Small changes that have a big impact on your running performance

Finn Melanson [00:00:09]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Malanson, and this is the run to the top podcast. A podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. You're created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runnersconnect.net, where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. There's a lot of information out there about how to improve your running performance, but it can be overwhelming. trying to figure out what to trust and how to fit this all within your busy lifestyle. It would be great if we could spend the whole day training and recovering like the elites, but for most of us, the reality is that we need to fit training around other priorities such as jobs, family, social obligations, and more. That's why we've brought on 2 of our expert coaches, Alex and Andy to chat with showrunner Corey about what small changes you can make that might have the biggest impact on running performance. In this episode, you'll learn the workouts and strategies that serve as the foundation for optimal training, nutrition tweak that has the biggest impact on performance, the single most important recovery tool that you should never skip. and a recap of the other variables that have the biggest impact on performance relative to the time and effort required. Take it away Corey. Don't let runners knee keep you from completing your long runs or worse sideline you altogether. An innovative new product called new knee has been clinically proven to deliver immediate relief from Runners knee. Head to runners connect dot net forward slash noony that's spelled n u n to learn more and receive your 50% discount at checkout. Lagoon specializes in making pillows designed specifically for runners and athletes to help you optimize your sleep and recovery. learn more at lagoonsleep.comforward/t0p and get a 15% discount.

Cory Nagler [00:02:19]: Welcome back to the run to the top podcast. I'm really excited about today's topic and with us to discuss the best ways to improve performance, we have 2 of her coaches, Andy Cozzarelli and Alex Ostberg. Andy is a semi professional runner for Wazelle with 2 all American titles on the track and an Olympic Trials qualifier for the marathon in 2016. She's recently been focusing on the marathon distance and is coming fresh off competing at the Grandma's marathon. Alex is a seven time all American at Stanford currently competing for UNC And Chapel Hill. He has top 10 NCAA finishes on the track in the 3 k and 5 k and uses his educational background and exercise physiology to inform his training. Alex, Andy, great to have you both on the show.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:03:06]: Thanks for having us.

Alex Ostberg [00:03:08]: Pleasure to be here, Corey. Looking forward to the conversation.

Cory Nagler [00:03:11]: Awesome. Yeah. As am I. And just to recap, our conversation today is gonna be all about kind of those little changes that runners can make that'll have a big impact on performance, especially when you're crunched for time. So super excited to get your thoughts on all of that. And I guess with that, we'll kind of hop right into the 1st category I wanna touch on, which is training. So with that, What do you think are the workouts or training strategies that runners can use that'll have the biggest impact on performance? And then I guess Andy, maybe we'll start with you on this one.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:03:46]: Yeah. So I think and and it's not so much the workouts for me. I think the biggest thing that a lot of people a lot of runners are missing, I'd say the mass the the biggest majority is not either running their easy runs easy enough or not having that proper balance between you know, how much they're working. And so there's that principle of the 8020, and I recently saw this. I think they if someone was refuting whether, you know, how 80% of your run should be easy and and, you know, 20% should be harder. But for some people, if they're running, you know, say say 3 days a week, oftentimes, that means a lot of their efforts are gonna be a little bit higher in intensity. But the the way that I look at that is those days where you're not running, those are your 80%, that's your balance to have that recovery. And recovery is such a huge piece to allowing ourselves to actually be able to put forth the effort for our hard efforts to be able to run faster. And so I think it's really important that runners know that those easy runs don't have to be quick. You there's a varying range of paces you can go and still have a really big benefit just from being able to take those days nice and easy and give yourself both the recovery, but also the aerobic benefits of just getting out there and moving your feet. And so while that seems like the not the way that you're gonna run faster, it really can have such a profound impact on your fitness in general. And so being able to get into a space where you're able to kinda put that time towards easy running is going to allow us to prevent injury, which I think is a huge piece too to being able to get faster is that consistency. So training is really a buildup over time, And so if we're seeing really, really quick progress, it's either in athletes that are newer to the sport or athletes that are maybe doing maybe going a little too hard at one point, and they see a quick payoff. But oftentimes, we see the the demands from that causing problems later on. So so we have to kind of figure out what's the right balance to help us to see improvement without you know, looking for these massive gains every time we step out, which I think is gonna be one of the challenges for a lot of runners and especially for newer runners that if they're just getting into it, oftentimes they see that progression in their training pretty quickly, and so they're expecting that same sort of development going into their future blocks. and that's not often gonna be the case as we get closer and closer to our our potential. Once we get kind of in that realm of like we're getting we're getting close to where we are strength wise. That's where we're seeing smaller gains, and so it's looking at, you know, making a cup taking a couple minutes off your marathon And each time you're out there, that's a really good goal once you're kinda getting into that closer to our our potential our potential, you know, peak. And there's always gonna be room for improvement, you know, to an extent, you know, as we age, we know there's some changes that go on there. But being able to just see yourself get a little bit quicker each time, I think, is is way more valuable than the in thinking in terms of, like, really large jumps in performance because I think that those are gonna be the most sustainable. They're gonna allow us to utilize that training going forward. But then, again, you know, every time we step out to train, we have to have that ample recovery time coming off of our our big races, our goal races. And I that's another thing that I often see a lot of runners doing is not giving themselves enough recovery coming off of training block are really not thinking about their seasons in terms of training blocks. And I think, you know, having blocks of training that you're looking at where you're gonna, you know, gonna train for this amount of time and then have recovery coming off of those. Those are so important for us being able to see the the improvements we made in one block carry over to the next. And so in a lot of the athletes that I work with, if they're good about taking their 2 weeks between race or between their big races or something like that at the end of a block, then oftentimes they they get back into their next training block, and they're feeling that much better running similar pieces to what they were just running, and it's just it's so much just a factor of that recovery piece. And so But, you know, when we talk a little bit more, I think, on training in general and the workouts and things like that, there is also a huge importance on doing the workouts for the races that we're training for. So, you know, you could do a lot of speed workouts. You could do a lot of track workouts you know, in prep for a marathon, but whether or not that work is going to translate to the marathon is is the problem. So, like, we wanna make sure we're doing a good balance of of work that's, you know, really targeting the marathon specific. And then also, you know, having a little bit thrown in there that's helping us with their biomechanics. all that kind of stuff. So it's really figuring out what's the right focus for what's what's the race that we're training for and knowing exactly what, like, muscle groups we're looking to work So do we need more of our slow twitch fibers or intermediate fibers? Do we need more of our fast twitch fibers to be available? Those kinds of things are super important when it comes to picking workouts and knowing what workouts to do. And then the other side of that and the piece that I try to also do with some of the clients I work with in the personalization side is recognizing runner's strengths and weaknesses, so some of us are gonna be really, really good at long sustained efforts while some of us are gonna be that are at being able to tackle the speed stuff. So those speed workouts may come super easy to some of us. And while some of the tempo kind of more of those types of efforts, come easier to others. And so figuring out where you fall in that category is also gonna help us to know what what do we need to work a little bit more when we're training for, say, a 5 k versus if we're more marathon legged, you know, what do we need to do to to capitalize on that strength? But also be able to kinda tap, you know, tap into some of that speedier stuff for when we need it. So I try to kinda think about along those lines, and I break it down by thinking about, you know, muscle fiber types and and things like that. And that gets a little bit in the leads and the science. But, you know, I think that all ties into, you know, picking the right the right workouts for the race. and picking the right workouts for yourself.

Cory Nagler [00:09:37]: So -- Absolutely. And that recovery piece is something we touch on a lot here at Runners Connect. For those runners who really don't know where to start, I guess, where is that best place to look to first if you really wanna optimize your recovery and that kind of race specific strength that you touched on?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:09:53]: I would say, you know, we for like, especially a new runner, like, getting out there and just kinda getting some easy runs Getting a base a foundation I think is the first thing to look at is we wanna make sure that there's there's something to draw from. So when we If you jump right into training and are already starting to do all these hard workouts, we normally have a good foundation to kind of settle ourselves or kind of draw back to. So I I always say, you know, start easy. Just get some time on feet. Make that be your focus. And then, you know, starting to add in, like, slowly add in elements where we're just kind of, you know, doing fart licks by feel, which is a fart like is just speed play. So, you know, doing minutes on, minutes off, you know, just picking it up by effort. I think effort is such an important piece to training because we're always so fixated on pace and now that we have GPS watches, we can kind of get too focused on that But with the workouts, we really want to make sure that there are, you know, at the right effort level, and so, you know, drawing on that to ensure that we're not going too hard, and so developing that from the front side when you're first getting into training is super important because we wanna know that we're we're focusing on the efforts more than on the paces because it's so easy to be like, I wanna break this in a race and have that be so front and center, but it can set us up for failure if we're not at that level and not allowing ourselves to get there slowly over time. So it's just kind of, you know, find out where you're starting from. Do some workouts where you're just kinda trying to figure out what that effort is. plan in some like, plan up a a tune up race. If you're if you're just getting in and running, pick a 5 k, you can kinda see where you're at and just give yourself a baseline and then keep kind of playing with that and seeing how far you can go. I think I answered your question. I feel like I kinda strayed away from the main question, but

Cory Nagler [00:11:39]: That's okay. These are all great points, and I think especially that focus on those easy runs is something that makes it a lot more approachable, especially for newer runners, but for all of us. Alex, I'll hand it over to you. Do you have any thoughts on kind of those training pieces that have the biggest impact on performance?

Alex Ostberg [00:11:56]: Sure. Yeah. So I think when we talk about training, the thing that I always come back to is I guess there's 3 main themes. The first would be consistency 2nd would be patience, and the 3rd would be sustainability. It's so easy when you look at the elites and You look at all the exciting news around training theory and what you should be doing. All of our attention is drawn to the big sexy workouts that people are doing like the big marathon preparation workouts the the mile repeats that, you know, the elites are doing before their championship 5 k's. But the reality is that the bulk of training really is just the day to day grind. Elaine Flanagan once said that on an ordinary day, she reminds herself that she's preparing herself for the extraordinary Right? And you cannot have the extraordinary efforts without the daily grind of the ordinary efforts day after day after day. And They've done research on this in the past and found that one of the strongest predictors of achieving your goal time or, like, maximizing your potential on race day is completed the most sessions in a training block and who missed the least amount of time due to injury. So just compliance to a plan, obviously, that plan can change if things come up is extremely important and that's not that exciting to talk about, but showing up is a bulk of what is required to be good in this sport. day in and day out. And so that leads me to my other 2 themes, which were sustainability and and patience. I think we all have a tendency in in this sport to we all we all wanna achieve big goals. Right? We're chasing our dreams but we tend to overestimate what we can do in the short term whether that be weeks or months and we underestimate what we can do in the long term. Like I mentioned earlier with with that consistency. Right? It's not all about heroic efforts every day. In fact, quite the contrary. It's more about just, like, book of your training is gonna be easy running. Right? Just like time on the feet like Andy was saying. And consistency, like, matters above all. And if you have patience and consistency and you marry those 2 things together, that's an incredibly powerful combination because It's not even that you need incredible intensity every day, right? It's it's just a slightly above average effort or even just an average effort If you maintain that for an above average period of time that gets you extraordinary results. No one thinks about it because we tend not to broaden our time horizons long enough to that point. And then the last thing I'll say is is training has to be sustainable for it to be productive. Right? So for the highest levels to be attainable over time, you you have to be able to repeat it day in and day out. I don't care like what you can do occasionally. What really matters is what you can do every day. when you're when you're coaching someone. So don't think about, you know, like, don't don't draw all of your attention to. What is the hardest workout that I can possibly do instead say, What is the week that is the most sustainable that I can repeat time and time again? So all these seams are pretty closely tied together and, you know, you'll notice that I probably didn't mention a specific training prescription or a specific magical workout because I don't think those things exist. I don't think there's a magical training intensity. I don't think there's any go workout. But if you if you keep those broad frameworks in mind, I think it'll give you the right approach to having a really effective training program.

Cory Nagler [00:15:14]: Yeah. It would be a lot easier if there were those kind of magic workouts that suddenly make you an elite marathoner, but, unfortunately, it really does take that consistency you touched on. And when you talk about these sexy workouts, my mind immediately jumps to the double threshold days or those really, really long, long runs, which are all great and can be super effective, but only if you can string it and keep it sustainable. The major theme you touched on was that peace on consistency. For those runners who do maybe miss a workout, maybe you have injury or work gets in the way. Do you have any thoughts on how you get back to it or maintain that consistency over time? Oh, absolutely. I think this is one of the most important things. Right? there's there's a great quote that

Alex Ostberg [00:15:56]: a habit missed once is a mistake, but a habit missed twice is the beginning of a new habit. Right? And I think one of the biggest mistakes that people get into is they let perfection be the enemy of good. Right? And you can't be perfect all the time. I think You mentioned the double threshold and I laugh because you know who's doing double threshold, Jacob Binger Britain is doing double threshold because his entire life and and he is being paid to spend all of his time to become the fastest man on the planet and and he is able to do nothing besides run at the highest level possible. The reality is that the audience we're talking to today, few people have that luxury. They have family lives to worry about they have. They have commitments. Right? And and not everyone has 5 hours a day to train. Right? So it's very important not to extrapolate what one person is doing Right? Jacob Berenbergson is doing he's a full time professional runner, and he trains about a hundred miles a week. So he's layering the double threshold on top of something that's already unachievable for 99% of the population. So again, we're we're drawn to all those things and and we think that, oh, we need to extrapolate this and then you know, it's just like kind of like a copy and paste into our own program, but that's not how training works. Right? So anyway, I diverged for a second there, but you're you're right. I mean, if you do make a mistake, right, it's about not missing twice. Right? And if you are pressed for time it's important that if the the philosophy that I try and have is you can reduce the scope but maintain the practice. Right? So like a 30 minute run if you if you were prescribed a 60 minute run, getting in a 30 minute run is far better than doing nothing at all. Right? In fact, that's probably like gives you the the vast majority of the benefits. Right? And I think a lot of things we wanna talk about today is what's what's like the minimal effective dose? Like what where do you what's the point beyond which you're getting diminishing returns? And again just putting a habit in practice and not missing twice, that'll get you a really long way. So, again, if you I mean, if it's if it's 8 PM and you haven't got near run, but you can you can squeeze in a 20 minute run before dinner after work. do it. I mean, again, like, don't let perfection be the enemy of good. Sometimes good enough is all you need.

Cory Nagler [00:18:10]: That's a great point and super effective to just make sure you're getting in those little runs even if you only have those 15, 20 minutes between other life priorities. I'm gonna transition over now to our next topic which is nutrition. I'll start with you, Alex. Do you have any thoughts on the tweaks that have the biggest impact on your nutrition and fueling?

Alex Ostberg [00:18:30]: Sure. If you if you can give me a minute here just to to paint the picture. I'm I'm smiling. People off camera can't see this, but I'm I'm almost laughing to myself because Nutrition is just a subject that's fraught with so much misinformation and so much controversy and so much polarization. it's so hard to reach a consensus and I studied this for, like, basically the last 6 years of my life. I just got my master's in public health with an emphasis in nutrition. And you'd think that I would maybe have some, like, practical takeaways. And I do have some, of course, of which I'll share. But there's really not great consensus in the field, which is incredibly frustrating for me. I think, yeah, you know, I heard a quote once that there's three things in life that people are pretty irrational about. and those tend to be religion politics and nutrition. And the reason why is that they relate extremely strongly to our identities and they're really hard to get definitive answers about. Right? And I think the other thing that's that complicates this is that we tend to be overconfident in situations where we can substitute experience for expertise. None of the three of us here would claim to be experts flying a jet. Right? Because that requires such a narrow area of expertise, and we know, like, we just don't have those skills. But everybody eats every day three times a day typically. Right? So so people think that they're their own expert in the field because they eat food and therefore they're like, I'm basically my own nutritionist. So that's difficult. And then of course nutritional studies are really, really hard to execute. Getting people to be compliant with a diet and trying to get clear data out of that is extremely difficult. And the other reality is too that a lot of different things work. Right? Like as human beings, we were hunter and gatherers for like 1000 and 1000 of generations, we we learn to live off the land and to subsist on all different kinds of nutrients. Right? So I think like trying to condense all that information into, like, you know, an index card would be really difficult. There's an author Michael Pollan who tried to do that. He wrote a book. I think it was called Food Rules, and he came up with the best working definition I've seen since, which is eat real food mostly plants not too much. And I think that works well for, like, the the general population but there's definitely specific considerations that I think athletes need to come into or need to need to need to take into consideration. All this is to say that I think in general the way I approach nutrition is I try and invert the problem. So rather than trying to have a perfect diet, I try to think about What are the ways to fail? Like, what are the ways to make mistakes and how can I avoid those mistakes? Because a lot of times success is the failures that you avoid Right? And I think if you can avoid the bad to protect the good, you're going to be well on your way to to having a pretty good diet. So I think that's especially for busy people on this podcast if you eliminate a negative behavior that probably has more predictive value on furthering your success or rather if you eliminate if you you eliminate a negative behavior, it's probably much more consequential than the marginal gain you'll get from piling on like 3 more very specific nutrition tactics. Right? So that is to say let me get to some of the common mistakes that I think we make. I think one is we let ourself be at the mercy of unhealthy options because we're just not prepared. And so one of the most simple pieces of advice I can give people is develop the skills to meal prep or at least take the 10 minutes before your workout the night before and pack a banana and a chocolate milk. Right? Because if you don't and you finish your workout and you're rushing on your way to work, it's far too easy to just grab like a doughnut of course, like, I think I want to frame this conversation because I feel very strongly about the fact that food is our friend and we don't wanna, like, demonize certain nutrients. There's a time and a place for donuts if you're running a lot. Right? But I think there are options that overall are healthier than others. So I think we can we can have we can reach agreement on that. But again, preparation is just like so incredibly important here, and I think it's very often dismissed. I think you have to fuel for the work required There's kind of 2 diverging opinions here. Right? There's people who are running and training for weight loss and that represents a lot of the population and does become a a kind of a calculation of calories in and calories out. And of course, like if you work with a nutritionist, you can come up with specific plan and I'm not here to do that today, but also a large portion of our portion of the audience listening to this is going to be concerned about optimizing performance. They're going to be training really, really hard. They're going to be running 40, 50, 60 miles per week in preparation for marathons. And I know for a fact that under fueling can hurt you just as much in that situation. Right? You know, people who are an energy in regular energy deficits. Right? So they're not feeling enough to make up for the energy that they're burning while exercising. They're at about four 0.5 times the risk of getting a bone injury. because that fuel those the fuel that you take in those become the components for building your muscles, for building your bones. That protein lays the foundation for what your body becomes. So definitely always feel for the work required. And in my opinion for someone who's training really, really hard, it's better to on the side of over fueling ever so slightly than it is to under fueling because the consequences of under fueling can be so disastrous. I think couple more things I wanna touch on or 3 more things. Protein is kind of a hot topic these days. You'll see that from an athletic population is generally like 11 gram of protein per pound of body weight is like a rough estimate of of what's probably good. There's also, of course, like people who are focused on intermittent fasting, so they wanted, like, only eat during 8 hours of the day and then not eat for, you know, 16 hours including when they're sleeping. I'm not a huge fan of that personally because I think that especially in athletic populations, you're turning over a lot of muscle, you're turning over a lot of bone, and you want to have a pool You want to have a reservoir of protein that's available to you throughout the day so that you can not only adapt but also recover. So I'm I'm of the opinion that you should really space out your meals and, you know, every 3 to 4 hours be taking in carbohydrates at least by 20 to 30 grams of protein because that will give you that pool of amino acids to then certain as building blocks for that adaptation process. Obviously, I think if you're over the age of sixty five, protein becomes even more important. We know that as you age sarcopenia is a major problem both from a public health perspective and an individual perspective, you do lose muscle mass. So of course that protein can act as a catalyst for muscle protein synthesis itself. Right? So taking in enough protein can be extremely important. I think it becomes more important as you age. I think there's also a lot of talk about supplements. I generally subscribe to the food first approach. So I think you can supplement for deficiencies, but I don't think You should let supplements become your primary source of nutrients. The reality is that a kale salad with lots of different colors and protein and micronutrients is far better than what you're going to get in a capsule of vitamin d or k or e, you know, because it's going to give you a broad variety of nutrients, which I think is much better. So eating a colorful diet is really helpful because it will ensure that you get all those micronutrients. I think you can make an argument that for an athletic population, iron is particularly important. because that is foundational for developing those red blood cells which which carry oxygen. And then the last thing I'll say which really goes back to inverting the problem like what can you avoid? I think you really should avoid alcohol for the most part. I'm not saying you shouldn't have an occasional drink. I think that's certainly totally fine. Most people do that. But alcohol is it it really harms sleep. It actually interferes with muscle protein synthesis, and there's really not a whole lot of evidence that's out there right now that that's very good for for longevity even in moderate doses. So I think overall, that's where I would go. And sorry, you got me talking here. I'm pretty passionate about nutrition as you might be able to tell.

Finn Melanson [00:26:26]: Don't let dreaded runners need derail your training and stop you from getting to the starting line. New knee is an innovative new product designed specifically for runners knee. In fact, independent clinical research has shown that New knee helped 9 of 10 runners start running again immediately without knee pain. Even better after 6 weeks of using New knee, 100 percent of research participants were pain free and able to run without the new knee device. Unlike other knee sleeves and supports that use compression, New knees' unique design relieves the pressure on your patella, your kneecap, which provides immediate relief and aids your recovery. Every now and then, an innovative product comes along that changes everything. New knee is changing how runner's knee's pain is treated. To learn more, head to runners connect dot net forward slash nooney. That's n u n e e. And to make it easy, the discount code r ttt50 will automatically be applied, so you'll save 50% on your purchase. Even better, they offer a full money back guarantee if you don't experience immediate relief. This makes it a no brainer if you suffer from Runners knee. Again, the link is runners connect dot net forward slash nooney. That's n u n e e. And you'll get 50% off at checkout when the discount code rtt50 is automatically applied.

Cory Nagler [00:27:53]: These are great topics, and I love especially this topic you brought up about fueling for the work required. A lot of us, especially those who are doing longer distances like the marathon, are probably familiar with gels or other types of fuels on your run and Those really high sugar sweet foods are not something you're gonna be taking in if you're sitting at least not for a healthy diet, but you really do need that fuel if you're gonna be putting in a massive workload. so. I think those are great takeaways. Andy, maybe I'll pass it over to you. Do you have any thoughts on those tweaks that have the biggest impact on your nutrition?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:28:25]: Yeah. So I again, I think for me, the eightytwenty rule has so it just has so many uses within training because it also applies to your nutrition because You can be good 80% of the time eating well and doing all those things. We should have 20% of the time where we're not necessarily feeling like we have to be perfect. And so that was something that I recognized in my own training. As Alex mentioned, I had I had some he didn't mention this about me, but I had under eating for a long period of time And for me, that was I was able to still train and feel good with training, but I was younger, so I was recovering quicker. And as I got older, I reached a point where I wasn't recovering as quick, and I was very fortunate not to have those bone issues, but I I mean, there's probably issues that I make come to in my future, which I've been working to kinda try to address and prevent. But at the same time, it you know, there there was an ending point for me at being able to under and still perform. And I met that, and it was not a fun journey to kind of figure all that out and read and fix that problem because your body adapts. Your body is so adaptive to the way that you take in food. So oftentimes that's why when in populations of people who are trying to lose weight, when they're doing a diet, oftentimes they may see some initial weight loss but then as their body adapts, especially if they're losing weight in a fashion where they are cutting calories and not eating to the demands of their body, That's where sometimes they'll see weight loss, but then they'll see metabolism slow down. So there's issues like that that can occur. And so we really wanna make sure we're eating to our hunger levels, so being in intuitive about what we're eating, but also recognizing, you know, there's different signs and ways that we know if we're getting enough food in, and it's a little bit more difficult from from men. But for women, If we have issues where we we're starting to see hormonal issues, are we, like, cessation of periods, things like that, or things we those are warning signs that we're not taking in enough. And so if you're noticing things like that happening or you're noticing just changes in your cycles, we wanna make sure that we're getting enough food food in. And so for some people, This is, I think, more common in runners who are newer. They won't recognize that they're not eating enough. It kinda takes a learning curve to see that start to come full circle you know, eat when you're hungry and enjoy the cookie. I I think I eat a cookie every single day or I try to. I I came home last night. There was no cookies, and I was kinda disappointed. But, you know, things like that are are still good parts to have in your diet. I think really important thing is that when we're fueling and trying to do all these good things for our performance, that we also enjoy the things that we enjoy. because that makes it the the diet more sustainable. That makes eating healthy and doing all the things we need to do for our bodies a lot easier because we're not living by this, like, road of these rules and the set rules. And so when I was actually dealing with all this stuff trying to figure out what was going on with me, One of the things I worked with the nutritionist who actually said that I was eating too clean, and I think that's a very common thing amongst runners is that We feel the need to be, like, perfectly clean all the time. We need only healthy foods and only whole grains, but there's definitely a time and a place for you know, those more simple sugars like Alex mentioned during marathons, we wanna be able to take in gels and things like that. We wanna be able we need those. They're they're not bad for you when we're using them within a race, and so your body's utilizing that carbohydrate source immediately right away. It's it's it's replacing glycogen that your body desperately means. And so, you know, we don't wanna be afraid of taking those in just because it is sugar, and, generally, we look at that as bad. And so Same thing goes for when we finish training, you know, we wanna be able to get carbohydrates in as quickly as possible to help replace lost glycogen It helps you to be more awake throughout the day, which I think is that for a lot of people who are getting up early going to work after, being able to have a little bit better, like, sense of mind and being feeling a little bit more with it, it play it pays off to be able to get that glycogen in. So one of the things that I often try to tell the people that I work with is, like, you know, that fueling around training is is so important, so really maximize that as much as possible. And so that and for me, sometimes that's For some people, it's very difficult to eat before they run. I often try to encourage them to have something because I do think that for the most part, most people are going to perform better in a field state. There are some differences between men and women, which is I think something that, you know, Alex touched on how studies It's really difficult to get some of these studies on women, especially because there's hormones and other variables that are very, very hard to control. and very hard to account for. And so there there needs these there is some recognition there too that, like, women actually perform slightly differently in a fed state versus men can sometimes do better in a non fed state. Occasionally, I don't think it's always the case, but, you know, there's there's rules like that that I'm like, you know what? Go ahead and eat, that's gonna be the better thing to just have. And if you're not, if you don't have a lot of time to get in food, then you really, really have to be good about that post workout recovery. So if you're not able to eat a whole lot before you run, then that post workout recovery fueling has so much more importance. It it's gonna make such a big impact just because you wake up early in the morning and you run, you're starting in a in a state where you're already kind of you're in a fasted state. And so when you run, you utilize energy, and so your body's in this, like, much larger energy deficit. And if we're not replacing that pretty quickly, our body starts to adapt to that not replacing very quickly, and we can see higher incidence of fat storage and less of that that protein and and carbs that are coming in being utilized to help us recover. We start to see less of it going towards that recovery process and more going towards sustainability for future use. So there's things like that that I think are huge players in helping us to to recover and perform, and I I I always kinda stress, like, that post workout recovery, if any if nothing else, like, that is something we really, really need to make sure we're focusing on. And then, you know, I find that throughout the day, it actually helps us with our fueling when we do a good job with that, you're less ravenous later in the day, When we're ravenous, that's actually when we make better or worse feeling choices because our body starts to crave things that are high in sugar because they're quick energy sources. And so when we are good at our post workout, it actually improves our our overall daily fueling because we we start we have less cortisol spikes. We have less blood sugar spikes. and things like that. So those would be my my biggest recommendations. And then the last thing that I would say too is in Alex touched on this as well is you know, getting those nutrients that we need through food and is that we wanna make sure too that you're checking in on your nutrition because I think there's a lot of stuff out that are like, Runners should take magnesium, runners should take vitamin d, runners should take this and this and this and this. And so if you're somebody who's wondering if that's something you need, I think it's important that you do get yourself tested for different nutritional deficiencies to recognize because we all might be, you know, better or worse at absorbing certain nutrients genetically, and so knowing what those things might be for you can help you to also know, like, am I getting enough through food? or do I need to supplement with this? And we don't wanna be oversupplementing if we don't need it. So especially with iron, iron can get we can get iron overload, and so that why we really wanna make sure that we if we're taking it, we're we're monitoring our intake, we're monitoring our levels. And if you're somebody who has had issues in the past, getting those retested throughout the year will really help us to ensure that we're what we're doing is working, and and we can adjust if we need too. So those are things things that I often recommend is, you know, monitoring your nutrition, and then also, you know, feeling feeling the best you can after and then giving yourself space to not be perfect within that whole scope.

Cory Nagler [00:36:08]: I think those are really great takeaways, and a lot of our listeners are probably going to especially appreciate that piece about having experts recommend that you do have those treats every now and then whether that's to reward yourself or just to make sure you're getting in enough fuel. I wanna take just a quick detour just to hear on maybe some of the your favorite treats or indulgences, whether you're training or not. I know For me personally, I especially appreciate after a long race like a marathon and ice cream just because, oftentimes, it's in warm weather, and it sits easy on your stomach. But I'll start with you, Andy, and then Alex, see if you have one. Is there is there anything you really crave after a race or a workout?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:36:42]: I for I mean, that I feel like this changes for me pretty often. I feel like I'm a pretty salty sweater, so I do find myself craving salty things pretty much after a races. So, like, tortilla chips, some great or fries or a burger, especially after, like, a big race or a big long run, I'm, like, always craving burgers and stuff like that or something that's just gonna have a little bit more to it. And then but I I also sometimes want, like, a cookie. Like, a really big soft cookie. Like, the and I don't like I don't like cringy cookies. So whenever I I if that is ever the only option, I'm like, nah. Not worth it. I only want the big, soft, like, gooey cookie. So those were kind of things that I I tended to kind of gravitate towards after a race. Sometimes after long runs, I really like pancakes. It really changes, I feel like, for me. But, yeah, generally, it depends, like, if am I am I dehydrated or anything like that, need some salt. if I'm just kind of, like, hungry and and, you know, wanna want something more carby, then it I'd gravitate towards pancakes. So I feel like my body kinda gives me some of those cues But, yeah, I kinda try to give into them especially when I know about he needs it.

Cory Nagler [00:37:51]: Alex, any thoughts?

Alex Ostberg [00:37:53]: I I think for me, like, after a race, my diet for, like, the preceding or or, yeah, the the 24 hours in a has just been relatively bland because I don't wanna upset myself everything. It's mostly been like pretzels and bagels and peanut butter. And so for me, just anything that you could just you could pick up at a restaurant that is a proper meal to me is, like, perfect. I mean, I don't normally, like, a pretty normal dinner, but a lot of times in know, recent years I've been racing at night, so I've been going all day just eating like, you know, eggs, a bagel, like, thrown in some but, like, keeping it pretty bland overall. So trying to avoid, like, high fiber and things like that. So, anyway, after the race, like, literally, you put anything in front of me. I'll probably scarf it down.

Cory Nagler [00:38:34]: It's amazing how much better that bakele tastes after a long race or even a workout. That's fantastic.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:38:39]: Before we make all our runners too hungry, I'll move on to yet our topic which is strength. And do you do you wanna talk about those strength pieces that are really gonna help our runners take their performance to the next level? Yeah. So I think that this is there's there's a large conversation here that we can talk about, but I think for a lot of people, if it's new to and running is new to you, The most important thing with with the strength that we're doing is that we're recognizing how that strength impacts our running form and kind of understanding to what our imbalances are. So your newer runner, it wouldn't hurt to kind of actually go find a place where they do some form analysis so we can figure out, Kate, where are we starting from? Do we have some form imbalances that we might wanna us because oftentimes when we start running, we just start doing it, and we can sometimes see injuries crop up later because we start to develop habits that maybe aren't ideal, and we don't even notice it because so much rut of running is just an unconscious kind of decisions about how your body's gonna move forward. And so You know, with that, like, we can we can as we start to add miles on, as we start to do more work, we might start to see some things that we didn't even know were there start to cause us issues. And so, you know, the first thing that I would look at is recognizing, okay, what imbalances do I have so that I can start addressing the strength of the areas that I specifically need for myself. And so that's actually also a great way to just begin a training cycle. So even if you've been running a long time, even if you've been doing strength training, At the beginning of a training cycle, let's get into a little bit more of a maintenance phase of strength training where we are addressing any types of imbalances we have side to side, so focusing a little bit more on the single leg. And then going from there looking at, okay, do I typically have tight hips Do I need to be doing some more of the ad the adduction or any timing things that are helping my internal external rotation? How are my glutes? Are my glutes strong? Am I activating them well? and kinda going through all those different little those little muscle groups that we we maybe not recognize as much when we start doing heavier lifting or anything like that or when we kinda get into a training cycle. This is a great time to just start, you know, getting the basics down, starting to develop a good pattern of of strength that's gonna be working for you because we're all gonna be slightly different. And then, you know, as you get into a training cycle, you know, starting to kind of ramp up the strength training maybe a little bit more, maybe doing a little bit more, you know, that's gonna help to in increase our power or anything like that. If you're going for maybe a 5 k, you're gonna wanna be doing maybe a little bit of plyometric work, if you're experienced, if you're not as experienced, really just focusing on anything gonna really help us to get the power out of our glutes of strengthening that. Runners really need to be thinking about strength for runners because, you know, strength in general is not necessarily gonna be applicable runners if we're not doing the right thing. So we wanna be focusing on our major movers, which are our glutes, our hamstrings, quads, lower leg, lower leg tends to be a major cause for injury for a lot of runners, Achilles, calf issues, calf strains, things like that. are are things that we often see people people getting injured and especially with, like, shorter distances the faster you're going. Like, we're we're seeing we see cap injuries kinda pop up because there's a lot more power development, that kind of stuff. So making sure we're also doing the work that's gonna help us with our lower legs. So calf raises Accenture calf raises, the feet. I think the feet is often a commonly missed thing when it comes to strength training, how you roll through the foot and how you push off, has a huge impact on how the forces of the ground into your body rolls through goes up through the the body. So The goal is really that we're rolling through the foot, pushing off the big toe, and and that allows us to get maximal glute engagement, and so If we're if we're landing funny or we're collapsing in any way, that starts to shift those forces more into the lower leg. And so recognizing if those are things that you're dealing with, you know, these there's so many mundane exercises you can do for the lower leg that feel dumb like towable stretches and picking up marbles with your feet, things like that, but they can go a long way in helping us to actually strengthen the upper the upper part of our bodies or our lower body, but like our glutes, all those things. If we're moving well through the lower leg, we are gonna be able to activate butter going up the chain, and so, you know, being able to have all those components come together is really what runners need. Often too, we don't necessarily need a ton of endurance loading for strength, so we don't mean to do it. I think that's one of the things that is common that a lot of runners think a while I'm running, so maybe I need to do high rep lower weight. We're running is a is an endurance strength training exercise, essentially. You're doing a long term you know, with muscles under contraction in different ways. You're basically straight training while you're running, and so we can utilize strength training in a different way to help us develop those muscles in a slightly different way that's not gonna be the same as what we do when we run. And so that can actually be a good balance to put together. So, you know, lower rep, higher weight, stuff like that actually be valuable to renters just because it kinda changes the way we are using those muscle fibers. And then the other thing is, like, I think there's been some different discussions on when to do strength training. This is super common thing we get asked, and I'm I'm a big fan of hard days hard. Now I know that not everybody can do that, so you're far better off doing strength training than not doing strength training. So if it fits in better on other days, perfect. Do it that way. if you can do hard days hard, that's also great. And, I mean, that's I like it just because I am allow am I gonna be allowing my body to fully recover on my easy days and not putting the muscles really under the stress that strength training can sometimes involve, and so I like to have the day after a hard effort be more easy running and no kind of break muscle as little muscle breakdown as possible, essentially. And so that's how I do it. There's also been discussion on whether 4 is valuable, more valuable, or after. I do it after just because I feel better that way, and so if I feel better, and I mentally feel better about it, then I'm gonna perform better because it's half of it is how we our mind perceives what we're doing. And so if that if it works better for you to do it before. Great. But, you know, I'm I personally like to do it after a hard a run or something like that. So, yeah, I'd say and I think, generally, most runners don't need to be doing it more than, you know, two to three times per week is pretty a pretty good issue, especially for a more robust lifting program. If we're doing more maintenance training and injury prevention type strength training, you know, 3 to 4 can be fine as well. but that's kind of how I would suggest. And we don't need to do a ton of it as long as you're you're doing 3 to 4 week fitting in 15 minutes at least will will pay off and and be valuable to us. So yeah.

Cory Nagler [00:45:21]: Perfect. So to summarize, let me know if I'm missing anything, but get in those at minimum 2 to 3 sessions a week. Make sure you're focusing on those big muscle groups, your calves, your quads, your hamstrings,

Andie Cozzarelli [00:45:33]: and then if you can try and lift heavy and not necessarily just light high high rep range. Is that right? Yep. That's what I would suggest. And then and then I kind of thinking about also unilateral versus both legs, having a kind of a balance of how much you're doing both of those and and starting with unilateral and then going to kinda using both legs.

Cory Nagler [00:45:53]: Great. Awesome. And then, Alex, do you have any thoughts on the topic?

Alex Ostberg [00:45:57]: Sure. I'll try and keep it kinda straight into the point here because I don't think I have too much ad from what all the great things Angie just shared. My my big takeaway on strength training is it's extremely important and should fit into every competitor runners' repertoire. you wanna keep the main thing the main thing. Right? So, like, you want running to be the main stimulus you put on your body. for adaptation. And I think sometimes I've been talking to athletes in the past. I've been like, oh, I just I squatted so heavy yesterday that, like, I my legs were just destroyed and I couldn't run properly. Well, okay. Then you should take a step back and say maybe, you know, you don't want your lifting to be impairing the way that you run. Right? Like you you wanna be able to supplement those things nicely together. There's a principle in strength training which is progressive overload. In fact, it applies to running too which is that, you know, you you wanna make gradual and incremental growth in your progression. So, you know, starting with bodyweight is a great way to do it, you know, start with bodyweight then add, you know, like 10% of your body weight until you get up to the point where if you could be squatting your body weight like that's that would be that's really solid for a lot of runners. The other thing too that I will add is that I'm of the opinion and this is a developing theory that I have that a lot of the imbalances we have on our bodies are actually because of the modern conveniences of of our lives. I think that a lot of the problems with our hips and our range of motion, our movement patterns just stem from the fact that we spend more time than ever in human history sitting down, which is It's normal for us to sit, but it's not normal for us to sit as a species for like hours and hours at a time. So it restricts the hips. It can it's congesting for the tissues and you're actually not moving it through like a proper range in motion. So in addition to strength training, I think one of the ways you can get the most bang for your buck is just avoid really long periods of time where you're sitting. Right? So get up, move around. You know, there's obviously standing desk You can kneel instead. So anyway, I just think all of that would help. That that's that's an ounce of preventative effort at the beginning that's going to save you pounds and pounds of medical bills down the road.

Finn Melanson [00:48:04]: Elite runners know what they're doing. They've got teams of experts advising them on every minute detail of their training, nutrition, recovery, sleep, and more. That's why when you see trends in what many elites are doing, you know it's backed by science. It's one of the big reasons I was so keen to try a customized pillow from lagoon after quite a few months of not so great sleep. We've mentioned a few times how US Olympic Trials Clarify or Caitlyn Keen saw her deep restorative sleep increase by 52 minutes when she switched to a lagoon pillow, 222 marathoner Emma Bates Thought her lagoon pillow is so important that she packed hers in a carry on when traveling to race the Boston marathon where she finished 5th. An ultra running record holder, Don Reichl credits his lagoon pillow for improving his recovery from massive races like the cokedonna 250 miler. So if you wanna see the dramatic effect of pillow design just for you can be, head to lagoonsleep.comforward/t0p. Plus, if you use the code t0p@checkout, you'll save 15% off your purchase. Again, that's lagoonsleep.comforward/top.

Cory Nagler [00:49:15]: For sure, definitely. Great points. Just gonna move on to our next topic here. -- which is recovery. And I think this is one a lot of people will be excited about.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:49:26]: You know, it can be a big setback if you don't lay in that time to really cover from your workouts and training. So, Andy, we'll start with you on this one. Do you have any thoughts on where to focus your recovery efforts? I think the biggest thing that I learned in my journey as an athlete was recovering is different than just sitting on sitting doing nothing. So, like, there's actually some things that we should be doing and thinking about when it comes to recovering which is, you know, actively recovering and doing things that are good for our muscles because sitting on the couch doesn't necessarily mean that you're getting additional blood flow to the muscles that you work. not doing anything doesn't necessarily help you and improve your recovery. And so I actually had started working with a company that does yoga, athletes for yoga, and so That was huge for me because they talked a lot about how you recovering internally. So when we need we need to do some of the stress is we need some work that's gonna help our parasympathetic nervous system, not just our nervous system. So we things like that we may not necessarily feel differently from, like, meditation, things like that can actually have a huge role in how our body actually does recover from stress. So we need both of those. We need to be able to do body work and the things that are gonna help us with our recovery, but we also need to be able to do doing the things that are helping us to recover from the stress that we we deal with on daily life and we deal with formal training. So all those things need to come together in order for us to be better. And so they used to call it recovering for real, so thinking about it in that sense of, like, you know, recovery of not doing anything versus recovering for real. And so that can include making sure you foam roll and do things like that after exercise to ensure that we are getting blood flow to the muscle tissues, using massage guns, things like that that can just kinda help us to work out some of our tight areas. And then I think a lot of the things we already talked about nutrition being a huge role, having a huge role in recovery, and then the easy runs, allowing our body to recover taking it easier, especially the days after a harder effort, you may find yourself running slower, may not feel easier, but it should still help us with our recovery. So if you're someone who's injury prone, you know, being able to do maybe a little bit of some light cross training ensuring that it's easy will also help us out with our recovery by just getting again, it's a lot about that blood flow, stuff like that. And then something that I do, I I always have I have massage therapist I see everyone's gonna have that opportunity, but if you're able to see that someone everyone's in a while can be good or just ensuring that we're we're recognizing tight areas because sometimes You're not getting body work often. You may not recognize areas that could be tight, so my left side of my body tends to be where I feel pain. but my right side also has tightnesses I don't recognize. And so being able to check-in every once in a while, whether it's a massage therapist or a PT, will really help us to know where our areas of concern are, so we always are addressing those each day. And then the last thing is just, you know, in stretching things like that after can be really helpful just to kind of, again, more blood flow, more more work to kinda ensuring those those tissues we broke down. are able to kinda get some of that what we need for recovery to help them rebuild and become back stronger. So I think we touched on the recovery a lot so that I'll kinda leave it at that. But yeah.

Cory Nagler [00:52:39]: Oh, no. And if there is any one piece among that to focus on? Is it

Andie Cozzarelli [00:52:43]: sleep? Is it stretching? Is it rest? What do you think is kind of that one piece renter should focus on if they wanna really nail down their recovery? Yeah. I didn't even touch on sleep. I should have. Yeah. So, yeah, I would say honestly sleep is probably the the number one thing runners should focus on if they wanna recover better. all of our recovery processes that happen happen overnight. I don't know about you guys, but I I I whenever I've been stressing about something, if I go to sleep, I can just get myself to go to sleep, Wake up in the morning, and the stress from that feels so minuscule. And so it's like that there are so many benefits from getting a good night's sleep from not just that physical, but the parasympathetic nervous system as well. And so, you know, it first for people who are struggling with recovery, paying attention to to how well you're sleeping and investing more in the sleep and whatever you need to do in order to approve that will will be a huge indicator of, you know, improving performance. So, yes, I would say, 100% of the sleep is probably the number one thing.

Cory Nagler [00:53:40]: Normal. It's hard to get in those 8, 9 hours, but when you're putting in the training, it really is crucial. Yep. Alex, do you have any more thoughts on the recovery piece?

Alex Ostberg [00:53:49]: Yeah. Absolutely. And it I'm glad you circled back to that because if sleep hadn't been mentioned, I would have said, I strongly disagree. I have a page full of notes I'm looking at right now. And at the top of them, it says recovery. And I say, I wrote sleep is unequivocally the most supported and evidence based practice for recovery that exists in the world. So anyway, I feel very strongly about this. I'm not saying I'm perfect at it myself, but, I mean, we can we can run through the studies here to prove a point. I mean, athletes so there's there was a study done in adolescent athletes that found that those who slept for less than 8 hours a night were one point seven times more likely to get hurt Research out of UC Berkeley, I think, found that sleeping less than 6 hours per night increases your chance of getting a viral infection by fourfold no matter what age you were They also found that in men who restricted their sleep to less than 5 hours a night, their levels of testosterone dropped by 10 to 15% compared to when they were sleeping like normal amounts. So, I mean, it disrupts your hormonal function. It it dramatically increases your injury risk and it dramatically increases your risk of of getting sick which I think sub several of those factors like I said earlier were the main drivers of what kit of what disrupts consistency in the sport. And if you want to be successful, we've all proven proven the point in smoking at length about how important consistency is. just to make this a bit more actionable, I think sleep hygiene goes a really, really long way. And I think if you if you were to invest in anything Investing in a few things around your sleep is probably worth it because you're gonna be spending 1 third of your life in bed as sleep no matter who you are. We can't escape it. Even people who think that they can't sleep, they all need sleep, it will catch up to us eventually. So some of the things that I think are important is having a good temperature where you sleep, but typically around 60 degrees is good having a dark room. So if you have if you can invest in some blackout curtains, I promise you it will be worth it. I did this past winter and it was it's it's literally been a game changer. I think getting your circadian timing down, so going to bed and waking up at the same time is really important. There's this idea of social jet lag, which I really like, which is that If you go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6 during the week, but then on the weekends you go out and you're up until 12 or 1 AM and then you wake up at 10, disrupting your sleep. You're basically jet lagging yourself artificially every single weekend, which disrupts your normal patterns. avoiding late night meals, avoiding caffeine in the afternoon, putting your devices away. I mean, this might be the single biggest habit in the modern world that might be transformative For me, just like putting my phone on sleep mode and putting it in a separate room has been, again, an absolute game changer. And then a good rule of thumb that I have because I'm I'm busy. Like, I'm I can always my most persistent distractions always seem justified in my own mind And the question I like to ask myself is or or what I tell myself is don't stay up for late late for something you wouldn't get up early for. And to me, I think that's a pretty good rule of thumb about what's important here and is anything more important to sleep while there's not too many. The last thing I'll say on recovery because I think Andy brought up some points is that in my opinion, the human body is so well equipped to actually adapt if you just give it the right inputs I think anything on the market that's being promoted or advertised as a recovery device that you have to pay for probably pales in comparison to what you can like, the return on your investment that you can get from really investing in your sleep. Right? Like, we're so quick as as a species to, like, go for the the quick fix I mean, I work in in the hospital and the amount of people who are on sleep aids like Ambien and Adivan and all these things. It puts you to sleep. It's it's incredibly sedating, but the quality of your sleep is not that great whereas if those people just Did the asked themselves a couple of uncomfortable questions and worked on habit formation and actually just focused on good sleep hygiene Man, I think, like, they would really benefit so much more than than taking a drug to artificially put them to sleep, but, like, they're losing out on A lot of the benefits of sleep has to offer. So it's so hard to monetize healthy habits because they're not very sexy. They're not exciting. They're hard to promote. But the reality is that that sleep and, you know, having having a calm mind and a lot a lot of these that, again, you you just you can't commercialize them. Right? Like, you can't buy them. They they just yeah. They panel in comparison to to what to what, you know, what Sleep can offer. And this will be my hot take for the day, but I think that anything that you can buy on the on the market for a recovery device I think personally a lot of those benefits are mostly placebo effect driven. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't want to dismiss the effect of the placebo, but I think a lot of these things are we believe they work, so they do work. And we can go down our rabbit hole and other podcasts to talk about the power of the mind and and how much these things I think are really just our brains basically tricking us into thinking they're working. But I'll I'll save the audience from the technicalities of that for this this episode. But, yeah, I think that the few simple foundational things that are simple but not easy. Like, that that's where you should be spending your time. That's that's the 90% focus on the 90% for the 1%, you know you know, don't know, the rest of the stuff, in my opinion, is icing on the cake.

Cory Nagler [00:59:03]: A 100%. And those quick fixes can really draw you in. I think I'm definitely guilty of being the one to invest in the super shoes before the pillow or the blinds to help you sleep, but they're all gonna really have a big impact on your performance.

Alex Ostberg [00:59:15]: Mhmm. Absolutely. Yep. Focus on the things that really move the needle. And I I I mean, I look at evidence. I look at science. That's how I was trained. you can obviously psychology, belief those things are all incredibly important. We can talk about that today. But, yeah, invest in your sleep. It will be worth it.

Cory Nagler [00:59:31]: Definitely. The next topic we're going to touch on is pacing. Obviously, this can vary a lot depending on where your race is in the distance, but really wanna look at those generalizable rules to how to nail down your race pacing. So Andy will start with you again. Do you have any thoughts on how runners can optimize their race pace?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:59:49]: Yeah. So I think it's I mean, especially in in practice, I think that it's it's it's really difficult to You know, just focus so much on pace up a race pace because there's so many factors within our training that can, you know, that can impact are pacing, and so when it comes to this is something that I had a coach tell me when I first started marathoning is that you don't choose your race pace, your body chooses your race pace. So as much as we can say, this is my goal pace, this is what I'm gonna do and try to train for it, kinda have to let our body tell us what is optimal. And so in training, that can be very hard because we kind of it's hard to just go out and say, like, run ten miles in your marathon pace. Well, what is that? How do I know what that feels like? Because in training, we're always gonna be more fatigued than we are on race day. That's what the tapers are for. So in training, marathon pace will feel a lot harder, but being able to get into a sense of knowing exactly what you should be feeling like in training for different paces is going to help us to get a better sense of what we can be ready for on race day. And so when it comes to the to the when you're trying to pick if you're trying to pick your race pace, you know, looking at, you know, how are your tempo workouts going? And when you're doing your tempo workouts, are you feeling like this is for the marathon. If you feel like you are kinda getting to the end of those, like you are dead and you are dying, more than likely we're probably dipping into a little bit more threshold, maybe even VO 2 if because that could mean that we're going too fast, and that's not actually giving us the benefits for the long distance. as much as we would think. So when you're pacing in workouts, when you're doing tempos or marathon specific paste stuff, really invest your time into what the effort feels like because that's gonna have us a give us a better sense of, okay, does this seem realistic for a marathon distance. And like I said, it's not necessarily gonna feel like it's easy in training. You're gonna sit and you're not gonna get to the end and be like, Yeah. That was pretty that was hard, but I could maybe do, like, maybe one more mile and I'd be done, and that's kinda where we're we're we're falling with a lot of these tempo efforts where we want them to be somewhat more on this controlled effort scale. And so I always think I always think about things in a perceived effort reign kind of scale. So know, anything that's supposed to be easy being in, like, the 1 to 3 range and not trying to go over that in any way. And then something that's more moderate, we're looking at, like, that 4 to 5, maybe 6 range, so something that's supposed to be, like, a steady run. that should feel when you're looking at that that that effort scale. It should be somewhere in there. And then if you're doing something that's more like marathon tempo effort, We're looking closer to that 6 to 7. And then, you know, more of those threshold speed workouts, those can get into the 8 to 9. and then we never trying to hit 10 necessarily in practice. Maybe occasionally, we're kinda going we're kinda pushing the limits a little bit just to kinda just feel that out. That's mostly more we're mostly seeing that more in shorter distance training, but most of the time we shouldn't be hitting 10 often in training because that's really reserved for races in my opinion. And so I think when you can utilize that scale and then go out and send out to you to your workouts thinking, I wanna feel like the end of this that I am in about that 7 to 8 range for my tempo marathon pace efforts, you can say that at the end of it. You're probably in a good space and then you can look at that pace and say, hey. Like, this seems like it's gonna be reasonable for me to target for my marathon. And then as you get closer to the race, it could change. You could get fitter. All this stuff can come together, but I also recommend, like, having a a range of kind of some of idea of what you wanna race and what you wanna pace at. because it's it's far better to also when we're pacing in a especially in a longer event to start slower and get faster. That's actually true all the way through the the mile distance. So the only race that's somewhat of a distance race that you don't do that in is the 800. Most of those athletes are just going out hard and hanging on, but every other race, it's there's there's science behind that to show that most of those races, the p the fastest times in the world are run as negative splits, most of the time. And so if you can pace in a way where you're giving yourself kind of a stepping stone of starting a little bit slower, getting a little bit faster, and then just trying to run as hard as you can in that second half of the race. That's gonna be the most ideal scenario. The other side of this and and because we're getting into the summer months, when we are pacing ourselves in training, recognize that heat's going to affect you no matter what, every level of athlete is affected by the heat. Doesn't matter who they are, how fast they are, their background, whether they're a pro, it doesn't matter in any regard. They're going to be affected by the heat. They're gonna have to slow down in some regard. And so recognizing that and actually having a pace range that you're kinda targeting when it's warm is gonna be better for us than just trying to continue to hit the same pieces we've hit when it's 30, 40, 50 degrees, and and no humidity, we have to kinda have our give ourselves some sort of leeway room there. And when it's warm, you know, be more conservative starting out, let yourself progress. That keeps us from getting into that that our body temperature getting too high for us to be able to recover from. And so these are just things that we wanna be mindful of. We've got a temperature calculator that I send almost every one of my athletes to, you know, use this just in case you need to, like, use this and it gives you kind of an idea of what you could we will kinda might be around in different weather conditions. So, you know, utilize all those things, but mostly really focus on the effort and then and use the effort to correlate to a pace as opposed to running a pace and then kinda overdoing it in a sense. So kind of it's a balance with pacing. So that's those are my general kind of that's my general guidance on pacing, but I know that makes it difficult to really know. What is my race pace? And I think that's actually something where having a coach is super valuable because they can help really break that down for you. Perfect. And when you're working with your clients, I noticed you using a lot of PACE range, but then also your tempo effort or VO2 effort Are you typically recommending a pace range, a specific effort level, or both? I most of the time, we'll give them, like, a range. I will say kinda somewhere in between here. I think most runners tend to to try to shoot for the fast end of that range, and most of the time, they'll they'll be thinking start there, and then they'll slow down. I would rather than start slower and get faster. So most of the time I say, you know, this is your range. Maybe start towards the the slower end of this range and get faster, but, you know, do do things I feel if you need to. If you're not if you have an off day, don't force the pace. If you go into a run and you're like, warming up and you do like, I don't feel great, back off. Give yourself a little bit more buffer. that's gonna be you're you're far better off doing the workout slower but being able to finish than trying to nail the pace and having to call it or modify it and change it completely or drastically, that's you're not gonna get the same benefit because, again, we're working a different system. If we're going out and it's too hard, and we're not able to sustain it. So yeah.

Cory Nagler [01:06:58]: Great. And I think that really does apply to all races, as you said, whether that's eight hundred meters on the track all the way up to the marathon or beyond. Alex, do you have any more thoughts on the pacing piece?

Alex Ostberg [01:07:07]: Yeah. Sure. I'll just give a quick story. I think a common common story behind that Andy and I probably both encounter all the time in working with athletes is that a lot of times they'll come to us with a goal pace right up front and they say, okay. I wanna beat I wanna boss a qualifier in 4 months. I've got this marathon already preselected. And I'm like, great. Problem is you can work backwards from a race. You can say, okay, I wanna be in this kind of fitness then, but that's you have to start with where you are. You can't force your body to adapt. You can't force adaptation. Right? So, like, we always subscribe to the philosophy as coaches here is that you have to start with where you are today and work forward from your current fitness rather than working backwards from our goal, which is essentially an arbitrary endpoint. You know what's not arbitrary is where you are right now, and that's a much safer and much more sustainable way to start. other thing I'll say too is that you don't want to show up to a race day hoping for a miracle like there's that's that's what a pretty certain way to just get super anxious and just completely risk blowing up. Right? I derive a lot of confidence So I I will I will definitely agree with Andy on this one. I think your body on the day will choose the race pace, but I also drive a lot of confidence from the sessions that I do prior. and that will give me a range of outcomes that I can strive for. I'll say, okay. If if everything goes perfectly and knock it out of the park, you know, maybe I can hit this pace for the 5 k. And I'm I'm within like, I probably have, like, a 5 to 10 second margin for error there, and I'm like, okay. I think I can achieve that. But, yeah, trying to hope for Americold without supported evidence. I mean that's that's pretty delusional. That's insanity. Right? And you don't rise to the level of your expectations. You fall to the level of your training. that's why the training is so important. Right? That's why making those decisions that are difficult in training and and, you know, We can talk about this a little bit more when we talk about the psychology, but who you are on your bad days and the decisions that you make on your bad days really is going to dictate the outcome of you are on race day because you're gonna have to make hard decisions on race day. By definition, it's gonna hurt no matter how fit you are, it's going to be difficult. And you don't train such that the races are easy. You train such that you're prepared for the challenges on race day.

Cory Nagler [01:09:14]: I think that's such a great piece, especially that one about how you know it's gonna hurt whatever the conditions, whether it's warm or cool or windy or clear. It's gonna affect your pace, but at the end of the day, if you're working as hard as you can, it's gonna hurt. Right. Exactly. And you kinda transitioned us well into our next topic, which is one that may be a little overlooked by a lot of runners, and that's the psychology piece. But it really does have the potential to have a big impact on your performance. Alex, since you alluded to it, did you maybe wanna touch a little more on how winners can use psychology to boost their performance?

Alex Ostberg [01:09:46]: Sure. I have a list of different mindsets that I think are really important for runners to embrace kind of throughout the training cycle. and I'll just kind of run run down the list and elaborate them as as I go. I think a big one is and and you'll notice that these are kind of like philosophies that also kind of have some strategic and tactical advice in them as well. One of the big ones is you don't wanna leave your races in training. Andy mentioned that. I'll just try and set this as it. Don't leave your races in training. You want to train to gain fitness not to prove fitness. and that's a very important distinction in my opinion. Related to that, you have to and I just said this a few minutes ago, you have to start with where you're at. Not where you want to be, not where you once were, not where your best friend is. You have to start with where you're at today. Right? Because accept and accepting where you're at today is the first step in progress. Right? And then having some, you know, starting where you're with where you're not prepared to start is one of the fastest ways to get injured to get hurt to get burnt out. The other thing I just mentioned a few minutes ago is that I really firmly believe that your your bad days define you more than your good ones do. Anyone and do it and and, like, compete when they feel great. The bad ones are the only ones that separate you from the pack. Right? Like, the bad ones are the ones that define greatness or else, you know, there's there's no margin between you and the average person otherwise. Right? So I I try to remind myself, you know, make those difficult choices in training such that it becomes the default choice on race day. You know, of course, there are points and times where you should stop. If you're feeling worsening pain Right? If you're sick and you're trying to stubbornly press through training, you should stop. You should quit. You should take a step back. But I'm talking about more like managing the idea of of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, such an important skill. And essentially, that's all racing is. It's it's how high can you push your tolerance for discomfort. I'll mention this one again just because I think it's it's so incredibly important. Embrace a long enough time horizon, right, we we over estimate what we can do in 1 week and underestimate what we can do in a year. And if you do that, you'll let those those three things I talked about in the beginning. You'll let sustainability patients consistency do their magic. You'll let compounding do its magic. The last two things I'll say or there's one other one before I wanna go into my final two points which is that the belief and the buy in you have with your training is incredibly important. I'd love this is an impossible experiment to run but I would love to randomize 2 people and like groups of people into 2 conditions. 1, where you take, like, every physiological marker known to man and you test or lactate threshold vo2 max and try and come up with a perfect training program But they let's but if we could randomize them to then not believe in it and to be constantly be questioning it and to be tearing down the coaches' ideas You take that and then you compare it to someone who gets a pretty average stock training program, but they fully believe in it. They buy into it. They're like, yes. This is exactly what I need. I am convinced that the average training program would take you further if you believe in it than the perfect training program if you don't believe in it. So, again, that that goes back to a topic that I find very interesting, which is, you know, harnessing the power of belief effects, placebos, all of those things. Though the most, like, actionable advice that I'll give here is find yourself a good coach and find yourself a good training partner. I think those two things alone are worth their weight in gold. A coach gives you that trust a coach that you trust gives you that buy in. I think if you if you like the coach you're working with and you believe in what they're doing, you automatically buy into the program more. if you're doing it yourself and constantly questioning, oh, is this the right thing to do? Is this the wrong thing to do? And then a training partner gives you automatic accountability. that's how you don't miss twice. Right? That's how you don't let a mistake become a new habit. It's someone who gets you out the door and It just I mean, it helps you. I mean, you can do more work with a training partner. You can run harder with a training partner. And I know people unless you're in, like, the remote region in South Alaska, bet you you can find someone in your in your community or close by who's willing to at least do a couple long runs with you in a training cycle. And I think it it really would be super impactful.

Cory Nagler [01:14:01]: Great. Yeah. I think that definitely makes a big impact on performance if you can have those variables that keep you accountable, whether it's your own thought process or others to run with. You touched a lot on those group run pieces. Is that something that helped you throughout your time either at Stanford or UNC Chapel Hill? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I very strongly believe that

Alex Ostberg [01:14:21]: you become the average of the five people that you most associate yourself with. And it's like, you know, tell me your friends and I'll tell you where you're going in life. The reality is that, like, it's very hard to fight your environment with willpower alone for long periods of time. But if you surround yourself with like minded people where your goal behavior is already the normal behavior, you don't have to swim upstream. Right? It like, your environment will help you do the work for you. So be very intentional with the people you surround yourself with with the environment that you create for yourself most successful people that I know, like, and very like, they engineer their environment such that they don't need to rely on heroic willpower to make those those decisions. They're already the default choice.

Andie Cozzarelli [01:15:01]: Fantastic. Andy, any other thoughts on the psychology piece? Yeah. I think he did a great job covering pretty much all of that from the, like, psychology and how it impacts us. And then so I'll just kinda share some of the the tactics that I've utilized in within racing because I think that So if it's also the psychology of of of race day and how we manage the emotions of race day because, you know, I think in a 5 k, one of the biggest things is that racing a 5 k more than once in a season. So if you've gotta go 5 k, do a couple of them. The biggest thing with shorter distance races is that it's a pain that you're gonna be feeling from start to finish, and racing them a couple times can actually help us to find out where we're lacking and help us to get past that. So when I was training in college, a big thing that I used to think about in training was breaking through the barrier. So there's a barrier that our brain has set for us that is essentially where it's our pain threshold that our that our brain thinks that that we have. But when you're able to kind of challenge that, we actually have an ability to sustain pain beyond that that threshold that our brain is trying to keep us from reaching. And so because our brain strain to protect our body, and there's actually we have more to give if we can kind of, you know, find ways to kind of push that limit a little bit and see what else we can do and get out of ourselves. and sometimes just practicing putting ourselves in those positions. So shorter distance races, it doesn't hurt to kind of race often to get practice at that. You'll often see in shorter distance races. You may be race you may race 35 k's around the exact same time every time, and then you will get out there. And on the 4 one, all of a sudden, you have this breakthrough and you drop, you know, whatever amount of time. That's where we see a lot of those big breakthroughs is is recognizing that you you can push a little bit more than what your body's trying that your brain is trying to tell you. Your body's got more capabilities. We can do this. And so that's something that I would always suggest in a 5 k is racing often, doing some more especially if you're not a you haven't run a lot of 5 case. And then on the other side of the coin is the marathon. We can't reach marathons often, So we have to kinda utilize different tricks, and I try to use some of my longer workouts and different workouts within my training block to help me start visualizing and putting myself in the space that I'm going to be in on race day. So some of my workouts towards the end, I start visualizing where that pain, where I'm what I'm feeling, I start visualizing myself being in the race and being in those final miles that hurt like that. And that helps me to be able to recognize that I can get through that, and I will be fine. and that I'm capable of it, I just have to stay focused and stay engaged on it. And so utilizing times and practice to help remind yourself, you can recall those on race day. when you're running to kind of put yourself back in that place that you were in training that'll help you to recognize that you are capable. So I think that's something that's really valuable And then there's just so many different little mental tricks you can use. I'm big fan of having mantras and things like that, so something that you can repeat to yourself. when it gets tough. One that I've used in the past was stay stay in it. So when I was first coming back to training after some time off, You know, I was I was having to relearn how to push in workouts. Just having to relearn what that felt like. And so there times where I wanted to stop or I wanted to give in to the some of the pain. And that that actually helped me to just be remind myself to not only just stay in where where where I was, so be present, but also just stay in it. Like, keep going. You can. You're fine. Everything's fine. And I would ignore my watch. So in times when I Feel like I'm starting to kinda either fall off pace or I'm getting tired, I actually like to not pay attention to what my pace is so that I have no perception of what I'm actually doing, and I can just fully engage on what my body's capable of. And so not let any outside influences impact how I'm feeling about what I'm doing. So that's something I'll utilize, and then other things that people commonly will use is you know, having many finish lines along the course, so just get to that stop sign. Just get through this mile and focusing on little chunks of time in each little segment, and that really helps us to break things down because I think the worst thing you can do in longer distance races is get to a point where you're like, I'm at mile 16, for instance, and I still have 10 more miles to go. That actually can be a negative influence on us, so we really wanna ensure that we have ways to not think about how much we have left and just focus on where we are and just get ourselves through those little periods because the marathon can have some ups and downs and you have to be able to really work through and manage those emotions and have things at your disposal that you can kind of throw out there in order for you to help get through those periods because you know, there's just so much stuff that can happen within a marathon, and we kinda have to be primed ahead of time to to recognize how we're gonna we're gonna deal with that. And then the other thing is visualization and I touched on that how you would do it in workouts, but you can also utilize it outside of training. And so one thing that I talked about meditation visualizing within a meditation practice can actually be a really good way for you to not only it like, for Lyle who have trouble with meditation in general because they say don't think about anything. Like, I actually can't do that. I don't know how anybody does that. But if you can do things visualization can help us to focus on something while also kinda giving us this ability to kind of put ourselves in the moment and and kind of almost relax in a sense on just kind of visualizing it going well, visualizing kinda how you're gonna adapt, how you're gonna handle whatever throws thrown at you, and that can actually also help us just kind of being a little bit about a relaxed and more ready to go state. So that's something that you can utilize outside of training. And my soccer coach actually used to do this in college because he was a psychology teacher before every soccer game when we were in the playoffs. you made us lay down on the field. We've highly looked crazy and just lay still for 10 minutes just doing a visualization practice. And it probably looked it probably did look wild, but I feel like it it really helped helped us kinda stay in it and and re plays a team and all that kind of stuff. So

Cory Nagler [01:20:56]: I love that. Whatever it takes to really take your performance to the next level. Yep. A 100%. Mhmm. You you talked a lot about kind of as in the middle of the race counting down those miles, and it can be really tempting to do that. But you do wanna be aware of where you are in the race. I guess, do you have any tips to maybe reframe

Andie Cozzarelli [01:21:14]: that focus on where you are? Yeah. This actually, this race that I was at this past weekend I noticed I was starting to feel tired pretty quickly, pretty early on. And so for me, it was kind of like, let me shift and start thinking about, okay, maybe if the the number one goal is not in in my reach today, what other things can I utilize to help me you know, stay focused in this moment. And one thing that my therapist had actually walked through me with was, you know, having secondary or process goals best time goals because those can be just as valuable. And so, you know, having things like I'm gonna do really good job with my nutrition, or I'm just gonna try to finish the race as hard as I can, or things like that can just help us to stay engaged on stuff, whether or not it's going well or not. And then the other thing is is just, like, if you wanna know where you are within a race because that way you don't go out too fast or do do crazy things. But if we don't wanna be fixating on it, ICS is more of the thing to say. Like, we wanna know what we because your body is is good at recognizing what it needs to do over a period of time, but it we do have to be able to to separate ourselves from it from, you know, being able to have that. Like, I've got 10 more miles, but I'm focused on just let me just get through these next few miles. And and if I can do these next three miles, then let me see if I can do 3 more. And that actually can be a better way, especially if you're struggling early in a race. to stay just stay on it instead of thinking because I think a lot of times people will start to hold themselves back too much if they start to feel those emotions creep up, they'll start to be like, I should just completely back off immediately and just I have too much left. I'm not gonna finish and kind of don't let those negative thoughts kinda come in, and I think I had a therapist one time say always reframe things in a positive way, so don't use the word. Don't. don't have can't, like, don't stop is not a good thing to tell yourself. Say say, flipping that in some way that has a positive connotation is more valuable and actually works better for for runners than anything negative. And then the other thing is smiling. So, you know, when you're out there, you start to feel like, it's going badly or you're kinda focused on something that's way far in advanced, smile, relax, look at the look at the crowd. Remember what you're doing and what why you're there and all that stuff, and that can help us to to resettle down and kinda calm ourselves and get back in a moment.

Cory Nagler [01:23:45]: That's great advice. And I love the interplay between the pacing and the psychology how it can all work together. Yeah. We've covered a lot of great topics today about how runners can use their limited time to maximize their performance just to summarize, do you maybe each wanna touch on the one piece that you think is the best place to start if a runner really wants to take their race performance to the next level?

Alex Ostberg [01:24:08]: can jump in and take a stab at this. I think if there was there was one thing that I think is has the most evidence behind it and will probably help your performance the most, it it is it it is sleep, probably. I know we talked about that as a recovery tactic. That being said, if you're already sleeping 8 hours, you probably can move your attention elsewhere. I think correcting deficiency is as far more important than furthering a habit that's already pretty good as I mentioned earlier. I would say probably like put your time and energy on sleep. I would say identify like where you think what what we talked about today, if you don't if you think you're deficient in any of those categories, correct those first before piling on more habits that we talked about because I think you get way more out of that. So that would be my approach overall. You can it's so individualized. You can take each one of these topics, pick and choose, see where you're deficient and then work on that. The other thing that I'll say and I think this might be kind of my concluding message is it's that The body doesn't know miles. It knows stress. Training does not happen in isolation. Right? Training happens in the context of your life It happens in the context of your mindset. It happens in the context of the food that you eat. Everything is interconnected. Right? We talked about, like, the food that you that you break down like those carbohydrates, those amino acids from your carbs and protein, those become the building blocks of the fuel and the muscle that you then you build to adapt to training. The same body that sits down for 8 hours while working is the same body where you apply stress through those same structures, those bones and those joints and the same mind that you use to approach your training on an a on an everyday run same mind that you're gonna bring to race day. So remember that everything is interconnected. Each one of these topics really when put together encompass a lifestyle not necessarily a particular trait that is isolated in and of itself. So remember that each one of these things are there's interplay between all of those And, you know, if you if you invest in each one of these categories, even though they may feel very separated, I think it leads it you you synthesize all things into a really powerful result.

Andie Cozzarelli [01:26:07]: Yeah. And I think my final message trial will be that balance is such a huge piece of being able to perform. We need a we need a healthy balance of our training, our sleep, our recovery, our nutrition. We need all of these things to be in a good balance in order for us to be able to perform and that includes enjoying yourself doing all the things. So going back to that eightytwenty rule and being able to apply that to your life, You know, because we're we know that we're not always going to be in the most optimal state for training because there's going to be things that happen. And so if we're able to maximize the 80% that we do have and then, you know, try to minimize the 20% that that that does happen and do our best through those periods. We're going to come out the other side better prepared than if we tried to be 100% all the time because I've heard a quote before that said, you're better off being 90% fit and, like, a 100% ready to go versus being, you know, a 100% fit but potentially have being writing that line of injury. So We're we're better to be under trained or being slightly underprepared than we are being overly prepared and and potentially not being able to execute on race day. So, you know, that's something that I would take with you. Do your best. Listen to your body. You'll you'll recognize that Training is not what you do today. It's about what you've done over the course of your block your training block. So, you know, just because you've had one bad workout doesn't mean defining what you're gonna do on race day. So, you know, take into account everything and and you'll you'll come out the other side better You'll have a better mindset about it, and you'll you'll be enjoying the process a lot more.

Cory Nagler [01:27:43]: I think that's a great way summarize, we've covered a lot of topics ranging from training and nutrition to the psychology piece. But at the end of the day, it's never gonna perfect and kind of accepting that and focusing on those pieces that are gonna really improve performance. So I learned a lot today. I hope everyone listening did as well, Alex, Andy, Thank you so much for chatting with me today.

Andie Cozzarelli [01:28:04]: Thank you. Thanks, Corey.

Finn Melanson [01:28:20]: Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your host, Vin Malanson. As always, our mission here to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on instagram at wasatch Finn in the of our team at Runners Connect, also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast play. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premiere access to contests and giveaways, subscribe to our newsletter. go into runnersconnect.netback/podcast. Till next time, happy trading.