An Inside Look at What RunnersConnect Athletes are Struggling With Now

Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. And this is the run to the top podcast, the podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode, we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runners connect dot net where you can find the best running information on the internet as well as training plans to fit every runner in every budget. On today's episode, we are going to hear from runners connect, head coach Michael Hammond about the common struggles our athletes are facing right now and how we're helping them overcome them. We've always felt the group atmosphere is part of what sets us apart from most training plans, even other customized ones as an athlete, sometimes it's just nice to know that others are struggling with the same issues as you are or having the same fears and apprehension at the same time during a training cycle, when a workout or a long run feels harder than you think it should have. It's nice to confirm with other runners that you're not alone and it's part of the process or how you should feel. So today, Coach Michael is going to give you an inside look at some of the winter running struggles many of our athletes are facing and how you can overcome them too.

He tunes have been one of the most well researched chemicals when it comes to endurance performance. The only downside is that it typically takes two days of fasting for your body, produce them in quantities that would help your performance. But thanks to Delta G, you can boost your ketone levels to those seen after two days of fasting in just 20 minutes. Learn more at runners connect dot net slash delta G. If you're someone who struggles to relax and get sleep at night, I cannot wait to tell you more about one of our favorite brands Ned and their new Shuteye chai. It's a mellow super blend latte for sleep that combines adaptive Jin's caminos functional mushrooms and magnesium to help calm your central nervous system and improve your sleep. I'll tell you more about them later in this episode. But if you want to learn more now, head to hello ned dot com backslash R T T T. All right. Hey, runners connect fans. Welcome to this week's coach chat where you get an inside. Look at runners connect coach Michael here, sub four miler and head coach here at our sea today. I'm gonna give you five tips for better winter training.

You know, our athletes all over are struggling with the cold temperatures, the treadmill, workouts, the ice and snow, the colds and flues that inevitably come along. We're seeing this all over our training platform. So I'm gonna help you get the most out of your winter training and have your body humming heading into spring. Stay tuned for the end of the episode and we like to keep this short so it won't be real long. But I'm gonna tell you an amazing story from one of our athletes who with three weeks to go in her marathon prep, had to switch it to a virtual race and run it at 10 o'clock at night due to a significant family health issue. So we're gonna talk about that. I can't wait to tell you about it, but first, let's do it. Let's get into these five tips for better winter training. Number one is warm up inside. I really like to tell people this one and I don't, I don't really know why it's not done more often, but I think it's just such a great strategy is to before you actually go out for your run, let's say you're running from the house. Do you do a little bit of a dynamic? Warm up inside? Some examples here like the lunge matrix. You know, I have my active warmup routine. You can find on youtube.

Any of these routines are great because they're just gonna get your heart rate up. They're gonna start to warm up your muscles, but do those inside while you're in the heat while you're nice and warm. Do those that way, you've still got all your running clothes on. You know, you've got your, your inside and the heat. So you're not out there Nicole doing all this and you're getting your heart rate up, getting your body warmer before you actually go outside. Right. So that's the idea to make this even better. What I would do is do something like maybe some jump rope. It's funny, I was gonna just say jump rope on this, but then I thought about it before I recorded and I was like, like at some point, your, your ceilings probably aren't high enough to do jump rope. So you can do something like jumping jacks, anything that's just gonna really get that heart rate and get it to the point. You almost want to get to that point where you are almost hot like you're, you're like, so you're almost itching to get outside. I know for some people it's so cold outside that you're never really itching to get out there, but just get that heart rate up. Don't go out cold. Do the, you know, do a little bit of a dynamic warm up routine. Again, the lunge matrix are active, warm up, do some jumping jacks jump rope, anything just really, really get that heart rate up.

And if it's not possible, you know, I think about often times I'll drive two runs, I'm sure to let you guys do that too. If you're driving to meet friends or you're driving to a trail, once you get out of the car run for 10 minutes or so, maybe 15 minutes and then do a quick dynamic warm up. You know, you don't want to get out the car and just start doing a dynamic warm up. You wanna, you wanna just start, start jogging jog really, really slow. Don't force the pace. Your body is going to be cold. It's not gonna want to have a pace forced upon it. Go real nice and slow run for 10, 15 minutes and then you can stop, do a little bit of a dynamic warm up for just a couple of minutes and and then go about your run but again, warm up and inside, I really think it's such a great strategy and and you want to be already in your clothes, don't warm up and then go get changed and then go out the door already be dressed, have all your clothes on, even like stuff like gloves and hats because I want you to get it's kind of like wrestlers, you know, when they're trying to like lose weight, they have all you know, they've got all the goodies on. Even if it's hot outside, you want to get as warm as you possibly can before you actually step foot outside.

It's just gonna make it a lot easier to to take that first step. Alright. Second tip, the treadmill sucks. Adjust your treadmill workouts. I, I don't, I don't know exactly why guys, I really don't understand why the treadmill sucks so much. Like why treadmill workouts are so terrible. Maybe it's psychological. I've never really gotten to the bottom of it. Like, I don't, I don't see any great, there's not any great, like, studies on this. Like, why are treadmill workout so much harder? There's, there's lots of discussion about like adjusting the incline or having a fan in front of you, whatever, regardless for me personally, I've kept it on, on zero incline and yet the same workout that I'll do outside on the roads is way easier than the treadmill workout. The treadmill workout is much harder. So, regardless of whether it's psychological or whether it's physiological, who cares? All I know is that for most people that we've worked with that runners connect, they seem to mostly agree that it's just not fun. It's not fun. It's not Gonna be a tremendous workout. They seem to, everybody seems to really struggle with it. So what I recommend doing is just by default a just 10-15 seconds a mile, you know, slow down your pace is by 10 or 15 seconds per mile.

That might sound like a lot. But I want you to kind of start on the slow end. You know, I want you to adjust almost a little bit too much at first and then you can maybe pick it up as you see fit. You know, if you're doing mild repeats, I want that first mile to almost be, like, too easy because I don't on the treadmill. That's what we find is that we'll have, people will give them their, their splits for what they're supposed to hit and they'll go out and do maybe the first one and they inevitably end up cutting the workout short or they hammer through it and it becomes way harder than it was supposed. So this is kind of similar to, you know, in the summer, we'll always give people advice of adjust their paces for like heat and humidity. I'm gonna say adjust for the treadmill, you know, for better or worse. The treadmill is a great tool, but it just seems to, everyone seems to struggle a little bit more with the workout. So just 10 to 15 seconds a mile, try to focus on your effort as much as possible. You know, if it's threshold intervals, look, think about what a threshold interval is. Look at our website, look at just Google runners connect threshold intervals and you'll see like when we talk about what that sort of effort should be for something like threshold intervals, those shouldn't be these all out intervals where you're just completely toast at the end, you should be like somewhat comfortably hard is the best way to say it.

So look at the effort of the workout that you're trying to do the same goes for easy runs though. Make sure that you're easy runs are really, really, really easy, focus on the effort. You know, treadmill can be even worse in that case because if we have somebody who they're easy pace range that we typically give them, we like to give workouts and easy paces in terms of a range rather than just like a strict pace. So if we give somebody like nine minutes to 9 40 per mile, that's a pretty big range. But we like to do that. The problem is, is that they might go right away. They're just gonna set that treadmill to 9, 10 or 9 20. You know, and that's not really what we want to do, even if you're running outside. I don't like for anyone to ever just start out at the fast end of their easy range. I like people to start out. Not even necessarily a pace. Just let your body determine what pace is going to work on the treadmill. That can be a lot harder because you're having to set the pace, but just start really slow. So if you're in that 9 to 9 40 range, typically outside, start at 10, start at 10 15. Even, I don't care, start really slow. Let's get to the point where you're like Almost tripping over yourself.

Like you're aching to pick up the pace. I don't want you to pick up the pace just because you think you need to run faster. I want you to pick up the pace because you're just, it's so slow and easy that your, it would be easy for you to go, you know, 2030 seconds a mile faster. So wait till you get to that point to actually pick it up. But just adjust your treadmill. Workouts. Don't, don't get on there and be miserable. The treadmill is miserable enough. I don't want to make it harder by, by forcing paces on workouts and easy runs to just 10 to 15 seconds a mile start on the slow end and, and focus on that effort. Everyone. This is coach Jeff stepping in for finn to talk about one of the products that we currently are super excited about. You may have read a lot about the last few years about the benefits of ketones for endurance performance such as mitochondria efficiency and Glycogen sparing for those that don't know, ketones are a type of chemical that your liver produces when it breaks down fats. Your body uses ketones for energy typically during fasting long periods of exercise or when you don't have as many carbohydrates. The problem is that you typically need to severely reduce your carbohydrate intake in order to take advantage of them, which is difficult to sustain even for the most dedicated runner.

But thanks to Delta G and collaboration from the U S military and researchers from NIH and the University of Oxford they've developed a ketone drink that can boost your ketone levels to those seen after two days of fasting in just 20 minutes. The academic literature on the effectiveness of ketones for running performance is more numerous than I could listen to podcast. But here's some quick data. In 1995 study showed that when the heart was fueled by a mix of ketones and glucose, its efficiency increased by 28% compared to the heart fueled by glucose alone. A more recent study from 2021 demonstrated that the ingestion of delta g improved mitochondrial efficiency by 7%. Finally, a 2019 study concluded that using ketones significantly enhanced endurance performance while minimizing overtraining. These are just some of the studies that have shown the numerous performances advantages of delta G ketones. If you want to see more of the research head to runners connect dot net slash delta G plus, use the code R T T 20 when you do and you'll save 20% on any purchase you make.

Again, that's runners connect dot net slash delta G and use the code R T T 20 to save 20%. We've talked a lot about the importance of sleep over the last few years when it comes to both recovery from your workouts and your overall health. Unfortunately, it's still an area where many people struggle. Luckily, one of our favorite brands ned is here to help you with their incredible new product. Should I chai? It's a mellow super blend latte for sleep that combines adaptive Jin's amine owes functional mushrooms and magnesium wrapped in a heavenly masala chai inspired spiced body specifically ingredients such as Chaka ray she and ash Lagonda help calm your central nervous system, which we know is always elevated from training family and work stress and too much screen time. Adding shuteye chai to my daily pre bed routine, especially in the cold winter months has really helped me relax and get my brain ready to sleep. Something. I know a lot of runners struggle with its resulted in feeling much more relaxed at night, falling asleep faster and getting more restful sleep throughout the night as well.

If you're looking for a delicious way to feel more relaxed and calm before you go to bed and get more quality sleep, discover how shuteye chai can revolutionize your sleep and get 15% off with code. Are T T T just go to hello ned dot com backslash R T T T or enter code R T T T at checkout. That's H E L L O N E D dot com slash R T T T to get 15% off. Sweet dreams. Tip number three, I want you to commit to a mile. I think we can all agree when it's really cold outside. The hardest part is getting out the door by far, you know, in summer, in the summer when it's warm getting out the door. That's the easy part. You know, that's, that's the easy part. It's once you get halfway into your run and you're sweating bullets and you're, you know, you're feeling like you're, you're dehydrated, your electrolytes are running out. You're just, just so hot and cannot see to cool down. Every breath, feels like you're breathing through a straw. That's when it's hard in the middle of the run. But in the winter, the hardest part, often it's just getting out the door.

You know what I think can help here is just commit to a mile. So let's say you have like a seven mile run on your schedule, commit to running that first mile. And I know this is like a little bit of a psychological trick and it might seem a little bit silly. But if you just commit to running that first mile or running that first, like 10 minutes, typically what's gonna happen is all right. You're gonna start to warm up a little bit. It's not gonna be so miserable like it was at the start. You're gonna feel a little better and you're gonna want to want to do the rest of the run. You know, that's typically the way that it works. But that hardest part is getting out the door. So I say the tip number three is commit to a mile, but really just get your butt out the door. I know it's hard. I get it but once you get out there, it tends to be a lot easier. I'm not saying it's easy. I know the weather. It sucks right now. It's not fun. But typically the hardest part is just getting your butt out the door. So, just commit to a mile. Just say, all right. I'm at least gonna run one mile today. I can't skip, I don't want to skip this entirely. I can't do that. I'm gonna commit to a mile. I'm gonna run one mile at least. And, and then, hey, if I'm, if I'm done after that, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna finish, I'm gonna come back home.

But typically what's gonna happen is you're not going to feel that way, you're gonna be ready to go. So, commit to that mile and speaking of all this terrible weather, tip number four, come to our winter running retreat. I'm just kidding. Don't, that's not tip number four, but we do have our winter running retreat coming up here in Orlando, Florida in, in February. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We are, our winter running retreat is always fun for people because most people tend to come from like the northeast or, or anywhere where it's just like super, super cold. And that's why we, that's why we do it in Florida is because it's just, it's not a, nothing is a guarantee, of course, because a few years ago we did one in San Diego in February and it was chilly, it was really chilly. So nothing is guaranteed, but Florida tends to be the most guaranteed warm weather that we can possibly get there really, really fun. We do lots of like coaching lectures. We do one on one, you know, coach kind of coach chats with people, talk about their long term goals and their race plans and stuff. We do form analysis and then we just have a lot of fun. We do meals and runs together. There are a lot of fun. So we have Orlando. But if Orlando is coming right up, but if you're interested in looking at our other running retreats, just runners connect dot net slash retreats.

You'll see where we have our Flagstaff retreat coming up in the summer. That was gonna be a lot of fun. But anyway, so like I said, that's not tip number four, tip number four is keep a healthy lifestyle. Don't, don't catch the. So that's my college coach, Ben Thomas. He would always say don't catch the. So that just means like a cold or something like that in the winter. That's obviously we all know this, you know, from, especially the last couple of years, but the winter can be the worst time to catch viruses and illnesses and things because everybody's inside, everybody's, you know, cold, your immune system is suppressed. So what I like to tell people is, don't, number one is, don't overdo the winter comforts, you know, I know this is a little bit late given that, like, Christmas season was, was a month ago but don't overdo like the comfort foods. The, you know, when I say comfort foods, I don't mean, like healthy ones. I mean, like, like more of the unhealthy ones don't overdo, you know, the alcohol, um, anything like that that's going to lower your immune system. You want to keep your lifestyle as healthy as possible so that you don't catch the card so that you don't get sick, you know, make sure you dress appropriately, you know, getting cold. You don't want to ever really be cold when, when you're cold for long periods of time.

I know when you're out on the run. I mean, you're gonna be a little bit cold. I get it, but dress appropriately, you know, wear gloves, wear hats, wear lots of layers if you get too warm on a run. That's great. Yeah, that's fine. I know. It can be annoying and you have to shed layers and stuff, but that's way better than the opposite. Believe me, I've been bad about this in the past where I would, I would like, try to plan so perfectly for. I didn't want to be warm at the beginning of the run. I wanted to be warm, like 20 minutes into the run. Right. I want to be comfortable 20 minutes in. But then you're frigid for those 1st 20 minutes. So, dress appropriately. Where plenty of, of clothing during your runs. But also after he runs, make sure you dress appropriately. The last thing you want to do is go, you know, let's say you're running at a trail, you're meeting up with friends. You don't want to hang out for 2030 minutes after the run. Just in your same running clothes, getting frigid cold, bring an extra jacket, bring extra pants, make sure that you're not letting yourself be super cold after those runs. Lots of whole foods, lots of water, lots of sleep. You guys know all of that. But on that, that topic of sleep, I just wanna real quick mention I struggle with this a bit in the winter and I wonder if anybody else out there does because in the summer oftentimes you'll have like such a full day and lots of time spent outside that at night, I'll just like crash, I'll just be so tired and, and it's easy to go to sleep in the winter.

Sometimes you'll have a lot more days that are spent inside. Even if it's at work, you'll, you'll go and you go to work, spend a day inside, come home, spend the evening inside. It can be just a lot of, I don't know, it, it can lead to a lot of insomnia and it certainly does for me. So make sure that you're, you're taking care of your sleep as best you can and just make sure you don't catch the, it's getting sick is sort of inevitable. I mean, I have, I have a, you know, almost four month old son. I understand that, especially those of you with kids. It can be really hard to avoid any sort of illness but do your best to, to not get sick because as we all know when you catch something it can just, I don't care what it is but it can really interfere with your training. It's not fun. It's not what you want. So don't get sick and if you do get sick, take care of yourself, don't train through it, don't just hammer through it and, and you know, if it's, I've always heard the rule where if it's above the neck, you're okay. So if you just have like, you know, a little bit of congestion and stuff like that, that's fine. Train through it. It's not a huge deal. But if you're getting any sort of like fever symptoms, you know, you've got the chills, your age, your temperature is high, anything like that, that's where you need to stop.

You need to at least take a couple days off and let your body heal because it doesn't want to be pushed, it just wants to chill out, it wants to relax, it wants to rest. You're just gonna prolong the illness if you go try to hammer through it. So don't do that. Take care of your lifestyle guys, even in the winter, even stuff like water. A lot of people think that in the winter you don't really need to worry about hydration. You absolute do so make sure that you're staying hydrated. Make sure you're eating right. Don't overdo those winter comforts. I get it. I want it for me. I'm a big beer guy. I love a nice, like, porter, like, nice, like chocolatey porter on a, on a winter evening. It's actually making me really want one right now. But I'm gonna try to not overdo that stuff because that's just gonna lower the immune system and make me even more susceptible to sickness. Take care of that lifestyle. Number five, I'm gonna get some flak for this one and I, I don't care because I think it just needs to be said. Number five is toughen up a great quote from Bill Bowerman, legendary coach at University of Oregon. There's no such thing as bad weather. There's just soft people. Now, I know people in the northeast, the U S northeast and Canada are gonna be furious with me for, especially since I'm in Texas right now.

I will say it's frigid right now. I'm at my parents' house. It's supposed to be warm but it's all cold. But the funny thing is that in the summer it's totally flipped. You know, all the people in the northeast and Canada are having these great days. Not necessarily. I know the northeast can get really hot too, but then you got people in the Deep South and Florida and Texas and Alabama and stuff where it's just absolutely miserable. And then, and then the funny thing is the people in California and, and like the Pacific Northwest are laughing at us the whole time. But, but I digress, it's there. You got to toughen up, you got to think of this as a mental muscle. You know, your mind is a muscle every day, you're gonna make that decision. If you do it, if you go out for your run and you get it done, that's going to strengthen that mental muscle. And if you skip it, that's gonna weaken that mental muscle. It really is that simple and, and every, every time you do a run it does strengthen it a tiny bit. But every time you skip, it weakens it a lot. So if we say like if you think of like anyone who's ever played like video games or computer games or anything, it's like you do it, that's like a plus one X like experience plus one points for that mental muscle.

But if you skip it, it's like minus 10 or minus 20 and it compounds to maybe it's minus 10 the first time. But if you skip the run the next day, that's a minus 20 then it's gonna be a minus 40 the next time. I'm telling you, the mental muscle is so important and especially with winter training, it's just more important than ever toughen up. It's, it's, you got to think of it as every single day you're getting out there, you're just, you're strengthening yourself for your spring race or your summer race or you're, or the whole racing season. You know, you can't think of it as just this one day. It's all about. You want to compound this stuff together and every single day that you decide to either get out there and do you run or get or that you decided to stay home and skip it. It either strengthens your mental muscle or weakens it significantly. And remember that stuff compounds like crazy. So, speaking of tough, I want to tell you about an athlete of ours at runners connect names Marianne Infusino. So she was training for her first marathon and she trained for 5.5 months, first marathon. She had to build up her training a lot. She was really excited.

She was putting in the work, doing really doing a great job. Her consistency was fantastic, but three weeks before race day, her dad's health worsened significantly and he got to the point where he needed 24 7 care from Marianne. So obviously, we're talking three weeks out from race day. You're talking about your tapers messed up and she, she couldn't train at all. She literally couldn't run. She needed to be at her dad's side pretty much 24 7. Now, most people would have probably thrown in the towel with just that. But Marianne was determined. So she switched to a virtual race, you know, so she wouldn't have to travel. She wouldn't have to be gone very long. She could just kind of do it in between times where she was taking care of her dad then to make things even worse. Her dad was admitted to the hospital the day before the race, you know, listen to her, describe it here. She says, unfortunately, I had to take my dad to the hospital the day before the race. I was in the hospital from four a.m. to six p.m. I went home, I ate, I did some chores. I love that part. Then set out for my race at 10 p.m. that evening. Two things I love about that, that those couple sentences right there is the fact that number one, the fact that she did a race at 10 o'clock at night, which is just wild.

And number two, I love the part where she says she did some chores. I just, I think that's just fantastic. What an amazing woman that she's sitting there taking care of her dad 24 7, taking care of the hospital. And even though she's gonna do a marathon, a virtual marathon, she finds the time to, after having a meal to, to do some chores. All I can think of is that I would be like I would get home maybe have a bite and just sit on the couch and be like, do I really want to do this thing? You know, that's all I can think of. And yet she did some chores and then she went out for a race and she finished it. She did 26.2. You know, it wasn't, at the time she wanted, it wasn't the result that she wanted, it wasn't anything that she had wanted initially, but it was, the big goal was accomplished. She got it done. She's now a marathoner and I don't know that I've ever heard maybe a crazy really. It reminds me a great of a great story of one of our athletes. His name's Kumar who lives in India and he did a marathon on a treadmill. This kind of during like the probably like late 2020. I can't remember exactly what when it was.

But when the height of COVID, you know, like Kumar could not train outside at all and he did an entire marathon on a treadmill. This one really reminds me of that and sometimes just the perseverance of people that we find with our, within our own community at runners connect is really, really remarkable. Um Sometimes I don't even know what to say. Like I read this story from Marianne. It was actually sent to me. I hadn't seen it at first coach Haley Moon sent it to me and just said, you gotta see this and I was just absolutely, I mean, just taken aback by this story. I had to reread it a couple times to make sure that I was reading it correctly. I was like, you're telling me that Marianne was at the hospital all day from four a.m. to six p.m. with her dad. And then she did her marathon at 10 o'clock at night. That's just absolutely insane. She did it, it was crazy. She did it on the beach too. I love that. How, how have I not said that part already? She did it on the beach. So that's absolutely crazy. She said it was, it was kind of partly high tide. It was pretty windy. So, I mean, not only did she have all these insane conditions going into race day, then she doesn't even have good weather conditions either, but she went out and she completed 26.2.

Uh Marianne, you're absolutely amazing. I had to highlight your story just truly, truly incredible and thank you for allowing us to share it. She did also share when I, when I emailed her and asked her if, if we could feature this story, I couldn't believe this part. She said hi, Michael. I would like that very much but not so much from my own strength, but the strength that my dad and mom gave me through the years running with runners connection has helped me channel that strength. Not only am I running but my caregiving, I just, I love that too. And that's just sometimes we find a lot of people in our community that are, that are so selfless like that who even though she did something that I want to highlight, I think should be highlighted. Even still she sits there and says, no, it wasn't my strength, it was the strength of my parents. It was, it was the help of my coaches and I'm just like Marianne. Look, we did a lot for you. You know, we want to do everything we can for you. But that was all you Marianne. That's absolutely incredible. But, but I love the attitude. And Marianne, congratulations and thank you so much for letting us be a part of that journey. All right guys, thank you so much for listening to this week's coach chat, coach Michael out.

Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Fin Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at runners connect also consider supporting our show for free with array on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content behind the scenes, experiences with our guests and premier access to contests and giveaways, then subscribe to our newsletter by going to runners connect dot net back slash podcast. Until next time I'll be training.