletes are able to absorb pretty good hours of training. But they've got their over multiple years of progression, 3-4% incremental gain in total training load, built on a platform of patience, and structured progression.
Matt Dixon 33:52
Now this story that we go through today with Shalone, he's not the only one. This isn't just a star in the sky that we can say look at that it works everyone, now trust us. This is over years of consistent application, all levels of athletes, folks that believe they would never run again and now love the sport. Or folks that decided to jump in and go into a really challenging competitive race and out-achieve what they thought they could. Ignacio 2 hours and 36 minutes in his first New York Marathon, utilizing a multi-sport approach. Former Purple Patch pro Cecilia Davis Hayes and Sarah Piampiano, 2 hours and 45 minutes, two hours and 46 minutes, using a multi-sport approach. Tim Deer top 10 overall at the age above 50s in his mid-50s, the fastest finisher at the famed Badwater Ultramarathon. Three weekly runs, a multi-sport approach. Jordan Ouida, getting faster every single year, even though he's getting older every year, getting faster every single year over the last seven editions of the Boston Marathon, using a multi-sport approach, and countless other athletes. There are folks that could believe they could never run, who saw themselves stuck in a performance plateau, who could never imagine running without injury. And we broke the mold on it. And all it took was a healthy dose of openness and bravery from the athlete and a little bit of pragmatism, a little bit of the willingness to look at things in a different way.
Matt Dixon 35:34
But, and there is a big but, there are two more things we need to talk about very briefly, because the whole focus so far, has been around the training plan. We've talked about the running recipe supported with multi-sport, and the strength, and those are just two of our pillars. So I think that there are two other components that we need to address. Because if you take the lessons of today, and you just go and apply that, that doesn't guarantee success in any way. And so I want to ensure that we also consider a couple of other components that can help you be successful, be more healthy, and get faster. The first of those elements, your supporting habits, the two other pillars, there is very little value in adopting the training plan approach that we've gone through today if you don't also succeed in adopting some really simple but all-important habits. Now this goes across and rings true for every level of athlete across all programs, no matter what your goal is. So it would be remiss of me, I have to mention the supporting habits. And this just includes some really simple stuff, how you're eating on a daily basis. Ensuring that you're getting a lot of Whole Foods, ensuring you're getting enough calories to support the training load in your life, that they are comprised of all three macronutrients. How you're fueling your sessions, particularly around post fueling, what your hydration is like both in terms of your training, but also across your daily life to help with recovery, your energy in the day, your systemic health, your immune system, et cetera, et cetera, everything that falls undernutrition, and then ensuring that you're integrating smart recovery. With Shalone, ensuring that every 20 days or so he's getting a few days of recovery and rejuvenation, becomes really important, the quality and the consistency of sleep. Go to bed pretty much every day at the same time, ensuring you're getting enough sleep and it's high quality. These are things that are driving the training program that we broke out today. They are the drivers of it. And they're not tough habits. They're not voodoo, they're not you suddenly becoming over-obsessive. They're not complex, they're really simple. But they're important. And we cannot discuss performance without acknowledging. Now I'm going to add that when we think about the training and the integration of these habits under nutrition and under recovery. This is when we start to talk about the prescriptive side of the performance progression framework. And so in other words, if you have the right program or the right coach, their role is not just going to be building the right plan but to help you filter the noise and distractions and ensure that you prioritize your focus on the things that are going to be right for you. Now in addition to that then, the coach or the program is going to frame the right endurance mix, duration, frequency, et cetera, the right intensity mix, and where it comes from, through running in this example, or through other modalities, with Shalone our case study it happens to be the rower and the bike, but you get the recipe, and your strength mix. And pulling those levers and getting the right program recipe that's really important. But adding in those other components, those are the things that enable performance progression.
Matt Dixon 39:12
And then when it's all wrapped up is what structured and progressive training is. And really why if we just pause briefly here, I realized I'm on a tangent here. But this is why when you think about the prescription, of the right training at the right time for you, supported with the prescription of the right strength and then filtering out the focus and the prescription of the right habits in nutrition and fueling and the appropriate dose of recovery including sleep, it's no wonder that every single enduringly great athlete embraces coaching. In triathlon, Jan Frodeno. How many years has he been great? Olympic gold medalist, multiple times Ironman World champion, he needs a coach. Daniela Ryf, the greatest female triathlete ever, needs a coach. And it goes on and on and on. Every great athlete of every sport leans into coaching. So why are we any different? Because it's not our overall focus. We're trying to do all of this in the broad context of all of the distractions, critical distractions, in broader life: our roles at work, our family and our friends, our social life, and everything else. So that's why coaching is really important.
Matt Dixon 40:40
The second and final element that we add on to this, we've got the training prescription, we talked about that, we used Shalone's case study, we then talked about the supporting habits, there's one more piece of the puzzle here. If you want to love running, if you want to stay injury free, if you want to get faster at running, you better fall in love with walking. Walking is not a sign of weakness, it is a performance tool. And every single level of athlete from Pro to newcomer in training, should be integrating walking. In racing, some of the elite pros, and some amateurs at shorter distances, 5k, 10k, maybe half marathon, maybe even marathon at the pro level, are not going to be integrating walking. But out there of all of the runners, a high percentage of them should be integrating walking into their racing as well. So in training it's universal, I believe in racing, it's a large majority of the total running population. But the key is to define the appropriate lens on this. It's not a sign of weakness. You don't want to deploy walking as an act of desperation, when you're forced to, instead, it is a tool. Remember that it is a tool to unlock your best speed. You want to integrate it into training so that you can have really quality return of training investment. And you can also execute your training with consistently good running form because that's really positive and we'd like to build on victories, but in racing, for the vast majority of athletes, it's a tool that when integrated appropriately, is a facilitator of your best speed across the distance. In other words, you get from A to B faster than if you don't walk. And that is empowering. Just like we talked about with the supporting habits, though, how often you walk, and how long you walk for, well, that's highly individual. But realize that the best will walk in training. And the vast majority of athletes to be successful will integrate walking into their racing. And it takes just like our overall program, a whole host of bravery because you need to start that walking before you're forced to.
Matt Dixon 43:12
So when we take a step back, and we integrate it, we have an evolved approach to the training. And we might label that a multi-sport approach. That's integrated strength and conditioning, that's running because that's our bullseye, but we're also infusing a multi-sport discipline to get to greater muscular endurance, high cardiovascular conditioning, to make you ready across your events that are your running races. And when we combine that with really good simple habits, around nutrition, and everything that falls underneath it, as well as recovery, and that training and racing, includes integrated strategic walk breaks in there. That is where we get the results. And really what happens every time is that folks improve. It's just simple performance empowerment and I bet my house on it. How strongly do I feel about this? I have yet to meet anyone who it hasn't benefited. Let me say that again. I have yet to meet anyone that this approach has not benefited their run performance. And that might be in reduction of injuries, it might be enjoyment and confidence. And it's always getting faster. Now I've seen athletes that have taken half a step that have tried to embrace the project but for one reason or another haven't managed to follow through. And they might have struggled. So there's them, but I have yet to see, for folks that have the courage to jump in with two feet, I've yet to see regression. And that's really good. That's empowering because that's a door of opportunity for you to deploy.
Matt Dixon 45:01
And so I finish with a question, how are you going to train for your next race? Are you going to download a running plan off the interweb? Are you going to just chase weekly hours, weekly miles of running? Well, be my guest. But to be honest, and I know that I'm a man of opinions, but be honest, I think that you're going to leave performance and results on the table. And I also think that you're opening yourself up for a greater risk of frustration and injury. So there's a better way to do this. It's a smarter way, It's a multi-sport approach way. And it works. Isn't that fun? It's just a perspective from a coach. All right. I'll see you next week. Take care.
Matt Dixon 45:43
Guys, thanks so much for joining, and thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the Purple Patch channel of YouTube, and you will find it there and you could subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe, also share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now, any questions that you have, let me know feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And in fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us info@purplepatchfitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at the Purple Patch page and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends but as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience and we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week, stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling doing whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
running, program, marathon, race, athletes, work, training, strength, multi-sport, coach, approach, half marathon, performance, high intensity, patch, faster, ensuring, integrate, injury, great