#17: Heart Rate Training with 2:21 Marathoner Jason Cherriman

try and build in the consistency. Consistency first, volume second, and maybe a little bit more specific stuff if necessary. But I know a number of runners— I mean, you interviewed Josh. I know Jonathan, the bulk of his running is very easy. That does get phenomenal results. And because you're not stressing your body too much, the gains that you can get from building your aerobic engine are significant.

Hello everyone, my name is Floris Gierman. Welcome to another episode of The Extra Mile Show. On this podcast, I interview the brightest minds in health, fitness, and endurance sports. We talk about a variety of topics. Some of my favorites are how to become a stronger, healthier, and happier athlete. Some of the previous guests on the show are Dr. Phil Maffetone, 6-time World Ironman Mark Allen, and the Iceman Wim Hof. I also interview several amateur and elite athletes. And today's episode is with Jason Cherryman, a marathon runner from Leeds in the UK. He shares a lot of different insights around his training and racing, and the good thing is this is not only applicable to the faster runners out there. His personal best is 2:21, and he's looking to break that in 2:20 at the London Marathon this weekend. Some of his insights are also very applicable for the average and even the end-of-the-pack runner as well. We talk about heart rate monitor training, we discuss aerobic efficiency, different sweat rates, and overall nutrition. Many different topics are going to be discussed. I made a ton of different notes for myself that I'm very excited to use for my, for my own future training as well. Jason writes in detail about his training and racing on his website Running Obsessive, and I'll make sure to link to his website and all the show notes on my own site extramilest.com. I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Jason Cherryman.

Jason, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. And another person from Leeds. You must be getting sick of speaking to those Yorkshire folk, but lovely to speak with you.

Yeah, it's so funny how that goes. With Jonathan Walton first, and then him and I dove deep into the heart rate training, and from there he just brought up, you should talk to Josh and you should talk to Jason. And after I came across your running blog, Running Obsessive, you truly are running obsessive because when I see the detail that you put into your whole approach and the overall journaling and everything, I think there's so much great information to dive into there. But before we dive into the whole running part, all of the running details, it would be great to find out a little bit more background information, like where you're from, your age, your profession, just to get an overall understanding of who you are.

I, well, yeah, I'm 38, and I, well, I work from home. I am a manager for a sales team, investment management company. So essentially what we do is we provide a platform to investment managers, and it's mine and my team's role to go out there and essentially sell, sell the platform. So that's what, that's what I do from a, from a professional standpoint. In terms of running, I've been running now for about 11 years or so. I did my first marathon in 2009. I'd initially got into running because I sort of got a bit overweight through my, through my 20s and got on the scales one day and decided that actually I had got myself into a, you know, a bit of a mess really. You know, I wasn't, I wasn't enormous, but, you know, I certainly wasn't healthy and I certainly wasn't fit. So at that point I decided to start running. From there, I, you know, worked out that actually I was probably quite reasonable at it. So I continued to read more and I'm constantly looking for new stuff to read on running, see what I can learn and see how I can apply it in my training. And that sort of brought us to today really, where I'm aiming hopefully to go under 2:20 at London this coming Sunday.

Yeah, it's coming up. It's right around the corner over there. That's very exciting for you, man.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, no, especially considering the last sort of 18 months has been a bit, bit poor to say the least. You know, well, certainly last year was almost all of a write-off and the end of the previous year I had picked up a stress fracture in my sacrum. So it's just been really, really lovely to actually get some consistency over the last 3 or 4 months that has actually seen me get into really, really good shape, I think.

Yeah, that's very exciting. So just going back for a little bit, you're at this point working from home, so you are a little bit more flexible with your training schedule then, probably, right?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I am. And, you know, I certainly don't, don't take that for granted. I do have two daughters, however, so, you know, I like to try and make my running as invisible as possible. And by that I mean I will make sure that I get up and get my main run done early, ordinarily before they've even before they've even risen. And, you know, if I am going for my second run, which I do probably on 4 or 5 out of 7 days, I'll generally do that at lunchtime. So again, the eldest is still at school, the youngest has just come back from nursery, and my wife's looking after her. So hopefully, although I'm sure my wife would disagree, it's, you know, the aim is to try and keep it as invisible as possible.

Yeah, and that's not easy. I got two daughters myself, two and six, and just that part of trying to get your miles in before they wake up in the morning just means you got to wake up at 4:30, 5 o'clock, or even during the lunchtimes or in the evenings when you don't have much energy left.

It is, and you know, I think where my family noticed it the most, or at least my dear wife Hania, she I'm lucky that she does all my washing for me, so I think that's probably where she notices it most rather than me actually being out of the house for any prolonged period of time. So, but no, it's, you know, I think, you know, with the right approach, yes, I've got a bit of flexibility in my work, but it does also involve travel down, you know, down to London quite frequently and out and about in the country. So I do have to to try and plan where I'm gonna put my runs in, but ordinarily that does mean an early, a very early start for my main run, and then squeezing one in where I can later in the day.

Yeah, I wanna go back for 2009, you ran your first marathon. What was that experience like for you? How did you train for it, and how did the race go for you on race day?

Okay, so I mentioned before that in 2008, 2008, I sort of started running with the, the aim of, you know, just losing, losing weight really, and hoping that, you know, one day I'd get to do a marathon. You know, I'd always loved running as a, as a sport. I've, you know, I've always found it inspirational, and I did a little bit of it when I was at, when I was at school. But when I say school, I mean at sort of secondary school, so I was sort of 13, 14 years old. And, you know, I was okay at it, but I was no, by no means brilliant. You know, I was probably in the top 3 or 4 in my year at my school, but aside from that, you know, I wasn't particularly competitive at all in terms of the regional or county-level competitions. But I'd always wanted to do a marathon. You know, there's just something about the marathon that I find so inspirational. Firstly, it's an arbitrary distance, 26.2 miles, 42.195 kilometers. It's not a unit of measurement, yet it's such a compelling distance. It sort of, For me, it's— I just think it's the perfect distance in terms of having to be able to be quite quick, but also to be able to have the strength and being able to dig deep as well to actually get a great result. But it's not just that wishy-washy side of things, it's actually the process that goes behind it. That I really enjoy looking at. I know I'm going on a bit, but going back to your initial question, Hamburg was, Hamburg Marathon, my first one in 2009. My wife's cousin lives in Hamburg, and we were due to go on a trip, and so I thought, well, I might as well combine it with my first marathon. So I did that. If I'm honest, I'd picked a training schedule off, off, off the internet, which wasn't particularly good. I won't name the publication's name, but it was a fairly sort of stock training schedule, which in honesty didn't really get me where I needed to be. It was fine for getting me round, and I did okay. I did 3:13, which isn't bad by any stretch.

No, for a first marathon, that's really good.

Don't get me wrong, I was really pleased, but it was also, it's probably one of the biggest learning experiences of my running career. I blew up spectacularly at 50 miles. 17 miles, um, essentially with a, with a bit of, uh, I suppose novice enthusiasm really, um, in terms of what I thought I could achieve. Um, I've missed much of the last 2 and a half weeks of the sort of tapering, uh, phase due to a bit of ITB. Um, and yet whilst I thought I was in around sub-3 shape before then I thought, well, I might as well give it a go. Um, that was a big mistake. Um, so, uh, so yeah, hit 17 miles, um, like a brick wall, just, you know, came to a stop. And then the, the next 9 miles I was, you know, walking, um, jogging a little bit, trying to pick up stuff that I could, could eat, um, you know, get, get some nutrition in along the way. Um, but, uh, yeah, it was, uh, it was a fairly horrific yet humbling and funny experience all rolled into one.

And I could so relate to that. Same with me, my first marathon, just full-on. It was probably 1 or 2 miles after, after you hit it. I thought I was gonna die, and I begged the guy on the side of the line for his Gatorade. And yeah, you have a death march back to the finish. And yeah, how things change over time. So, so how did you change your approach to for the next marathon going forward after that?

Okay, so that was in the spring, and then in the autumn— sorry, the fall— I did the Robin Hood Marathon, which is in Nottingham in the UK. And to be honest, I didn't really change much. I just did the same thing, really, that I'd done in the previous build-up. And so still, you know, a bit wet behind the ears. I didn't really know too much about marathon running or preparation. But I think the fact that I'd done a bit of training over the previous 18 months had obviously, you know, moved me on a little bit. So did I really change much that first time to go under 3? Probably not. It was just a a natural progression from having done some and then doing some more. So I was just in a, in a better, you know, fitter, fitter state.

What was your mileage like training up for that?

I can't quite remember. Um, I mean, I do have the logs somewhere, um, but I, I think I probably averaged around about 40 to 45 miles a week for the previous, for the 8 to 10 weeks before. To be honest, most of that running would have been not much slower than the average pace that I'm running these days, but the volume that I'm doing is, is, is much higher. And I've, you know, got the benefit of all those years now of building up various different marathon campaigns. So, so, so yeah, so, but yeah, I'd guess at 35 to 45 miles a week for the prior 10 weeks before that Robin Hood Marathon.

And, and then things did go according to plan, then you were able to continue running through?

Yeah, yeah, I didn't hit the wall at Robin Hood. It was still It was still pretty grim the last few miles, but again, I think that was largely down to still being relatively inexperienced, not having a huge amount of mileage in my legs, and I was still learning. I personally, somebody running a marathon having averaged 35 to 45 miles a week for the previous 10 weeks isn't really trained to do a marathon, you know, and they probably, they probably shouldn't be doing a marathon if that's all they can squeeze in, in terms of training. But, you know, obviously, like I said before, a marathon is an event that a lot of people find inspiring and want to do it, and if all folks can manage is 35 to 45 miles a week, well, they'll do the best they can. But I started to realize at that point that actually it wasn't enough to be fully prepared for the rigors of the distance. And so at that point I started looking at how I could build on what I'd learned. I read some more, and from there I've sort of gradually built things up.

So was that building up overall training volume mostly, the amount of days you're running? Like, what were some of those changes that you made to significantly start improving from there? Because you have been able to bring down your PRs so significantly. Yeah, like, before we dive into that, like, what are some of your current PRs at this point, like, from the— for the different distances?

Okay, so for marathon, it's It's 2:21:51. I did that Berlin Marathon in 2015. My half marathon is 68:55. 10K, 32:05, which, you know, I appreciate it's not bad, but for somebody that's run a 2:21 marathon, it's pretty shocking. I feel like I'm cursed over the 10K, and I haven't beaten that since 2013. My 5K is average again, really, considering my marathon and half time. I've done 15:37 on the track. By no means quick. I do think I am probably pretty much 99.8% slow twitch, but that said, I should even so, running a little bit quicker at those shorter distances. So yeah, those are my PBs.

So 2:21:51.

Correct, yes.

From a first marathon of 3:14, you said it was?

3:13. 3:13.

Alright, so talk me through that journey and how you have continuously been able to bring it down. 'cause I find that very fascinating.

[Speaker] Okay, I think what helped me learn the most about the marathon was really, I don't know if you've come across Fitzinger and Douglas Advanced Marathon, but I read that book, I guess that was in, That would have been around 2000. That's the fellow. Yeah, that's it. And it's a great book, and I think as an off-the-shelf plan goes for somebody who wants to get better at marathon running, it's a really good book because it covers a lot of bases. It's got some decent length runs in there. The overall mileage is more optimal to be running a good marathon. There's good aspects that have elements of specificity in there in terms of developing your lactate threshold. But a lot of it really is aerobic running. I think that's where I really started to see the biggest improvements. When I learned from that. If there's one criticism that I have of that book and perhaps where it's not perfect for me, it might be different for other runners, but for me there's too much high-end interval work in that. I don't see how doing efforts at 5K pace is going to be of any sort of material benefit to somebody looking to improve their marathon time. And certainly from my point of view, those workouts would tend to leave my legs ruined, you know, to the extent that I've been missing out on the aerobic mileage, which would be, you know, my biggest friend essentially in terms of improving. So So that would be my one criticism of it. I, you know, and what I'm talking about there is sort of the 3 to 5 minute intervals at that sort of effort. I think there's a good place for strides, good place for hill sprints and those types of things, but, you know, 3 to 5 minute efforts at 5K effort are really, really really hard, not really hard, but they're unnecessary, well, they are really hard, but they're sort of unnecessary, I guess, for the marathon because there's no specificity.

And your recovery takes much longer from some of those efforts then.

Absolutely. I always run my best times when I'm marathon training. It doesn't matter if I cut my mileage back to 80 and did a more traditional approach, I still wouldn't run as quick as I can at those shorter distances when I'm in marathon training, where I'm likely to actually run faster because my aerobic base is so much stronger. I think for me personally, I really see the value in high mileage. And building, I suppose, all the energy systems that you need to be able to run successfully over the longer distances.

[Speaker] Yeah, so once again, heart rate training is an important part or an important element of your overall training approach. How do you decide what heart rate to run at? Like, do you use certain formulas for that? Have you gotten yourself tested in a medical lab? How do you go about this?

A few things on the heart rate. I've always been fascinated by heart rate training. I really have. And it's, I think there's so much stuff out there. That is good. There's so much stuff out there that's bad, and there's so much stuff out there that's pretty damn ugly as well. But the— it is a great tool as far as I'm concerned, providing you know the numbers that you're working with are appropriate to yourself. Excuse me. If you are using the 220 minus your age or something like that,, you know, there's going to be massive statistical differences as to where you actually sit on that, that normal distribution curve. So, you know, for me, I try to understand actually what does, you know, what is my personal maximum heart rate. So, you know, I would look at previous training logs to try and get an understanding of what that, what that is, and then try and define zones from that. What I found with doing that is, you know, when you're running anything harder than say 10K effort, heart rate is sort of irrelevant anyway because a lot of the time there's such a drag in terms of getting the heart rate up to that point that I'm not really sure whether it's that heart rate training is that beneficial at, um, at those sorts of intensities. Um, but for general mileage, aerobic mileage, um, you know, and building up into sort of, you know, longer efforts— so by that I'm talking sort of 12, 15, um, 20-minute, maybe even 30-minute efforts— you know, I think heart rate is a, is a really, really, uh, good tool, uh, for, uh, understanding how your body is behaving, but also to be able to measure progress from, from week to week. As it is, I have had a lab test which measured my lactate threshold and VO2 max. I had that in the mid-part of last year, and my— and I was still, I was relatively unfit at the time, but I, I think my VO2 max at that point was about 70, and my— well, it was 70, and then my maximum heart rate recorded in the test was 198. Now, the feedback that I got was various zones. Now, if I stuck to those zones, I'd be even more injured than I've been over the space of the past 18 months. So they're not really— I don't take much notice of them. You know, yes, there's some— there's absolutely some correlation with what they were identifying around the lactate turn point and what is my marathon heart rate in races. But the rest of it is very much to feel. Easy mileage, recovery mileage, I will tend to run at very low heart rates. I think around 72% of my mileage is, I think it was 140 or below. For me, that's 140 divided by, well, less than 70% of max. I think if you're looking at the math formula or something like that, my MAF number would, would probably be, uh, well, it'd be 142, probably add 5 given I have been running for, you know, 10, 10 years. So it's still some way below that. And so, so yeah, a good 72, uh, of my running is, uh, if not more actually, because within that I haven't included, you know, sort of recovery on my bigger session days where the heart rate will naturally drop. So it's probably close to 75, 80% actually that is 140 or below.

Are you seeing these zones shift over time? Because you said you got your test done when you were not that fit. Your max heart rate was 198. And if you would stick to those zones, you said you would get injured more often even.

Yeah.

Have you noticed those shifts happening?

Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that I really like to track is something that we call aerobic efficiency. So this is really around how many beats per minute, how many beats per mile your heart beats to cover that distance. So what it means that over time as you get fitter, you'll be able to see that you're covering the same pace, if you like, with less heartbeats. So it's like the fuel efficiency in a car, essentially. If you're a Ferrari, you're burning a hell of a lot of fuel. But if you're a, I don't know, some sort of diesel Prius or something like that, you can go forever., you know, without burning much at all. So, you know, the idea, especially where long-distance running is concerned, is obviously to be as efficient from an aerobic standpoint as possible. So, yes, say at the start of training my heart rate might be 140 for running 8.5-minute miles. If I went out now that I'm fit and did a run at 140, it'd probably be closer to 6:15, something like that per mile. So something like that. So yeah, so absolutely over the course of a block of training, you know, you can see significant, I suppose, progression. But the secret to that is that there's actually no secret. It's just doing the miles and putting the time in and running as much as you can without stressing your body too much that's going to cause you to break down or get ill that will make you miss those sessions.

It's a fine line, right, between the two?

Yeah. It really is. It really is. I see a lot of runners doing way too much. Guilty of it in the past. I may even have been a little bit guilty of it in this current build-up to London. But I think it's a hard balance, and I suppose there's two aspects to it. One, there's the health and fitness aspect. Yes, I think folks could run brilliant marathons off purely aerobic distance and they could probably return and do many marathons a year and run well at them. But then there's the sort of the peak performance side of things and I think if you really are trying to squeeze that last little bit out, I do think you perhaps do have to push the envelope a little bit and see, just see how much more you can more you can get. I have a PR of 2:21 as we talked about earlier, and I'd love to get under 2:20. I think I'm capable of it, but it's going to take an incredibly strong effort to get it, and it's going to have to have had a brilliant build-up that's been really consistent I'm not going to fluke it. I don't know what my ultimate potential is, but it's probably not much below 220. So I need everything to go in my favor to get that. So perhaps have done a little bit more hard stuff than is necessary. But I am just trying to squeeze that sub-220 out before I can move on and focus on other things.

Yeah, wow, how exciting, man. Um, on your website you share very detailed graphs of your fitness level and your fatigue levels throughout your training cycle, and you have also specific numbers with this. Like I saw fitness level 92.2 versus last week's 93.9. Yes. And you also talk about form in different numbers Can you describe how you analyze this data, how you get to this, and how you actually use it?

Yeah, well, thankfully I don't actually analyze it. There's a, there's a, there's an extension on Chrome called Elevate, which, you know, ties into Strava. And what you will do through that is you will set up your, your, your heart rate and max lactate threshold heart rate, and then what it will do is it will calculate a training stress score. So it essentially looks at your— I think they call it your chronic training load. So basically they look at your short-term training load and your longer-term training load to get an understanding of your fitness versus your versus your fatigue. Fatigue obviously diminishes quickly, fitness less so. So, you know, what this allows you to do is to get, try and get a balance between the two. If you're overly fatigued and you're stressing too high, you're likely to go into a situation where you're overloaded, which is increasing the chances of you getting injured or ill. You know, I've certainly suffered in the past from pushing too hard. So the idea to continue to improve, as much as I understand it, is that you have to keep in that sort of optimal zone. Now, as you're approaching a race, the idea is obviously to freshen up. Now, I think those numbers that you mentioned just before are particular to me and with the data that I have put into, into the extension. But the idea is obviously to get a situation where you've got a positive training stress balance, i.e., your legs are fresh, your body's fresh, you're ready to go. But recognize that you are going to lose some fitness if you taper. You know, there's just no doubt about it. You know, if you're not running you are by definition losing fitness, but thankfully your fitness hangs around longer than your fatigue does. So to get a taper right, it's about trying to manage that to hit the start in perfect shape. I was reading a book, it's called Running with Power, which is, you know, there's There's all these power meters that are out.

I see more and more of that lately.

Yeah, yeah, there's a few and I'm only using the one with my Garmin at the moment and the Garmin chest strap, but it's quite interesting. I still think there's a long way to go with it, but there's an interesting piece in this book anyway. I think it's, I think the book's by Jim Vance maybe. And, you know, he talks a little bit about the training stress balance related to power, but it's still related to heart rate as well. You know, and for a marathon, it's suggested that, you know, you, to hit a marathon in peak shape, you'll probably lose about 10% of your fitness over the 2-3 week taper period., but you'll end up in a training stress balance of +20 to +25. So, you know, that's sort of what I'm aiming for, and looking back at previous marathons I've done, it's been in that sort of ballpark where I've run well. So, you know, it makes sense to try and hit that. But the extension that you can get is called Elevate, and it is really good, because 'cause it projects forward as well. So again, you can just tweak things as you go through that, especially that last week before race day, to make sure that you're not doing too much.

Yeah, I've seen different things about it. I personally haven't used it yet, so I'm very excited to actually start diving into that one more as well.

I think cyclists are probably quite a lot further along the way in terms of these sorts of things. They have the benefit of power meters, which I think is— we have power meters as well, but the power on a bicycle, you can directly measure the power going through the pedals, and you can get an understanding of somebody's physiology based on the functional threshold power tests that they do and all that sort of stuff. So, I think from a scientific point of view, cycling is incredibly well covered, but I do think running, I think it's a bit more, I do think it's a bit more of an art than a science. And that's kind of fun too because it leaves us guessing a little bit of, you know, what is the right thing and just trying to feel our way through, you know, all these questions that come up and as we go through our training day to day.

So, but it's fun trying to work it all out. It's one big puzzle that we're all trying to solve, but it's definitely an exciting one. You mentioned Garmin Softstrap or Garmin Cheststrap. What do you use? What tools? So you've used optical, you've used, ah, that one.

So this is— The HRM run. So it includes the, the Run Dynamics one as well, but the power, the Garmin power metric isn't available on every Garmin device. It's likely to be on the newer ones, so this, my Garmin is the 645. It does have a wrist HR, but I I don't use that. I mean, I keep an eye on it through the day, which is, you know, passes a bit of time, but it's, but for sessions, for easy runs, it's not very reliable at all. As I've found, you know, you'll see huge spikes in there. It'll be at the wrong level, but if I use my chest strap, the consistency of data is really, really, really strong, which is important to me because I like to track just about every metric I can find.

Yeah, and obviously you want everything to be as accurate as it can be. And yes, I've personally also noticed chest strap being much more reliable than optical still. They are improving overall though. Versus where it was a few years ago, but they still got a bit to go there, it seems.

A friend of mine has a Polar device, which is a— I can't remember which one it is, but that is a wrist HR, and that one does seem to actually be quite accurate. I can't remember which device it is. I'll I'll message you, but he gets sort of quite good traces from his, so it probably isn't a million miles away, but as much as I love Garmin and I'm wedded to Garmin, they, I think they're a little bit behind on the wrist-based HR monitors.

Yeah, right on. One other interesting stat that I saw recently on your Strava Lava was easy tempo depletion run, felt ace, and then you're talking about how many kilograms you're using and how much you're burning. Talk to me a little bit more about this. How do you measure this? What is your strategy on carb intake before a race?

Okay, um, yeah, no problem. So, so the, the first part of that, that question, um, essentially what you have to do is you have to weigh yourself before and you have to weigh yourself afterwards. So that gives you an understanding of the fluid loss. And then what you can do is you can do a calculation which will then essentially work out how much, how many calories per kilometer per kilogram that you've burnt. And it will give you an understanding of what your burn rate is at different intensities. And from that, obviously, you know your own weight, you know how far you've run, so you can work out pretty much how many calories that you've, that you've burned. The calculation itself is, I think it's 540 times the loss in fluid divided by the distance um, uh, divided by your body mass times by 0.75. Um, because essentially, well, any fluid loss, um, uh, 70— well, any energy use, 75% has to be lost through heat. The other 25% is actually used through, through the running side of things. So, so that's why it comes into that, that, that calculation. Um, so you just get an understanding of, uh, what your burn rate is at different intensities.

I definitely need to grab that formula and put it in the show notes just in case anyone wants to experiment with it.

Absolutely, no problem. I'll send that across. What I— the second part of your question was around a specific run I did on just this Sunday. What I like to do before a marathon, so this is the week of the marathon, I'm in the taper now, I like to, from the period of Sunday through to Thursday morning, I will deplete my carbohydrate stores as much as I possibly can. I probably will 100%. If I fall asleep any second, that might be a reason because I'm not I'm not particularly used to being without carbohydrate unless I am tapering. But the idea of doing that really is to obviously just give yourself a situation where you're completely off the carbohydrate. It makes those runs, certainly for me because I do generally eat quite a high carbohydrate diet, makes those last a few runs really quite hard. And then what I have noticed is that when you get to the end of it and then you do start fueling more normally, perhaps you do do the carb load, you will feel like you have, you've been loaded up on rocket fuel, essentially. There's been all sorts of studies on it. It's been discounted by many of the nutritionists and physiologists out there, but for me it works and it gives me confidence. I don't know if part of it is going through hell with being carb-depleted up until Thursday and then things coming back to normal and me thinking, "Yay, we're on." I don't know if that's some sort of psychological benefit. Or there may even be some supercompensation from becoming slightly fat adapted over the space of 4 days. I don't really know, but it works for me. So the idea was on Sunday was to run a reasonable length run, so I did 16 miles, and 10 of it was reasonably easy tempo, easy tempo pace. What does that mean? It doesn't mean marathon pace, it means something a little bit easier. So I was looking for something where breathing is really, really controlled, you know, but it feels like a strong pace is the best way of describing it. I did go into that thinking, what's the heart rate likely to be? And I thought it was probably gonna be about 160 to 165. It ended up averaging 162, which is fine. My average heart rate in marathon races is generally between 174 and 177. So, you know, it was below marathon pace, but, you know, what it was doing, because it was towards that upper end of the aerobic side of things,— there's no doubt that I was burning quite a high proportion of carbohydrate and glycogen within that run. So that's why I noted it as a depletion run. And the idea over the next few days is obviously to deplete those stores even more. To be honest, I'd be surprised if they're not empty now, given I've done a couple of heat acclimatization runs as well over the last the last couple of days. So, uh, so yeah, so that was the meaning behind that.

Tell me more about the heat acclimation, because I've seen some of the photos and it looks like you're going to the North Pole or Alaska, and you, you wear many different layers.

How do you go about that? Okay, so I have a treadmill in, in my garage, and we've actually had some quite nice weather here over the last few days. It's sort of been getting up into the sort of 23, 24 degrees outside. It's a bit cooler in the garage, but the idea is essentially to put on loads of layers of clothes. So I will have a base layer, then I'll have another thermal layer, another thermal layer, and then a coat. Woolly hat, 2 pairs of gloves, thermal tights, and some tracksuit bottoms over the top. So, you know, I'm wearing lots of clothes. Now, you know, some people might think I'm a bit stupid or a bit crazy for doing that, but there are some very, very sound physiological arguments for doing heat acclimatization, and it's not just around preparing yourself for actually running in the heat. So it's massively unpleasant while you're doing it. What you will notice is your heart rate is higher for a given pace, but obviously what your body is trying to do is it's trying to cool itself down. So one of the adaptations that you get from doing heat acclimation training is that it will Essentially, well, over time it will reduce your core body temperature, which will, which will help with cooling. It will increase your sweat rate. So what that means is that obviously when you are running at reasonably high intensities around marathon pace, your body has the ability to, or higher, your body has the ability to cool itself more easily. You will get more developed sweat glands. So what that will mean is you'll retain more electrolytes, and so your, you know, your balance is less likely to be out of kilter. And so what that means is that actually you probably don't have to drink as much as non-adapted folks would, especially with in within a marathon. I mean, it might be, it's probably almost certainly different for somebody running 3, 4, 5 hours. But if you're running just over 2 hours or 2.5 hours, there's probably not that much requirement to drink too much if you have acclimatized. Aside from that, there's other benefits as well. So there's things like it has been demonstrated to improve improve VO2 max. It improves your blood plasma volume, which means there's more blood to go around, which can only be good in terms of getting oxygen to the muscles. So there's a huge amount of benefits to doing it, and it's probably a cheap man's way of getting some of the adaptations that somebody might get from 4 weeks at altitude. But also because you, you know, you only have to do it for a couple of weeks. For those that do adapt to heat, you'll have got all the adaptations within a couple of week period. So you don't have to do it all the time. You don't have to sheepishly, you know, walk out to the garage every morning with your neighbors thinking you're a bit of a weirdo. You can, you know, you can You can only do that, you know, you only have to do that 2 weeks in every marathon build-up to be fully acclimatized.

So how many weeks before the race would you do it, and how many of these acclimation runs would you do?

Okay, so I started them this build-up around about 5 weeks ago, just because I was nervous about doing them again because they're really not pleasant, especially the first couple. They're absolutely horrific, but you get used to them. And then, so the aim was to gradually introduce them, and what I did find was actually after one of the sessions, I felt terrible the next day, but you know, I just realized that actually I hadn't, you know, properly hydrated after, um, after that, that session, or indeed got enough fuel in, uh, for me for the next days, the next day's running. Um, and also I ended up coming down with a little virus, which I think has completely shifted now, which is, which is good. Um, but the, um, uh, but yeah, it I would like to get in, I guess, 5 or 6 heat acclimatization runs over the 2 to 3 weeks before a marathon to make sure that I've got those adaptations. Some folks will spend time in saunas and steam rooms and stuff like that. I can see the benefit of that., but unfortunately we don't have one at home. So, and yeah, I don't think my dear wife would be too happy if I told her that I'd just come back from a run and now I'm off down to the local sauna. So yeah, so I'll just stick with the garage for now.

Yeah, the sauna one is an interesting one too, how quickly you can get used to some of the heat. I would sit in the sauna for probably about 2 to 3 weeks as well, and I would go in there, and at the beginning I would try to stay in there, like crank it up to the very hottest at my local gym. I would just get a membership only to go to the sauna. At that point I didn't have one at home. And at the beginning I could only last like 15 minutes maybe at the very hottest, and I would have a heart rate monitor on, and I would just be measuring all the data. After a while, after 3 weeks, I would be sitting in the sauna for 40 minutes. I would start my heart rate at about low 40s, and I would just be sitting, and every 5 minutes I saw it going up by about 8 beats. And at the end, you're sitting in the sauna, you're just sitting, and you're at 100+ heart rate in full distress. But you come out of it, and I've noticed that that even at the hottest of the middle of the day, your run still feels very cool. And there's such a fascinating transition happening in your body.

Absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, I really do think it's a missed opportunity for a lot of people, even if it's just putting on a few extra layers when you go out for a run.

Certainly significant benefits to be, to be had from doing it. Yeah, a few weeks ago I saw a 90-minute workout at 4:30 in the morning on your Strava, and it said easy 90 minutes, super efficient. Yeah, how much do you really sleep, and how do you measure being super efficient?

And how much do I sleep? I probably average around 7 hours a a night. I would say it might be slightly less than that. I do sometimes suffer a little bit with insomnia, and so I will get up and just go and run or start work or work, rather than just lying in my bed and not being productive. It's worthwhile in just getting up and getting get something done. I think that particular run that you're talking about was probably a day when I was traveling down to London, and so I wouldn't have had any chance to get a run in at any other time in the day, so I had to just get it done really early. So yes, I mean, you've done well to pinpoint that one, but that's not the earliest run find on Strava. But yeah, I think that was because I wasn't going to have any other chance to get the run in in the day. So it was just set the alarm, get up early, out you go. And that's what I did. In terms of the super efficient side of things, this comes back to that aerobic efficiency number that I was, I was talking about earlier. Um, so over the weeks of a marathon buildup, you know, I might average, um, well, say at the start it might be 1,100 beats per mile on average across every single run within that week. Um, as soon as I start to get my numbers below 1,000 beats per mile, I know I'm I know I'm fit. So let's just say I run a run at 7 minutes per mile and I average 140. That's 980 beats per mile. And, you know, so that's what I'm sort of tracking run to run. Some will be, you know, over 1,000, some will be low 900s. It, you know, it does depend. And so what I look at the averages over the week, but for that one particular run, it was a bit of a, you know, a tick up in terms of the numbers that I'd seen recently. So that's, I think that's probably what I was referring to there.

It's so fascinating, man. I like, I'm a data guy myself, and I love diving into all of the analytics. And when I came across your website, I'm just like, he's on such another level with all of the different things that you're looking at and yeah, so—

I just love looking at it and seeing if I can, you know, I can spot the trends and I, you know, I listen to your interview with Josh the other week and, you know, I found that fascinating and the Tandem Equation is something that I've come across in the past but I haven't given it too much scrutiny. I have done in the last couple of weeks, believe me. And it is a really interesting equation, especially when you build some individuality around it as well.

So yeah, it's pointing at some interesting numbers for me. Absolutely. With, with the amount of volume that you're training, how do you limit your risk of injury? How do you, like, do you from time to time skip a workout when you need to, or are you very rigid about getting your miles in?

In what sort of way do you go about these things? I think I've been fairly lucky in the last 3 or 4 months with regards to niggles. I've only had, touch wood, one niggle back in end of January time that really sort of put me out for any period of time, and that was only for 2 or 3 days really. I actually never plan to have a rest day, but because I know that they'll happen. They'll happen anyway at some point, whether it be I've got ill or whether it be I do have a little niggle that I'm not too sure about. I know that they're going to happen, so why bother planning for them? I'm not somebody that has to get the run in no matter what. Life isn't like that, and running, as much as I love it, is still just running. It's, you know, so rest days will happen. You know, one happened about 10, about 2 weeks ago, I think it was. Yeah, 2 weeks ago. I'd planned to get up and go for a run. I was off work that week. Didn't quite happen. We were going away. I said, well, we'll get packed up. I'll go once we've packed up. So actually, we'll wait, and I'll wait until we get there. Got there, obviously the kids want to play, so, you know, it just didn't end up happening. And, you know, it was— it's fine, you know. I try not to, uh, try not to get too, too worried about it because, like I say, rest days will happen. Um, and, um, you know, I suppose knowing that if— well, coming back to the, the niggle thing it's trying to understand whether it's a niggle or whether it's an injury. And now, like I said, I've been lucky, and, you know, in the past I've been guilty of perhaps pushing, pushing through. And certainly looking back to around about 18 months ago when I picked up a sacral stress fracture, I knew that that was probably regard, you know, doing building things up too quickly. And, uh, not just too quickly, but I was probably running too fast at too, too higher intensity as well, um, than my body could, could cope with. Um, and, uh, so, so that was, you know, perhaps where a time where I was pushing through where I should have, you know, listened a little bit more to the body. Um, and, um, you know, unfortunately this similar sort of thing happened in May last year when I had a stress fracture on my hip. Now, a lot of people have, you know, seen doctors about it and things like that. I was actually experimenting with a— not completely plant-based, but largely plant-based diet at the time. And whilst I'm not convinced you know, that was the, that was the root cause of, of, of the, the stress fractures. I do think it was more down to, um, you know, just the, the, the level of training that I was trying to put myself through at that time that, that, that moved on, you know, developed into those injuries. But, um, but yeah, I, I've since realized that the vegan diet isn't, is, isn't isn't really for me, but I am more plant-based than I was 2 years ago. But I definitely find that animal protein actually helps me recover, helps me feel stronger, feel more like myself, and yeah, it's also quite tasty.

What is your nutrition?

Besides that throughout your training cycle? Okay, so I do track my nutrition, probably on an app that you're familiar with called MyFitnessPal. So, you know, it's another one of those things that I will obsess about and make sure I've got right.— got my numbers in there accurately. You know, because what I want to ensure is that I'm getting enough fuel. If I do have a little bit of body fat to lose, that I'm trying to create a very, very small deficit every day. Not a significant one on, you know, one particular day, but, you know, over time I'm looking just to just create that, that slight deficit so I can get rid of unwanted body fat. And in terms of my overall diet, it probably averages between 50 to 60% carbohydrate. Um, most of that is through rice, potatoes. Um, I, I, I would say, um, I do eat, um, you know, quite a lot of muesli grains and all that sort of stuff. But then I will eat fish, lots of vegetables, like I said, lots of fruit. I love fruit. But I'm also a big fan, especially straight after a run, much like Jonathan Walton, of milk. Now, he didn't mention that he puts chocolate in his, but I have.

I have hot chocolate after my main runs. So you combine what Josh was saying, who eats a lot of chocolate, and what Jonathan is saying, you just combine it.

That's good. That's the thing. My wife jokes with me about my— I'm absolutely addicted to chocolate as well, by the way, but I try and keep that to a minimum, especially when marathons are close. We've just had Easter here and you know, I don't know if you know but we celebrate it by giving everybody chocolate eggs. Oh yeah, same here. Yeah, so there's a lot of chocolate eggs about at the moment just you know, talking to me, asking to be eaten but I'm doing my best to resist them. You know, perhaps earlier on in the cycle, you know, if Hanya catches me sort of eating chocolate in the kitchen, she'll say, 'What are you doing? Have you logged that?' And I'll just say, 'Well, it's, you know, if it's after dark, it doesn't really count.' So yeah, no, I absolutely love chocolate, really do. But I don't eat a huge amount when I'm getting closer to a marathon. I'll save that for after, and I'll make sure I have a reasonable binge on it after that.

[Speaker] And you absolutely deserved it. Any strength training or cross-training, and if so, how often do you do it?

[Speaker] No, I don't. I'm a bad example on that front, I'm afraid. I know Jonathan does, Jonathan Walton does quite a, you know, the odd squats here and there and a bit of core work. I, I don't do much at all. Firstly, I find it incredibly dull. Um, uh, secondly, um, it is hard finding a little bit of extra time to, to do that sort of stuff. Um, I know I'm the first person to make the argument, if you want it bad enough, then you'll make the time, but I don't want to do strength training bad enough. Um, You know, I think if I was a full-time athlete, the two things that I would do differently is to introduce a proper strength training routine and try and get more rest. Those are the two things that I'd really change. I think my running is okay and I think it's about where it needs to be and where I don't think I could do much more than I already do.

Those are probably the two aspects that I would change if I was a full-time runner. Yeah, well, well said, because right now you are already, some of your weeks I was looking at 14 hours of running a week, right?

Yes, that's right, yeah, I think over the last 10 weeks I've averaged,— I did write this down— 117? 111, yeah, 111 miles average over the last 10 weeks, and that's including, you know, obviously the last couple of weeks I've started to back off a little bit, so most weeks have been around 130, 120, 125, those sorts of numbers. But yeah, around 14 hours a week I find is really, you know, it's only 2 hours a day. It's fun as well. So yeah, about 14 hours a week is what I've been averaging.

Yeah, right on. A few more questions here because I want to be respectful of time but I feel we can go on and on for hours over here. What, what kind of speed work are some of your favorite workouts? Like, you mentioned you do a lot of slow running and a lot of low heart rate running, but what about the other parts?

Yeah, I think, you know, where I certainly— where marathon training is, is concerned, I, you know, I am for one for the specificity of the event. At the end of the day, it's a long race and to be able to run it fast, you need to be able to learn how to run long distances quickly, is the argument. It's very much the philosophy of Renato Canova, the Italian coach that coaches many of the top-level Kenyan Kenyan runners. But what he— it won't be every run that he does big sessions. He does stress the importance of this polarity between easy running and the stress sessions. But going into the marathon-specific sessions, he might have a runner doing 4 times 15 minutes at marathon intensity. Velocity within an hour and 45-minute run. So what you've got there is you've got an hour and 45-minute run, so you're gonna be doing some really, really good aerobic work there. You know, there'll be periods of recovery, there's periods of warm-up, so you've got that length of time where your body is gonna see adaptations, but your body is also understanding what it's gonna feel like to run at that sort of intensity for a, for a period of time within, uh, you know, a medium-length run. Um, and then other sorts of sessions that you might do is, you know, you might give you a, a block of marathon pace tempo and then say 4 times 5 minutes at, you know, something approaching, um, half marathon, 10-mile pace, you know. So, you know, one of the hardest sessions that that I do is 30 minutes at marathon pace or marathon effort and then 4 times 5 minutes at around about 10-mile pace and then another 30 minutes at marathon pace. So you end up with an hour and 20 minutes of effort within a 2-hour run. So there's 40 minutes of easy running, So you sort of killed lots of birds with one stone by doing that. You've got a big, lots of intensity, you've got a long run in, and it's all very specific to the marathon. So rather than doing, what I see a lot of people doing is things like 12 by 6, 12 by 6, 800 or something on the track. I don't see how that's got a huge amount of specificity for the marathon. I would much rather do bigger blocks of marathon effort or a little bit faster, but certainly not much, much faster to get the right sorts of adaptations.

Yeah. London Marathon right around the corner this Sunday. Absolutely. What's your race?

What is your race strategy going into it? Hope it doesn't go wrong. I'm joking. I do feel really, really positive. You know, this is the best training block that I've put together as far as I can see. If there's one doubt that I have is that, you know, the previous 18 months, like I say, was was very haphazard, largely through, largely because of injury. So, you know, is that time off going to affect it? I actually don't think it will because I've still had a consistent enough and big enough block this time to be confident of a good result. In terms of my strategy, you know, looking back over my marathons, I do have some great heart rate data, but I, you know, my best ones, there are some fairly consistent trends there. But at the same time, I do like to, you know, run to feel and sort of feel out the race, if you like. One thing that I am absolutely clear on in terms of my strategy is that a cautious start is absolutely the best way to start a marathon. Ease yourself into it, especially a big marathon where, like London, where you're not gonna get much of a chance to warm up. You might be able to get 5 minutes of jogging done half an hour before the gun goes, but the reality is it's gonna be that first mile, first 2 miles that you're starting to warm up. If you try to go in straight at your target marathon pace, I think you're potentially asking for trouble because you're probably gonna go straight into glycogen carbohydrate burning rather than actually getting a little bit of a balance of introducing the fat burning with the carbohydrate side of things. So, cautious start. Looking at my watch occasionally, checking whether the heart rate is what I think it should be. Hopefully it will be giving me positive feedback. When people ask me what they think I'm going to run, I say, well, ask me at 3 miles because I'll know then what I'm going to run. I remember it was like an epiphany on, uh, at the Yorkshire Marathon in 2014. And it's, you know, it's probably the best block that I'd done up until that, that point of training. Hit the start line, um, was still a little bit unsure of things then, but I got to the third mile and I, I just, I knew that I was gonna— on for a massive breakthrough. Um, everything was telling me that it was all good. Heart rate was good, legs felt good, I felt strong. I'd been, you know, um, eased into the race really sensibly. Um, and yeah, I think the best time to ask somebody what they think they'll run is 3 miles into the race. Um, and most of the time you should probably get people to stop, stop for not 5 minutes but maybe 30 seconds just to catch a breather, and that might actually do them some good in the long run as well.

What, what if you hit tough spots in a race? What do you do at that point?

How do you mentally and physically get through those spots? Well, you know, they're gonna happen, you know, they're part and parcel of any race, whether it's marathons, whether it's ultras, whether it's, you know, shorter distances. They, they, they do happen. I think, well, there's a There's a few strategies. You just have to try and put those, any sort of negative thoughts out of your mind. It's, you know, embrace it really. You know, that's what you've trained for. You've trained to come across those bad spots. But what I have found is that the races that, you know, that you run well, those bad spots spots are massively reduced. And so it's always this case of, you know, actually using your brain to, to run the first, you know, sort of 20 miles, um, and then, you know, certainly where the marathon's concerned, and then, you know, using your heart and soul really for the, for the last 6, 6.2. Um, you know, that's, that's what it, it sort of boils down to for me. Um, And, you know, I think the tough spots are more likely to come if you've, you know, if you've made a few mistakes or there have been things outside of your control that really sort of come to scupper things for you. But just remain positive, you know, try and work out what the problem is. You know, if it's something that you can deal with, deal with it. Is it a fueling issue? Have some fuel. I talked about Hamburg Marathon earlier, perfect example. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but one thing's for sure is my instinct told me that I needed some energy as soon as I hit that wall, and that's what I did. We're all capable of working these things out for ourselves, but there will be times where we make mistakes, but we just got to try and work through them. I look at my I've only run for England once. I ran in the Toronto Marathon in 2016, and, you know, I didn't run that race particularly well at all. And the reason being is, well, it was a very humid day. I knew I was in really, really good shape, but I wasn't listening to what my body was telling me in the race. I'd set off with a time goal in mind, which considering the conditions was not sensible. It just proved to me the only way to run a race is to turn up, run to effort, feel it out, ask yourself whether it is the right pace. Is it too quick? Slow down a little bit. Is it too slow? Speed up a bit. If you're unsure, that's probably about right. I knew, I knew at 5 miles in Toronto that I was running way too quick and I still tried to keep going at the same pace. And whilst it wasn't a massive blow-up, I ended up with a time probably 2 minutes slower, 3 minutes slower than I was probably capable of on the day if I'd run more sensibly. So, just try and, you know, work the issues out as they come up and, you know, but be sensible and have that internal voice asking yourself, is this right? Does this feel right?

That would be my advice for what it's worth. No, absolutely. Very, very good points right there. So I want to start closing it up over here. Like, a lot of listeners in the audience, they're aiming to run a sub-3-hour marathon, a sub-4-hour marathon, or any marathon PR. Do you have any recommendations for other runners looking to improve outside of what you've already mentioned, really to become that stronger, like, faster and happier athlete?

Yeah, well, I think, I think, yeah, everybody has a level of innate talent. So, you know, and where you sit on that distribution curve is, you know, is anyone's guess. You know, some people are, you know, very, very— are always going to run very, very well. You know, I'm pretty sure Eliud Kipchoge probably sits, you know, to the right side of that, right side of that curve. And, you know, others will sit to the left, but But one thing's for sure, nobody gets any better without training. So, you know, what I would say is that try and build in the consistency. Consistency first, volume second, and maybe a little bit more specific stuff if necessary. But I know a number of runners, I mean, you interviewed Josh, I know Jonathan, the bulk of his training His running is very easy. That does get phenomenal results and because you're not stressing your body too much, the gains that you can get from building your aerobic engine are significant. If somebody told me that I'd go on to run a 2:21 marathon when I first started, I would have thought they were thought they were joking. And that's despite knowing that I had a little bit of natural talent at school. But I genuinely believe that people can be a lot better, a lot quicker than they ever dreamt was possible, you know, just by doing the consistency and the, you know, building the volume over time.

Yeah. Wow. Last question that I'm going to ask, but Before that, I want to hear where can people find more about you.

Is there any specific place that you share all? Yeah, I do have a blog which I initially started writing really just for me to sort of track my numbers and get really a diary of what I was doing training-wise. And over time, you know, people found it quite interesting. But that's Running Obsessive. I think runningobsessive.blogspot.com. Runningobsessive.blogspot.com. So you can find me on there, and there's blogs going back all the way back to 2011. Most of it will be incredibly dull for most folks, but some might find it a little bit interesting.

[Speaker:TYRONE] For the data nerds, it's Absolutely fascinating data over there. So that's really good. And I'll make sure to link to your website. I'll make sure to link to your Strava as well.

And then last but not least, any other races on your bucket list that you're planning on running? Yeah, absolutely. I said before that 2:20, sub-2:20, is my— it really is my dream. But, you know, for some reason I feel like I, in a way, I sort of feel like I'll have failed if, as a runner, if I haven't done that, because I know it's achievable for me, um, but I know it's not, it's not going to be easily achievable. So it's like, for me, that's what I, I need to do that. Okay, so I'm hoping that's going to be this Sunday. Um, what I do want to do, uh after this marathon is I want to move up to ultra distances. Um, I did try an ultra, uh, a couple of years ago. Uh, it's the British 100K Championships. I was very inexperienced, um, and, you know, I DNF'd it, um, at 53 miles, whatever that is in Ks, I'm not sure.

Um, that's close to it. Sorry?

You were quite close to it, I think 100K is what, 61K? 62 miles, I believe. I was, but I threw in the towel, unfortunately. I think there was a few novice mistakes there. But yeah, I'd like to do the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. A good friend of mine, Steve Way, and another friend, Anthony Clark, are going out there this year representing the Nedbank team. So the Comrades Marathon, absolutely would love to do that. I'd love to do New York, Boston Marathons, and I'd love to, you know, qualify for Great Britain or England in any event. You know, I want some some more vests. I've only got one, and it's one that I treasure, but I still feel like I can get some more.

So yeah, but a focus on moving up to the ultras really is probably the next step. Yeah, that's a nice logical step as well. At some point where you can partly slow down your pace, and I think even with what I liked about ultra running After several marathons, I started getting into the 50Ks, 50-milers, and 100-mile even. It even more comes down to breaking it all down with nutrition, and it's more about racing it smart. It's not necessarily being the fastest guy on the course. It's how do you deal with heat? How do you deal with nutrition? All of these different things.

So there's something very special going on there too. Absolutely. Absolutely, and in a way, I'm sort of grateful that that first experience did go wrong because I did learn a lot from it. Not only the marathon, but the ultra 2 years ago. So I'm hoping next time I do one, which is— I'm actually planning a 100K this June over in Spain, so I'll see how I get on there, and hopefully I'll get the standard for for Great Britain for the World Championships for next year, but we'll see.

Nice, that'll be great. Well, we're all going to be rooting for you on Sunday.

I'm very excited to follow the rest of your running journey in the coming years here.

Cool, thank you. Lovely to speak to you. Same here. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I know you're very busy and we've talked for almost an hour and a half over here, so thank you very much. A lot of great info.

No problem, a pleasure.

All right, have a good one.

Bye. Hello everyone, thank you for listening.

I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. I surely did, and this is honestly one of the reasons why I'm bringing all these guests on the show.

It helps me a lot in my own training and racing, and I hope to share that with you as well.

I would love to hear from you. What was your one key takeaway from the show? Please let me know in the comments. Also, many more episodes are in the works, so make sure to subscribe. I'll you'll be the first one to hear when a new episode drops. Thanks again for listening and have fun out there on your runs.