When You Can Run Through an Injury, Is Running Bad for Your Knees and More Listener Questions

Finn Melanson [00:00:10]: Hello fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Milanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast, the podcast dedicated to making you a better runner. With each and every episode, we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches@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. In today's episode, Coach Jeff Gaudette is going to be answering listener questions we've received over the last few weeks from our fans. Just like you, we've got some great questions covering everything from how to determine if you can run through an injury or not, how to approach marathon long runs, and post run nutrition. Plus, if you stick around until the end, coach Jeff delivers some interesting training insights from two elite female runners. He coaches who, despite running similar times, approach training drastically differently in what you can learn from this. Don't forget, if you have questions you'd like our coaches to answer on the podcast, you can head to RunnersConnect. Net daily and submit them to us. Let's jump in. Lagoon specializes in making pillows designed specifically for runners and athletes to help you optimize your sleep and recovery. Learn more@lagoonsleep.com top and get a 15% discount. If you're looking for better and safer headphones while you run, then you need to check out Oledance. Their open ear design delivers premium sound while still allowing you to hear your surroundings. To stay safe, head to Oledance.com RTT to learn more. The first question is from Mary. She asks, I had been running regularly for a few months and suddenly started experiencing pain in my upper right leg. How can I tell if this is muscular or something else? I'm really missing running. Can I keep running?

Jeff Gaudette [00:02:15]: That's a really good question, but it's also a tough question to answer. When anything that comes with injuries, it's really difficult to diagnose and to provide specific advice when I'm not there to manipulate it or to really see what's going on or to ask more questions. But I would say first step is if you have the availability to go see a running specialist, a sports doctor or physical therapist who works with runners, they're going to be able to provide a lot more specific information to you about what exactly might be going on. The first step to healing any injury is really figuring out exactly what it is, because until you know exactly what it is, it's hard to provide specific treatment. With an upper quad injury, it's typically going to be something that's either very minor, like a muscle strain or maybe some scar tissue. So it could be something kind of relatively minor like that, where it just needs a little bit of rest, maybe some extra stretching and some strengthening, or it could be something more serious, like a stress fracture. Typically with running injuries, though, the best way to determine whether you can run on it or not is if one, you want to make sure that it's not impacting your gait. So if you're out for a run and you're feeling it so much that it's causing you to limp or to alter your stride in some fashion, then you definitely want to stop. That's not good. Another good sign is that if it gets progressively worse as you run, then that's something that you probably want to have to take some rest on. So if you have an injury or you have something that feels really tight or a little bit sore when you first start, but then gradually goes away as you continue to run, then that's something that again, this is a general assumption, but that's something you can generally run through as you continue to treat it and strengthen it. But if it's the opposite, where you start out and there's really not a lot of pain, but then as you go and finish it's extremely painful, then that's something that you're probably going to need to take some rest from. So, general advice, try to figure out exactly what's going on, visit a specialist that can tell you what it is and then you'll be able to start treating it. And then make sure and listen to those two pieces of advice about whether you're able to run on it or not. I know you want to run up. Trust me, I've had my fair share of injuries where I've almost torn my hair out because I wanted to get out and run so bad. But taking the rest time now is definitely to your advantage. So try to get it healthy and then when you're healthy, you'll be able to run consistently long term and for.

Finn Melanson [00:04:32]: Beginners or even more experienced runners, can you explain what gait is?

Jeff Gaudette [00:04:36]: So gate is just probably a more sophisticated way of saying you're running stride or you're running form. So we call what the legs do, or actually the entire body does when it's running. It's called the Gait cycle and there's a couple of different phases to it. But yeah, gate is basically just your running form. And I'll expand on that to say that one of the biggest mistakes that runners make, whether they be beginners or really serious runners, is that they try to run on an injury too long. And often the best solution, and as hard as it is, is to take the rest time early. So if you start to feel something, take a precautionary day off and start treating it, do the therapy, do the strength work, because what ends up happening is injuries get progressively worse. So you could take one or two days and catch something before it becomes major and basically only need those two days off to be 100% healthy. But runners get too crazy about wanting to take time off and then they run on an injury and the next thing they know, they turned a very minor Achilles issue or a minor planter issue into a full blown injury that's going to require three, four weeks off. So it's definitely better to get out ahead of the injuries and take the time right off the bat. And I say that from experience because I can't even count the number of times that I felt something coming on and I just was like, oh, I got this race coming up, I need to be ready for it. I can't lose my fitness and try to keep training on it. And the next thing I know, I'm out for four weeks and all I had to do was be smart and take one or two days at the beginning and get it rested up. And I lost a lot of time that way. So definitely speaking from experience.

Finn Melanson [00:06:17]: I did my first marathon according to your free marathon plan, and I finished in 4 hours and 20 minutes. And on my next marathon, I want to finish in under 4 hours. What program should I follow and what should my nutrition habits be?

Jeff Gaudette [00:06:31]: No, that's a great question. And first of all, congrats on finishing your first marathon. That's a pretty solid time for your first one. And I think 4 hours is a pretty reasonable goal for your second race, giving you more time to train and having that training behind you already. For nutrition habits, it's a pretty general question, but generally I would say that you want to make sure that in your training, you want to be fueling yourself appropriately during your workouts and making sure that the biggest benefit, or I guess the most important thing with nutrition is to make sure that you're fueling after your workouts. So after your hard running days, make sure that you're taking in a good number of calories and a four to one ratio of carbohydrates to protein. So you want to be taking in 4 grams of carbohydrate for every 1 gram of protein. And generally you want to be trying to get about 250 to 500 calories within the hour after you finish your hardest workout. And getting in that type of nutrition is going to help you recover. It's going to replenish your glycogen stores, and it's going to allow you to train consistently week after week for fueling. I definitely suggest that you try to plan out what works best for your stomach. Most nutrition for running or pre hard workout, pre race all comes down to what your stomach is able to handle. It's very individual in terms of what you'll be able to stomach and what works best for you. So you need to experiment with the type of foods that you like. But generally you want to get something that has a good amount of carbohydrate, and usually you want to try to get that as close to your run as possible. For some people, that's going to be 30 minutes. For some people, that's 2 hours. So again, that's where you want to experiment in your training with what you want to take. And then in terms of workouts and races, taking nutrition during the race, I suggest that runners take some type of energy gel every 45 to 60 minutes. That's a pretty optimal amount of gel, or I should say fuel to take during a race. I see a problem with a lot of runners is they take way too much energy gels. And the problem with that is that the body can only process so much simple sugar at one time. In order to be used by the bloodstream, your body has to digest that carbohydrate and turn it into glucose. So your body can use it. And it can only do that so rapidly, it can only do that so fast. In addition, your body starts to slow itself down or slow the digestive process down when you run hard. So what ends up happening is you're starting to run hard, your muscles need to work harder, your brain needs more energy. And so your body starts to shut down what we call nonessential processes. So processes that are non essential to you running faster. And one of those processes is the digestion process. So everything that you digest, it's actually going to take longer for it to process. And so what ends up happening is runners that are taking too much carbohydrates or too much simple sugar is that the body starts to reject it. So that's when you start getting that sick feeling, having to go to the bathroom, those types of things. So I recommend every 45 to 60 minutes taking some type of energy gel and always taking it with water to make sure that you wash it down. And you don't want to take an energy gel with another sugary beverage like a Gatorade or Powerade, because that's just too much simple sugar at one time. Again, it goes back to your body's ability to process all that simple sugar at one time. So those are the three biggest tips that I would give in terms of nutrition program for training for the marathon.

Finn Melanson [00:09:48]: And what about chocolate milk? We get this question all the time about using chocolate milk as a post run recovery beverage.

Jeff Gaudette [00:09:55]: Yeah, chocolate milk works really, really well. We did some research on well, I shouldn't say we did, but we looked at the research that a lot of scientists have done and it's been shown that chocolate milk works just as good as almost every other recovery beverage on the market. So specialized recovery beverages made by the big marketing brands. Chocolate milk was shown to work just as well in terms of for muscle recovery. So it's a really simple way that you can get in your four to one carbohydrate to protein ratio without even needing to think about it. Some other good solutions are I used to use like a power bar and water or yogurt with granola as another good one. You can just really put together real foods to eat that are really simple to put together and then have available with you no matter where you're doing your run from, whether it be from home or the gym or the track, the park, whatever.

Finn Melanson [00:10:45]: I know one of your philosophies is that you want to be burning fat as your energy source during longer runs and the race itself, as opposed to carbohydrates. With that in mind, are there certain meals and foods that will provide you that fat source as opposed to carbs?

Jeff Gaudette [00:11:02]: Yeah. No. So that's a great question. From a nutritional perspective, there aren't really foods that you'll want to eat that are specifically going to provide the fat source that you need. Your body has enough fat to burn even if you're a really well conditioned distance runner, your body has enough fat to burn to run at an easy pace for hours and hours and hours and hours. There's some science that's shown that there is a benefit to doing some of your long runs in what they call a fasted state. So for example, if you're running, doing your long run in the morning to doing a long run without having breakfast first. So having kind of low glycogen carbohydrate levels. And what that's been shown to do is to switch over your body or to get your body more efficient at using fat as a fuel source. And that's definitely something that it's kind of an advanced tactic that we coach marathoners to use. You need to be a little bit careful with it only because without taking carbohydrate before a run, there's a significant chance that you're going to bonk during your training and to have one of those situations where you're on a long run and your body kind of starts to shut down. So you need to be careful that that's not going to happen to you. And you also need to make sure that you don't do it with every run that you do or every long run that you do because it's very tough on the body and the research shows that doing it intermittently. So every couple of long runs or every couple of workouts is good, but doing it too often puts the body in a state of glycogen depletion, which inhibits recovery and actually doesn't allow you to train as hard as you need to. So what we suggest runners do if they're going to do something like a fasted long run is to do them early in the training segment. So for example, if you have 16 weeks to your marathon, doing it in the first anywhere from four to eight weeks and then using the last six to eight weeks to do fuel long runs. And the first thing that's going to do is allow you to practice with your pre race meal and find whatever foods work best for you for your stomach. Because the last thing you want to do is get to race day and realize that you don't know what to eat before the run or you don't know what's going to settle in your stomach. Well, and then second, it allows you to practice fueling and drinking on the run. So taking in gel and fuel on the run is definitely something that you need to get your stomach used to. The first time that you do it, you'll probably notice that your stomach gets a little bit upset or that just in general you don't like doing it. So the more that you can practice during your runs, the better. And we find that the best time to practice that is in the last six to eight weeks of training. So that kind of covers the nutritional side of being more efficient at using fat as a fuel source, where really that comes into play is actually your pace and kind of your training workouts. And that's something that when we train for the marathon, we build into the system. Basically the goal of marathon training workouts are to get your body to be more efficient at burning fat as a fuel source. So the reason that's so important is that during a marathon you can run at marathon pace or you have enough glycogen in your liver and in your muscles to run about anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours at your marathon pace. So that marathon effort you can do for 90 minutes to 2 hours. So we can see the problem there is that unless you're an elite Kenyan Ethiopian runner, you're going to probably have another hour, 2 hours of running after your Glycogen stores run out. And so the obvious thing to say would be, okay, well, you'll just take in fuel during the run and that'll kind of make up for it. You'll take in carbohydrate and to offset that ability to the amount of Glycogen that you have and that works to an extent. But like we talked about earlier, your body can't officially process that much carbohydrate. There is an actual number to how much Glycogen carbohydrate your body can process at once. But basically that number is not anywhere near enough to get you another hour to 2 hours of running. For elite runners, if you're running 222 ten, it's definitely easily possible to get in that amount of carbohydrate through gels alone. But if you're running 3 hours, 4 hours, you're going to need something more than just a simple carbohydrates and sugars because your body is just not going to be able to take in that much carbohydrate. So the next thing that we need to do is to lengthen that amount of time that you can run, or I should say, to become more efficient at burning fat at your marathon pace. And so when you do that, you're able to extend the amount of time that you're able to keep those Glycogen stores in check. So for example, let's say that you become more efficient at burning fat at your marathon pace, you're going to be able to run longer, burning fat and kind of saving those carbohydrates, keeping them in your stores for longer periods. So now you might be able to get 2 hours and two and a half hours into your run before burning through your carbohydrate stores.

Finn Melanson [00:15:38]: That makes a lot of sense. So does that tie back to the philosophy of your plans where you space out the weekend run, so instead of doing one long 22 miles, or you do a steady run on Saturday and then something like 16 miles on Sunday?

Jeff Gaudette [00:15:52]: Yeah, exactly. And that's the exact reason that we do it. So going back to that fat versus carbohydrate situation, so when you run easy, you're primarily burning fat. Your body doesn't have to work too hard. So the way the body breaks down energy is that carbohydrate is the most efficient source of energy for the body. Carbohydrate glycogen, that burns really easily, and the body can use that quickly. Fat burns really slowly, but it's less efficient, and the body can't really burn it very quickly. It can't convert fat to usable energy very efficiently. And so when you're running, if you're running very easy, your body doesn't need energy as critically, so it can use fat as a fuel source. And that's what it'll do when you run slow. It'll use fat as a fuel source. The faster you start to run, the more carbohydrates are needed because the muscle contractions are more explosive, the body is going to need more energy. So when you do a really long, easy run, if you just go and do 23, 24 miles, and you just keep it easy the entire time, all you're doing is burning fat, which is good in its own way, but that's really the only energy system that you're using. But the problem with that, with the marathon, is that you've never improved your ability to burn fat when running at marathon pace. For that 24 miles, you never once touched marathon pace. So you never practice that at all. What we try to do is split the run into two sections, where the Saturday run is usually what we call a steady state run, which is roughly your aerobic threshold, which correlates well to marathon pace. So a steady run is roughly your marathon pace or a range around your marathon pace. And so you're spending anywhere from four to six to 8 miles on a Saturday running at marathon pace, teaching your body to be more efficient at using fat as a fuel source at marathon pace. So now that you have eight to 10 miles of running in your legs on Saturday, now you go to do your Sunday long run. And it's two things. One, again, like we said, we've already practiced a little bit of burning fat at marathon pace, but now your glycogen stores are depleted because we've had to use some carbohydrate on saturday to get through that type of effort. So now you start Sunday. Your glycogen stores are depleted, your legs are a little bit tired, you're fatigued, and now you're doing a long run. And what we do is we keep it shorter, but we make it faster. So there are different types of long runs that you do, but in all the types, you're usually doing something that involves burning carbohydrate or trying to teach your body to burn fat at marathon pace. So you're doing some portion of the long run at marathon pace. Maybe you're doing surges to spike the carbohydrate use to deplete your glycogen stores. But all in all, the goal is to deplete the glycogen stores and to get your body to get more efficient at burning fat at marathon pace. So, over the entire weekend, you've now covered 28, 30 miles, whereas in the single long run scenario, you've only covered maybe 22, 24 miles, and you've done none of it at marathon pace. In our plans, work is maybe you've now covered 26, 28 miles with those two runs combined over the weekend, and probably 50% of it, if not more, has been run at marathon pace. So you've taken the entire weekend, run more miles at marathon pace, actually run further as a total distance, and I think have trained yourself to be more efficient at running the marathon. And probably the most important factor is that you've reduced your chance of getting injured because injuries happen as the body gets tired. And so when you're on one of those 22, 24 miles long runs, that's when those injuries start to those overuse. Injuries start to creep up, your forms start to deteriorate. You start getting tired, and that's when the injuries can start creeping up. Whereas if you split the runs into two, you're getting the same benefit without the increased risk of injury.

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Jeff Gaudette [00:21:57]: That's a great question. It's something that we get a lot. And really the general question here is how do I improve? Because that's really what it comes down to. And what I'm going to say is advice to every runner out there is you need to focus on the long term and taking gradual steps with your training. So obviously your eventual goal is to run roughly around 415 per kilometer for a ten k, I'm assuming your, your race time, race pace, and that's going to take years. And you just have to be comfortable with the fact that that progression is going to take years. It's not going to happen in a month and it's not going to happen in six months, or it's not going to happen in a year. But the goal with training is to continue to take steps every period. There's really no breakdown of it, but you want to slowly improve every month and every year. And in your particular case, what's actually interesting is that the biggest improvement is going to be it's not your absolute speed. And so that's where runners, a lot of runners get confused, especially beginners when they're running is that your ability to run a ten k at 415 not limited by your speed. So let me give you an example. If you were to go to a track and run 400 meters, I am almost positive that you could run 415 /km pace for that one lap, just one lap, you could run 415 per kilometer and anybody that's listening to this could take that to their own particular goal, whatever their improvement. Or let's say you're trying to qualify for Boston, whatever that pace would be, you can do that for 400 meters. You maybe even be able to do that for 800 meters. So you have the raw speed to be able to do it. What you don't have is your ability to run that pace for 10. For example, if you're trying to run 310 for a marathon, whatever that your pace may be at some point, you don't have the ability to hold that pace for the entire race. Otherwise it obviously wouldn't be your goal. So for most runners, the problem isn't their absolute speed. Their problem is that they can't hold that pace for the distance that they need to run their goal time. And most of that comes down to your aerobic conditioning, your aerobic ability. So let me give you some stats. When racing the five K, which is obviously a pretty short distance when it comes to what I guess most of us runners are used to. For the five K, if you're a man, about 90% of the race is aerobic. So 90% of the energy that goes to running a five K, or that contributes to running a five K, comes from your aerobic system. For the ten K, I think it's like 93 or 95%. For the half marathon, it's 98%, and for the marathon it's close to 99%. So your aerobic system is actually the biggest contributor to your ability to run faster over long periods of time. And so that gets back to the point where it's going to take years, because developing the aerobic system is not something that happens quickly. It takes years of mileage consistent training to be able to build up that aerobic system. So in your particular case, or actually anybody that's listening to this, that wants to improve, what you need to look at doing is, over time, being consistent with your training. And that means not training for a couple of weeks at high mileage and then needing two weeks off because you're so tired or got injured. It means taking months at a time and running consistently healthy. And so whether that's 25 miles a week or 40 miles a week, or 60 miles a week, whatever your current ability level is, it's about taking that time, extending the amount of time that you're able to run healthy and slowly building up your mileage. So maybe one month you're running 2020, 5 miles a week as your max. Let's say that's the most miles that you're doing. And then over the period of months, not weeks, months, increasing that to maybe being comfortable in the 25 to 30 miles a week range. And then once that feels comfortable for a few months, increasing that to 30 to 35 miles a week range, and then getting it to whatever point you're comfortable with stopping, whether it be for health reasons, whether you're feeling like you're getting injured, or be it time reasons, you need to spend time at work. Family. I totally understand that. But the longer that you can spend running aerobically and training, that's how you're going to improve. So I know that wasn't a really specific answer, but I hope it gave a good general idea of what everybody needs to do in order to improve. Whether your goal is to improve by two minutes or five minutes and whatever race distance it is, you need to think long term and make those gradual progressions with your training and focus on the aerobic side of things. Tempo runs, mileage long runs, those types of things.

Finn Melanson [00:26:27]: For those newer runners listening, can you distinguish between aerobic and anaerobic?

Jeff Gaudette [00:26:32]: Yeah, sure. So aerobic running is when your body is able to exercise in the presence of oxygen. So you breathe in, your body runs. It does all the processes it needs to do to run, and it uses that oxygen, and there's plenty of oxygen available and you exhale it. Carbon dioxide comes out. You're kind of perfect. You're using oxygen. Anaerobic means that anaerobic basically is without oxygen, or basically when your body does not have the ability to take in enough oxygen to power everything that needs to happen with running. So the faster you run, obviously the more explosively your muscles have to contract, the harder your heart has to be, the faster blood has to speed through your system. That all takes energy, and it all takes oxygen to do that. And so at some point, you're running so fast where your body does not have enough oxygen to continue running. That's what we call the anaerobic system. And you can only do that for so long because without the presence of oxygen, the body starts to produce lactic acid, or more specifically, lactate isn't converted. But basically you can only do that for a short period of time, and you can only run for a short period of time without the presence of oxygen.

Finn Melanson [00:27:45]: All right, so here's a question from Maya. I'm currently running three times a week, training for my next ten k to get to sub 55 minutes. A lot of the times I get a bad stomach ache after I run ten k or more or do anything hard. I usually train at 06:30 p.m. In the evening and have a healthy lunch at 01:30 p.m. And a snack or fruit or even a cereal bar in the afternoon. Any advice on how to improve?

Jeff Gaudette [00:28:10]: Yeah, I think there's two separate questions in there, in a way, and they're both very valid. The first goes to whether she's training too hard, and that's difficult to tell because I don't know what her background is. I don't know what her previous ten k PR or what her other PRS are. But in general, I think anybody that when you look at a time goal I think anybody that looks at a time goal needs to be a little bit objective about, or subjective about what that time goal is, is that realistic for you. And again, I don't know in this particular case if that's the instance or not, but generally you need to really assess of whether your goal is just something that you've kind of plucked out of thin air and said, I want to run sub 55 minutes. Or if it's something that realistic, your last ten K was 58 minutes. In that case, 55 minutes would be a pretty normal step forward. Whereas if your last ten K was 65 minutes, it's probably not as much as you may want it to be, the next logical step for you might not be 55 minutes, but that's a much more complicated individual type of question in terms of stomach aches, diarrhea, throwing up before or after during workouts. It's not normal in the sense that it shouldn't be happening, but it is normal in the sense that a lot of runners suffer from it. So you do want to get to the point where it doesn't happen anymore. It does usually signify that you're training too hard. And it may not necessarily be that you're training too hard outside of your ability level. It may be that you're training in the heat. It looks like you started about a month and a half ago and you're training now. I don't know where you're from, but it's possible that it's very hot where you live, if you're anywhere where it's currently summer. Training in the heat, like we talked about with the marathon, the body starts to shut down the digestive system and really starts to mess with the stomach. And there's been a lot of research that has shown that training in the heat really significantly causes stomach sickness. So it could be something that to do with the heat. And it's actually the same process with running hard. The harder that you run, the more that your body and system is going to start to shut down. And even if it's not nutritionally related, where it doesn't sound like you're eating too close to running, as you mentioned, but it's still the process that there's still stuff going on with your digestive system even if you're not eating close to your run. And so that's most likely kind of what it is. To be honest with you, I think the biggest thing that you're going to need to control is just backing off the workouts. So running hard, but not so hard that you're getting sick. To me, that signifies that you're probably training a little bit too hard. So I'm not sure if I tried to make that as general as possible for everybody that might be listening, but that's the specific recommendation that I would give, is that throwing up and really having stomach issues is common, but it shouldn't be normal. It should be something that you kind of figure out, whether it be nutritionally or trying to train too hard, those types of things.

Finn Melanson [00:31:05]: Next up, we have Mario. He sends his greetings from Venice. He says, I run four times a week, about ten to run plane to do his first marathon in September. Any recommendations?

Jeff Gaudette [00:31:17]: Yeah, so if if it is indeed the case that you're running four times a week, ten to run, then actually probably the best recommendation is going to be you want to start doing marathon specific type work. And it goes back to what we talked about with teaching your body to burn fat as a fuel source. So the type of workouts that you want to start doing are going to be right around marathon pace or just a little bit faster, depending on the distance and teaching your body how to run at marathon pace. What? Marathon pace feels like. And then you want to start implementing some type of long runs that usually have a steady run the day before or during the long run itself. You're doing some type of mileage in your marathon pace range. So whether it be what we call a fast finish run, which is let's say you're doing a 30K run, running 20K easy or kind of at an easier pace, and then from 20 to 25K running at your marathon pace and then running the last five K easy. For our US users, that's thirty K is roughly 18 miles. So it'd be like doing 14 miles easy, 3 miles hard, and then a mile kind of easy as a cooldown. Those are what we call fast finished long runs. And those again, teach your body how to burn fat as a fuel source. They teach you how to run marathon pace when you're tired, which is definitely going to be what happens after 20 miles. So those are going to be the most important things to start doing one or two workouts a week where you're running some part of your mileage or volume at on pace and doing some type of marathon pace workouts. That's going to be actually the biggest that's going to be the best advice that I can give you in terms of planning to do your first marathon.

Finn Melanson [00:32:55]: James sends in a great question. He says, I bought a copy of your book from Amazon and one thing I noticed is that many of the plans are for beginner runners, or more specifically, not for faster runners. Is there a reason you didn't include plans for faster runners? For context, I'm trying to run a 1 hour, 30 minutes half marathon.

Jeff Gaudette [00:33:14]: The reason for that is training levels and training goals can vary so greatly. So, for example, running a 130 marathon, there's a great range of mileage that somebody can put in to be able to do that. What their long runs are going to be. What their easy mileage is going to be. And more importantly, the strengths and weaknesses to improve at your level. Or when you're a fast runner and you're already kind of near your PR ability or what, I guess your limit is going to be. The closer you get to that, the more specific workouts need to be towards your strengths and weaknesses. So assigning some type of general workouts while are going to be okay in the sense of they're going to follow general training theory are not going to work very well for runners that are faster because they need training that is very specific to their strengths and weaknesses. So let me give you an example. There are two athletes that I work with now who are both one to 255 marathoner. They're both females, one to 255 marathoner, and the other is 257, I believe are her PR. So they're roughly 121 25 half marathoners in that range. They haven't run one in a while. But the training of the 255 marathon runner, she runs about 60, 65 miles a week. That's pretty much her peak. Going beyond that for her, she tends to get injured. And her weakness is actually her ability to do some of the longer type efforts, longer workouts. So for the marathon, doing kind of 10 miles at marathon pace, doing a two x six mile, those types of workouts for her are very difficult. So that's what we work on in her training. But she runs relatively low mileage. Her long runs aren't that long, but she does some pretty long workouts where she's doing, again, 10 miles at marathon pace kind of stuff, the 257 marathoner. So again, they're only two minutes apart in marathon. And obviously a sub three hour marathon for a woman is very good. She's running, I think, 90 to 95 miles a week right in that range on average. Her ability to run long and easy is tremendous. That's her strength. I mean, she can run marathon pace, miles all day long in training. She can do a ten mile tempo at marathon pace like it's nothing. But where she really has trouble is with her speed. We haven't done a five k in a long time, but her five k PR does not match up anywhere near her marathon time. So what we're working on with her is improving her ability to be more efficient at marathon pace. So we're working on her speed, we're working on her efficiency now. So you can see these women are roughly the same goal. Their next goal is both be around 250 for the marathon. But we're attacking it from two completely different angles. And that's because at their level, their strengths and weaknesses are so vastly different that their training is completely different. And so that's the problem that you run into when you're trying to get that much faster when you're trying to run your first marathon or to break 4 hours, roughly. The training that's going to get you there is going to be roughly the same across the board. It's going to be working on improving your ability to run more mileage to get in the aerobic type building workout. So it's a little bit more general, whereas the faster you get, the more specific it needs to be to you. So, again, we could create a plan for any one of those runners, and it may not match up with who you are as a runner. So that's why the faster runners tend to have more trouble with generic type plans.

Finn Melanson [00:36:36]: The story that you just told is fascinating. I'm interested in that second runner. Are you doing more anaerobic workouts and, like, fast twitch speeds, sprint, even sprint type stuff?

Jeff Gaudette [00:36:46]: It's actually what we call speed development. So she's on the track about two times a week, and she's doing intervals as short as 150 meters, 50 meters. So she's literally going to the track and sprinting as hard as she can for different varying times, varying speeds, those types of things. And it's very different than she's not marathon training because she doesn't have a marathon training coming up. But what we're doing is working on her efficiency in those types of things. So it's completely different. You're right. Doing 400 meters, 600 meters repeats those types of workouts. Very different from what a marathoner would do. But again, we're working on her ability to run faster, easier.

Finn Melanson [00:37:31]: Okay, our last question is from Matt Mullen. He's based here in the States. He asks, do you think it's a good strategy for those of us with bad joints, quote unquote, bad knees to reduce our mileage and increase our speed? I'm marathon training on only two days a week right now, running a pace that keeps my heart rate over 165.

Jeff Gaudette [00:37:52]: 1St, let me start out by answering the question of whether running injures your joints or hurts your knees or is bad for your knees. That's probably one of the most common questions that I get from beginner runners. And unfortunately, The New York Times doesn't do us any favors when they look at research studies and don't look at them correctly. But I'm basically referencing the fact that New York Times put out an article about a study that showed that running hurts your knees, but they really just did a poor job at actually analyzing the study. I don't know if they just looked at the abstract or if the author just doesn't know how to read a proper study, but any case, it's been pretty much proven through strong research studies that running has it won't cause knee damage. There is the possibility that runners will get knee problems, but that has to do with their own individual biomechanics and their own individual problems. Just like any runner can develop a stress fracture or get Achilles tendonitis, it's completely unique to the individual. Running, in general does not cause knee problems. So let me first get that out of the way so to let everybody know that there's no fear in getting knee injuries beyond any other injury that you would normally get. As to whether running harder is going to be better or worse for the joints. Personally, I think it's going to be harder because you're putting much more stress. The impact forces are much greater when you're running faster. And it's probably not hard to visualize that the faster you run, the more impact you're going to be creating with the ground. And to be honest with you, the best way to lessen that impact would be to run nice and easy, focus on having good form, a higher cadence, and running on softer surfaces, whether it be grass or gravel, those types of things. Something where it's taking the impact off and doing it more consistently. So if you're training for a marathon on two days a week, I would assume that both of those runs have to be pretty high volume as well. At least I would think. And so what would be better for your joints is to spread out that mileage over the week. So I guess if you're trying to run 20 or 30 miles a week, it's better to spread that out over four, maybe even five runs and to start and to do less mileage during those running days than to do, to basically wreck your knee and run hard. Trying to run long and then spending five days trying to recover is going to be worse than doing three to 4 miles, running easy, doing less damage to the knee, treating it with therapy, all that kind of stuff, and then doing a run the next day, those types. Not only is that going to help your training more in terms of preparing for the marathon, that's going to be better, but I personally think that it's going to help your joints more. So that's probably the approach I would take. Got it.

Finn Melanson [00:40:28]: And I know one of your core tenets is you can never run too slowly on easy days, but you can run too fast on hard days. Is that right?

Jeff Gaudette [00:40:38]: Exactly. And so the reason that is that for easy days, again, one of the major contributors to getting better and to getting faster is to develop your aerobic system. And research has shown that your aerobic system, you develop your aerobic system most by running between 65 and 75% of your five k pace. So for most people, that's going to be about two minutes slower than your five k race pace. That's where kind of the optimal aerobic development happens when running easy, any faster than that. So any faster than 75% of your five k pace, so between 75% and whatever higher, there isn't a lot of aerobic development going on. So basically what's happening for somebody like Matt or anybody that's running their easy days too fast who are thinking like, okay, this is an easy day, I'm going to run it faster and that's going to be better. For me, it's actually worse. Because now, instead of developing your aerobic system, you're probably in what we call a gray zone, which is this area where you're not really developing your aerobic system, but then you're not running fast enough for it to be a hard workout. So you're not running at threshold pace or you're not running at vo two max and aerobic pace. You're kind of in this gray zone where you're not slow enough to be aerobic, not fast enough to actually do any to be helpful, and so you're kind of just getting nothing out of the run except for being more tired, more stress to your joints, more stress to your muscles, that kind of thing.

Finn Melanson [00:42:03]: That was a great round of Q and A, and I love how Jeff was really able to dig deep into each topic and provide some amazing tidbits to take away from each question. Quick reminder if you have questions you'd like our coaches to answer on the podcast, you can head to RunnersConnect. Net daily and submit them to us. Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host. Finn milanson. 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 Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests and premier access to contests and giveaways, then subscribe to our newsletter by going to RunnersConnect. Net podcast. Until next time, happy trading.