How to train for the Boston Marathon

Finn Melanson [00:00:09]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finna Lanson, 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 runnersconnect. A net, where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Earlier in September, we released Boston marathon special about qualifying for this iconic race. In today's show, we're giving you our expert tips on how to train for the Boston marathon Or any other marathon you might have planned this spring. As this episode airs, we're now about 4 months out from the Boston Marathon, which is the perfect time To start your training in order to make sure you're in the best possible shape for race day.

Finn Melanson [00:01:04]: Boston is a challenging course with a lot of hills. If you manage to qualify, you wanna make sure you're prepared for the specific challenges of this race. And if you're running a different race, then these same training strategies We'll give you the preparation to tackle just about any marathon course with confidence. In today's show, we'll be covering training topics including Why this is the perfect time to start your spring marathon training? How to incorporate hill training into your plan? How to manage tough weather conditions in training and on race day? And we'll break down how your plan might change at different stages of training. It's finally time to start your training, so let's get into it. Looking for a perfect Christmas gift? Oladance wearable stereo is your top pick. Get superior sound and maximum comfort while staying aware of your surroundings for a safe outdoor run. Visit Oladance dot com forward slash runners connect, and use code r t t t to get 20% off Oladance o w s two headphones.

Finn Melanson [00:02:10]: Lagoon specializes in making pillows designed specifically for runners and athletes to help you optimize your sleep and recovery. Learn more at lagoon sleep.comforward/top and get a 15% discount.

Cory Nagler [00:02:29]: Welcome back, Andy and Jeff. When we last spoke, it was back in September just before registration opened for the Boston Marathon. That episode was all about qualifying, which turned out to be especially difficult this year with a 5/29 cutoff. So congrats To everyone who got their b q or to those who put in an entry. I think today's topic is even more fun, though, because we're going to get into how to actually train for this race Or any other spring marathons you have on the calendar. Andy and Jeff, welcome back.

Jeff Gaudette [00:02:59]: Thanks so much, Corey. Thanks for having us.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:03:01]: Thanks for having us. Excited to talk about Boston.

Cory Nagler [00:03:04]: Absolutely. Yeah. Registration is is great, and it's it's 1st step to getting there, but I think this is really the meat and potatoes of the conversation is once you've signed up for Boston or any other spring race, what do you actually do to to get in shape and and be ready?

Jeff Gaudette [00:03:18]: Absolutely. Yeah. It's a and it's a big one too. You know? It's a it's a big on the mind of all people that are running. So I'll be excited to get into 2 of my favorite races, obviously, of all time. So

Andie Cozzarelli [00:03:27]: Yeah. Haven't run it, but, yeah, I've studied studied the course a lot, and I've gotten to know kind of the intricacies of it more. So hopefully, sometime soon, I'll I'll be prepared to run it myself. But, yeah. It's a it's a fun race, so, definitely worth worth the opportunity.

Cory Nagler [00:03:45]: I hope so. And I I do have to make a little announcement, which is that, I have myself registered, which I was not planning to when we last spoke. But Jeff and Andy, I think you you each inspired me after a conversation, so I have to thank you for that.

Jeff Gaudette [00:03:57]: Well, you're gonna love it. So I was excited when you told me you were you're gonna run it, Because it it really is a a special experience, and so I was excited for you and even more excited now. We're kinda starting to ramp things up to get into it. So

Cory Nagler [00:04:10]: Yeah. Awesome. I am super excited, and this is my 1st Boston. So I'm sure it'll be great. I think for a lot of people listening right now, they may be wondering why this episode is coming out in December. But I think if you're training for a spring marathon, now is actually a really good time to start your training just to be fully prepared. So why don't we start there of When should you start training for a spring marathon? And or if it is now, why is that a great time?

Jeff Gaudette [00:04:35]: Yeah. It's a great question. I'll I'll I'll jump in first. So, you know, to me, I think I look at marathon cycles depending on really kind of your experience level. Right? So I always look at marathon as You have the kind of build up to the marathon, and then you have the what what we call the very specific portion of verified training. So the very specific portion of verified training is always gonna be 10 to 12 weeks, pretty much no matter what your experience level is. Now that said, the less experience you are, the less mileage you have under your belt, less years you have running under your belt, Then the more time you're gonna wanna spend building up. So if you're somebody that's an experienced veteran, you're running 50, 60, 70 miles a week, like, on average, like, easily, Then, you know, what, unquote, your marathon training probably doesn't start for about 12 to 14 weeks to 4 weeks.

Jeff Gaudette [00:05:22]: Now if you're someone who, is not running quite as much mileage or maybe this is your 2nd marathon, you qualify to personally set cost every 1st time or 2nd or 3rd marathon you've got bad experience, Then a longer build up makes a little bit more sense. You know? So we're talking anywhere from 16 to 20 weeks. And there's a lot of data that actually shows that for most people, The longer they spend, in the buildup, the better the chance they have of succeeding on risk that. And a big portion of that actually comes from The ability to stay and do free. Because the longer you can build up, the more gradually you can be, and especially when it comes to something to the boss, and we'll get into this, The more gradually you can start to introduce self training. And the because self training is definitely a difficult stimulus, and so What gradually you can introduce it, and that means starting a little bit earlier, the less chance that you're gonna get injured by introducing something, difficult on the body, kind of do the training cycle where you've already trained body. You're already doing your your back to the body and that kind of stuff. So Short answer, 16 to 20 weeks if you're someone under under experienced, and then anywhere from top to 14 weeks for the specific part if you are more experienced.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:06:31]: Yeah. I would say that's pretty much exactly how I would approach it too is what you wanna make sure that they're and most of the time, I think about that base Building period of just, like, mileage. Just getting mileage underneath you doesn't have to be a whole lot of intensity. Actually, better that you're not doing intensity while also Trying to build mileage up, so it's just kind of increasing that time on fee. And so I always think about it that way, and then I think about that you know, like Jeff said that last 12 to 14 weeks is more a little bit where we're getting a little bit more specific to the marathon workouts and getting some getting those long run distances up so that we can, you know, start to kind of, you get the body ready for the distance and the time on feet. But, it definitely comes with that build up phase, and I that's that's where I see a lot of the, needing to start earlier for newer runners or if We don't we you know, having to we need more time to build that up. We need to prepare the legs to be able to do some of those 16, 18 milers on the front side and even before we've even started doing a whole lot of marathon workouts. And so, in terms of, like, specific timing, like, if you're running Boston, a lot of times we're seeing, you know, starting a lot of the specific phase of training, and you wanna kinda have your mileage in a good spot going into January, so that's kind of I think what we often look at our schedules are normally set for with the athletes we work with is is starting sometime in January for the specific training, but we often are looking to have athletes already beginning that Training now.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:07:58]: So, you know, starting to build up, starting to do some more mileage, starting to kinda get just prepared for those longer distances so that when we hit January, We're ready to go. We've already kind of given ourselves that that step in the right direction. And and like Jeff said, we I I actually just came off of a A very short build for a marathon, which is not something that I would typically recommend. It was only a 5 week kind of buildup of running with some cross training to to mix in there. And the downsides of that for me I mean, I had enough volume in my legs to be able to complete it, but the downside is that the recovery becomes a lot longer when you do something like that. And so, you know, there's a lot of different things that can happen. I was also kind of fighting back a little bit of some little niggles here and there, which I wouldn't have probably ran into if I had a longer time frame. So if you're worried about any of those things, it's better to give yourselves more space than not enough and kind of be, jammed up against a wall where we don't actually also have a lot of leeway if something pops up.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:08:56]: So the more base we have, the more Strength we have behind us, the better we are at managing potential injuries. Like, if little thing pops up and we miss a few days, you'll be much better off if you have this long Base period behind you than if you were to rush your build and that happens if you don't have as much to sustain us when that happens. And so I am always like, let's the more time that you have, the better. You know, just give yourself some space and enjoy the process. I don't think it's as fun when you have 5 weeks to train, and, you're just constantly like, alright. Let's see if we can do this today or not. So yeah.

Jeff Gaudette [00:09:31]: Yeah. Two points I I wanted to So, expand upon, if anything, they were really good. The first is the intensity part. So, you know, we're talking about Starting early, that kind of thing. But keep in mind that that does not mean, you know, you're starting your marathon specific long runs or doing anything super difficult at this point. Because you do that too early, then you're going to end up, 1, kind of getting burned out either directly or physically. So when we say start early, like Andy kind of mentioned, we're talking about increasing your mileage, getting some of the long run volume up, like, keeping things a little bit on the easier side with sensor intensity. And then the second thing is just some specific numbers on things just for people that are listening that might be wondering, you know, what we mean by to start earlier, to start later, that kind of thing.

Jeff Gaudette [00:10:13]: In my experience, like David said, by January, like, the beginning of January, you wanna be able to handle about 30 to 40 miles a week at bid. And so if you're not at that level yet where 30 to 40 miles a week is comfortable, then I would say that's what I would say. You need to take this time now to build up to that where 30 ideally, 40 is comfortable, and then you can start your verified, journey from there. So, you know, again, if you're somebody Who is comfortable already 40, 50, 60 miles a week, then you can be doing some other things you train that aren't, you know, necessarily work or building up. You know, you can do a speed gap or something like that. Just wanted to put some numbers to some of those, like, general ideas that we were talking about.

Cory Nagler [00:10:54]: Yeah. So, Jeff, I recall when I spoke with One of our other coaches, Michael, on another podcast, we were talking about typical peak mileage for a lot of the the RC runners or the runners that we coach here at Runners Connect. And I believe he mentioned somewhere in the 30 to 60 mile range as being peak, so we're not talking about insignificant mileage here with 40 to 50. Let's talk about both sides. Do you wanna be starting training even a lot earlier than that 12 to 16 weeks if you're well below that 30 to 40 miles, say this is one of your 1st marathons. And on the flip side, if you're somebody who's already running that consistent mileage, How how condensed do you think you can be with your training cycle before you really start to hinder performance?

Jeff Gaudette [00:11:37]: Yeah. Great question. So I'll tackle both real quick and then let Andy jump in. But, as as the first one, yeah, I mean, I think the further behind you are from 30 to 40 miles a week, The more time you need to put in, especially now in building that to building that up. I mean, that's just a a really critical point, at least in terms of, your performance. Like, trying to maximize your performance and also maximizing what I consider your how much you enjoy this. You know, so, like, we were talking about this with Amy right before we started the show, but, you know, Amy talked about how she wasn't really quite ready for FINLI, and so the last 10 miles was kind of tough. And we were saying, you know, the more you absorb the training that you have at the bank and kind of back you up, the just the more fun race that is, Yeah.

Jeff Gaudette [00:12:20]: Because you're not struggling. You're not you open 60 and then struggle this whole second half where you're able to at least get through into the last couple miles, but it's Well, that kind of thing. So the more time you have, the better or the more time you can put into moving up that pace, the better. And then to answer the 2nd question, It's now beginning where it was, Corey. Sorry.

Cory Nagler [00:12:41]: Just talking about the other side. So if you're somebody who's already training these 30 to 40 miles, is it still helpful to get in that full to 16 weeks,

Jeff Gaudette [00:12:49]: or you can do it at all? Maximum. So and that in in that case, no. I don't think so. I think there are better things you can do with your training rather continuing to build out if you're already in that 50 to $60 a week range, feeling comfortable there. You know, that's where this is where people actually tend to start training too early. You know, they start getting into their marathon cycle a little bit too early. And then when it comes to 5, 6, 4 weeks out, that kind of thing, They're kinda mixing physically. So if you're already somebody that's doing 15, 60,000 a week within that range, then I would say, at this point, you should be doing that's a little bit less marathon specific.

Jeff Gaudette [00:13:25]: That could be like a speed phase, so you could be doing something like training for a mile or a 5 day, you know, just to kind of Train a different energy system before you know about the marathon because you don't need that mileage buildup. You know, you can kinda switch right into marathon workouts With, you know, 14, 15 weeks to be better

Andie Cozzarelli [00:13:47]: too because that's something I found a lot of athletes benefit from is especially if they've they're kind of already they've already done the buildup, and now they're kind of in no man's land of, like, what do I do now before I really get into the marathon. I I think that working on speed is such a huge piece of that it's a lot of times gets missed because when a lot of distance runners Get in the cycle of marathon after marathon after marathon, and they don't ever work that faster into the spectrum, which there's so many benefits Biomechanically, we can work on we work on our form better when we're running a little bit faster. We get a little bit better power generation. And the way that translates back to the marathon is it just We're more efficient longer distances. We have a little bit more muscular strength for the endurance, which helps us with preventing cramping and things like that. So, I think that there's, like, that there's a good benefit of having that kind of stuff in there. And then even with, I always think about too, like, this is probably a little bit too deep in the weeds about, muscle types and muscle you know, some people are more prone to having are more slow twitch and are immediate fibers, and we will have more fast twitch. And so For runners who who enjoy speed work, that's an important thing to throw in there is that it also helps you work one of your strengths In between, which will help you with your weakness over time.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:14:57]: So it'll help you with your marathon distance if you're someone who, tends to be a little bit speedier and the speed work comes easier to you, but training for a marathon. That's something that you can capitalize on before you really get to the marathon specific training. And that way, I This is something that I've done a lot because I feel like marathon pace never really seems to come as comfortably to me as some other people may, and so what helps me is doing enough work It's a little bit faster before I get to the marathon work, and that way I get comfortable that that marathon pace starts to feel so much easier and I what I had been doing, and so marathon pace feels so much more comfortable when I train that way. And so, for runners that fall in that boat, that can be a really, really way to train. So I'm I'm big on that. The other thing and kind of alluding more to that first question is I think Some of this comes down to also what are your goals for the day. So if you're if you're aiming out to have a pretty strong race and you wanna have a A good race on marathon on your on your race day, you know, that's where a lot of this is very, very important. But, you know, if we're training to finish, You know, we have a little bit more leeway room, but we still don't wanna approach just training to finish in a way that's just like, I'm I don't need to do all the work.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:16:09]: I just need to do the bare minimum. It still It still makes it better to and more enjoyable to put in the work and and just do, you know, what you can to kinda just get the time on feet in if that's what you need. But, you know, that it helps with your recovery after. It's always gonna be still probably pretty difficult to recover no matter what your goals, but your goals do impact kind of exactly how You should approach the day. So if you have a really short buildup, you know, that's what I had to adjust in my Philly training was, you know, my I'm not gonna PR in this race, So I have to adjust how I approach this race, and so that's also a big piece of you know, if you know if you know going into your race, you're gonna have a shorter training block due to Injury or or whatever else, then, you know, just be prepared on on how you're going to go into the day and all that stuff. And so that that's something we can probably We'd probably talk in, once we got closer to race day, and we talked goals specifically, but just a just a thing to kinda think about as you're, kind of preparing going into the next year.

Cory Nagler [00:17:08]: Yeah. Absolutely. I personally find whether it's marathon down to the 5 k, it's way more fun if you go into it fit and prepare versus if you're rushing it. You did talk a lot about kinda these early phases and building speed, and I I think that's the next thing I wanted to touch on is there's different phases to training, and you alluded to this. So, And, yeah, I'm curious your thoughts. What do some of those different phases look like, and when do you maybe wanna get more into that marathon specific phase?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:17:33]: Yeah. So I look at it from, you know, we've we've depending right. So right now, if we were to start training now, Most likely, your training would look like base phase now, and then marathon specific training starting sometime in January and then going through The goal race if it's Boston. The base phase for me always looks like, we're kind of gradually increasing our volume, so We don't want to make any huge leaps in volume. Like, if you're running right now, say, 10 miles a week, and maybe you've run you're pretty consistent. You've run higher mileage. We still don't wanna go from 10 miles to 50 miles, for instance. So if you're if you're used to running 50, it's still not we still wanna gradual build back up to that because That helps our connective tissue.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:18:17]: It helps our, ligaments and all even the bones to restrengthen and be ready for the pump the pounding and the movement that you're about to put it through. So, you know, if you're starting from 10, let's let maybe that next week, if you've been running a higher volume, looks like 20 and then 30. So we're gradually kinda seeing that slight increase as we get as we build things up. So that's what I think of the build phase as, that base phase, is being kind of we're putting these pieces together lightly. So we're not trying to work super hard. We're not putting in tons of intensity. We're really focusing on just loading the legs, Getting more miles in the legs, building up that time on feet. And that way, we're better prepared for the intensity when we're ready to kind of really start inserting that.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:18:58]: And so that means you may have some lighter workouts that we throw in just to kind of get the legs moving a little bit, turn them over a little bit, but nothing that's gonna be crazy intense at that point. And then if you were now if your marathon is Boston and you're getting into January, that's where we start to kind of We we get more of those. We get that long run distance up. We're running those 16 to 18 milers. And depending upon your your where you are fitness wise on where you are, distance wise, maybe we even have a 20 or 22 miler in the schedule. But we kind of slowly ramp those up, and increase the work within them So that as we get closer to race day, we're probably gonna hit our peak somewhere. And I don't like to think too much about, like, peak peak, but, most of the time, that peak comes because you're doing your longest long runs as you get closer to race day. And so I I always kinda think of, like, those last Probably the the month before the taper is being like the you're you're really you're in it.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:19:55]: You're you're doing lots of hard workouts. You've got long runs on the legs. You're you're feeling some of that marathon fatigue, and all that time on feet starting to build up, and so that's where we would put ourselves as being some of the highest parts of our our training mileage wise. And then we see the 3 week taper. Typically, 3 week taper into race day. Sometimes 2 if you're kind of depending on where your situation was. I did 2 into Philly just because I needed that last week to do a 20 miler. But, generally, I like to use the 3 week taper into race day, and that's kind of how the training would be built out is, you know, base phase, like I mentioned, Around 12 to 14 weeks of marathon specific, and within that that 12 to 14, the last 3 are are gonna be tapering into the race.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:20:40]: So that's kinda how I approach it. Yeah.

Cory Nagler [00:20:44]: And would you typically recommend building up to your peak mileage Before you start that specificity and start adding in more intensity, or do you generally continue to build up your mileage?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:20:53]: I I tend to like to have it I mean, I it it depends, I think, on the person a little bit, but we don't if your peak mileage was, say, like, Twenty high miles higher than what you were doing in the base phase. That's a huge difference, and so we wanna kinda be careful with having too big of a difference from your base phase to, I personally like to kind of hit some of my peak mileage a little bit early just with easy runs. And then, maybe I'll be a couple miles higher or something like that once I get to the peak mileage where the long runs really make the biggest difference on my mileage. But, yeah, generally, you're gonna be seeing your highest mileage Generally, because your long runs are that much longer. And so everything else being equal, your long run is adding, you know, 4 or 5 miles just within the week, And everything else is consistent. So I like to kind of be in a consistent space going into that, and then the long run is making probably the biggest difference in, my mileage during those peak weeks. I also am big on wanting to make sure that there's down weeks planned in even within a marathon training cycle that we still have, some weeks that are lighter. And I think with what we do a lot of times with the runners connect training plans is we have them alternating.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:22:04]: So we have a A longer long run, and then the next week, it's a shorter to long run, and that tends to help. Because even if intensity is high, sometimes just cutting back volume can actually play A big role in helping us prevent injury and, just feel a little bit better and manage the load somewhat, more effectively.

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Cory Nagler [00:24:44]: Yeah. I think that's great, and it gives a good outline of how to progress your training where you have that base phase, where you build up your mileage and then get a little more gradual as you have that intensity before finally deloading a little bit in taper. So That's a good kind of progression throughout that. The key question I think we haven't yet answered is what some of those workouts look like during that time, which I think for a lot of runners is the really exciting part. So, Jeff, maybe I'll start with you, and then, Andy, I'm curious your thoughts as well. But are there any Key workouts you think that are especially helpful for the marathon in general, but I'm thinking particularly Boston, which is a notoriously hilly course with a lot of tough weather conditions.

Jeff Gaudette [00:25:21]: Yeah. Absolutely. So let me first actually tackle onto a little bit what Andy said or or at least what you guys talked about when it comes to The progression in phases of your trading. So I think, especially when you're running a daily spring race and Boston is included in that, You wanna have a progression to your hill training as well. So just like you start with your base where it's just kind of it gradually drops you up a little bit more mileage, increasing things gradually, That's enough intensity. You wanna start the same thing with the go check. So start it a little bit early and keep the, What about the intensity a little bit lower? What what I mean by that is maybe just choose run choose your routes if you're have have access That are a little bit hillier than maybe you might normally do. You don't need to start launching into, like, little repeats and doing physical workouts or anything like that.

Jeff Gaudette [00:26:09]: It's just Maybe choose a long run that has a little more hills than you might normally. Go out of your way to run this, that kind of thing. So that's kind of what starts in the base training. You're just kind of gradually slowly introducing those hips to your body a little bit more than you might normally do in your normal training or more verifinal. And then as we get start to get into the marathon specific days, then we can start incorporating some actual specific And, well, I'm probably gonna get into those in a little bit because we're gonna talk about specific web apps. So that's where you start to get into those more specific field web apps. And then likewise, as you get closer and closer to the race day, we can start doing workouts that are specific to the course or specific to the race that you're running. So because we're talking about Boston, you know, when you start about 10, 12, 10 weeks out for the race, Then we start getting into Boston specifically like that.

Jeff Gaudette [00:27:01]: And one of the things with Boston that's unique is that the downhills also plays a huge role in Difficulty of the course. And so some races, that's may may not be the case, but with Boston, you need to specifically train for the downer roads as well as We love this. And so that's what we're saying, you know, we've said 11 through, you know, 4 working on From a hill perspective is how can we train our body and our legs specifically to handle the downhills and the athletes? And so Just like your normal training marathon buildup, you kinda wanna have that buildup, a gradual buildup into a field workbox. Some mistakes that we see learners make is that Really early on in the training cycle, they're doing intensive workouts. And, usually, that ends up leading into some type of data. Because, like, with everything, you wanna have a progression. You wanna be able to start at a certain point and then slowly progress. And so, you know, don't start your Specific he'll work out too early.

Jeff Gaudette [00:27:58]: You know, make sure you just kinda gradually incorporate in some some notes that we mentioned earlier. And then the second mistake that, you know, often people make and we'll get into specific workouts is that you wanna be training to the specific events of the course of the health of your learning partner. So do going and doing something like, 30 seconds or 60 second hill sprints, like, you know, starting at the bottom, turning up as hard as you can, Walking back down, something like that. Yeah. That's great for, like, overall fitness, which we do to max, but that is very, unspecific to what you're gonna encounter during this. And At no point in the race, you're gonna just start at the bottom now and then sprint that for 60 seconds and then take a complete recovery on the way back. You know, obviously, there's you know, you're kinda approaching at race pace. You have the down hill, what about that kind of stuff.

Jeff Gaudette [00:28:44]: And so, we'll talk about that in a second when it comes to Workouts, but I do wanna talk a little bit about the progression of kind of including the training into your into your workouts as well. So So I guess with that said, the first thing that I recommend that people include into their training that's very specific to Boston is the our downhill interface. And so, like I said, a lot of people focus on the uphill. When they think of, you know, or field training, all the bottom, they have the course. I mean, the trades are up Yeah. You do. But what really, hurts people in Boston is the down you know, the first half of the race is almost almost all downhill, Which, you know, we talk about when it comes to pacing and all that kind of stuff, the mistakes you can make. But with your training, you also wanna make sure that you're including that down hill lock.

Jeff Gaudette [00:29:29]: And so You if you have access to downhill, downhill sections in your neighborhood or wherever you normally run, then you can definitely incorporate those. Let's say you can do things where you're just doing, your norm like, let's say you have a normal workout, like, like, it's 3 or 4 or 5 times 1 mile With you know, like, a lot of times, what we'll do is a quote unquote speed workout for other runners. It's in something like 3 or 4 or 5 times 1 mile with A short rest, like, 45 seconds too big. So you're it's more of and more of, like, a threshold effort. So you're kind of running a little bit faster than marathon base. And so instead of doing those on a flat section or at the track or whatever, if you have a downhole section, you can do it on a downhole section. And the nice thing there is, 1, you get used to having that additional pounding on your quads that you might not normally find in your normal physical training. Second, you also get to learn how downhill learning changes your pace and effort.

Jeff Gaudette [00:30:25]: Because, again, we'll talk about this more, but one of the biggest things we learn is we too fast on the Boston course. And almost all of them will say everybody that makes a mistake will always say, oh, I didn't realize that learning that fast. Oh, we didn't feel that fast. And it's because they don't experience it and train you know, go out and do those everyone's really like, oh, wow. This is you know, running this demo session Feels a lot easier than running what flat roll the pace would be. So developing that field is something that's really good. So those are inter those those are the type of workout that I like to do, You know, maybe once every 2 weeks, do something like maybe shoulder speed workouts, do something like that. If you don't have access to downhills, if you're just in a particularly flat area Or, like, everything that's downhill is, like, is is super steep.

Jeff Gaudette [00:31:10]: I'm sorry. We'll say with these downhills, you don't want, like, a a super steep downhill. You want something that's somewhat gradual. Know, you're not trying to, like, fly down the mountain. Before we forget too, when we look at the course of Austin, there aren't really any steep down there. So everything is very gradual to the point where if you're driving it, We're not even realize you're going back yet. So, again, look for those types of diarritos. So if you don't have that available, one of the best things you can do is utilize the treadmill.

Jeff Gaudette [00:31:34]: And there are some specific treadmills that have down a downhole setting. If it if yours doesn't, one thing you can do is just take 2 cinder blocks and put them on the back, tags of the treadmill so that the cinder blocks are lifting up the treadmill so it's from the back. It's pretty safe. You know, if you have as long as you have a stable treadmill with a a nice stable footing, putting the cinder blocks on there will sacrifice any stability. But what it will do is if you have a 0 in client from there, it's going to give you a slight slight downhill. So that's one way you could do this downhill training You know, having the train all that. It was gonna be over having John as a director in your, in your video. So that's one, workouts.

Jeff Gaudette [00:32:15]: The other workout I'll go over, and then I'll let Mary jump in with some of her favorite workouts. This workout is something that the BAA used to do back at Leased one out with the League of Boston. Got a training with them a lot, and it's called the two four two. So it's basically an uphill and downhill temple run. So it's really designed to simulate the, second half of the course. So what you're gonna do is start with a 2 l tempo, mostly uphill. And so you're gonna run that right around your normal tempo run slash marathon pace. Then after that 2 miles, you're gonna take a 45 minutes, 4 to 5 minute easy jogging rest.

Jeff Gaudette [00:32:53]: So a rest period, but not just standing around. You're just kinda jogging. Then you're gonna do 8 times, 8 times. Up hill, down hill repeats. So it's not just going up and then walking down. It's up and down. So the incline you want for that is something around 6 to 8%, and you're gonna keep these intervals at marathon pace. So in an ideal situation, each uphole and downhill would be about 400 meters.

Jeff Gaudette [00:33:18]: So you'd be running 400 meters up, 400 meters down for about a half mile total. And this is a continuous effort, so this isn't, you know, taking the last 2 episodes. You know, let's say if you had a nice you know, it doesn't have to be exactly a 100 meters, but let's say you had something that's Close to a 100 meters, that kind of thing. You go up 800. I'm sorry. Up 400, down 400. You'll turn around, go back up 800, down 400, and then repeat that 8 6 to 8 times depending on how much biology? You can also do this on a trend as well if you, have access to that or if you don't have access to it, of course. And then, after you're you finish that continue continuous effort up and down, you're gonna take 3 to 4 minutes jogging up the gate, and then you're gonna do 2 more miles at Mostly downhill at your mobile market markets.

Jeff Gaudette [00:34:03]: And so this is simulating the last half of the course where, so if you look at the Boston course, just a quick review of it. The first half was actually downhill, then you start hitting the dilly sections, Harper Kennedy, the most famous of them, There's a lot of rolling hills. And then the last 2 or 3 miles of Boston is mostly downhill or slightly downhill. And where a lot of runners get into trouble is they hit that downhill section and their quads are frapped, but yet in their quads are frapped, and They're not able to maintain a mobile ride pace and maintain mobile ride form. And so this is that workout that and 2 miles getting ready for it, up and down for the intervals, and then tomorrow we'll sit down there and prepare the squat. So that's a workout that, I learned from the BAA that I really like. And we will have all these workouts listed in the show notes for anybody listening, so you'll have to memorize, like, write down exactly what we're saying. We'll have these we'll have these, workouts linked in the show notes so that you can study them before you actually try to incorporate them into training.

Jeff Gaudette [00:35:04]: So, those are a couple of my favorites, and I'll let, Andy jump in with a couple of first.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:35:09]: Yeah. One of the ones that, We did an worked with some athletes on last year was the 2 by I think a 2 by 5 mile, with the first 5, you know, somewhat more flat at marathon pace and then the second five Rolling, on rolling hills. That just helps us to really simulate the way that I mean, in Boston, it's gonna be more downhill that first, but if you wanna just do it flat for the first of the 5 mile interval, that's fine. And then do the rolling hills, and that's preparing us for those late race hills because they're going your legs are going to be tired once you hit that section, And we have to find the right way to approach those hills. So when you hit the the Newton Hills or any of those things, you you wanna be able to have a good ability to run the effort going up and manage the effort going down because, you know, we we also have to be okay with being a little bit Slow, and that this workout kind of gets you in that space of being like, you know what? This was a hillier section this second half, so I had to kind of moderate my pace and keep the effort under control. And so that's a huge piece of that is that we don't wanna work too hard going up the hills, because we're just gonna end up trashing them later. So we wanna make sure that we're we're working up those hills in a in a way because you mean you're gonna be tired, so they are gonna feel hard. But we don't want to be going so hard up them, and then we're kinda dying coming down a little bit.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:36:25]: We're not re we're kind of using too much effort at one point and and then Not enough going down, so we kinda lose some stuff from that. So, you know, manage how hard you push going up, and then let that That back half going down kinda even your pace back out, and that's kind of the the ideal scenario there with that type of workout. We have a very similar one that we put into a lot of The, just general marathon training blocks, which is the 2 by 6 miles, so that you know, not as it depends on You can run that one, I think, however you need based on the course that you are running. I think with marathons, the big thing that you wanna pay attention to is the course that you're training for. And that's you know, Boston, we're talking about a lot of those specific workouts because it's very it's a different course. It has its challenges. It can still be fast, but You have to be mindful of how the course runs in order for you to approach it the best way to get the best outcome on it. And so Same applies to pretty much every race we run.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:37:22]: We wanna know what's the course like, how should we approach it. And so with even this 2 by 6 mile we put on, Pretty much all of our training blocks our training schedules. That one, you know, if you're running a course that is gonna be a little bit rolling, maybe you do that 1 on a rolling course. If you're running Cargo, for instance, do that 1 on a flat course. It's a really, really good indicator for your marathon fitness, that rate that one is. And so it's good test. We that one is 1 you know, go ahead and do some trial runs on how you're gonna approach race day. You know, maybe wear the outfit you plan to wear, trial your fueling plan, stuff like that.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:37:54]: So, that 1, you know, 2 by 6, you have a long recovery in between, and so that can sometimes simulate how, you know, that recovery actually kinda gets your legs. It's so it's long enough that it helps your legs recover a bit, but it also can leave your legs feeling a little sluggish in that second half, which is definitely something we experience when we run the marathon. Your legs are gonna be a little bit sluggish towards the end, and we are constantly practicing to try to stay on pace even though when those legs feel like they're done for. We still we wanna be able to kinda keep on keep on our pace as best as possible when we're tired. So that one's great for simulating that. But yeah. So the the 2 by 5 is a big one for Boston specifically, and that one we're adding in those rolling hills, and we're practicing our effort and how we approach roll on Rolling Hills. But, yeah, I think, the I mean, those are probably I think the other thing to note is that, If you're running, say, Boston or a really hilly course, just don't feel like you have to do hills every day.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:38:50]: We have these specific workouts, and you don't need to do A crazy amount too much downhill running can actually be a higher risk for injury because it's that's when you're going up a hill, you're at lower risk for injury because there's actually less impact on the body, but there's a lot of impact going down the hill. So we have these workouts spaced out in a way that you get the benefits that we're looking for, and we're not doing too much of any one thing, so that we're not kinda putting ourselves at a higher risk For injuries, so be mindful about when you do what. If your body is feeling pretty it's just felt feeling tired, you've been doing a lot of different hill climbing or different things, Go ahead and run flat. You know? Not every day needs to simulate race day, so, give yourselves the the break and the recoveries that you need, And don't feel like if you're not doing something every single day of the week or every week that you're not you're not doing a good job. It's kind of always managing the, the Fatigue and how hard you're working the legs and and making sure that things still continue to stay, moving in the right direction and we're not feeling overtrained by anything or are too much aches and pains from doing too much health training. So hope is that we can kinda space in When we put these things in, how we approach those, and and that way, it's it's not too much thinking on on how much more you need to do and where you need to place it, and if you're gonna be prepared. So I think that's one of the benefits for especially Boston to have, like, a real legitimate plan is is knowing exactly When to do what and and how much you should do and how much you should let your body rest when you need it.

Jeff Gaudette [00:40:25]: One big one big thing with the ILS as well That I find, especially if you're not if you don't live in a rural area, but just in general, I'm always a huge fan of of utilizing strength work And utilizing, it's stuff that you could do at home with with or without weights, body weight, that kind of stuff that you can use to simulate The hilly stuff. And so, actually, I'll let Katie talk a little bit about this now, because she did last year, we had a Boston where we had everybody that was checking for Boston all kinda get together and did some good stuff. And, Andy did some great at home Boston Well, really skilled work specific strength workout. So I'll give you I'll let her talk a little bit about some of the better, exercises that she like to do or how she'd combine the routines. And I'll also say that we'll link to those in the show notes, as well as this episode. So, visit the show notes, and we'll have, that plan that Andy put together last year for Boston. But I'll let her get into that now. We're talking a bit about what those what some of the specific steps you did with the strength work we heard about.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:41:31]: Yeah. The, for the one of the big things is that quad strength. So if we're gonna do even these workouts can be really hard on the body if we're not strengthen strength We're not having strength in our quads. We're not kind of ready for that. So, you know, the quad also has a huge impact on runner's knee. So if you're feeling like runner's knees up often when you're doing hill work. These are also really great exercises for that and and Boston as well. So if you're doing a hilly race, we wanna make sure we're strengthening the quads, mostly to prepare for the the downhill.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:42:00]: We also wanna make sure that we're getting our glutes nice and strong for the uphills, and so we wanna have that nice balance. I wanna drive the knees and do all that thing, get good hip extension, all of that. So, one of the things we did was we worked on some isometric and some eccentric work. So isometric is is more stationary where you're holding a posture, and eccentric is where you're loading under, I think it's loading under, I can't remember exactly. But it it's a little bit more like you can do eccentric calf raises and stuff like that. You can do eccentric loading for the quads and all that stuff, and that was a huge piece that we put into the, merit. The Boston specific strength was doing a good amount of that, and then you don't unilateral work where we're one side, because you are, when you're running, always doing basically a series of single leg squats or activities that's single leg and single sided. So We made sure to do that, and then we also, you know, came up with some some things for taper because I think, a lot of athletes wonder, okay.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:42:56]: When do I what do I do with my strength training as I enter The taper. And so, you know, closer we get to race day, we don't wanna be doing anything super difficult or super hard or that's causing more Soreness or fatigue or any of that stuff, but we do wanna make sure we're selling mobile. So we also had an some exercises to do for That that race week or in the taper just to kinda keep things moving, but without putting too much strain on the body. And so, we had a good combo of all of that different stuff. But, yeah, so, that that's kind of a general, synopsis there, and I think we also ended a a core routine, I believe, as well, that worked on some of the isometrics and stuff like that. So yep.

Jeff Gaudette [00:43:35]: Yeah. So like I said, that'll be available in the show notes section for everybody who wants to check it out. We edited the videos together and put a nice little program for you. So and it'll be free. So definitely check that out if you're going to Boston or anything we verify coming up.

Cory Nagler [00:43:49]: Absolutely. Yeah. Good note. We will definitely link that in just on the strength piece and where that fits in. Do you wanna use that in tandem with hill training? Is it a substitute? How do those 2 pieces fit together?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:44:01]: Yeah. I'd say, like, first of all, go ahead and start it While you're base building, don't start it. I think the hardest time to start a strength training program is when you're in the middle of marathon training because You're already doing a lot of that loading, and so we but we don't wanna not do it. So the best time is but we still wanna have we want our body to be Not quite as broken down when we start adding in strength training, so it's better to do it as you're building up and then kind of work that in and create a habit with it. But I would do that in tandem with the training that you are doing and space it kind of appropriately so that you're not kinda overloading any muscle groups with the training you're doing in addition. And I think we actually spaced it out in a way, I think I kind of tried to ensure that we were doing each of these different types of exercises and routines in a way that was kind of conducive with where we were in the training block. And so Starting with something lighter, building so starting with unilateral, building up into some eccentric and some more explosive strength power type stuff and then going down into the taper. So we kind of approached it that way with our training, but that's how I recommend doing it.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:45:09]: If you are feeling, you know, Super fatigued. We don't wanna on a if you say you did a really long workout, like, that two four two, can get long and be, like, a lot of miles in the legs. Normally, we say hard day's hard, but I don't necessarily think that always has to be the case if you're feeling pretty beat up and and fatigued from a workout. Go ahead and space that harder that harder lift or whatever you're planning to do out a couple days if you need to, just to make sure that, we're not overdoing anything at any point. So and, Jeff, would you have something to add to that?

Jeff Gaudette [00:45:40]: No. That was a great that's a great synopsis. Yeah. I think I think the biggest part is starting early, you know, because Like we talked about with the training as well as the new workouts, the earlier you can start, the more gradually you can eat it. So especially if you haven't done a large screen training for or haven't done anything that's, like, really The work where we're working the quads a lot more than within normal strength work that we would do. The earlier you can start, the better because, You know, Amy, like I said, the routine we put together are, you know, the complete routines. But what I would recommend to people is if you're getting through it and it's difficult and or you're really sore the next day, then you can always start you can always cut. So you can always do half of your teeth.

Jeff Gaudette [00:46:17]: So, You have to admit, you know, 3 quarters, whatever it was, you know, to make it so that you're not debilitated to be sore the next day. But the early you start, the more time you have to. So 100%. If you're doing a daily raise, I would be starting Definitely, after listening to this episode, if you're especially if you're not doing any strength work, at all for right now.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:46:38]: Yeah. Consistency is key with strength training. You'll be sore the 1st couple times you do it, but The more consistent you are with doing it, the less soreness you'll feel. So keeping in getting in a routine and sticking with it is is gonna pay off the most there. So

Jeff Gaudette [00:46:53]: Like I said, you don't wanna be super sore. So if you do the 1st if you do the 1st routine or 2, and you find that, like, just getting out of bed or walking the next day is difficult, Please cut it back. So sore a little soreness is okay with kinda anything. A lot of soreness means that we're probably pushing your body beyond what's getting So it's it's always better to feel a little less sore and do a little less, and then progress because in the next week or the 2 weeks from now, you could say, Right now, I'm gonna do the or the formative, whatever the beat. That's a better progression than, you know, being so sorted, you can barely function. Which this happens. It happens to everybody.

Cory Nagler [00:47:31]: Yep. Better better that it happened in training than on race day.

Jeff Gaudette [00:47:34]: Exactly.

Cory Nagler [00:47:35]: Yep. Awesome. Well, I wanna give some final takeaways for our listeners. So, Jeff and Andy, I'm gonna put you a little bit on the spot here. We're in mid December as as this is coming out. We're recommending you kind of either start your base phase or make sure you're getting up to that mileage. For runners who are listening to this preparing for Boston, If you have to give your number 1 best tip, what would it be? Jeff, I'll start with you.

Jeff Gaudette [00:47:59]: That's a good one. That's a great question. So I think I think my best tip would be, Make sure that you're prepared as prepared for the hills as you can. That from to me, whether you're even if you're just trying to get through Boston to if you're trying to run your best and and record a PR, The hills are really where it's at. And then I would say that means you study the course and you do the work in the training. And so, and when I say that, it's like what I talked about before. It's not just doing hill sprints and back end play. It's preparing your your watch for the downbills, preparing your mind for what that's gonna look like and how that's gonna feel.

Jeff Gaudette [00:48:37]: Do not go out too fast. All of those things you can do in training. So I guess I'm getting into, like, more than 1 thing now. But, You know, with any race that you do, you can simulate as much as you can as possible to train, whether it be mentally, physically, emotionally, whatever it is. So the more you can do that, the better your chase target

Andie Cozzarelli [00:48:58]: Yeah. And, I think my biggest Piece of advice, and this comes from more of my experience when I you know, Boston can be such a big race for people. It can be Let their goal race for, you know, years years years, and they qualify for the 1st time, and they go out there. They run it for the 1st time, and it's a big deal. It's It it it's you know, you're thinking, like, this is the the epitome of the sport, and I that was how I felt going into my 1st marathon, which was the Olympic trials. And The problem that I did was that I kind of made it I approached it as if it was something totally different than any other race I'd done before And kind of threw things out the window that I knew were were wrong, like, you know, increasing mileage too quickly or any of those things just because this is Boston. So the biggest thing and I know we talked about, you know, you should have this and you should have that. But if that's not where you're at, Don't panic.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:49:48]: Don't panic train. That's what I did. I panic trained, and I jumped my volume too much. And then I was overtrained going into that Marathon, and I end up dropping out of my 1st marathon. So, the biggest things that I biggest piece of advice I would say is, you know, you know, do what you can. Continuing to do what you can at all times. Don't feel like you're not doing enough. If you're doing what you can for that week and that day and that month, then That's always gonna be enough to get you to race day and be successful.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:50:17]: You're better off being slightly undertrained than being overtrained. So Whenever those kind of things keep creeping to your mind, just keep keep focused on on, you know, putting forth the the effort that you've got for that day, and I think you'll still be It'll still come out on top on on race day even if it's not perfect. So that's my biggest piece of advice is that if this is your 1st time especially running Boston, you know, take take the process in stride, have fun with it, enjoy it. Don't overwhelm yourself with it, and and you'll do great.

Cory Nagler [00:50:47]: Absolutely. Well, I'm excited to hopefully put that into practice myself, running my 1st Boston, and excited for everyone out there listening, whether it's your 1st Boston or your 20th. From what I hear, an amazing race. So, Jeff, Andy, this was fantastic. Thank you so much for joining me again.

Jeff Gaudette [00:51:02]: Thanks, Mario. It was fun, and thanks everybody for listening.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:51:05]: Yeah. And good luck to everyone who's starting their Boston training. Excited to follow you along.

Cory Nagler [00:51:09]: Absolutely. Alright. Happy training, everyone.

Finn Melanson [00:51:27]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Lanson, 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 a rating on the and Apple Podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our and premier access to contests and giveaways, then subscribe to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.netback/podcast. Until next time,