Programming for Runners with Dr. Angie Brown

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 232. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Angie Brown and we are talking all about how to program for runners. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client and performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, welcome. I'm super pumped that you're here. Just a quick reminder before we get into today's incredible episode, the tickets for FitBiz Live, which is a two day in person mastermind event, which is the opportunity for you to hang out with some of with me and my accelerators to have a powerful transformation and take your business to the next level, is still available. Just make sure that you send me a DM at Bees and Fitness and let me know that you're interested in in learning more about the live event because we the pre sale tickets are still on sale. So go ahead and send me a DM if you're interested in learning more about what that potentially looks like. Because today we have an incredible episode with Dr. Angie Brown, who is a physical therapist, a DPT, a mom, a wife, entrepreneur, coach and is the co founder of the Real Life Runners Training Academy and a real life podcast that she hosts alongside her husband Kevin Brown. She helps runners run faster, longer without injury so they can have more energy, be strong, healthy and fit and have more freedom in their lives. She holds a doctorate in physical therapy specializing in runner specific strength and conditioning, mobility and injury prevention for runners and also holds a certification in nutrition to help her clients integrate healthy eating to complement their training and overall health goals. She has a passion for health and wellness, food, fitness and helping to educate people on the importance of healthy lifestyle changes in order to live an active, vibrant life both now and as we get older. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. What's up Angie? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I'm awesome. Thanks so much for having me.

I am super excited to get into it. First of all, thank you so much for your patience. For those of you who are not. You're not here in the green room, I have been just so kooky today, but I'm super bummed that you're here, and I'm so glad to dive in. So for those of you who are tuning in and you have not had the pleasure of knowing your work, I'd love for you to share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve, and how you got there.

Sounds good. So my name's Angie Brown, and I am a running coach. And my company is called Real Life Runners, and we love to help people learn how to become physically and mentally stronger runners. So we kind of approach running from a more holistic perspective because there is a huge, obviously physical side to running, but there's a huge mental aspect to running as well. And so we really love training our runners on both sides of things. How to get stronger physically, but then also how to overcome a lot of those mental obstacles that get in our way. Especially with endurance sports, that is a big thing. But really, anybody that's trying to improve their health and fitness, right. There's both physical things that we need to address and mental things that we need to address. And so that's really what I do. I'm a physical therapist. I've been practicing physical therapy for over 15 years. And so in kind of the idea for this company was, you know, as a physical therapist, I started noticing that a lot of people started having chronic pain, right? A lot. I would get a lot of repeat customers. I'd have a lot of people coming in for the same thing over and over again. And I started to notice this pattern. And I kind of realized that almost all chronic conditions have, like, they could be treated and prevented by lifestyle choices. I would say a good 95% of chronic conditions. And so as a PT, it was great to work with these people and help them learn better ways to strength train and, you know, ways to adjust their lifestyle. But I. I kind of started thinking along the lines of, how can I help people become more proactive with their health versus more reactive? You know, because when they. By the time they made it to me in my office, they had been having pain for a while. They're kind of addressing a problem, help trying to help that problem go away. But what if we started teaching them a lot of these things ahead of time so that they didn't have to end up in my PT office and definitely didn't have to end up there as frequently? So that's really what drove me to start my company. And my husband and I actually started the company together. And he's a runner and I'm a runner. And with my background as a physical therapist, it just made sense that we would help other runners to improve their running.

Okay, I love this and I can't wait to dive in because you talked about a couple of things that I think it's worth noting is that, that, you know, you talked about how pt, you know, you were stepping into this role as a PT to focus more on preventative care than reactive care. And that is not something that you commonly see amongst the majority of pts.

Yeah, and I think that, that, that, that is true. And I do see a shift a little bit nowadays. I think with social media and the information the way that we have it now, I think there is, there's so much information out there which is such a fantastic blessing. But I know that that is not the way we were taught in physical therapy school. Right. Like, we were not taught, like, let's make sure that they never come see us. You know, we were taught how to react. And that's really, if we think about it, that's how the whole medical system is set up. The whole medical system that we have is a very reactive system. Like people call it health care. I don't think it's health care. It's disease care in my opinion. Like, it's, it's. How do we manage disease? That's what a lot of quote unquote healthcare providers do. And so I'm like thinking to myself, you know, how do we shift this into more actual health care? Teaching people what they need to know to be proactive with their own health and how to actually manage health instead of just trying to manage disease.

I could not agree with you more. And I also agree that I think that there is a shift and I think that for a lot of professionals, especially in the age of social media, is that we tend to be confirmation biased. Right. And so we start to notice in ourselves, oh, everyone's starting to talk about this when the truth is a small percentage of people are doing it. There's still so much work to be done on this, in my opinion, on this movement towards, you know, instead of managing disease care, that we manage health care. Right. And I think that's just so powerful.

Yeah, I completely agree. And it's so funny that you say that because I do agree that we have this bias, right. Because we are surrounded by other people like us a lot of times. Right. That's Just kind of the nature of life is we surround, tend to surround ourselves with like minded individuals. And so, you know, I know you like me. Like, we're in the health space, we're in the business space. So we hear a lot of the same things over and over. Personal development, right? So to us it's like, yeah, doesn't everybody know this already? But then you go out into the mass population and it's, you know, brand new to so many people. Like, to me, you know, obviously being in the running world, there's been a lot of shifts in the way that runners train. I listen to podcasts, I read research articles, I do all of. I stay up to date because I'm a very, you know, research and scientifically based individual. And that's the way that we like to run our company as well. But so to me, I'm like, doesn't everybody know this? But it's because I'm actively taking the interest in trying to find this information, which most people are not. So a lot of people end up getting into running, you know, later in life because they want to get in shape, they want to get fit, they want to lose weight. And running seems like an easy way to do that. And they, the way that they come into it, they get so many things wrong and they end up injured and they end up not liking it. And I just like, I want to flip the script on that. I want to show them that it can be enjoyable, it can be easier. Like you don't have to be suffering all the time and it can actually be a really good thing for your health.

So good. Okay, so I want to dive a little bit deeper into running because as movement professionals, I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions around the sport of running and around people who run. So just for some context.

Yeah.

What brought you, like, how did you get into running? Were you long distance? You know, thing like, tell me about running.

So I'm glad you asked that question because I hated running. And so, like, I have a little bit of a unique story, which I feel like some people, there's probably a lot of people out there that can relate to this, right? Like, I grew up playing volleyball, basketball and softball, so I was always a competitive athlete. I always enjoyed moving my body, enjoyed, you know, the competitive nature of sports. But running was always punishment to me because in all of those sports, it's like if you miss a serve, you had to do laps. Right? Like in basketball, we literally had to do what are called suicides. Like that is like running. The laps of the court are called suicides.

Like what?

You know, like. But this is the messaging around running, right? It's like the craziest thing. And so to me, running was always this, like, thing that I had to do that was either punishment or part of, like, conditioning that was unrelated to my sport, the way that I saw it. And I definitely didn't enjoy it. And then when I got into college and I stopped playing all my team sports, then I started gaining weight. So I got into running to try to lose weight and get in shape like a lot of people do, and again, still didn't like it. Like, it still felt miserable. And then I met a guy in college who's now my husband, and he was a runner. And I'm like, this guy's crazy. I don't understand, you know, like, why he likes this so much. You know, I don't get it. And at the time, he had just, he had just actually stopped running for the team at the university that we were going to, which was a Division 1 school. So he was like a Division 1 cross country runner at, at our, at our university. And so he was running at a very high level. And so I just didn't get it, you know. And so what he started to do with me is like, kind of show me that running could be different and like, just the fact that someone enjoyed it and loved it and I also like this person, you know, like, it was like, okay, maybe it could be different. And so it kind of just got me curious. And one of the ways that he actually got me to start enjoying running more was by introducing interval training to me where I could run fast for a portion of time and then run slower or, you know, kind of like change it up so it wasn't just going out and running the same pace for a long time. Because to me, that was so boring and so unfulfilling at. I. I like it now. I've done. It shifted. I've done a lot of shifting, but that's a little about how I got into running is. Is really through him. And then I started to enjoy it. We started. I started to understand what it could do for me, how it felt. I got. The first time I put on a real pair of running shoes, it was like the heavens opened up because I just ran in like, whatever trainers I, you know, were on sale. Like, I didn't even know at that time that there was a difference between running shoes and regular shoes. So once running started to be more fun, it started to feel Better. Then I started to get into it more, started to learn more about it, and the rest is history.

Okay. So I love that and I want to talk a little bit more about, you know, we, and we can. It could be through the context of your story, but also your clients and the people that you serve. Because what I noticed about running and runners in specific, or runners specifically, and really anyone, to be honest, is, is, is unpacking the intention behind why people run. So when you first got into the sport, it was because you wanted, you would gain some weight, you wanted to use it to, to, you know, potentially get back into better shape. And then as it starts to progress and you're adding interval training, you met your now husband, you know, what was the intention behind why he ran? Like, are you running for performance? Are you running? People run for performance, Are you running for enjoyment? Like, how do you see this sport of why people come in and how it has, you know, changed the direction in your life and in your client's life?

Yeah, I think that it's a very common thing for running to kind of evolve. And that's why I like to think of running as a journey. I like to think of all of our fitness as a journey, but specifically running. And because I do think that people get into running for a various number of reasons. Number one, maybe they are like my husband and got into running at an early age competitively. Right. So he first started running when he was a freshman in high school, joined the cross country team and he. That's how he became a runner. Right. So he always has been on that competitive aspect and that, that side of things. And there's a lot of runners out there that are, that are the same as that. And then I think that a lot of runners then are similar to me again, which is why I think that the two of us working together is. We're like a special duo in my opinion. Obviously, hopefully other people would agree, but, you know, because we're, we're very different, you know, like he's, he came to it from that competitive aspect. I came to it more just from health and fitness and not liking it. Right. It's like he has always loved running. I never, I didn't like it and then grew to love it. And so I think that those are kind of two of the main camps of people that do come into running. But I do think that, and it's interesting when you kind of talk to both of us, how our running journeys have evolved because he went more from that competitive side to now and like, always running with the team to running on his own, and then kind of figuring out what he wanted to do with as far as competitiveness and goals and what he wanted to train for. And so he started to get into longer races, obviously, like half marathons, marathons. Now he's into ultra marathons. And so that's kind of his path. My path is, and which I think a lot of runners share, is, you know, not liking it, just kind of getting into it because we hear it's good for us, right? Like, it's. It. There's a low barrier of entry. You don't have to buy a bunch of weights. You don't have to figure out what exercises to do. You just put some shoes on and you head out the door, right? So for a lot of people, it's like, okay, well, I. I don't have to invest a lot of money in this or even time trying to figure it out. I'm just going to go out and run. And as wonderful as that seems, that's usually that, you know, that can work in the beginning. But, like, when. Then what we see is that a lot of times people get into running and then they start to feel the benefits of it. They start to feel stronger. They start to notice improvements, because especially when you start anything, you're going to improve a lot at the beginning, usually. So maybe at the beginning, they were only able to run maybe a half a mile or a mile, and they notice that the more they do it, now they're able to run a mile, now they're able to run two miles. But inevitably they hit some sort of plateau along the way. And. And they're, you know, what we often see, and this is one of the big things that we talk about in our company, is that pushing harder is not the way to just keep getting better. And that's what I think a lot of people think is, well, if I just keep doing more, if I just push a little harder, then I'll get faster. And so I think people. People's journeys evolve from doing, you know, coming into running because they want to better their health, and then they start to see improvement. So then they're like, oh, okay, now I want to challenge myself. Now I want to see how. How good I can get. Now I want to see how fast I can get or how long I can run. And that's different for everybody. But I think that a lot of times they come into it for one reason, and then it kind of starts to morph along the way, and it becomes something that it wasn't when it first started.

I love that. It's so true. So true. Now I want to talk a little bit about. Because you started to talk about it, right? You were talking about the barrier of entry to running is often low and people also have misconceptions about it. This idea of I don't need skill because I just put my shoes on and walk out the door. Which in my opinion is one of the reasons why so many people suffer, get hurt and, and struggle with running. So. And not to mention the fact that I think that in the fitness community, in the strength and conditioning world specifically, running can often be villainized with, you know, without full context. Right. And I know because I'm saying that, you know, out of experience and out of, you know, guilt. Right. As a. I used to run all the time and then I found worlds of waste and was like, running is st. But, you know, I think we all just evolve as professionals. So I'd love for you to unpack a little bit about, you know, what are some of the misconceptions that people have about running and then how to, you know, move, how to build running athletes, people who want to run.

Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up because I, I have also noticed this big industry shift, right, of, of exactly what you mentioned of like a lot of the, the 80s, the 90s, even the early 2000s was very cardio based, right? It was all about like, if you want to lose weight, do more cardio. And there's this huge shift now into lifting heavier weights, right. Which is fantastic. And you know, strength training and all of that, which I believe there's a, there's a huge part of that every human on the planet needs to strength train. Okay. That's, that's my, you know, opinion on things, which, which is funny because I'm a running coach, right. So people might not expect that coming from me. But the thing is there's, and I agree with it. So there's, it's true that there's a certain amount of cardio that we need for our cardiovascular health, right. For our heart, for our lungs, for circulation. There's a lot of benefits of cardio based exercises, but there's a ton of benefits for strength training, resistance training as well, like building lean muscle mass, bone health, like so many different things that we don't have to get into all the details right now because I'm sure that your audience is already familiar with a lot of the details of, and benefits of strength training. But runners need to do both. And I think that what it's important, some of the misconceptions around running and runners is that, well a, you know, one of the big misconceptions is like runners are crazy, right? Which I would kind of agree with, quite honestly. We are a little crazy, right? Like who chooses to, you know, wake up at 5:00am and go out and run five miles? Like, but at the same time, who chooses to wake up at 5am and go lift really heavy weights at the gym? Like, we all just have different versions of it, right? Like, and people say crazy, crazy. It's just because they don't quite understand it. And like. So I think that this is one of the things and that personal trainers should understand and a physical therapist and other, you know, rehab professionals in working with runners is that there is a different mindset. A lot of times they, they do think differently than a lot of other people that are just kind of in the general population, especially if they've been doing it for a while, especially if their goal is performance, especially if, you know, they are looking to improve versus is just running for health. Okay. And there. And so I think that there's, it depends on the type of runner that you're working with. And I hesitate to say that because like one of the big parts of that, you know, one of the things I talk about is that we're all just runners. It's not like you, you're one type of runner or another type of runner. But I think that there, there are runners with different goals. And that's what I mean when I say what type of runner. So you know, runners need to, to think differently than people that are just in it for general health. You know, a lot of times what, when I talked about that shift before, you know, people get into it but then they start wondering like, how more, how much more can I do? How much faster can I go? Because running is a very numbers based sport. It's just a natural thing. And runners tend to be a little bit more of that like type A personality, that more driven type of personality that kind of gets attracted to the sport of running. And so when you also see a number attached to it, whether that's a distance or a pace, it leads a lot of people to very naturally want to make that better. Right? Especially since that there are more driven individuals in the sport. So what happens a lot of times is that they think they kind of bring that mentality, especially if they're like me, that it kind of got into running later in life or even when My husband was training when he was in high school. We didn't. They didn't train runners the same way as we do now because we've learned so much over the last couple of decades in the world of endurance training. And, and the way that we train runners. And I can, you know, get into more details there, of course, too, but essentially what, what we're seeing is that, like blanking out right now, but basically we need to train differently if we want to get the results that we're looking for, so.

True. Now, one of the things that. That I think is important to note, because you, you mentioned it, you noticed this just from my own experience from back in the day when I literally used to run 13 miles every Sunday. Like it was fun. And I still actually miss those days.

Yeah.

But the, the impact on the body that it requires, that is, that is, that is a requirement of doing that type of, you know, time. Like you're not lifting at the gym and under that type of. Of of pressure is not the right word, but that type of demand on the body for that.

Right.

As the way that I feel like running sneaks up on you. I mean, it is a pretty much. It is a very demanding, you know, sport, whether you're doing it for 20 minutes or 60 minutes. Right. And so that's why I do hear you and you talk about that. It needs to have a. A specific type of, you know, a different way of training. So I'd love for you to unpack a little bit. You know, what is the type of running and how does it look given the client? Like, if you are a coach and you have someone who just likes to enjoy running, that strength training program look like versus the person who's training for a marathon or ironman.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, what I was trying to get at before is this idea that pushing harder is the way to get better all the time. Right. And there's no pain, no gain mentality that a lot of athletes bring into running from other sports or from the motivational posters that they see on the wall. Right. No pain, no gain. Keep pushing harder. It's like this whole. This hustle culture that we're in as well, and that just doesn't work for runners. And that's one of the reasons that we see so broken runners out there. We see so many running injuries. There's statistics based on what research study you're looking at, but it's really over 80% of runners sustain some sort of injury at some point during their running career. And that number is just insane, right? It's astronomical. But it's because runners aren't training properly in order to support their body through that training process, which is exactly what you're kind of referring to. So. So I think one of the big shifts that runners need to make is understanding that running is not supposed to be hard all the time. And this is one of the things that it's really hard for people to wrap their head around, like when they first come into our coaching program and our coaching world. Like, it's one of those things that I have to really help people understand, number one, why it's important and then number two, get them to buy into that idea that it. Most of your runs are supposed to feel easy. So we teach effort based training in our coaching program, which is similar to rpe, you know, the rating of perceived exertion. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how hard does this feel and running? The majority of your running should feel easy, like a level 2 out of 10. And when we tell people that their minds are blown because most people when they go out for a run just naturally gravitate to that, like 5, 6, 7, that like moderate level of effort because they think, okay, well if it feels uncomfortable, that probably means I'm doing it correctly, right? Or running should feel hard. And it kind of goes back to what our thoughts and our beliefs are about running. So a lot of times we think running should be uncomfortable. Running shouldn't feel great. Like it's normal for my body to hurt because I'm running, when in reality your body shouldn't be hurting all the time and running should actually feel easy. Your breathing should feel comfortable. Most of the times when you go out and run, you should not be gasping for air. Your. Your legs should not be burning all the time. And if that is happening to you every single time you go out and run, it's because you're pushing too hard. And so we coach our athletes on basically what's called like an 80, 20 principle, where 80% of their running is easy and then 20 is harder. 20 is in that moderate to hard range where you're pushing at a faster pace or you're trying to sustain, you know, a faster pace for longer. And there are different types of workouts that we give our athletes, but most of the running should be easy. And that's like a total mind blowing moment for people. Like, I know that I've been, you know, talking to other lifting coaches and lifting professionals are like, wait, what? You know, like, this is, this is beyond me. Because when they use RPE for lifting, they're telling people to go more to like that 6, 7 range on most of their sessions. Whereas I'm telling people you should be at like a 2 or 3. So it's like a, it's a big mindset shift in just understanding the way that we can be most effective with our running training. Does that make sense?

Yeah, makes perfect sense.

And as far as I want. Go ahead. I was just going to say about strength training because you asked about strength training as well. And so like I said earlier, you know, I believe all humans should strength train, but definitely runners. And this is where, you know, my physical therapist hat comes on because, because we as runners love to run. Okay. If you coach runners, if you work with runners, you're going to notice that runners like running, especially when it's feeling good, when they're, you know, noticing improvement, when things are going well. Not a lot of runners also like strength training because kind of like what we talked about before, it's more complicated. Right? They see running as simple. Strength training is complicated. I don't know which exercises to do. I don't know if I should be lifting heavier weight weights and lower repetitions or lighter weights and higher repetitions. There's just a lot to unpack and to try to figure out. So a lot of them just don't do any of it, which is obviously not the right way to do it either. So as runners, just kind of a little overview. As runners, we need to be doing those heavier compound lifts, but we also need to be working on stabilizing muscles. Because running, if you think about the activity of running, you are essentially jumping from, from one foot to another over and over and over again. And, and an average run cadence is around 180 steps per minute. Usually like the range of like 160 to 180 steps per minute. So if you're landing on one limb 90 times every single minute, there's a lot of muscle strength and stabilization that's required to both accept your weight, stabilize the body and then power you forward. And so we need to strength train in very specific ways as runners to support our body through that motion. So yes, heavy lifting is fantastic. You know, people, that's a very common question that I get is like, you know, should we do lower weights, higher reps or heavier weights and lower reps? I think that there's a place for both. But I. The research, everything's kind of tending to point more to those lower reps, higher weights for our strength Training sessions. But as a physical therapist, I always, always intend, like I always talk about functional training as well. Okay. Because as since running is that single leg activity, I believe that we need to strength train, sing more single leg exercises so that we are getting the benefit of strength. But also kicking in those stabilizing muscles to help our body know how to react inside of our sport.

I think that's so powerful. So that was, you know, my question to you was how. Because I actually think that people forget that it is a. Not a unilateral sport. Yeah, it is single leg.

Right.

And that we have to train the strength in a single leg faction in fashion. And so I'm curious for you, you know, and, and you also spoke to how runners can sometimes feel sensitive about strength training, mostly because, you know, they just don't have the skill and know what to do.

Yeah.

How do you navigate? Like, what does an actual program for a runner look like? Like, how do you navigate? We don't want the strength training component. We want the strength training component to support the activity, not take away from it, not cannibalize it, not, not deplete the body so that they can't perform. So how do you navigate what that looks like if it's 80, 20 in the running, what about the strength training? How does it look?

I'm so happy you asked this question. And so this is really the importance of using training cycles. Right. So, so understanding that when you start working with an athlete, when you start working with a runner and you know, all runners are athletes, even though for some reason a lot of runners don't identify as athletes, which is so interesting. Right. And like I have to like sometimes convince people I'm like, you're an athlete. You need to start thinking and training and behaving like an athlete. And they're like, no, no, I just run. And I'm like, running is an athletic endeavor and you are an athlete. Right. Like that alone is like a whole mindset shift that people have to go through sometimes. But, but to your question, training cycles are extremely important when it comes to knowing how to program a runner's week, month, several month cycle. So I always figure out what are, what is the goal? Okay, so like when someone would come into our coaching program, the first thing that we do is we have them undergo some testing and some assessment so that we can see exactly where they are in their running, exactly where they are in their strength. We try to find out those weakness areas, those areas of restriction and lack of mobility so that we kind of Get a full picture of what this athlete looks like and then what is your goal? Okay. We always ask, what do you want to achieve? And so some of them come in and they want, you know, they have a half marathon, they've got a marathon. They, they want to train for something. And some of them come in because they want running to start feeling better. You know, they have knee pain. Every time they run three miles, that knee starts to act up and they feel like they can't go any further or they're, they're doing a local park run. Like in, it's not common in the, in the US but like over in the UK and other parts of the world, they have these things called park runs, which are fantastic. They're 5k at a local park every Saturday morning. They're free. And so everyone loves just going and like trying to improve their time at their local park run. But you know, they, after I get through, you know, 3k, 4k, I can't sustain it. My breathing is holding me back. So we figure out what is the goal. Is the goal to run longer? Is the goal to run faster? Is the goal to train for a race? Is the goal to address some sort of ache or pain or injury that you have? And then you. We use these training cycles, which we usually do in 90 days, but obviously you have to customize it for the individual and say, okay, what's our goal for this training cycle? Or if you have a bigger goal like a marathon, we like to reverse engineer it. So it's like, okay, in, in six months or nine months, you want to run a full marathon. What do we need to do to get you to that point to get you ready for that marathon training cycle? So in something like a race training cycle, running needs to be the important focus, right where that the strength sessions need to be at a maintenance level. We're not trying to increase people's strength during a race training cycle because the focus needs to be on the race performance. But right before that race training cycle, or maybe two cycles before that, is a fantastic time to focus on building strengths. So, you know, our. Is your client in a race training cycle or are they in a more base building cycle where they're just trying to improve their strength or maybe just build up their mileage a little bit so that they're to get ready for another goal or a race? So in a base building cycle or a strength building cycle, then that's when you're really going to want to focus on that progressive overload in strength training and then kind of maintain running. So the principle of progressive overload applies for both times. It's just a matter of which one you're applying it to. So in a base building cycle you're doing progressive overload for the strength portion where you are, you know, increasing weights and trying to improve, improve overall muscular strength and then maintaining whatever the running is at, at that maintenance level. And then in a race training cycle you're maintaining strength and then doing the progressive overload on the running side.

So I'm curious, how long do is a typical race training cycle and how do you determine how long it should.

So it, it's different for every individual. But our, our race training cycles are typically 12 weeks just on based. It's, it depends on the length of the race and it depends on where the person is when entering that race training cycle. But if you're talking about a half marathon, it's usually about 12 weeks. But that assumes that you already have a base built right where you can go into that plan already able to run five or six miles at a time. Whereas if you're not able to do that like we would, you know, if you're starting at zero, then you're going to need a longer time to build up to that. So it really just depends on where the athlete is when they, they decide that they want to start training for a race.

Okay, so do you have like bench line mark, do you have baseline metrics that you measure like okay, this is going to be a 12 week clip for a half marathon as long as you can do five miles consistently without taking a break. Is that kind of how you like?

Yes and yes and no. So like we believe in personalized plans for the, the greatest amount of success. Like we don't believe in these, you know, cookie cutter types of training plans because the name of our company is Real Life Runners and we named it that way because running has to fit into your real life. And sometimes things come up, right? Like you never know when you're going to get sick. You never know when you're going to have a family crisis. You never know what the weather is going to be like. And you know, if, if you live up north and there's a blizzard that comes through and kind of knocks out a week of running, right? Like there are things that happen so we have to be able to adjust. So we, the way that we coach our athletes is, you know, we have 12 week cycles that we build some flexibility into. And then again, if people are not quite ready to start those 12 week plans then it's like, okay, what? How can we bridge the gap from where they are to where they need to be when they actually start that plan?

Okay, I love that. So one of the things, too, that I'm also curious about because I. I let you. You brought it up earlier, and I want to circle back to it because I noticed this a lot, at least in the general. General population, is that, like, January 1st, fun comes and it's like they're gonna get into the best shape of their life, and then they. All of a sudden, it's like the first goal that comes to everyone's mind is like, let's do a 5K or let's do a half marathon. And. And I love the idea of having a performance goal, but I always laugh because I think to myself, you realize you're stepping into an athletic experience, right? Like, that is not just like, let's get into shape. That's like, we're now training for performance requirements. Right. And so I'm curious how you navigate that. Like, have you had to shift perspective on people and then do they realize, like, oh, wait, actually, I don't want to. I just want to do this for fun. Like, what is that like for you in the process, in your experience, in your company?

Yeah. And. And that's definitely one of the things that, like, I. That we definitely pride ourselves on is really helping people understand what they're getting themselves in for, you know, like, helping them really understand it. Right. Because I think you're. I think you're totally right. Like, I think that people go into like, oh, that'd be so cool to run a marathon, or that'd be so cool to run a half marathon, but they have no idea what it actually takes to do it. Right? So it'd be really cool to, like, get that medal. And so one of the big things that we talk about, like, that one of the biggest mistakes we see is people that sign up for a race before they even think about their training. That is one of the hands down biggest mistakes that we see is that they're like, oh, that sounds like a great idea. I'm going to sign up for a half marathon in two months, even though I haven't run in five years.

Years.

You know, you're like, oh, honey, no, no, no.

I'm laughing because that is totally something I would do. I'd be like, oh, you know what? I used to run. And then you're like, yeah, 10 years ago.

Right. And. And the problem is, you know, you speak about January 1st and New Year's resolutions. Like, what is it like 80 or 90% of those are completely done by the end of January, right? Like 80 or 80%. I think over 80% of people have already broken their resolution by the end of the month. And so. And I think it's like 90%, like after six months or 10 months. There was a research study that I just recently heard about, so. But I think that's what happens is that we get these, you know, inspiration moments where we like, okay, we're going to set a goal. I'm going to make some changes. And it's this all or nothing mindset that a lot of people fall into. And what we like to help people understand is that it's not an all or nothing mindset. Like, let's take it one sustainable step at a time. You know, how can we kind of pull this back a little? And we have had a lot of people join our program, like with that goal of, you know, say, a marathon. And once they kind of start to understand and unpack all of the things that are required for them to achieve that goal, they are willing to move the timeline, which is what I think is so powerful, is like being willing to adjust the timeline. Because I truly believe that anything is possible. You can do anything you want. Our bodies are amazing. Our bodies are so strong and so resilient as long as we give ourselves the right timeline. And the problem is when those two things don't match. When people are trying to achieve a goal, but they don't give themselves enough time, they end up ramping up their training way too quickly. They end up pushing themselves too hard, and they end up tired, burnt out and injured and then falling off the wagon. And then they think, oh, well, I guess running is just not for me, or my body's not a runner's body, or I'm not meant to be a runner, which is completely untrue. If you want to be a runner, if there's any sort of desire, desire, you can totally do it. You just have to train in a way that's actually going to support your body and give yourself the time to actually get there.

I love that. And I'm also curious, you know, what are some of the biggest differences in a runner's training program that you've noticed that feels like gets missed a lot. Especially, you know, especially to the context of like, I'll just speak to personal trainers as an example. In the gym, right. Oftentimes they're. They will get clients. Clients that perhaps they're not skilled at the sport themselves, you know, so I'm curious, you know, what are some of the biggest things and program experiences or positioning that, that a runner needs that's different than traditional? You know, just overall movement?

Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing to me is single leg stuff, like doing single leg types of exercises. So it's as simple as instead of a squat or in addition to a squat, do a single leg squat. Right. Like, there's a lot of these movement patterns that we can just adapt for. Single leg, instead of doing calf raises with two feet, you do single leg calf raises. Romanian deadlift is one of my favorite exercises. But a single leg RDL versus a double leg rdl, I think there's room for both. Right. I think that a traditional squat is fantastic, but a single leg squat is very functional for a runner. Things like plyometrics also very helpful for runners, where you're doing single leg skipping and bounding. Also very good for us as we get older. And our tendons need, you know, our tendons tend to lose springiness and elasticity as we get older. So some of these types of activities where we are bouncing more, because obviously running is a plyometric activity. Right. We are literally bounding from one foot to it to another, over and over and over again. So, you know, having runners train in that more specific way where they are, you know, making sure that they take care of their calves, like, that's a really, really big one. Making, like all runners, runners, in my opinion, need to do calf strengthening exercises both with the knee straight and with the knee bent, because we want to make sure we hit both muscles of the major muscles in the calf. Right. Complex. So doing those kinds of exercises, we obviously need hip strengthening exercises. That's a huge thing. And we get a lot of hip stability with those single leg exercises. We do have to be consciously aware of it to make sure that, like, say, when you're doing a single leg squat, your knee's not crashing in, you're not falling over, you're not, you know, losing your balance. Because all of those things are really big indicators that there's probably some sort of hip instability going on or hip weakness going on. Because in my practice as a, as a PT and as a running coach, most people, I find, have some sort of hip weakness. And that hip weakness is, is what I believe leads to a lot of the problems that runners experience. Experience. So to your, to your question, hip exercise, hip strengthening and stability exercises, single leg exercises, those to me are like two of the most important things. And you can Get a lot of those things from lots of different exercises. But you can just take some of those, you know, normal quote unquote gym exercises and make them a single leg version instead.

So good, so powerful. And I definitely want to be mindful of your time because I know that we have a lot going on today, on Thursday.

Yeah, all good.

So thank you so for sharing your insight and for pouring into me and into the community. So for those of you who are wanting to learn more, you know, I think that I'll leave my last question. This will be my last question is, you know, what would you recommend to a coach, for example, who's training running? Like, I'm assuming, like, you know, what are some, like, would you recommend that they also learn how to run? That they should come, you know, that they could, you know, know, experience it. Like, how can they learn more about how to be an effective coach and, and send us all your best resources or share with us your best resources for someone who potentially is working with a runner or interested in even becoming a runner? Because I think that coaches need coaching.

Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, I definitely agree with that. I mean, I think that, you know, I don't think you have to be a runner to work with runners, but I think you need to understand runners and that's hopefully what you've gained from this episode. You've got started to understand a little bit about the run runner mentality, about the, the way that you train runners is different than the way that you should train people from the general population. So I think that if you want to be an effective running coach, it's just about learning. You know, it's trying to, to seek out both information and coaching on how to coach runners. Or if you aren't interested in that, then you can stick to the strength training portion of it and guide them towards a qualified running coach. You know that that can help with the running programming. And then I'm all about collaboration. So, so then you can talk to that running coach and you can help craft a strength program that's going to benefit that runner in the best way so that you don't have to know everything about running. You can stay like, if you really love, you know, lifting and strength training, stay over there, get them help, have them help them find a quality running coach and then work together so that everybody's on the same page. You know, like going back to our earlier conversation about the medical system, that's one of the biggest problems is that people aren't communicating right. So it's like People have a, all these specialists and they've got medications from that one and medications from this one and nobody knows what the other one is doing. So having that communication and that collaboration is really, really important. And the, there's one more thing that I wanted to mention about like the way to, to train runners. And one of the things because I know that personal trainers and less so physical therapists and other healthcare professionals, but definitely with personal training there's a big nutritional component to, to what we do, right? As, as coaches and as trainers and so understanding that runners need to eat differently as well. And this is another big struggle that we see and misconception in the running world and with people that are coming in because they're hearing all of these eating trends and nutrition trends for the general population, right? They're hearing about keto and they're hearing about intermittent fasting and all of these types of things and then they are like oh well I've been doing this thing and I'm like okay, but that's not going to be the best choice for you as a runner, right? With what you want to accomplish with your performance goals like to train for a marathon and to be eating that way don't usually go well together, right? Fasting and marathon training is not recommended, right?

So it's so much energy. They need to, they need to eat.

And they need to eat specifically, specifically carbs, right? So that's a big thing is that they need more carbs than the general population. We need to teach them about better carb choices. But, but the craziest thing is like people that are training for half marathons and marathons, they need to know that it's okay to eat those fast acting, easily digestible carbs because it helps them to fuel their training. Right? Where we are told, you know, we shouldn't be eating simple sugars and we shouldn't be eating these like fast acting carbohydrates because it spikes your blood sugar and this and that, right? But as runners that's what we need to fuel ourselves on, on marathons or you know, half marathons. We're not talking about 5Ks. You know, you don't need to carb load for 5Ks or 10Ks, but like when you're starting to get into longer distances they, and, and that's a huge mindset shift for both runners and for trainers. So that was just one more little thing that I wanted to mention real quick.

I also last thing I know, I'm like oh my gosh, we're running out of time. But it's okay. Last thing, because we did. We kind of talked about it. But I am curious, what's the difference between someone who is. Would be considered. Considered a runner versus someone who just has running as their cardiovascular activity?

I think it's a choice of what you'd like to call yourself. That's it. Like, I. I see. Do you want to call yourself a runner? Then you are like, you know, some people don't want to identify that way. And that's totally cool because. But to me, like, if you're going out and running, there's no qualifying standards to be a runner. Like, no matter your pace, no matter your distance, no matter anything, if you want to be a runner, you're a runner. Like, if you go out and run, you're a runner. So whether or you want to call yourself that, that's totally up to you. And that's sometimes an identity shift that a lot of people have to make. And that's one of my big things, is getting people to say, I am a runner. Because, like, I'll have people that come and they're like, oh, well, I've done a couple half marathons, but I'm not really a runner. And I'm like, then what's a runner? You know, like. Yeah, how do you define a runner? It's like everybody has a slightly different definition of that. So I think that if you run, you're a runner. And that's it. It.

I love it.

Okay, so where can people find you Real Life runners? We are real life runners on all platforms. So we have a podcast. I think that, that, you know, when they're not listening to your amazing podcast, that would be a good place for them to go to just learn who we are, what we do. Our website is realliferunners.com or real life Runners on Instagram. That's probably where I'm the most active right now. But we're also starting YouTube and we have a Facebook and all the things, so. So, yeah, come find us over on Real Life Runners and say hey.

Okay. Love it. And we'll be sure to link all of that up. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.

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