Planning Your Training for the Long-Term

Finn Melanson [00:00:09]: 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 every So we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at Runners Connect .net where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:00:37]: Hello, everybody. Coach Andy Cozzarelli here for this solo coach chat of the Run to the Top podcast. Welcome to 2024. So it's a new year, and something we've been talking to our athletes about is goal setting. So goal setting It is extremely important, and we like talking about it at this point because a lot of times, you know, as we head into a new year, we're thinking about What are we gonna do this year? It's a good time. A lot of people are motivated to start figuring out what they wanna do for, goal races and When you are they looking for a PR? What's on the horizon? So we like to look at goal setting as a as more of a long term approach. So actually approaching it from a year standpoint is actually not a bad thing to look at. When we think about goal setting, though, from this long term approach looking at a year, We are looking at, you know, how when do we wanna plan for our goal races? When do we want to have natural brakes put into it? What is it going to look like?

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Andie Cozzarelli [00:02:18]: A lot of times, we see a lot of runners who are picking goal races or just races they wanna do, and they kinda just train to that race. They get to that race. They take a little bit of a break, and then they do the next one and the next one and the next one, and that can be that can be good. It can be it can be helpful in some ways, but a lot of ways, it doesn't help us to track or pay attention to what are our big long term goals. What are we actually working towards? What do we wanna achieve? And so, you know, sometimes, we're we're running for fun, and and that's fantastic. And I think that's also an important goal to have is to find What those things you want throughout the year in terms of the process, what you're trying to achieve. But it's good to actually have, a plan, you know, Thought out and and planned out, and so that's what we wanted to talk about here today is how can we address that? What are the best ways for us to approach our goal setting, from the beginning of the year through the end of the year and, what kind of steps we need to go through in order to make sure that we achieve whatever goal we set forth for ourselves. So the first thing I wanna talk about is this long term approach.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:03:21]: So think about what your big goals are. Do you wanna qualify for Boston? Do you wanna run a A PR. Do you wanna run your 1st marathon or half marathon or five k? Whatever it is, what are the things that are driving you to get excited about your training right now. Maybe it is just running a fundraise or an ultra marathon or something that's new and different. Whatever it is, we have to kinda get a sense of, okay, what is that goal, and how long is it gonna take me to get there? What steps do I need to put together? Where am I starting from? All of these are gonna help us so that we can have a little bit more of an understanding and expectations of what that process is gonna be like. We also don't wanna rush the process. So, you know, a lot of times with running you know, with new runners, we see a a quicker, rise in performance. We see Kind of from start to the end that we see a little bit quicker build up, and we see some more, you know, more achievements and goals.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:04:17]: We're hitting we're running faster and faster each time we go out, but a lot of times, once we've kind of gotten past that beginner phase, we start to that starts to slow down a little bit, And so we can't just approach it in a little we have to be a little bit more calculated in how we approach training once we're kinda getting into getting closer to our potential, that is. And so when that happens, that's where some of this this long term approach can help us because we're thinking about, okay. If I wanna improve 5 minutes, Can I do that in a year? Or, you know, based on my previous performances, is that something that maybe I need to take a couple of shots at? So These are some things that we want to first think about when we're thinking about what goals we have, and then we wanna space those out appropriately. So We typically advise most of our athletes to to look within more of a 6 month time frame. When we get too far out, It's actually really hard for our bodies and our minds to be able to stick into a training cycle for a long period of time, And so we wanna make sure that we have natural brakes built in. And if it's a really big goal, say it's a your 1st marathon and you have a time you wanna run, It may actually be better that we stick to something. Maybe we think about doing a marathon in the fall. And in the lead up to that, maybe our spring season is a little bit more focused on a half marathon and seeing what we can do in a half marathon training cycle, which will help us to also define what kind of pace we might be wanting to shoot for in our marathon.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:05:44]: So those kind of things can work well together, but we don't wanna be training for a marathon for an entire year. A lot of times, that training in the early part, we don't wanna pump too much intensity too soon because, you know, we we have to be training for a year, and that's a long time For the body, the body needs rest in order to get faster, so we wanna make sure we have some ups and some downs throughout the year in order for us to see, those those goals kinda coming forward. We also wanna make sure we don't get burnt out because one of the biggest reasons that we see Athletes needing to take extended time off is because they get they train, train, train, train, train all year, and then they get to the end of the year, And they realize, you know, I'm tired mentally, physically, and it becomes really hard to get motivated to get out the door. And so that can be another reason why this Planning can really help us to avoid that so that we never really get into those cycles where mentally, we're just completely drained. So I always like to think about, k. I'm gonna train this block, and I'm gonna have my break period at this point. And normally, I like to pick A goal race or something that I wanna shoot for as being kind of the final cap before I take that break. It could be, you know, it could be a marathon, which kinda gives you a natural need to rest, but it could also be a 5 k, which we may not necessarily need The same amount of recovery from, but it still helps to, you know, have that 5 k be your goal race once you complete it to give yourself some downtime even if you only need a couple days to cover.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:07:12]: This is just for the longevity mentally and physically. You know, the entire training block, that's what we're thinking about. We're not just training we're not just, you know, recovering from that 5 k. We're recovering from the months of training and hard workouts and long runs and all the things that we've done in the buildup to that race. And so if you think about it from that perspective, it really helps us to see kind of, okay, this is a bigger picture than just this 1 race, and that's how we wanna approach our training. So start off with those big goals. Figure out what They are. Figure out what things that you want to accomplish along the way.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:07:47]: So really start to map out what that looks like. Figure out if you wanna do 2 marathons. You know, which ones are you gonna do? The other thing that I like to encourage athletes to think about is what races Sound fun. So we're not gonna run as well in a race that's not enjoyable to us. So a lot of times, we're chasing a standard. If we're working for a BQ, Right. We're trying to run the fast race or this race or that race, and that's perfectly fine. But if you find yourself kind of, You know, feeling a little bit not enjoying yourself, shift away from the races that are just fast and find a race that you can just Enjoy, have fun with.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:08:27]: Once you can really have that experience and and have fun again, that will carry over, and you'll find yourself running faster. So Kind of let that be one of the things that helps you guide your decision making. I often ask my athletes, are you excited about this race. Are you just putting it on the schedule because it's convenient? And so those are the things that I also we also wanna be mindful of because We're not gonna race as well in a race that we're not excited for or that's not fun. Running is supposed to be fun. It's hard. It's not always fun, But we wanna at least have some amount of that that enjoyment in it and enjoyment in the process if we wanna accomplish what we wanna accomplish. So super important to think about that.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:09:06]: Now the next part of this is going to be okay. So if you're running a 5 k and you struggle with, say, some of the mental stuff, Plan out some other 5 k races that you wanna do to help give yourself a better experience with racing. This is also a really great thing that you can try if you're running A big race in the fall. So maybe you wanna use the spring to really start to work on your mental side of your training. That's that's something that a lot of runners have trouble with on race day. And when you're doing a lot of longer races, we don't have as many opportunities to practice that. So, if That's a goal of yours. Think about what races are gonna be more conducive to allowing yourself to race more often, and I think that's something to also consider, is, you know, what are the things that you wanna work on this year in order for you to see that improvement in whatever your big goal is in this year or next year or whatever it is.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:10:00]: So we wanna also think about what things have have we struggled with. That's something that I Feel like I was constantly trying to get a standard, and I started to not have fun. I realized it. I actually took some downtime. And then this last year when I was thinking about races, I I kind of was just like, you know what? I just don't wanna do a race I haven't done before. I wanna do something That'll be enjoyable, and I just wanna get to a finish line. So those are the kind of things that started helping me to decide and guide what races I was going to choose, because I didn't just wanna run the fast race. I wanted to kind of have something to look forward to that was different and fun and would be a little bit lower pressure for me because I felt like that was what I needed, was a little bit more space to just, you know, be out there and enjoying it.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:10:49]: So if those are types of things that you're kind of feeling, then, you know, approach those. Same thing goes with if you feel like your speed is holding you back. Maybe doing a speed training block will be helpful. If you feel like your endurance is holding you back, go ahead and maybe train for something a little bit longer or focus a little bit more on some of your endurance training, and spend some of that time so that when you are ready to shoot for that goal race, we've spent some time working on maybe a weakness, And we'll be able to kind of then capitalize on our strength in the training block that's a little bit more geared towards the ultimate goal. So that's a good way to think about what is how do we wanna guide our long term approach to our seasons in 2024, our races in 2024. But the other things that we wanna consider. So what you know, if you if you've there's so many races out there that you're interested in, and you're like, I wanna do this, and I wanna do that, and I wanna do this. That is also totally fine, but it does come with the, you know, understanding of which goals do we want to or which races Are we interested in pushing in, and which races do we wanna just do for fun? And knowing where those fit in and how they fit into your cycle Will also help us to make sure that we get the most out of our training block.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:12:02]: When we put a ton of races on our schedule and we just are racing them all hard, We miss out on some of the training that we we kind of would need in order to see that big shift in improvement. So Recognizing that some races you may have fun with and some races you may be pushing in is helpful for knowing, okay. Will the are these ones gonna help me ultimately Reach my end goal, and are these ones more just because, you know, I, you know, I wanna be part of the community. I wanna be involved. I wanna have fun. And those things can also fit in In combination is just knowing ahead of time which ones am I going to focus on and which ones am I going to back off a little bit And just embrace the experience. So these are just some things to think about from from that perspective.

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Andie Cozzarelli [00:14:43]: We also like to suggest that our athletes think, you know, short term goals, long term goals, and what that looks like. So we have our our big, big goal, and and if that one doesn't feel like it's within this year, what is in A goal that we can set long term for this specific year and what short term goals you need to reach in the process of that. So What one suggestion we often make is, you know, we have there's lots of those calculators out there that can give you a general idea of race performances at different distances. And, you know, some of those, they're gonna be highly variable because everybody's a little bit different. Some people are really good with the longer distances. Some are really good with the short distances. And so your that those times can be a little bit skewed by that specifically, but it can still be a useful tool to help us guide where are we going with our training. And so one way that You can use that as if you're kind of you're starting off 2024.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:15:44]: You're not really sure what time goals to kind of consider. Go ahead and run, you know, a 5 k or something really short and quick. It could be a time trial. It could be a local race. Whatever it is, Just go after it, see what happens, see where we're starting from, and then you can use that time, plug it into one of those calculators, and then get an idea of, okay, where is my fitness presently? You know, what is my goal race, and how does that compare with kind of what race, what time I'm thinking I wanna run, or where does that put me in terms of the BQ standard or whatever it is that we're looking to achieve? What what does all that look like? And then you can pretty much figure out, okay. Well, I'm gonna do maybe a a 10 k in a couple of months and check-in and see have I improved at all from this initial 5 k, and that can help us be a really good track of progress. So we can think about that in terms of, okay, I'm gonna have these short term goals of these these races. They're gonna help me in in improve towards That big goal, that race that I'm kinda shooting for this year, and then, I'll be able to kinda back off from there and, you know, go go about my my training in that Capacity.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:16:55]: So where what are those goals? They don't always just also have to be time goals. Encourage runners to think about all different types of goals that can be out there, but as long as they're measurable and and we can have some way to To quantify how how we're doing in regard to that, that's gonna be part of it. So we wanna be able to quantify how We're approaching these goals and and to know if we're kind of reaching them or not. If we're doing something that's really broad, that can be not as helpful For our overall, you know, process towards trying to reach a specific goal, so have some things that you can actually look to to To remind yourself, like, yes, I am improving in whatever capacity that is. For me right now, strength training has been a big goal of mine too to make it very consistent. And so I've been tracking my actual the weights I've been using in the gym, and that's been really helpful for recognizing, No matter what I'm doing with my running training, I can see that improvement within my strength training. So that's been really helpful for reminding me that I Am making progress even if I feel like my running is coming along along a little bit slower. All this will come together at some point, and that's kind of The bigger picture that I wanna focus on is that, yes, I'm getting stronger.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:18:14]: Hopefully, that means I'll be preventing injury and all of that stuff. So those are some things that I want to be measurable. We see a lot of athletes put, you know, something like I wanna prevent injury as a goal, But what exactly can you measure? What exactly what thing can you do that's going to help you to prevent injury, And how are you going to measure yourself on reaching that goal? And so if that's strength training and adding some consistency to what you do In order to prevent strength your injury. So maybe you say, I want this year. I wanna pre I wanna be prevent injury, and and in order for me to do that, I'm going to do My strength training twice a week, and if you can be consistent with that and we're not seeing injury, then that's super valuable in our long term approach. So, when you're setting these goals, short term, long term, think about what things can you quantify, and I find that this is really valuable in enjoying the process a little bit better because we can look back, and even if we don't reach our ultimate goal, we can look back and see these little successes along the way, And I think that's just as valid and is gonna be something that helps you stay in it. It's gonna help you kind of Prevent some of that getting antsy about your performance and all of that. I know personally when I was constantly chasing a time goal, It was hard for me to recognize when, you know, things outside of my control maybe impacted that time goal and that, you know, overall, I had a really fantastic race, but maybe it was slower because of the weather or something like that.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:19:50]: When we can see those things, and we can remind ourselves that we have gotten fitter and that maybe this was the reason we were a little bit slower. It can remind us that we're still on the right path. If I had been tracking something like strength or tracking something and utilizing that to remind myself that I was still improving and still making progress, It might have reminded me that, hey. You're fine. This isn't this isn't a reflection. This time may be not a reflection of your present fitness, but, it was still a fantastic raise. You did great, and that's what matters. And so these are these are some ways that we can actually approach that and address that and feel good about The training that we're putting together is by having some things that we can focus on that are aiding in our running but more smaller ancillary that are going to help us ultimately in approaching our goal race and is going to help us actually enjoy The process of getting to that goal race and remind us that we have made progress no matter what the time shows on the clock.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:20:50]: You know, race times are pretty Relative. They're not gonna be the same every year. So sometimes we get good weather. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes there's more wind. Sometimes, You know, sometimes something you know, there's more people in the who knows? There's all kinds of things that can impact our race, and so every race is gonna be a little bit different. Harder for us to really compare apples to apples even on the same course because there's different conditions every year when we go out, so good to have That mindset when we look at races, one thing I've started doing is also utilizing the temperature calculator when the weather is a little bit different. That way I can kinda get a sense of what I would have run-in in some cooler weather, and that's also a really fantastic way to to kind of make sure you stay, present and focus that, yeah, you're still moving in the right direction.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:21:39]: If that time kind of if you can use the temperature calculator to kind of See, generally, what you would have run-in cooler weather, I think that can help us to remind ourselves that we are still super fit even if the time on the clock doesn't show it. We we often see runners getting a little ahead of themselves, like, getting down on themselves when they don't run as fast in warm weather, but we have to also have that peace of mind that Maybe we were running just as fast as we had been, and the weather just changed that a little bit. So all that to say kind of just have a good approach and have a good Mindfulness and and process to really help us stay focused and and, you know, in the in the in in the race and not let us, kind of Overthink everything that comes out of a performance. And with that, I also want to now switch gears just a little bit to how do we pick a race time, and how does that actually affect our overall performance on race day? So one thing we often didn't see as a mistake with a lot of athletes is picking a goal time that's maybe outside of their fitness and just and just training by it no matter what. And so the reason that can be difficult is because if, say, you're training for maybe you you've run a 3 40 5 marathon, and your goal is a 3:30, and you immediately just start training at that 3:30 pace, you know, there's there's no we don't know. Maybe you could improve to that over the course of the season, but if we start out at that pace and it's a little bit too quick, we won't be training in the right zone, and so we really wanna make sure that we're always training in the right zones for our current fitness, and so we often encourage athletes to kind of if you don't know what your current fitness is, go ahead and do that 5 k time trial, get a sense of what it is, and then we can use that to start guiding our training from that point forward. And that way, we're not doing workouts that are kinda outside of our fitness that are that we're reaching for. When we reach too hard in in workouts, we don't actually develop a lot of the endurance that we're looking for.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:23:38]: In the marathon, especially, we really wanna build up our aerobic fitness as much as we possibly can. So when we're doing tempos and thresholds, we wanna make sure those are at the right pace So that we are not accidentally working a system that's not going to aid in our aerobic development. And, if when we do that, if we end up running too hard, Oftentimes, the the marathon fitness doesn't come together. And then on race day, you know, we've run a lot faster, but we struggle to hit The marathon pace on race day. And so that's something we wanna make sure that we are really, really good about finding where our current fitness is, training for it, and, you know, modifying as we need. So, hopefully, when we train in the right when we train in the right zones, That is better for our progression. So if you're starting from, say, a 345 and we are doing workouts in that zone and we start to feel like those feel too easy, Then we can boost up, and then we can continue to see ourselves progress, get a little bit faster, get a little bit faster, and maybe we do kinda see Our time getting closer to that 3:30 over time. So that's something that we wanna make sure that we are thinking about when it comes to goal setting.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:24:48]: So when you when you're planning your races and planning what you wanna do, think about that and think about what is your present fitness, and then You can always set a very conservative estimate for your goal, and that way you've got kind of your your a, b, and c goals is Something that we often suggest as well is thinking about what are what is the times that we would love to run, like, on a really good day? What feels like a a good estimate? What feels conservative? In that way, we can kind of have, an ability to Shoot for 3 different goals. And that way on race day, if one feels like it's slipping, we we have some other things to fall back on and and still be really proud of ourselves for. So I think that pretty much covers everything on the goal setting. So, if you're getting ready for your 2024 seasons and And you're thinking about what's coming up this year, start to think about what else could be out there. When are we gonna take our rest? When are we what kind of races are we gonna do? What things do we wanna work on? And what short term goals do we have to our for ourselves to continue to see that progress, season after season. But, thank you guys for tuning in today, and, I hope you enjoyed, and, good luck To everyone in 2024, let's make it a great year. Bye, everyone.

Finn Melanson [00:26:21]: Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your host, Finn 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 Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating 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 runnersconnect.net backslash podcast. Until next time.