The best workouts to crush your training goals

Finn Melanson [00:00:09]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Fin Malanson, and this is the run to the top podcast. The 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.

Finn Melanson [00:00:37]: Nailing your workouts is key to a successful training block, but it can be hard to know which workouts are most effective for your specific running goals. If you wanna know when and why to run different types of workouts leading up to your next goal race, you'll wanna keep listening. On today's show, our team takes a deep dive on the benefits of some common workouts, including specific examples of how they can fit in your training plan. This way, you'll know exactly what training you need to take your running to the next level. During this conversation, we'll cover workout topics including the most important workout types for runners with specific examples, what unique training benefits you can expect for me to work out, when to schedule different types of runs into your training and everything else you need to get the most out of your workouts. We work hard to progress as runners So let's get into it with advice for getting the most out of these tough workouts. If you're looking for a better energy that contains no sugar and instead uses a revolutionary, slow burning carbohydrate, then you should check out what you can. I'll tell you more about the science later but you can get a free sample pack by going to runners connect dot net forward slash you can. That's u c a n. If you're tired of sweaty, smelly, and stained seats after your runs, then you have to check out the car seat covers made specifically for runners from dry seats. Head to driseats.com to learn more and use code RC 20 to get 20% off your first door Hey,

Cory Nagler [00:02:16]: everyone. I'm your showrunner Corey, and I'm especially excited about today's show because it's all about workouts. The easy recovery runs can be really enjoyable. but there's something about speed days that always gets me hyped. Plus, you're gonna wanna be doing some kind of workouts if you have any time based goals. I have with me today for this discussion, semi pro runner, Andy Casarelli. Welcome.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:02:39]: Thanks for having me.

Cory Nagler [00:02:41]: Thank you for being on the show and so excited to dive into this. Just before we really go into any specific workouts, I'm I'm curious just to start off what pops to mind when you think of workouts or for those runners who are less familiar, how would you define the term?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:02:54]: Yeah. So from from what from what I've learned over the years, I think sometimes this is not it just it feels natural to me now to call a workout, like a harder run, a workout, but generally, it's just gonna be any day that you're doing something at a specific pace, or you've got some interval, some type of work to the run that you're doing. So we've got, I typically refer to my easy days as just going out for an easy run. And then when I have an interval, a tempo run, threshold work, any of those types of things, Bartlix, those are gonna be my workout days. So that's how I've always I've come to, I guess, refer to them as that, but, you know, anytime you're doing something harder, that could even be Sometimes the long run is considered a workout. I call them long run workouts. So, if you have pace to your long run or anything specific within your long run, We can also call those workouts as well.

Cory Nagler [00:03:45]: Yeah. Just curious on that long run piece. Is it based on pays work specifically, or do you think even just at a certain distance, even if it's easy becomes a workout?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:03:53]: Yeah. I think that the long run can sometimes fall into that category. because at the end, when you do a long run, it's gonna feel tiring at the end no matter how you're doing it, easy, not easy. But for the most part, I try to think about long runs as not always being workouts just from the perspective of We need our long runs to occasionally just be easy paced. even if they feel like they're gonna be a little bit more difficult at the at the end of it, I encourage people to not approach long runs and an effort to make them a workout.

Cory Nagler [00:04:23]: Yeah. That's really great advice. And and we go along with other types of work dive a little bit more into the long run, but just wanted to touch on it quickly first because I think it's an interesting piece, and that typically workouts, as you said, they are kind of that speed pushing yourself, but there's different types of stimuli that can fall into that category. Yep. So we will kinda go into the first one and and we'll go over for listeners a bunch of the workouts that are most beneficial for you with in your training that are gonna help you improve, but also some specific examples of how you can use them and ultimately why we wanna integrate these types of workouts into our training. So just to start off, the first one is VO2max, So, Andy, I'll I'll give you the honors. Do you want to explain a little bit about what you think of when you think of VO 2 max workouts?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:05:06]: So when I think of VO 2 max, workouts. I'm thinking, you know, shorter, quicker intervals where we're working on a specific pace that's gonna be closer to mile to 5 k. somewhere in that range where we're working our VO 2 max. even some of the the short quick sprints and stuff like that can somewhat fall into that category, but you know, generally VO 2 max workouts, there are ones that we can do for the marathon. There's ones that we can do for the 5 k, the mile, 800, They're just gonna vary slightly differently in how they're executed for for the training stimulus that we're hoping to get. So, you know, for, for, say, like, a 5 k, that could be something like 12 by 400 at mild of 3 k pace with 90 to 2 90 seconds to 2 minute rest. Whereas for a marathon effort, you're gonna back that pace off. You could still be doing 400, but you may do a larger quantity and and broken up sets, and then you're gonna do those probably with a quicker recovery pace, but a slower 400 pace. So maybe the 400s are closer to 5 k to 10 k effort. And then the recovery in between is something like, you know, a two hundred meter jog, but we wanna keep that jog maybe up tempo. Maybe one of we wanna do jog at marathon taste. There's some different ways that you can kind of play with the the VO 2 max for the longer events, but, we can we can see them across the board, and they they have a lot of benefits. But, the one thing though that I think that it can get confusing when we talk about VO 2 Max is We have that physiological variable VO 2 max. Like, what is this? Why? And and your watch tells you all about it. but a lot of times with VO 2 max workouts were We're we're not necessarily just looking to improve our VO 2 max for a lot of 12 trained athletes seeing an actual change in their VO

Finn Melanson [00:06:45]: 2

Andie Cozzarelli [00:06:46]: max from doing VO 2 max workouts. is not really what's happening. We actually the benefits of them go go into different in our different ways. It goes more into having you know, getting that fast twitch muscle fiber recruitment, you know, training the body to just learn how to keep that pace for longer There's there's benefits that way, but a lot of times with VO 2 max workouts, we're not necessarily seeing a huge change in our specific VO 2 max. which, you know, if you know anything about VO 2 max, it's really just, you know, it's just looking at how much oxygen you're taking in versus going out, and it's looking at kind of where that levels off a little bit for people. And so, from from that side of things, like, that's that's less important to most of us. It's It's really what we're going for and what we're trying to accomplish with those workouts. Yeah.

Cory Nagler [00:07:33]: And I I think it was very practical. You added in an example there of a VO 2 max I think it was the the 4 hundred meter repeats, if I'm heard correctly. Just in terms of the rest, I know you threw out some numbers in that specific workout, but kind of more generally speaking for these VO 2 map workouts, whether it's drug recovery or walking recovery, are you usually thinking about longer rest and really hammering those those tough sets, or are you wanting to keep it, short and highly aerobic?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:07:59]: Yeah. So for shorter races, looking more in the, you know, 800 to 10 k even, a lot of times when we start to do VO 2 max workouts, we're we're gonna be increasing that rest. So we're looking at a longer rest interval so that we can run at a faster pace and be able to continue to run that faster pace so we need that extra recovery to do so. When it pertains to the marathon, we're trying to build our ability to kind of maintain a fast pace for a long period of time, but also not be fully recovered all the time. So that's where that pace comes down a little bit, and we kind of make the recovery less of a of a standing or walking recovery or we kinda decrease the length of it a little bit because we're actually trying to train a slightly different stimulus. But, yeah, for For short events, especially, you know, we wanna turn we wanna train that body to be able to turn over at that faster pace. We're we're working on our running mechanics. We're working on our running economy. So all of these are things that we need to do, but, you know, if we were to try to run, say, mile pace in for 12 400s, you know, that would be very difficult if we only had a short recovery window. So that longer recovery window makes it a able to hit those paces and get to that speed without kind of completely hitting a wall, you know, right in the beginning. So That's kind of where where that comes from.

Cory Nagler [00:09:14]: Okay. Well, we'll move on to the next type of workout and slowing it down a little from VO 2 max. We're gonna focus on the tempo or threshold. And I know people kind of have very different definitions of tempo, especially. So for you, what do you think this means?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:09:27]: Yeah. So because I separate them a little bit here because we've got tempo. You can do tempo intervals. You can also do threshold intervals. So, tempo, I think, is we want it to be a little bit slower than what your old capacity would be. So oftentimes when I'm giving, tempo workers versus threshold workouts, the threshold workouts are gonna be tend to be a little bit shorter. I'm, you know, maybe one k to to a mile or something like that, working on your threshold. And then, sometimes going a little up from there depending on how much we've built up. But then I always think of tempos as a little bit longer. So, more like couple miles, maybe 3 by 2 mile, 2 by 2 mile, four mile straight tempo, or we're just doing straight through, just holding that consistent effort. but that's gonna be it's gonna be slightly slower than what your threshold capacity probably would be. when we talk about, because I think this is, I don't even know, like, where typically tempo came from. I'm assuming it's just kinda getting into a tempo, but, threshold is referring to just where your you start to have that, the the lactic acid building up in the muscles. And so we what we're doing when we're training the lactate threshold is trying to train the body to better clear that lactate, and we're also trying to train the body to, that to kinda increase that level at which that start to happen. So we're building it up. We, we want to delay the, buildup of, say, hydrogen ions and byproducts of running fast. We wanna delay that as much as we possibly can so that we can continue to, you know, run at that pace for longer without getting so much lactic acid built up in the muscles that we start to fatigue and fall off. So one thing that I find, especially with people who run races too early in the season if they go out too hard, they have a lot harder time training their body to recover because they haven't done a lot of of of working on training the body to clear lactate. So, that's kind of what that threshold step that those threshold workouts do is they really help us to build that up. They help us to do a lot of really important things. And same with tempos, and, tempos, I think, also help us to just, you know, increase our endurance and our aerobic needs and all that stuff at that faster pace and and train us to be able to you know, it can hold that for longer. And so a lot of times you'll see in a training program that the tempo length may increase as you get farther and farther into a block. you know, I I also really like to do down tempos. that's something that I I feel super comfortable for me, and I I like kind of racing that way. So it's something I'll throw into some of the athletes I work with schedules just because I, you know, it's sometimes nice to kinda have, like, a goal pace and then you below and above and below it, and you're still kind of not you're not pressing the button too hard. You're not you're not changing the workout too much. by, you know, maybe the last mile being a little bit faster. And so that's why I like that because you're averaging out a little bit more of kind of where we want it to be. And I think it also helps you know, train that body to be able to, you know, you know, push that lactate down a little bit more. So

Finn Melanson [00:12:27]: --

Cory Nagler [00:12:28]: For sure. Yeah. It was fine for me personally in a race, even at the end, if you're holding that same just to feel that little bit harder. So the more you can simulate that. one thing I think is super fascinating about these threshold workouts is that I think they're applicable for just about in any distance, you know, be it eight hundred meters all the way up to the marathon and yet your threshold pace is the same unlike something like a a VO 2 match kind of going the same pace either way if you're trying to hit that. So how might that, work out look a little bit different for, say, shorter distance athlete versus longer. And then I also wanna get your thoughts on kind of whether a threshold tempo workouts you recommend they be continuous or broken up because I know traditionally I hear a lot of 20 minute, 30 minute, straight tempos, but I I find myself often doing a lot of, broken ones as you as you suggested where it's kind of specific reps. Sorry. that wraps with, rest built in.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:13:20]: Yeah. Yeah. I'd I'd say with especially with tempos, I'll start out with them being a little bit, but I always start out with them broke them up broken up a little bit. one of the workouts we used to do at NC State, the beginning of the year, one of the early workouts we used to always do was, like, something like 8 to 10 by 1 k with short rest. So just a minute rest. And we would kinda get faster a little bit through them, but, that minute rest allowed us to kind of work that threshold pace, but not be trying to run that a a consistent effort when we're just getting into training that element again. And so I felt like that was a nice workout kinda just, like, get us down feeling what that pace feels like. It's gonna be a little bit faster than what you would. If we had done, like, a five mile tempo, which would have felt like a lot pretty early on in a season, that trying to do that, like, we would be doing that at a much slower pace. So, so this just kinda helps you to kinda start feeling out those this little bit of those faster pace but you get that rest built in, and then we can continue to kind of increase. Maybe that that that distance that we're running, when you know, go up to mile, go up to a 2 k, do stuff like that kind of play with, how you're doing it, how you're approaching it. but then, yeah, when you're training for some of the shorter races too, we do wanna be able to train our body to be able to go for longer before we hit that. So, like, in a 5 k for instance, like, like I mentioned, if you out too hard, will hit that threshold capacity pretty early and that lactic acid builds up in the legs too quickly, and we're not able to clear that. And when you're running fast, Like, we know we're building up that lactic acid so quickly because we're we're trying to run hard. and but the goal is that we delay that really to really kinda kick the legs into that last little tiny bit of the race. Like, if you're watching a 5 k, that'll be any of the pros run a 5 k, You start to see the legs kinda starting to tie up towards the end, in some of the athletes, and it's it's probably that lactic acid that's kinda just making it super hard at that point to just move move the legs in the capacity that they want to and that those hydrogen ions are just kind of like flooding the legs and it makes it, and they can't clear it because their bodies kind of gotten to the point of exhaustion. but we want that to be happening there right at the end. If that happens too early, then, you know, we're gonna we're gonna kinda start to bottom out way too soon. You're gonna feel like your legs turn to bricks and they just don't wanna move. And so when we when we train it for the shorter distances, you know, one of the things I do with some of my clients is we'll do, maybe like an 800 or something like that at threshold, and then I'll have them try to do 200 a little bit faster. So It's a one k repeat, but then we could do something where it's, like, 800 at threshold or tempo and then a 200. We're trying to pick up that pace and change gears and shift. So it kind of trains the body to also use some of that, you know, what what you've done to kind of try to try to extend that threshold out a little bit further try to train the body to be able to switch muscle fibers, that kind of stuff. And then other things that though you can do are are training your body to clear the lactate. So workouts where you start faster and then you slow down on the on the second half. So very we wanna do it very timed, like, precisely. So We're not saying that you go out and you do say, I don't know, 2 by 3 mile and you go really hard the first mile and then you just positive split all the way through it. It's a very specific, like, we go out kind of right at that lactate line or maybe a little bit faster and we're trying to build the lactic acid up in the legs. and then we use that last mile. We slow it down to a specific pace and train our body to utilize that built up lactate for energy to help us continue. So that's something that you can also do, and we can you can send me like that for shorter distances as well. you could do one and a half mile repeats stuff like that.

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Cory Nagler [00:18:37]: the next topic, I have, in front of me in my notes is the long run, and we did kind of touch on this a little bit. And I know long runs may be a little bit more self planatory than some of the others, but maybe let's get into kind of why do we do this and and maybe what what are the different types of long runs look like? because I know it's not always as simple as just going out and running at a consistent pace.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:18:58]: Yeah. And I would say too, like, when you're doing when you're training for some of your shorter distance races, the long run doesn't need to be super long. We don't we don't want to a lot of times when you're running, you know, say a 5 k training block or a 10 something shorter we the intensity tends to be a little bit higher. And so we don't necessarily need to be doing eighteen mile, like these super, super long, long runs, you'll see some pros that do stuff like that, but for the most part, like, we want to keep a balance in the intensity and the mileage because intensity as we increase it, is where we start to see an increase in injuries. And so, we want to make sure we have enough freshness in the legs that we're not, you know, you break forms not breaking down too much. while we're doing these higher intensity workouts. So, you know, the long run may be on the shorter side when we're training for shorter races, same with the mileage in general. but, you know, we're actually also seeing less long run workouts. So we're not doing as many efforts within the long run. Most of the workouts are gonna be more of your speed interval sessions during the week, and the long run is more for your aerobic capacity because, you know, we are working our, like, our system even in the mile and and and all the way up. So it just keeps getting more and more. I think it's something around, like, 80% of, I think we have

Finn Melanson [00:20:15]: 5

Andie Cozzarelli [00:20:15]: k. I can't remember exactly what the numbers are specifically, but it's somewhere around there where we're still working our aerobic systems in the 5 k at a pretty high level. And so that we still need to have those long runs. We still need to have those in there for, yeah, for for the aerobic capacity. And then I like to think of it as also that time on feet, which I mentioned, is really good for just building up your muscles and tendons and ligaments and bones even because that that that pounding, as long as we're making it nice and easy, is actually helping to, you know, allow the body to recover some. It's training the body to, you know, build some strength around those muscles and bones so that they can get stronger, over time, and that easy running prevents it from being too much of a drastic you know, stress on the body, but it it's just enough that the body says, hey. I need to use this. So, you know, I just ran for a long time. I need to be stronger so I can -- continue to do this better in the future in case this stress is put on me. So it's a minimal enough stress to that it's not causing us additional issues, but it's it's a good type of it's enough stress that it trains the body to want to be more resilient in all the areas of our body. And then So then that's that kind of covers a little bit more of those, the shorter races, but, you know, as we go up to, you know, some of these longer races, half marathon, marathon, We we build some of the pace work into the long run because we wanna make sure that we can train the body to run at pace when retired. So we'll do things like, you know, fast finish long run where you run all these miles and, yeah, you're tired even though most of those miles were easy. And now we have to train that body to shift gears and run faster on those already fatigued legs, which is essentially the the marathon and the half marathon in a nutshell. You know, for me, it's that last five k where of a half marathon where I'm like, alright. I gotta you're gonna be tired no matter what. You gotta be able to train the body. Just keep pushing and keep moving forward and not wanna slow down. same thing with marathon is typically that last 10 k. We have that's the part where this all this comes forward and kinda comes comes in to help us. So we'll do things like that. You'll also, you know, do surges and things like that just to train the body to shift gears a little bit because when we're long running, we can also get really into a repetitive movement pattern, which oftentimes causes us to start using different muscle groups subconsciously. So we might our form might like to change, or we are moving in a in an inefficient way and we don't realize it because we've been doing it for so long or because, you know, we've been running so long that something hap some some conscious thing happens and we start to shift. And so throwing in surges and things like that can actually help us to remind ourselves how to move more efficiently, more optimally, and within our long run so we don't get stuck kind of moving in that way. It really helps to just, you know, move the body, get the knees up, invigorate some different muscle fibers a little bit. So we're also we're training to recruit a little bit. but yeah. So then and then, of course, I think one thing that I've heard from athletes is this feeling that every log run needs to be at marathon pace or that needs to have some marathon pace to it or that we, you know, the long run is seen as a workout by so many people and they So they feel the need to push those a little bit harder or do x during it, but really there's there's a time and a place for those workouts. And if you're on a training program, you know, follow what it says. do those easy runs easy when it says to do them easy because, you know, like I said, we're getting some of those benefits still from just being out there for that time and putting the time on our on feet and practicing all that stuff, we don't always need to work when we're doing something. There's so many benefits from, you know, just just putting in the time. everything doesn't have to feel super hard, which was something I had to learn as I as I grew up in running that everything does not have to be hard to be beneficial. And so the long run can sometimes fall into that category, you know, go if you have trouble slowing down on your long runs, find a group of friends you can run with and just chat the entire time. that's gonna help you to kind of look, get it'll go by faster. It'll be more fun, but we also won't end up just overdoing it when when we don't need to because know, if you've already gotten 2 harder efforts in the week, say, and and then you do another long run and you try to push that one a little too hard, your body's gonna be, is gonna be feeling it. So, yeah, it's definitely good to kind of have that balance, follow what what your plan to do, and don't feel like that long run always has to be, you know, hard or fast or, your body will surprise you, especially in those longer distance races. you may go out for a long run and be like, how in the world am I gonna min run a minute, 2 minutes faster in my marathon? If this feels hard running this long run at an easy pace, but you know, all the training you're doing and all the workouts you're putting in, they all come together. And then with the taper, It all it all works itself out. You have all these things that you don't get in training that you get on race day that really help it to to really come to fruition. And so That was something I learned when I ran my first marathon. I think the longest run I did at marathon pace was twelve miles, and that felt so hard. I was like, no way. No way I can hold this for a full 26. Like, I have to do double what I just did, but you just kinda have to have some trust and some faith in in what you're doing that at all. shape up the way it's supposed to.

Cory Nagler [00:25:36]: Yeah. No. And I think it's good context that all of this is the pieces fitting together. There's no one type of workout that's gonna instantly give you the perfect race day performance. Just wanna make this long run piece really practical for listeners, especially because there's so many different types of long runs. just touching on two pieces both kind of length and then kind of any structure or speed, I guess. For one on the distance piece, how should runners go about deciding how long those need to be? I guess, maybe in relation to their weekly mileage and or the goal race that they're working towards. And then in terms of pace work, you touched on a couple forms of long runs. I think that's finished some marathon pace work. Can you maybe give an example of of what that speed might look like if you're not just going out and running at a consistent pace?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:26:21]: Yeah. So, at least on the perspective of building up the long runs, Right? So if you're getting started, even if you're running, say, like, a

Finn Melanson [00:26:28]: 5

Andie Cozzarelli [00:26:28]: k or something like that or 10 k, 5 k at least I want runners that I'm working with at least have gotten, like, an 8 to 10 mile long run-in there. I think that tends to be enough for us, but I I still think it's important that you get at least 8 miles for the 5 k, 10 k, I like the the 10 miles because it gives us a little bit more space and more room there. when when we're when we're building up the long run, though, it's important to not try to make too many big jumps in in mileage. So I don't like to go any more than, say, two miles more than the week before. So, sometimes I'll I'll if depending on where their mileage sits, sometimes or where they are in their training progression. So have they been running a long time, or are they a little bit newer? That's how we'll decide a little bit more on do we need to step the mileage up slowly? Like, do we keep the long run at the same distance for 2 weeks in a row and then go up a mile or go up two miles, whatever that kinda needs to look like? But I I don't I try not to have any aggressive increases in long run, so more than two miles from the week before from what we've done before. So I kind of I stick to that with a lot of the clients that I work with is is not, you know, I don't wanna add all of a sudden four miles on to a long run when they are, you know, maybe they're running 10 miles on the 7 14. That's gonna feel like a leap. And, I don't I can I sometimes think that's gonna be this could be injury that could be causing injury. So I try not to do that. It you may get away with it. It's fine. Sometimes you may be fine doing that, but I air on the side of caution on that do not grow the long run too quickly. but then in terms of what the pace should be on the long runs, You know, I think that's hard because it it varies person to person a little bit. So, one thing that I've learned is that, like, say somebody who's So we all have different muscle fiber configurations and types. And so one thing I've learned is that, you know, some of the people who are really, really, really good marathoners, or they're they're more predisposed to the marathon distance because, they have a higher combination or higher composition of slow twitch fibers they actually probably will end up running a little bit faster on their easy days, and that comes down to the fact that, like, when they go do a workout, They'll fatigue their some of their slow twitch fibers, but when the next day going into their easy run, they still have this larger base of muscles to pull from in order to continue to run at a slightly faster pace, whereas somebody who's maybe more fast rich oriented and has a lot more fast switch intermediate fibers. When they do a workout that's working their slow twitch or anything like that, they're gonna go to their recovery day and have a lot less fibers to pull from to go easy with. Right? So if they've got a tiny composition of slow twitch and they've fatigued those the day before, then they need to take it super, super easy on their easy days or the longer days or whatever it is to ensure that they are you know, properly recovering and and all that stuff. So that's one caveat to it, but then, you know, generally from from what I do, so I think I probably fall somewhere in the middle. I'm not necessarily super slow twitch. and I so I tend to run my easy runs much slower. So my marathon goal pace was

Finn Melanson [00:29:37]: 555

Andie Cozzarelli [00:29:38]: ish 58, this past year. And but I run a lot of my easy runs closer to

Finn Melanson [00:29:43]: 8.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:29:44]: Minutes 7:40, 7:30 to 8 minutes is typically where my range is for my easy runs, sometimes even slower than that. So that, I think, can be a good way to look at it. that's gonna change based on volume as well. So higher volume, you may find your easy runs are slower. lower volume and your legs are a little bit fresher. You may find that your easy runs are a little bit faster. So some of these, there's so many different variables that kind of play into how much slower. One person is gonna be compared to their marathon pace on their easy days and where that falls. So I'm big on, you know, figuring out where help, like, running comfortably not worrying so much about pace, when you run your easy runs aim to be able to just take it nice and slow. You'll have people you can run with so that you can do the tests. That's one of the things that, that's recommended out there if you're trying to learn what those efforts feel like is to be able to talk and have complete sentences and have conversations while running. That's a good way to gauge what is my easy pace and am I truly running easy? If I can't have an easy conversation, then I then I probably need to slow down a little bit. So I do find on my easy days when I run by myself, I tend to be faster than when I run with people because of the talking, makes it a little bit more makes it a little bit harder And so then I'm just kinda going with the flow and just kind of enjoying the run itself. So, if that helps you, do something like that, see where your pace is falling, and then just go with it. And then on your easy days, try not to to look at it. Don't check your watch. Just run until it tells you to stop and then you know, then you'll you'll know kind of generally where you're falling without forcing anything or paying attention to it too much. so that's kind of what I would say for pacing on those. but, yeah, is that oh, I didn't cover really. So for the marathon, I didn't cover the distance to go for that. So for the marathon, we'll we say we it kind of varies. So one of the things that we've found, through the research or renters connect is that Once you get over around, like, a 3 hour, 3 hour 15 minute long run, the aerobic benefits start to diminish So, you know, depending upon how long it's taking to do these long runs, some of our athletes, we kind of stick closer to a sixteen mile max long run, but we pair that with a steady run, and that helps us to build the strength for the distance. So a steady run is gonna be something like a 1 mile warm up, maybe 4 to 5 miles at a a steady effort and then a one mile easy at the end. And the steady effort is kind of maybe close to marathon pace or a little bit short of that, so a little bit slower. We pair those 2 together so that, they can build the strength without having to do these ultra, ultra long long runs that, you know, when when the research shows that there's not a whole lot of extra benefit from being out there for 4 or 5 hours, or time on feet, we we kinda try to balance that. I I find with a lot of runners that there's a little bit of a piece of confidence that comes into play there. So for some runners. It's like, no, I wanna at least hit, you know, 18, miles just for comfort. And so that I'll I'll adjust for that if we need to. but there's ways to work around it if that long run distance is something that's limiting a little bit. we don't need necessarily to do these crazy, crazy long, long runs. you know, for some other athletes, you know, someone who's running closer to a 3 hour or something like that, We'll wanna make sure we're getting some we're gonna get more distance in because we don't hit that 3 hour mark until, you know, farther in. We we can get more miles under us. So generally, with runners connect athletes, we go up to about 22 with some of our clients. Sometimes it's just a 20. It varies for the clients I work with too. Yeah. Most of them, I'm taking them to 20, and some of them up to

Finn Melanson [00:33:31]: 22.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:33:32]: but oftentimes, that's as much as you need for the marathon, for the half marathon. I my comfort level is to get people to at least 13 to 14. If you're newer to the 13 to 15, really, if you're newer to it and this is your first time running a half, at least getting to that 10 mile mark in training is is essential in my book. if you can get to at least 12, that's even better. Like, if you're if you can cap it off and you get 1 long run at 12, that'll be even better. But for the most part, if we can get to that 10 to 12 area, we'll be just fine, completing completing the race and and accomplishing the goal there. So Those would be my guide that'll be my guidance for those longer distance races. So yeah.

Cory Nagler [00:34:17]: cool. So I think, really, those are the bread and butter workouts for a lot of training is kind of that that fast stuff. You hit your tempo threshold, and then you get those long runs I do know there's some other workouts you can sprinkle in that that are gonna kinda, you know, mix things up and touch on different systems. you don't wanna give them the same amount of attention, but do wanna make sure we address those as well. So maybe just first one piece is kind of hills and strides, which I think are kind of a a fun and varied time of active workout to throw in? What how how do you think, runners can think about, think about those in the context of their training?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:34:49]: Yeah. So I would say hills are probably one of the most specific strength exercises that a runner can do, which probably is weird to hear because you're running and you're not really doing any yacht lifting any weights, but It's you're running. So you it's that's why it's so specific, and then it's just really, really good for your strength. It helps us to strengthen are glutes. When you're running up a hill, it you can't really have as bad, you can't can't overstride you you get better hip extension. You have to get the knees up. So there's a lot of things that we strive for within our running form that kind of come almost naturally on a hill. But one thing that people tend to do that that tends to negate that is that they lean forward from the waist almost like they're And I do this sometimes when I'm just walking up a hill or walking upstairs, I kinda like lean all the way forward. And so it doesn't I don't get as much you know, strength out of it. But, if you can think of running up a hill trying to keep that nice good posture, shoulders back, but getting those knees up quick feet, quick turnover, landing under your center of gravity, all of those things, that's gonna help us naturally over time to start to translate that to our easy runs, form, our workout form, And so I, you know, incorporating those into this into the training, even if your training for, say, a shorter race is just valuable for a strength perspective and a turnover perspective. So, you know, helping your biomechanics to be a little bit more sound, all of that stuff. and then strides are super similar to that. It's working on your biomechanics and your turnover. we the one way that we use them is to do them at the end of an easy run. So the the goal for that is that you're gonna be in a slightly fatigued state because you ran you just ran a bunch of miles, and we're training the body to be able to still run with good form while the body is a little bit tired, which If you've ever looked at, say, your race pictures towards the end of a race, if you see yourself just completely breaking down and you're doing all these funky things, that's what happens is is when we get tired, we just every our our form starts to go so if if you've ever, again, I keep going back to the elites, but you'll watch them at the end of a race, and their form almost seems like it gets, like, somewhat better. they're they're kind of just they're using every body part. So they do a lot of that training with strides and things like that to actually train their bodies to continue to move with good form and reinforce that when they're tired. And so strides can be a really valuable way to do that. it gives you kind of that, you know, when you get to the end of a race, if you are tired, you can kind of put yourself back into that position when you were doing your strides and try to emulate that. And so that's one way they can be valuable. And the other way is that they just naturally help us to improve our form, in in subconscious ways again. They just help us to remind ourselves how we should be moving. the piece on them, not super important. With strides, you know, some days, my strides are faster and feel more fluid And some days, they don't they feel choppier, not as quick, not as great, but they just are there to kind of reinforce, okay, move the legs, pick up the knees, know your legs are tired, but let's just kind of turn things over as best as we can. the placement of something like strides I like to have them say the day before I do a harder effort, the day after I do not use strides because I want that day to be fully focused on just recovery. So strides are good for, you know, the day before, a harder effort. And then I also use them to warm up my muscles for races or for workouts. So I'll do my warm up for before a workout or race, and then I'll do some drills, and then I will do the strides. It just kinda gets your body prepared for those faster paces, gets heart rate up, gets everything moving in in a way that's gonna be help you to not just feel like this pace when you start going faster is just completely shocking. So those are some really beneficial ways to use those. And then hills, you may just sometimes they're they're put in as a workout. I give my athletes, hills strides once a week just to, you know, have do the same thing we do with flat strides, but, on a slight incline, and these are short. They're, you know, 10 to 15 seconds in length. nothing too drastic, but enough that we're kind of really working on that that the strength from it and the mechanics, from the from doing a short hail sprint. So those are some ways you can use them. That's how I use them, and and they're super valuable from, more on the bio biomechanics and run economy side.

Cory Nagler [00:39:21]: Yeah. For sure. And I find you just feel peppier too when you get in those those quick pickups just to take a quick step back just before we move on. I I know there's probably some listeners who are going what our strides, and it's something that we've talked about a little bit, but, so it is that quick pickup in space and pace, but are you thinking kind of very, very short intervals or or what kind of time length are you typically thinking of whether it's hills or flats?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:39:44]: Yeah. with the flat ones. I didn't touch on this. more like 20 seconds in length or, you know, a hundred meters if you have a track or something like that can be a way that you can use to do these. So they don't need to be super long. they're really they we want them to be short because we don't want them to be feel like you're doing a workout. We want them we don't want you to feel like the next day you're sore or tired from having done strides. So most of the time, you know, doing anywhere from 4 to 8, I only give 8 to people who are probably most of the time I give 4 to 6, for my for people who are doing a little bit more mileage or, you know, I've been running a lot, you know, hold you. I'll do closer to 6. And I do 8 when I do them myself, but, you know, we don't need to do a ton of them either. It's just kind of enough to just reinforce. We nothing crazy. the the goal for them, and I didn't really mention this either is the you're we're kind of looking for somewhere in that 80 to 95% effort range. So not quite a sprint but, you know, getting there, getting close enough, you know, that we're moving in a more efficient manner. When we run faster, we run more efficiently but we can't possibly run fast all the time, or we would get injured or over trained or any of those things. So that's the benefit of strides is that we have the ability to work that faster pace range and and use our muscles in a way that's efficient, without tiring ourselves out. So that's really what we're going for there with the strides. The other piece to this is that we're focusing, like I mentioned, more informed than speed. So, you know, getting the knees up, getting good hip extension, rolling through the foot, pushing off with your big toe, using your arms, making sure your arms are going forward and backward and not so much across the body, standing tall, getting that slight forward lean, all of those things. Those are more of what we're looking for than, you know, just running fast to run fast, because, you know, we can all run fast. And I don't know if you've ever watched, like, a little kid when they take off in a full sprint, they're we we're not looking for that. Like, a little kid, their arms are flailing. They're just kind of throwing things in whatever direction they can to just get where they're trying to go as fast as possible. That's not that's not what we're going for. We're really looking for fast, but with control and and very specific. We wanna feel like we're just like, I always picture myself. kind of, like, at the end of a race or or just, like, end of a workout. Just, like, I'm winning, and I just am just going to the finish line, like, And I just look super strong and super, you know, ready to go and and ready to finish strong. that's kind of what I try to visualize so that I can use them also for the benefit of the of psychological benefit within a race. If

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Cory Nagler [00:43:47]: I, I like the visual because that's probably what I try to visualize too, but I think at the end of a really tough workout, probably look a little bit closer to that little kid than that perfect form delete.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:43:56]: Yep. Same.

Cory Nagler [00:43:59]: Yeah. Okay. Glad to glad to hear that I'm not alone. I know one oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:44:05]: No. I was just gonna say when I was in college, my coach always knew if I was going too hard. because I would lean forward. Like, I was gonna fall forward a little bit. So that was always my indicator that I was and but sometimes it helps if you have somebody that watches you run, or if you can video yourself running, because then you can certain or just looking at those pictures after race. You can see what your normal behaviors are. Some people have, like, this little head tilt where they move their heads around. And so when you get to the end of the run, you know what ones you have to focus on. So I have to focus on not just completely falling forward. I have to combine myself to stay upright. you know, those are things. Those are cues that you can give yourself to when you get to an under race and you're tired. You know, what things do you normally do wrong? Do you need to pump your arms forward in back better? Do you need to drive the knees more, or do you need to focus on staying relaxed in your shoulders? Like, all of those things are things that we we work on in in the strides and things like that, but also things that we can, get in the habit of thinking of when we're doing the strides so that on race day, we're working on the specific things that we know we struggle with. So

Finn Melanson [00:45:12]: --

Cory Nagler [00:45:13]: Yeah. Those are the true friends. The ones who can call you out and tell you, buddy, your form is terrible. You gotta get those shoulders down.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:45:18]: Yeah. Exactly.

Cory Nagler [00:45:22]: One one other workout I wanted to get to, and I know, Andy, this is when you were excited to talk about is Fertlix. maybe this is one that not as many people are familiar with, but, just quickly for that one, I guess, what is it and how can runners integrate this into their training?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:45:35]: Yeah. So Fire Lake is actually stands for Speedplay. So that's what it means, and I can't remember where it comes from language wise, but

Finn Melanson [00:45:41]: --

Cory Nagler [00:45:41]: I think Sweden. Yeah.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:45:43]: I was thinking that I didn't wanna say I'd be wrong. So, but, yeah, so it

Cory Nagler [00:45:46]: it reverses -- -- if it's wrong.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:45:49]: It reverses Speedplay, and I think it's super valuable because And I'll give a lot of my clients this early on in a training block because I think one of the things we often miss in training when we're so focused on pieces and distances and and times and all this other stuff is learning the effort of the training. So, you know, especially now that everyone has a GPS watch, it's so easy to just kind of continually look down the watch to make sure am I on pace, am I on pace? And we sometimes because of that start to lose sight of, like, what does that pay feel like? What does this effort feel like? And so that is something that I think art looks can be super valuable in. is, you know, approach them in the effort of, you know, say you, you're looking at it, and it's I I always give my clients early on in a black 2 sets of 5 by 1 minute on, 1 minute off, and the 1 minute on, we're looking at kind of trying to run somewhat of a 5 k effort. So I'll tell them what effort to try to harness and think about and do, but I'll tell them, like, don't look at your watch. Just kinda see what comes out. Try to keep it consistent. try to keep the effort really just through the block, just through the workout, just completely, you know, try to keep it as consistent as you possibly can without really looking at the watch for feedback too much and really feel out how that feels and then see what pace comes out of it. and then the in between on those 2 is that we wanna make sure that the easy pace off interval, the one minute in between, is actually run at your easy pace range. So when we're doing fartlix, the reason that called speed play is because you're actually moving between different speeds. So instead of just fully resting in between intervals in a fart like, We want you to just keep going. We want you to slow back down to your easy pace. not we don't want it to be like a kind of a slog through that. We really want it to be you're easy. So if you're running your easy runs, let's say 9 minute pace and you're doing this workout, don't push those speed intervals too fast that you're having to kind of completely walk or just not be able to keep up a a jog, during those those stressed intervals. We wanna be able to kind of practice changing gears a little bit. So like I mentioned with the elites practicing how they can cover moves. This is what speed play can be super valuable, and it's just training the body to be able to shift gears quickly cover different things, do different things like that, but also kind of works your your endurance a little bit more. So when we keep those intervals at a more controlled pace that we can jog in between or run easy in between, we're training a little bit more of our endurance capacity. and and so we're not necessarily turning it into a VO to work We're trying to kind of keep them somewhat more controlled. And that way, we we have the ability to continue to run easy in between and and allow that, that to build up on us. So those are that's a really good reason for doing Fire Lakes. It trains our our ability to perceive pace and and know what efforts feel like. And then it just kinda trains our body from an endurance side, to just be able to change gears and change pieces and and do more continuous running with, you know, some some pace surges in between there. So, yeah,

Cory Nagler [00:48:55]: Yeah. No. And I I love with Fertilks that it gives you a little more little more freedom to kind of, as you said, speed play by definition, kind of play around with different paces in in one single workout.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:49:04]: Yep. Exactly.

Cory Nagler [00:49:06]: One more last workout I just have to touch on because traditionally it's not thought of as a workout, but it's racing. I I think there there are runners who are maybe a little more controlled than myself who will just kind of have a goal race and they'll train up into that. But racing is fun, especially post COVID, with back, there I'm sure there's other runners who just love getting into tons of races. To what extent can you actually use these as a training stimulus?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:49:30]: Yeah. One of the ways I've heard it before that there's some athletes that will race into fitness. So they do a lot of racing to help themselves build that fitness. I think that if you're racing a ton, though, and you see very calculated in in it very also very much depends on the distance that we're training for. So if you're training for shorter distances, say mile, 5 k, something like that, 10 k, even, we can handle more more racing And it actually can be super valuable from many, many different perspectives. So say you I always like, you know, for training for a

Finn Melanson [00:50:01]: 5

Andie Cozzarelli [00:50:01]: k, that first five k get into is going to be a robust That's the way I approach it. So my goal for that first one is to to get some confidence out of it. So when I tell athletes how to approach their first five k of a season, I want them to look at as more of a progression. So let's start more conservative and get a little bit faster through gain some confidence from the effort. And then in that next one, we dial that down a little bit. Maybe that the the pace that we hit for an average We try to start there and keep it consistent or see if we can get a little bit faster than that. other thing that we can use braces for is say we need practice in covering, you know, if we go out too fast, maybe we know we always go out too fast. A lot of races because everyone's the journal and rush a lot of people go out too hard. How can we just practice doing that to see what what our our edge is? So maybe you actually get into a race and you say, hey, this is my goal time. Let me just go out hard at that goal time. and see how long I hang on to it, or if it's realistic, shorter races like that or something, it's that's something we can do there. that would not be something we wanna do in a half marathon, though. So that's the benefit of having things like 5 ks and stuff that we can throw into a schedule just to kind of, you know, practice some of that, like, how we approach races, how we wanna execute. So you can do things like that in a race to just, you know, play with it. And that way when you get to your goal race, you've got you know how to execute it. You know what's gonna work best for you. You know generally what cases that we're we're going for and what are realistic, in that race. And so we can use racing in in that sense when we get longer in distance, it becomes we don't want to race too often or too close to the goal race because it it just kind of if you're training for, say, a marathon and you're throwing in a bunch of 5 keys in the schedule, it just kind of net it's hard for us to do we we can't really get super specific to the 5 k because we're not training for a 5 k. So your 5 k times may not be super relevant to where your your 5 k may be if you were training specifically for a 5 k. and then the 5 k races can kind of make it more difficult to say get in those long run efforts that are really important for the marathon or some of those very key workouts that are gonna be long and hard on the body that we need for the marathon. But if we're racing a lot, we kind of would miss out on some of that benefit. So if you're training for something longer, try to, you know, I I would I stick to maybe a half marathon in the buildup, maybe a 10 k, and and that's, I think, and it depends on how much time you have, but those can be really good ways to track progress along the way and, you know, just kinda see just kinda get a race effort from the mindset of, okay, I need to just remind myself what racing feels like, because, you know, when we get to our goal race, we're not just training for the race. We need to train our mind to prepare for what we're about to undertake, especially if we're like, we really wanna get a PR. If you haven't raced all year, It's it's a whole and and some people may not have this much of a problem as I do, but I the reason I like to have rustbusters is because I tend to be a little bit more in my head. And so racing helps me to kinda get my confidence or, like, kinda kick some of that stuff that interferes with you know, worries and things like that. And I can just kind of feel like I've done all that mental preparation in in the races I've done and building up for that for that goal race. So So for for a marathon, say, like, if you if you wanna do a half marathon, I always recommend putting it farther out to maybe 6 weeks out. If you wanna race it hard, that's my ideal number is at least 6 weeks out. if we we can also do it, you know, as close as 4 weeks, but I don't like to go any closer than that unless you intend on using that race as a workout. And so one way you can use a a race as a workout is by for for a marathon, for instance, is, you know, maybe you go the first ten miles at marathon pace, and then you use that last five k to kind of push hard and and run fast at the end. That that can be a really good way for you to utilize that race as a practice for marathon pace. You can practice your fueling You can practice, you know, the pace itself on an actual race day to see how it feels then. You can practice holding yourself back. There's a lot of good things. And then you get to use that last 5 k to just practice finishing strong and seeing what you can do and just having fun with it there at the end. Yeah.

Cory Nagler [00:54:38]: I think you have to put that ego aside. And I think for anyone who listened to her, we're doing a workout episode and seemed, oh, great. We're gonna talk about nothing but going fast. Nope. You do on occasion have to be a little bit more controlled. So, sorry to burst the bubble.

Andie Cozzarelli [00:54:50]: Yeah. Well, and we didn't even touch on that on the workout specifically about how important it is to not overrun your tempo and threshold workouts because you could change the stimulus from being a threshold workout into a VO 2 max workout pretty quickly. and we won't be actually in, you know, helping to improve our our threshold. We we change it, and it turns into something different. And then when it gets to race day, we don't have that capability to hold on to a pace that we should be able to. So that's one of those things that's like when we when when you have cases, given to you, you have to be able to kind of really decipher. Is this piece what I should be running? Does this feel like it's too hard for what I what it should be. am I running them too hard? Am I going to the well every time I do a workout? And it's important that when you have different types of workouts that, yeah, they're gonna get hard at some point. They're gonna be hard. Workouts are hard, but not they shouldn't feel like you are completely done for every time you finish 1. And that's where, like, tempos and and things like that need to be a little bit more controlled to ensure that we're not turning them into something they aren't. So

Finn Melanson [00:55:58]: --

Cory Nagler [00:55:59]: Yeah. For sure. Keep the work out to what its intention is. so we are kinda coming up on the hour mark, and I know we've kind of gone over a lot of different work So I wanna make this really digestible for people to wrap up. How do you piece this together? I'll use the example of of on runner. I I know a lot of people may be training for shorter distances, but probably a lot of the runners connect community is looking forward to fall races. How can you think about where to schedule in these types of workouts? And then what might, like, a a sample week of training look like for a marathoner?

Andie Cozzarelli [00:56:29]: Yeah. So if I have an athlete. So I like to look at it from, okay, where let's look at this full block. So say somebody is running, I don't know, CIM in December. That gives us that's the beginning of December race. That would give us all of September, October, November. So that's 3 months to prepare for it. And now we're, you know, mid mid August. So we've got three and a half months to repair. so my standpoint is like, yeah. So right now, if I was running CIM, I would be looking at trying to build my base. So having the mileage, so the first thing that comes in a training block is Let's make sure we've got that mileage underneath us. So starting to slowly increase your volume from wherever you're starting from. So say You you haven't been running a whole lot. You're getting back into it, but you've been running, you know, you were running with previously maybe 30 or 40 miles a week, but took a little break, and now you're getting back into the swing. So starting off those 1st few weeks, like, let's start around, like, you know, 15 to 20 miles, and then growing a little bit each week to get us a base built. I'll have my clients kind of build up to their, where their volume is gonna be, and then we'll kind of do, some up and down weeks, which the rotors connect to training blocks kinda have some of that built in. and then when you until you hit that, the specific phase. So for the marathon, we're looking at most of the time around 12 weeks of this specific marathon training. Now when I say 12 weeks, mostly we want that 12. We want that 12 weeks to be you've already built your base before you've hit that 12 weeks. So we don't we don't wanna be starting from scratch at 12 weeks. That kind of takes out almost a month of training where we have to just build things up before we can even get to the marathon specific work. and so once you've kinda hit that marathon specific work, a lot of times what we have in our in our training blocks is the the the weeks kinda alternate. So you'll have 1 week with you know, a longer run, maybe some pace work in it, a steady run, and another workout within the week. And then the next week, you'll have a shorter long run, and 2 heavier workouts kind of within the week. and the volume kinda alternates a little bit. So you get kind of up week, down week, up week, down week a little bit. Not nothing crazy with it. But that's kind of how we'll have those those scheduled out once you get to the marathon specific weeks. And then the, you know, the long run and the intensity and the the work within the block starts to build as we get closer to race day. So, middle, you'll kinda start to see your your last long, long hard effort, the real, the cap on the end of the training block is about 3 weeks out from the goal race for the most part. And then we start a very gradual taper into race day, trying not to just completely rest within those 3 weeks. We still wanna keep We wanna we wanna decrease volume very strategically, and then we wanna keep intensity in there and slowly start to ramp that down. We also want to start working on reminding ourselves what marathon pace feels like in those last few weeks. Those so marathon sharpening is gonna be slightly different than say sharpening for say a 5 k. So A lot of times when I'm training someone for a shorter distance race, we try to hit that. We try to build up that threshold, you know, in the early part of the block. And then as you're getting closer to say, the goal race, we start to do a little bit more VO 2 kind of spingled it, sprinkled in there just to kind of get that that that go that pace in there. We start to feel that out. We start to sharpen our legs for that faster pace. For the marathon that sharpening starts to look more like practicing what marathon piece is gonna be what we should be targeting, and not overrunning those workouts. So in those last 3 weeks, we're gonna be doing less faster paced stuff. We're not we don't need to be doing a ton of, VO 2 max training in those last couple of weeks. We're really we're kind of just One of the workouts I'll do is is maybe like a a a fart lick in the last couple of weeks at, like, half marathon pace so that we're working a little bit faster. So we just know what that feels like. versus marathon pace. so we'll, I'll kind of play with that, but for the most part, it starts to lighten out as we get closer to the race day. Like, that's kind of how it'll be. That's kinda how I would approach the the marathon block as a whole, you know, base built, give yourself at least maybe a month, 4 weeks, or something like that. kinda get things going. And then look at the next 12 weeks as being your specific phase of training. So these are the weeks that we're really targeting and focusing on marathon specific workouts, long runs, all that stuff within this block. And then, you know, on a typical week, I think I kind of outlined this, but you could have, you know, workout on, I don't know, Monday or Tuesday and then a steady run on a Friday and a longer on a Saturday or something like that. and so that would be one of the the higher weeks with the longer long run and then the week that's in between. So maybe that that week was eighteen miles with a, I don't know, 6 or 7 miles of study running the day before. And then that following week, you may do 12 to 14 miles as you're long run. And within that week, you'll have a couple of maybe 1 or 2 harder marathon specific workouts. It could be, you know, something train your threshold or lactate clearance workout or mostly things that are gonna be longer. There'll there will still be some VO 2 workouts in there, like the ones that we talked about, but they'll be very specific that won't be at your normal VO to max pace that you'd be running if you were training for something shorter. They'll be slower, with recoveries that are built to be either short or where you're continuing to run-in between them so that you're training something slightly different for that. But it'll kind of flow between there. I kind of like to have a good balance of doing something tempo or threshold focus and then having something, a little bit of something that's gonna work a little bit faster pace and having that kind of say balance through their block as we go through. So not being too heavy on one element, and then completely shifting gears to something different. Kinda like to have it kind of flow together and kind of touching on a little bit pieces there, and it kinda alternates a little bit around how we do that. and then the last thing is that, you know, sometimes it's actually beneficial to keep some amount, like, a couple. We don't need to do it a ton, but in the marathon block, it can help to have some VO 2 workouts that are speed focused or just biomechanics focused just to remind yourself of that good form. So I sometimes will throw in just like a couple workouts that are just more biomechanics focused. So, like, one that I've done is, a 300 repeats to where we just that are progressing progressions. So every 100, just trying to get a little bit faster. So just practicing that turnover on that change in speed. and we'll just throw the that workout in there just to kind of, you know, remind the legs, what it feels like to go faster and and train the form because the marathon because we're running for such a long period of time, we wanna ensure that we're able to maintain proper form and not have too many of those, too many of those, form in subconscious changes happen too often when we're running or or at least give ourselves the mindfulness of being able to catch those. and shift when we need to, which, I didn't mention this before, but one of the benefits of of those surges can actually be that, you know, when we when we're in a race, if we can throw in a surge, to help us reinforce good form. And so when we do those in training, we're kind of practicing that a little bit as well. So, so, yeah, that kind of I started to diverge from the original question, but that's kind of a general overview of what the marathon block will look like and how we'll build that up and how those workouts will kinda get dispersed within it. So, yeah,

Cory Nagler [01:03:58]: For sure. I think that's a great summary of how runners can think about structuring their week. And ultimately, I think a lot of this kinda comes down to Having that speed work, but not too fast, know your intention, and then make sure that you're recovering so you can actually build back from those workouts.

Andie Cozzarelli [01:04:11]: Mhmm. Yes. because recovery is equally as important as these workouts that we're doing. If you don't have the recovery piece, the workouts are essentially meaningless. So, yeah,

Cory Nagler [01:04:22]: Yeah. No. Great takeaway. Andy, this was phenomenal. I hope that, for listeners out there, they got a lot of useful insights on how to integrate these different types of workouts. into their training and hopefully can even experiment with something new if maybe you haven't heard of any of these, but, this conversation was great. Thank you so much.

Andie Cozzarelli [01:04:38]: Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I love I love talking about training.

Finn Melanson [01:04:56]: Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Mollansen. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the spot and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guest premier access to contests and giveaways, and subscribe to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.netback/like till next time, I'll be training.