Episode 316: Yes, You Can Run a Marathon – Five Key Points to Help Conquer Your Distance Run
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Welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. This week, we aim to inspire, instill hope, and create opportunities. Many people watch others doing amazing things and think, "That's not for me. I couldn't do that." But the truth is, you can do it if you apply a smart and patient approach that builds incrementally over time. Before you know it, you can look back and marvel at what you have accomplished, regardless of the challenge or goal, whether in sport or life.
In this week's episode, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon focuses on marathons and half marathons. Half marathons are a great starting point for many people and can serve as a bridge to longer distances. Whether you've struggled with injuries or don't consider yourself a runner, Matt offers insight and tips to help you break through those barriers.
Drawing from two case studies, Matt explores the common challenges faced by athletes training for long-distance runs and offers simple solutions to maximize their potential. The first case study features an athlete who initially believed completing a race was impossible, but ultimately discovered untapped capabilities. The second case study showcases an athlete who overcame injuries by adjusting their approach and achieved significant success. We believe you’ll find these stories informative, helpful, and inspiring and we hope they motivate you to take on your challenges.
Matt also shares his five-point plan to help you refocus your approach and mindset, to get you started on your first or next long-distance race. Check out our free live webinar, Strategies to Nail Your Marathon & Half Marathon, where Matt offers a more in-depth analysis of these points.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 04:05 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
04:13 - 13:58 - Coach's Corner
14:05 - 29:02 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 316: Yes, You Can Run a Marathon – Five Key Points to Help Conquer Your Distance Run
29:04 - 30:38 - Purple Patch Squad Information
30:40 - 41:22 - Yes, You Can Run a Marathon Cont.
41:24 - 42:54 - Purple Patch Program Information
42:55 - 50:59 - Yes, You Can Run a Marathon Cont.
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:00
Hi. 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 sports into their lives.
Matt Dixon 00:26
Today, we're unlocking your potential and opportunity, facilitating a roadmap in which you can participate and excel in the half marathon or, of course, the mighty marathon distance. To be successful, each of us needs a robust platform for health. And that's derived from a set of practices and habits that can help facilitate that with incremental improvements over time. One of the key tools that we use at Purple Patch to narrow down the focus and ensure that we're driving the levers that are going to drive ultimate successful performance development is InsideTracker. By taking a look inside at your biometrics, we can achieve a personalized action plan to filter out the distractions, reduce the noise, establish control, and ensure that you're prioritizing the elements that are going to help build your platform of health and performance readiness. It's the gasoline on the performance fire. Now we're leveraging it with our athletes at Purple Patch. I utilize it myself, and I'm not paid to say that, but you can leverage it; you don't need to be a Purple Patch athlete; all you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch. And you can use this sneaky code, Purple Patch Pro 20. That gets you 20% off everything at the store. I hope you enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 01:43
Hey folks, we are going to get going with just one more note before we get going with the show. Remember, we are hiring a one-on-one coach right now. We've had a slew of applicants, some excellent people, who are going to go forward with the interview process. This is my last call. If you are inspired to join our team and would like to do so, we're going to give you just about 72 hours more to accept new incoming applicants. So feel free to reach out to us at info@purplepatchfitness.com, and on the careers page of the website, we've got the full job description there if you're interested. Okay, enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 02:26
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon. And today we are tackling running. And this one is a catalyst of inspiration, perhaps hope, and opportunity for you. Because many people sit on the sidelines and look at other people doing amazing things. And they think that's not for me; I couldn't do that. But the truth is, if you apply a really smart and patient approach that incrementally builds over time before you know it, you can look back and wonder at what you have accomplished. Today we're going to narrow our focus; we're going to be talking about marathon races. Now I'm going to include, under this umbrella, half-marathon races, which are a wonderful bridge and sometimes a great destination for many people. And whether you've gone through cycles of injuries where you've tried before and failed, or you just don't view yourself as a runner, Let me unlock that today. And I'm going to do it through a couple of case studies. I'm going to primarily talk about two case studies, one of which is about a wonderful woman who never thought it would be anywhere in the realm of possibility to finish a race. And the second is an athlete who tried, struggled, and failed a couple of times, but by resetting the approach, he has had tremendous success. I think you're going to find their journeys informative, helpful, and hopefully inspiring to take on a challenge. Now, at the end of this, we're also going to wrap up my five-point plan. It's going to help you at least get the momentum going. But before we get going with the meat and potatoes, I do want to do Coach's Corner.
Matt Dixon 04:13
Yes, folks, Coach's Corner, and I've got a couple of things to get going, and then we're going to talk a little bit about Super Shoes in here. I'm going to give you my perspective, as we're talking about running in those shoes that are a genuine game changer when it comes to running, as long as you use them appropriately. But before we dive into that, I want to tell you about an amazing event that we've got coming up on June 6. The official name of this is An Evening of Champions; it's presented by Purple Patch and the PTO in the T 100 race series. And it is all to benefit the Challenged Athletes Foundation. We are going to be changing lives with this. Now you have lots of opportunities to participate. You can participate in the studio, and so that's with us in the bike room at the Performance Center in San Francisco. You can tie in remotely from anywhere in the world. And you can join us at the Performance Center and not ride your bike because we're going to have an amazing fireside chat. So what's it all about? Well, the first segment of the show is going to be a 60-minute virtual and in-person bike ride with who? Jan Frodeno. Yes, the GOAT, Olympic gold medalist, multiple-time Ironman champion—this guy is the GOAT of triathlon, there's no doubt about it. He is fantastic, and he is going to be joining our video platform—two-way video. And you're going to be able to participate; you're going to be able to measure your watts against Jan’s, and you're going to be able to ask him questions. It is a fantastic experience. Already, we have sold out the in-person studio experience, but you can join remotely anywhere in the world. All we're asking for is a basement donation of $50 to the Challenged Athletes Foundation, and you get free access to Jan and myself coaching him; we're even going to share the watts as we go on stage. It's going to be a tremendous amount of fun. And you thought, well, that might be the end of it, but no. Following that, we are going to welcome some very special guests, because not only will Jan be joining me for a fireside chat, but we also get to welcome double Olympic gold medalist Alistair Brownlee, an absolute legend in the sport as well, and the world's number one ranked triathlete Ashleigh Gentle, who is just a fantastic athlete, storied success, one of the fastest runners in the sport, and is going to be dominant, or has been dominant, over the T 100 race series. It's going to be a very special night. Now we've also got Bob Babbitt there, the legend of radio and the voice of triathlon in many ways. We have six-time Ironman World Champion Mark Allen joining us. We have a host of other Olympians and beyond; it's going to be a magical evening. The link is going to be in the show notes, and if you can't attend, I would encourage you to donate to the Challenged Athletes Foundation through that link. Our quest is to try and get two kids prosthetics. They're very expensive, and it is going to unlock their lives. This is something that we're passionate about, and it's going to be incredibly powerful for not just those two kids but many more recipients of the donations that we're all going to come together and give. And so I invite you to get to the show notes. This is going to be an incredible evening of entertainment and fun. The bike ride is at 4:30 in the afternoon, Pacific Standard Time. So that's going to capture the East Coast—tougher for the Europeans, I realize. And then immediately following, we're going to have a nice happy hour and social, and then we're going to carry on with the fireside chat. Also, we're talking about marathons today. And this is—this episode and this show are laying a little bit of the groundwork. But I felt like I wanted to dig deeper into some of the concepts that we talked about, both unlocking the marathon potential and breaking through and having huge gains in your marathon performance if you've already completed one. So we decided to host a performance webinar, a marathon webinar; the link is in the show notes as well. You can head to purplepatchfitness.com/nailyourmarathon; that's all one word, so purplepatchfitness.com/nailyourmarathon. I'll put the link into the show notes, but you can learn everything, we're going to do a deeper dive, but we also have an opportunity for probably 20 to 30 minutes to ask me any question that you have about running marathon training and beyond. If you want to avoid fatigue injuries and you want to maximize your results, this is a great webinar. It's free. We're hosting it. And if you can't attend live, then, of course, you can just enjoy the recording. So head to the link for all the information there, including when it is going to force you to go to the link to that, but it's free and it's open to everyone, not just Purple Patch athletes. All right. So with Coach's Corner, I promised you a little bit of education here. I want to talk a little bit about the Super Shoes. You know, those are the springboards that we go through. As we're talking about marathon running training, it feels like I should be talking about this, and I don't think we can have a discussion nowadays without questions being asked. And it's all about the Super Shoes. Are they good for me? Should I get a pair? How should I utilize them on and on and on? It happened that recently I was having a long conversation about these shoes with one of the world-renowned experts in this field around the body, who works with multiple Olympians and a host of track and field athletes, Dr. John Ball, based out of Phoenix, Arizona. He is the man. He fixes things when athletes are broken and they don't know where to turn. They head to Phoenix, and they utilize John Ball. He is a savant, and I don't say that lightly. He is incredible. He works with many of the world's best; he's on the cutting edge. And he's just a global expert on the body and running. So we decided to discuss super shoes and the impact of running performance on the human body. Let's first define these shoes. So they are regular shoes, and apart from effectively being inside of them, they've got a springboard and a trampoline. So, when the foot lands on the ground, it's going to receive a springboard effect from the design of the shoe. And that lowers ground contact time and also improves propulsion. And so without doubt, there is no argument, and all of the results show it; you've seen it, particularly at the elite end; it makes you faster significantly. They are, in the world of elite running, a game changer. But here's when things start to get a little compelling. The challenge with these shoes is that an athlete using them in an ongoing manner reduces some of the requirements for the foot and ankle complex. And so, in other words, the trampoline becomes the effective spring over what has traditionally been the spring, which is your foot and ankle complex. So what starts to occur over time, a little bit like cliff erosion, is the weakening of much of that area, your Achilles and other components so that ultimately, the shoes become a proverbial crutch. And so, unless you are running very, very fast—faster than most of the listeners of this show would be—this becomes a core catalyst for injury risk. And this is why, at the root of it, we are seeing so many injuries around the calf, the Achilles, a lot more plantar fasciitis, et cetera; there is an overall weakening of all of those areas. And so we have a paradox here: you've got these shoes that do have a positive impact on speed and performance, but unless you are running very, very fast, there's also an amplified risk of injury. So what should you do? Well, feel free to use them. But I'd encourage you to be cautious about their use. I would use them in races, particularly when you're at races where you can run quite fast and only in the fastest of speed sessions. What that means for most of our listeners is if you're heading to a track or if you're doing a track-like session interval that lasts 200 meters, 400 meters, and not beyond. I would not be running tempo in these; I would not be running for extended distances. Training is about preparing your body to run fast, and you want to include all aspects, including ensuring that you've got tissue and muscle rigidity, and health, of course, so the majority of your running should not be in these; they should be in regular neutral running shoes with some pretty good support. And then, in your daily life, you absolutely should not be walking around in any type of running shoe. Today's running shoes are at all levels, not just the super shoes, but all running shoes are designed for running. That's right. And so instead, in daily life, you want to provide the foot and the ankle the opportunity to strengthen naturally. So you want to have for most people a neutral shoe; it might be a pair of Vans or a pair of Adidas sandals or something like that, some neutral shoes, and I encourage you generally, of course, not to walk around in running shoes. And so, if you're a recreational athlete, don't fall for the trap. Instead, fall for health, fall for longevity, and choose comfort and sustainable performance. Personally, until your sub three, maybe even sub 2:30 in a marathon, I would lean more towards regular neutral, really balanced, and well-supported running shoes. Alright, with that, we're going to unlock marathons and marathon potential. It is time for the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 14:05
Yes, folks, the meat and potatoes are a marathon. That's not me. I'll tell you something: I could never do that. Well, let me tell you, you can. If you don't see yourself as a runner, if you find running uncomfortable, tough, or not enjoyable, if you have consistently tried running but got injured, then let me tell you, you can do it. That doesn't have to be who you are or how things go. And you can have fun while you're doing it while you're taking on the journey. I believe it can be transformative for you. What I want to do is highlight a couple of case studies. I'm going to start with this first one and then give you a five-point framework for you to take on a challenge to leave today's show and commence your journey to finish a half marathon or a marathon.
Matt Dixon 14:59
Now in part one, we're going to go through Carol. And Carol is a great case study of someone who, just like I mentioned, didn't see themselves as a runner at all. I could never do what she said. When I met Carol, she said, I'm not a runner. Declarative. I'm not a runner. Her son, meanwhile, loved running. He ran in high school and college. He's now a keen amateur. He's done all distance levels. But Carol had never been in sports; exercise was always seen as something painful, tough, and hard. It's not fun, that's for sure. And if she did try and go for a jog or something like that, well, it was that. Not fun, tough, or uncomfortable. But she wanted to take on a challenge when I met her. She wanted to feel successful. But running just didn't feel right for her. She tried once, and it was tough. So she got injured, and at the end of it, she just passed on. So I encouraged Carol to start again from a blank slate. But this time, I encouraged her to adopt a different approach. And so here's what Carol's journey looked like in summary: Typically, we do these case studies and I break down a profile, then I go through the challenges, then I go through the intervention and the results that come out of it. All I'm going to do is go through Carol's journey in this one. And the important part of this is what we did with Carol—we met her at her first light. And that's the really important point: to have a really honest point of reflection, understand where you're at, and start from there. Because the ending of the story is about building mini-victories from your starting point. So when I reviewed Carol's practices and habits, there was plenty of room for improvement across everything. Whether it was her training plan or not, it was pretty much nonexistent. Her reading habits in nutrition, her fueling around any exercise, her hydration, her sleep, her organizational effectiveness—there was a lot. It didn't reek of high performance; it didn't reek of being an athlete. But I also understand that, for anyone, it's impossible to transform these things overnight. And even worse would be to try to do everything at once. Nutrition is not good, and your sleep is not good. We need to change hydration; let's get exercising. Boom, it can quickly become overwhelming. So in Carol's case, meeting her at the start line, I didn't ask her to evolve too much at all; instead, meeting at the start line, we started with simple actions. So what did that look like for her? There was zero running. What she did was walk daily, around her neighborhood, and on the trails on the weekends. Now she lived in a variable-terrain neighborhood, a little bit hilly, and every single day, sometimes a little bit longer, sometimes a little shorter, she would adopt the practice of steps, nothing more than that. Twice a week, she integrated the baseline strength sessions, so she did a couple of strength sessions. To facilitate that, she recruited a personal trainer to help her once a week, and then she did another session alone, so she did get some external help, and that helped with a little bit of support and accountability. And then I just asked her to do one simple thing: every time she went for a walk or did a strength session, I wanted her to consume calories afterward based around protein, primarily a little bit of starchy carbohydrate as well. And that was it. And that's what we started with. And I said what we're looking to do here is we're looking to get going. I don't want you to think about destinations, end zones, or finish lines; I just want you to get going. And incrementally over time, what we're going to do is introduce new things when it's appropriate so that you can begin to slowly modify behavior, develop positive habits, and feel a little bit of success and validation—mini victories, as I like to call them. And so Carol did a great job. She adopted, she benefited from the personal training that she did, and she would occasionally as well come into our group strength coach sessions there in the Performance Center here in San Francisco. And that was nice from a social component and added support and accountability. And it became sort of a part of her social hour, and from there, over multiple weeks, the validation was not whether you were getting faster or stronger, but how you felt, and she felt energetic, a little bit better, and she felt connected. And that was a time organically where we could, although programmatically, Of course, add to the puzzle a little bit, start to introduce more things and progress. So the second sort of phase of elements after about six or eight weeks of this is that we started to shift and adopt some different practices in nutrition; we increased her daily protein; we started to reduce the amount of sugar that she was consuming; that was creating all sorts of stress reactions; and we added more vegetables and fruits into the overall equation. So that was a pretty easy supplement for her. And then we transitioned from just walking daily to doing something that I called walking with run breaks. So for the first steps of running on this journey, she would continue to walk around the neighborhood, but she would just do little mini-walk breaks or run breaks in there. And they would last anywhere from 20 seconds to 60 seconds, and they would be periodic around the walk. Goodness me, I'm flying and running, she said to me. After one of these sessions, which was fantastic, we started to introduce a little bit more challenge on the strength work, moving from body weight and band to actual real resistance training with weight. And that became important. And then I searched, and it just introduced a little bit of a focus. And I would say awareness of sleep practices, looking to try and consume calories, not too close to bedtime, and making sure that she would have a pretty regular bedtime when it was at that. So some really simple habits that we introduced. And these incremental add-ons had a certain yield, and that was that she felt better. It was easier to introduce these elements because she already had the ball rolling a little bit. It was already integrated into her life; she had a little bit of habituation around it. And so it was just an easy add-on. Incrementals almost add to this. And so we stayed here for quite a while, for another few weeks, and we just stabilized and stabilized and stabilized, and by now, Carol was three or four months into the program. She had a consistent practice; she certainly was at very low risk of injury, and we didn't have any niggles or pains, but she did start to feel better. We also start to see a little bit of an improvement in body composition, daily energy, cognitive function, and those sorts of things. So then was the time that we could start to progress again. And the next layer for Carol was to introduce accountability, so she became an active member of our community. And this is the first time that I started to think about training, Carol. And so we refined her fueling, a few practices around that, we started to extend the duration of her running breaks, where it was more a balance of run and walk rather than walking with little run breaks in it, and we started to develop some conditioning. And the modality that we used for that was a multi-sport approach. Rather than just extending the intensity or duration of her running, instead, we added different modalities in there. We did a little bit of rowing because she had a rowing ergometer in her house, and then she started to come once a week to the Purple Patch Center, where she participated in our bike sessions. Now in there, you've got some elite athletes, some very serious triathletes. But we've also got 70-year-olds that are looking to improve the quality of their lives, and people just like Carol. So it's a welcoming environment. And we started to train her; those were very, very challenging, but she started to have success, and she was doing it with like-minded people, and that helped. So over six months, that was it. It was a journey that not only improved her energy and her overall health but also started to introduce, incrementally, some positive habits, which just changed the way that she was going about her life. We added a few mechanisms of support, accountability, and community in there. But you know, the real driver was confidence; she felt better. And she felt accomplished. It wasn't too soon; she didn't try to swim through the tsunami wave. And so we saw this become routine, a part of life, and she had built a series of mini victories. She even went and completed a couple of little five K's and one 10 K. And it was just really fun. And it was from this starting point that it took some months to get to—happy, healthier, more in control, greater resiliency—that she could shift and feel ready to say, I want to see if I can go and do this. It still scared the bejesus out of her. She still had serious doubts, and that's okay. It's healthy to have a little bit of a challenge and a fear and a wonder of, Can I do this? That's what a big, hairy goal is. But we've got to a point, and the truth is, Carol had got herself to the point where she was ready to even entertain the opportunity. And so she chose a race called the Tunnel Marathon in Washington. It is a flatter race, slightly downhill for much of it, and it has the majority of softer surfaces. So it's better on the joints. But it was still pretty big and no less intimidating. So what we did to prepare for that was, she, of course, retained walk breaks in there, she started to dial up intensity via multi-sport, so harder and harder in the bike sessions, occasionally some short hard sprints, so that we could develop the cardiovascular conditioning, but via modalities that were non-weight bearing, or at least a low-weight bearing, and she built resilience through, not these huge over-distance runs to get ready for this one-day event, but via frequency. And then we would add in some longer hiking, so she was on her feet for a long time, even some trail runs that integrated some hiking, so that we could get the resilience and the time on feet set in a very unscientific way. She went to the tunnel marathon, and her goal was quite humble; she wanted to go somewhere around six hours, and she thought she might be able to do that. She maintained walk breaks throughout the race. She aimed for a consistent pace. Her training or racing strategy was what I utilized and talked about on the show many times: I asked her to go and train all day, she fueled, and she hydrated because she had a strategy and understanding of that. She chatted with others all the way. She's a conversationalist. You know what she did; she finished in under five hours, more than an hour ahead. And you know what she wants to do now? She wants to do it again. And again.
Matt Dixon 26:50
So what were her lessons? What can you draw from that? Well, the first primary thing from Carol's case study is to start at your starting line. Don't just sign up for a marathon and start training for it. Go on a journey; give yourself some space. And by taking on the journey and beginning from where you're at now, you've got a much greater opportunity for long-term success and enjoyment, and ultimately, the rewards are greater. The second big lesson is: don't start by changing everything. It's overly consuming. It's overwhelming and destined to fail. Instead, be patient and incrementally add to your recipe. In the third lesson, your goal might be running; you might want to ultimately finish a marathon and finish it well, but that doesn't mean you need to start there, and you certainly don't indeed need to only use that as your training modality; leverage the power of walking and multi-sport. For the vast majority of folks, just like you, who want to do this stuff, it is a huge key to unlock. And under banner number four, realize that walking is not an act of desperation. It's not a sign of failure. In fact, in racing and training, it is this superpower of performance enhancement for most runners. And number five, keep progressing and growing well beyond the training aspects. You must view tackling something like this as an opportunity to evolve your habits around fueling hydration and sleeping, because that's going to be the gasoline that fuels your health on this journey and, ultimately, your success. And the final lesson. Well, it's way more fun. It's way more effective. And it's more beneficial when you get to train at least some of the time with others in the accountability community, a highly valuable tool. And so if you listen to Carol's story and you see a little bit of yourself in there, remember, you can do it.
Matt Dixon 29:04
Do you want to run a marathon? Well, how many hours should I do? How should I fuel? What should I eat? Do I need to drop weight for this thing? What running shoes should I wear? How am I going to avoid injury? Everyone gets injured, I hear. How much speed work should I do on the way? There are endless questions. You google them. You get 25 contradictory and complex answers. Don't worry. At Purple Patch, we've got your back. We will be your filter. We will be your coaches, and we will be your team. We're going to remove the confusion. We're going to give you time back. And we're going to drive you to deliver results not just in sport—not just success in a marathon or half marathon—but in broader life. We're going to allow you to get maximum results from the effort that you put in. We're going to help you gain control, and we're also going to make it more fun. We've got your back, and here's how we can help you. There are three simple steps to unlocking your potential. First, set up a complimentary consultation with us; we're going to ensure that you're on the best path for you. Second, get going with the program. The first steps are always the scariest, but they're also the best, the most critical ones. And you can be on the program within minutes. And finally, it's risk-free. Don't worry if you're not enamored, and we're pretty sure that you will be. If you're not, we've got you back with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Info@purplepatchfitness.com Reach out, let them know that you heard about it on this show, and we'll set up a call in the coming day or so. Alright, let's get back to the show.
Matt Dixon 30:40
All right, folks, part two is our second case study of today. And this is all about a lovely gentleman called Tom. Tom is a wonderful example of a very common type of athlete who comes to Purple Patch for guidance and support. He regularly integrates running into his fitness regime, and he stays relatively consistent throughout that. And he decided not so many moons ago on a whim to set a goal for training for and completing a marathon. And he was confident he had good baseline fitness. He was always inspired by the goal. So I thought, let's do it. And he kept his baseline fitness up. And then, about 12 weeks before, he put a stake in the ground and said, I'm going to get onto a training plan. And so what he did, as many training programs suggest, was start his baseline and then do a very simple mathematical equation. Every week, he just added 10% on top of the program, a little bit more, a little bit of intensity. He began to add some intensity to one or two of the sessions every week, and along the way, he also entered a 5K and a 10K. He had a pretty narrow focus on performance; he was simply adding running mileage and following the plan with no other changes across life. And this is typical behavior that we see. And it was going well until it wasn't. Five weeks out of the race, he pulled his Achilles tendon, which's right below the lower leg of the calf, going into the ankle. Yeah, that little rope-type thing at the back of your foot strained it absolutely out of running. He stopped running completely. He couldn't run. And he desperately rested—no running, no activity. And after three weeks of being sidelined with no or little proper training, he gave up. A few months later, Tom returned, and he chased, as he called it, redemption. He registered for another event, and he took a similar approach. And this time, just two weeks before the race, he pulled his hamstring. It was his hamstring on his opposing leg. And once again, he failed to finish. So when we met Tom, he just correlated marathon training with injuries, and that's understandable. He was 45, and he said to me, I'm unable to get race-ready with a normal plan. And he was highly coachable, I would say, and he came really as an open book and willing to change some stuff. And I said I want you to radically change some stuff. And so he began with Purple Patch last February. So this is a story that's more than a year old in history. So last February 2023, as I'm recording this, and what we did with Tom when he came on board was ask him not to enter a marathon. That was his goal, that was his ambition, but he had gone through a couple of negative experiences, both being unable to even get to the start line because of injury, and he just associated marathon training with injuries. So instead, I asked Tom to have an incremental approach. And I asked him for eight weeks—two months or so—in which I was going to help him build habits. So running with consistency was the key. And I also encouraged Tom to add, beyond running, a multi-sport element, and he chose the rowing ergometer and the peloton, so basically the stationary bike. And over the winter months, I should add, he also introduced a little bit of cross-country skiing, because it was the winter months and he had mountain access and enjoyed those. We had about two months of cross-country skiing, but the predominant multi-sport edition was a rowing ergometer, and then once or twice a week, a peloton on a stationary bike was fantastic. We also started to shift his nutrition incrementally, transitioning towards more protein and introducing post-workout fueling. So just like Carol in our prior case study, we introduced fueling calories, protein, and carbohydrates following every single workout that he did. We amplified his daily hydration; we prioritized sleep, so some of the really important components. But most importantly for Tom, we added twice-weekly strength training. So, in terms of hierarchy, these were the pinnacle of everything I'd discussed. They were the body of which we wrapped the clothes of the other training and habits around it—our two central sessions a week for Tom—strength training and running were just the clothing that wrapped around the strength in many ways. So after this, he built some really good consistency. He felt good and energetic, but he was nowhere near, quote, being marathon-ready. And in fact, I still asked Tom to hold back on this. Instead, as an ambitious, goal-driven guy, I introduced the challenge of getting ready for a half marathon to him. And so we continued strength training; we tweaked and evolved the practices around nutrition, introducing a little bit more focus there. And we started to progress his running mileage a little bit. And we had integrated blocks, unlike his prior program—not just progressive stair-stepping but integrated blocks of real clean-out and rejuvenation. About every third week went two or three days where we cleaned out; we didn't run at all; we did a little bit of walking; and a little bit of recovery rowing; that was our sort of recipe for Tom as it worked. And we focused on some very, very demanding high-intensity training, and we did that all via multi-sport—no fast running at all. So we did some high-intensity, what we call VO2 max work on both the bike and some heavy-duty base riding on the peloton, low-cadence type work. And in every single one of his training sessions, no matter how short the runs, he integrated walk breaks, something that he had never done before. And in the course of the half marathon, he said, Well, I'm under-run; I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I'm a racer, so I'll go and give it my best. And of course, the result was that he had a PR, and at the end of it, he wasn't destroyed. And then finally, as he's gone on this journey, his built resilience, his built habits, he's had validation for running a fast half marathon. It was then about 14 weeks before a December race that we encouraged him to enter that we started to shift the focus and even introduced the word marathon. And how we went about this was not to suddenly deviate and throw the baby out with the bathwater and do a classic marathon training program. Instead, we evolved the approach that had already been successful. So we aim to maintain consistency. We continued with the strength program; we retained the established habits of nutrition, hydration, and fueling; and we leveraged multi-sport. He went through the entire year last year without a single setback, niggle, or injury. He completed his first marathon and was over the moon. Of course, then he recovered, and you know what happened? He wanted more; he wanted to get better. So he decided to enter a spring marathon relatively recently, just a month or so ago, the Paris marathon. He prepared in very much the same way, but in mid-January, and this can happen is not foolproof. He did get a niggle, the first niggle, and he had a mild Achilles and almost a little bit of plantar fasciitis. If you've ever had that, you don't want to get it; it's an incredibly frustrating little niggle and injury. But unlike his prior experiences, he didn't stop training. Instead, what we did was amplify multi-sport. He did some additional peloton, some added rowing, we did some hill base walking, and then we radically lowered the run mileage. We almost walked with running brakes. You heard that in the last case study a little bit. And it took him two to three weeks—maybe a little bit of confidence erosion there with lower running—but he still progressed in the other areas. And gradually, we ramp back up to running. And he went to Paris, and he went again with a no-expectations mindset. He had a couple of weeks where he just had that mild setback, but the key was that he didn't decondition the other areas of his body. He continued to make progress. And so he felt under-run, but as a coach, I was confident. You know what's happening now? He's starting to think about Boston because he qualified. He went to Paris, and he had a marvelous breakthrough performance. He was performance-ready, with some out-of-the-box thinking. More importantly, running is a part of his life now. Tom is a marathon runner, but he utilizes a really smart, broad perspective on performance as well as how he trains for them so that he can get ready. And he's also got a toolkit for the rigors of performance training. A little setback is never the cessation of training whatsoever.
Matt Dixon 39:48
And so, from Tom's story, what are the lessons that we can draw from it? Well, number one, go on a journey. Grabbing a 10-, 12-, 14-, or 16-week marathon plan off the shelf is never optimal for success. Number two, think more broadly. In other words, the training sessions are only a snippet of the puzzle. Real success emerges when you focus holistically on all aspects that enable training success, better energy, and improved resilience. And yes, running, lesson three, is important to becoming a better runner and being successful in marathons. Ultimately, you do need to run, but multi-sport can play a key role in your global preparation, both in terms of muscle resilience and cardiovascular conditioning. Number four, injuries are setbacks; they are not a part of running, but they can happen. And if they do happen, that doesn't mean you should stop training; you should continue to train; you just need to think outside the box on how. You need to break it down and focus on the things you can control and activate; there's nearly always a way to keep progressing, even if you can't run. And finally, the lesson from Tom integrates this: there is no race that should be the start and end line of your performance journey. Embracing that journey will not only deliver better race results but also help you in your enjoyment of life.
Matt Dixon 41:24
Folks, we've spoken a lot today about all of the components that make up success in your performance journey; it's so much more than a plan. That's why I always think about Purple Patch as a human-based coaching company, a set of experts that are going to help you, as humans, make real and smart decisions about your journey. We have unparalleled experience in guiding time-starved athletes to sporting goals while also amplifying all other areas of life that they can show up for. We'd like you to outperform through some really smart training that dances and works with life demands rather than compete against them. A real coaching team, humans, that have your back and will guide you, and extensive education and guidance across all of the aspects of performance that we talked about today. We'd like to take the complex and convert it into something simple, effective, and actionable. It gets you the results that you want, but you're also going to get time back. We've got three steps to get going. Firstly, set up a complimentary consultation; we want to understand your goals and who you are. We can also then get you on the program, step number two, within minutes, and you've become a part of our community with just a few very simple steps. And finally, we're so confident that we're going to unlock your performance and enable you to have more fun than you ever imagined doing it that we've got your back. If you don't feel like it's for you within the first 30 days, we're just going to give your money back; it's risk-free. Feel free to reach out at info@purplepatchfitness.com. All right, back to the show.
Matt Dixon 42:55
And finally, guys, the wrap-up: with that, I ask you, do you have the hitch? Can you take this on and finish a marathon or half marathon? Well, I'm here to tell you, that you can. Here are five steps that are non-negotiable for you to implement. Now all of these, I'm going to go into great detail in our upcoming webinar on the topic, and I'm going to leave that in the show notes. Remember to register there. But at least today, let me give you some perspective and some actions that you can take coming out of today's show. Number one is non-negotiable. Start at your starting line and embrace the journey. A marathon might ultimately be your goal, but the true reward of this personal transformation takes time. And it's also the place where the fun merges, where it's shifting how you live your life. And so this is the component that's so important. Don't rush it. Embrace incremental and smart approaches to build your health, your resilience, and, finally, your readiness for the goal. Start at your starting point and embrace the journey; too many people rush into it. Lesson number two: I encourage you to adopt a really broad perspective and mindset when it comes to that word, performance. Preparing for a marathon is never just about running. That's the really simple part of this. If you want to yield the rewards and nail your goal without breaking yourself, then you're going to need to develop the practices and habits around the supporting elements that improve your health: your energy, your consistency, your overall performance readiness, and your tissue health. And these components should be a part of your program and approach. I don't believe the answer to your being successful in a marathon is about training for a marathon. Instead, it's about adopting and modifying existing behaviors so that you can lay the foundation and then optimize your training. And remember, none of this that I'm talking about should be shackling. You don't need to be obsessed; you don't need to become one of those weirdos. Instead, you can build practices and habits that create a framework for you to unlock effectiveness and, ultimately, be successful. Lesson number three: make sure that you embrace a multi-sport approach. This is proven; we have seen it across all levels. If you think about running readiness, you've got cardiovascular conditioning, you've got muscular endurance, and you've got specific training to get you ready for the demands of any event that you're going to do. Great. Those are the three components in the rulebook; no rule states that to develop each of these components, you must do it within the sport of choice, in this case running. It's better not to, in my opinion. You can hit the high-intensity work through low- or non-weight-bearing sports, and that radically reduces risk. It also amplifies recovery and helps with consistency. You can build muscular resilience, not just through massive distances that are riddled with risk, but instead through really short and frequent work. You can ensure that you start to build a recipe that enables you to integrate this into your life, not feel overwhelmed, and unlock the key to anyone's high performance, and that's a single word: consistency. It's really helpful. Lesson number four or five: Dump the mindset around miles and hours. If you're doing it right, you're not even focusing on the number of weekly miles or the number of weekly hours; that's irrelevance. To me. You're certainly not blindly progressing your training by some algorithm at 10% per week. Instead, you're building resiliency through consistency over many, many months with a plan that integrates and is dynamic enough to work with the ebbs and flows of life. Life is not a spreadsheet, so don't follow a rigid spreadsheet when you're trying to get ready for any sort of event. This takes a little bit of bravery, but it is the way for you to unlock your effectiveness. And finally, if you want to run fast, whatever your version of fast is, you better fall in love with walking. And unless you are extremely fast with great running form, you will be integrating walking to unlock your best results. It is not a sign of desperation; it is a strategic plan to deploy to reduce injury risk, maximize training consistency, and get the greatest yield, ROI, of speed return on the race course. We see it at all levels. It's a massive unlock. We've had athletes qualify for the Olympic Marathon trials, integrating walk breaks. Last year, I had a guy go two hours and 36 minutes at the New York Marathon with five or six walk breaks in his race. So this isn't just for the slow pokers, as you like to call yourselves. This is for some very fast amateurs as well. And so I hope that this message and the show today inspire and are helpful. Because I like making people like you faster. It tickles my fancy when you smash your goals, but I'm most happy when you crack your code and unlock your consistency. You find the journey joyous, and you remain injury-free. And I love it when you do these things as a part of your journey because you can go and get ready for a marathon or half marathon. And I hope that my case studies today highlight that. Now, if you want to dig into the show, remember, don't miss the upcoming webinar. The link is in the show notes. I would love to see you there. If you can't attend live, we'll, of course, share the recording, which should be helpful. Take care.
Matt Dixon 49:27
Guys, thanks so much for joining. 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 on YouTube, and you will find it there, and you can subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you if you will subscribe and share it with your friends. It's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now, if you have any questions, let me know. Feel free to add a comment, and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. 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 at info@purplepatchfitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show on 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 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, and do whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
marathon, running, training, performance, a little bit, carol, journey, injury, purple, race, unlock, shoes, multi-sport, athlete, patch, integrated, walk, week, tom, fueling