#54: Ryan Hall on Strength Training for Runners

Yeah, easing into it is super important. Anytime I take someone who hasn't been lifting, I have them start lifting. I'm like, all right, for the first week, like, stop. Like, like, you could do 10 more reps if you wanted to. It's got to feel super easy because you're going to get super sore. And ideally you're lifting with other runners too, you know, because lifting is totally relative to like genetics, body style, and your sport. And just keep it fun. Like, the way to be consistent is to love your training and have a good time with it. So I'll often ask my athletes like, what are you craving? What do you feel like doing? But I think starting with the things you like, you know, so you have this positive association with going to the gym, you get to do something you actually enjoy and something you like, you're not just torturing yourself.

This is my conversation with legendary runner Ryan Hall. He's the fastest American to run a marathon in 2:04:58 in 2011, and a half marathon record in 59 minutes and 43 seconds.

2:07.

Just to put that in perspective, that's a half marathon pace of 4:33 minutes per mile or 2:50 minutes per kilometer. We recorded this conversation in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he lives with his wife, professional American distance runner Sarah Hall, and their 4 children. After Ryan retired from running in 2016, he took up weightlifting and significantly increased in size. His body weight went from 58 kg, so 127 pounds, to currently during the recording, he was about 85 kg to 187 pounds. Ryan has a running coaching program, so in this conversation we really talk about the perspective from Ryan as a runner, so about his own training and racing, but also about the perspective from his coaching because he coaches recreational runners all the way up to the elites. This episode has been brought to you by LMNT, and this is a delicious sugar-free electrolyte drink mix that I've been drinking for several years now. I was first introduced Element by Tim Ferriss, and this drink has been formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and is perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or paleo diet. Many listeners here are endurance athletes, and symptoms of electrolyte deficiencies are real and they're quite common, and I've previously experienced those myself as well. Element can help prevent and eliminate headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, sleeplessness, and other common symptoms. Right now, Element is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any order, and that is 8 single-serving packets free with any Element order. This is a great way to try all 8 flavors. Get yours at drinkelement.com/flow. This deal is only available through my link. You must go to drinkelement.com/flow. Lmnt.com/flow. See also the link in my description. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Ryan Hall.

Ryan, welcome to the Extra Mile Show. Really excited to sit down with you over here.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Absolutely. I've noticed you're a really passionate person. When you get into something, you really get into something, whether that is running or lifting.

Yes.

Can you tell me a little bit what, what initially inspired you for running and where does that drive come from?

Yeah, well, what's funny is I wasn't initially inspired to run. Like, I didn't like it at all. And I think a lot of people can resonate with that. You know, as a kid, it's used as punishment, at least here in the US. You know, it might not be like that everywhere in the world, but here it's like punishment. So you kind of grow up like just knowing you shouldn't like this, this sport, you know. So, you know, I was playing baseball, basketball, and football, and I wanted to be a professional baseball player. That was always my dream. So it's kind of cool, like, fast forward to before running Boston, I think it's 2009, got to throw out a first pitch at Fenway and live my dream and get one pitch.

That's awesome.

So, but yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't love running. It was something that almost found me more than I found it. And I would have never expected it, you know. If you would have told me when I was a kid growing up, hey, like one day you're running the Olympic marathon, I've been like, come on now, like, no, that's crazy, you know.

But then at one point the spark started, right?

Yeah. So it kind of all went back to this initial run with my dad around the lake. I was, uh, in 8th grade, 13 years old, and it's 15 miles around Big Bear Lake where I grew up in Southern California, a little mountain ski resort town. And, uh, so I laced up my basketball shoes, went on a run with my dad, and super painful. I didn't crush it, you know. People think like, oh, if you have like talent in something, you just crush it immediately. It was not like that for me at all. Like, I was terrible. I had to stop multiple, multiple times. I remember one point like icing my legs in the lake, you know, like just just not enjoying it even at all. But there was something about when I finished that 15-mile run, this like kind of like sense of accomplishment, and like, like I felt like I really did something, you know? And it just like captured me. And then I remember collapsing on the couch and just, you know, I've always been a spiritual person and feeling like God was just kind of just encouraging me that like this was going to be my thing, and like one day I was gonna be one of the best guys in the world at this. Um, but it wasn't this experience with running that I have isn't just for me. And he communicated that to me at that moment. So I've always believed like running at its best is when it's not all about you. And it took me a long time to figure out why that's important and how to actually implement that in my running, you know. So I just spent, you know, when I started when I was 13, it was just like, okay, let's see how good I can get at this. And I went from kid who never ran at all to like feeling like I was living in a Rocky IV montage, you know, just like in the forest running in the snow. No one else is out there and just going crazy. And I loved it. I loved that. That's when I was captured, you know. I love just like going after something with everything inside me. And, you know, as you mentioned, it's not just in running, you know. It's like when I can't do it anymore in running, I'm gonna do it in lifting. When I can't do any more lifting, I'm gonna take it to something else and something else. Like, there's— that's the great thing about life. There is so much for us to sink ourselves into, and it's just a What are you choosing? Like, what is it for me? What do I want to sink myself into? And then when I sink myself into that, can I pivot when that is no longer the thing? You know, do I know it's time to pivot to something else and then sink myself into that?

It is really cool to see you now pivot into the running coaching as well. We'll definitely take a deep dive into that in a little bit because now you have the experience of a professional runner for many years, and now you're also coaching runners of all different levels from beginner to advanced. Elite as well over there.

So yeah, it's been, it's been super fun. Um, again, I wouldn't expect it to do it, but going back to what I was talking about, like, me, it's my journey wasn't all about me, you know. Yes, I got to live these accomplishments, do these things, but that was for me, and it was also for other people to glean from that and to learn from that and grow from that. And it's a way for me to redeem my failures too. I'm like, I can look back at certain things and did my career, and I'm like, that was stupid. And now, like, my athletes don't make that same mistake because I made it. I made it for them, you know, and now I can lead them properly. So in a way, like, coaching is a way to like get back at your failures.

I want to real brief, still stick with the topic of your own running for a little bit, because in 2007 you were the first to break the hour in the— in America for the half marathon. And then 2011, Boston Marathon, 2:04:58.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah.

Some of these paces that you are running on race day were incredible. What was your— like, obviously your training was a combination of many things, from like lower intensity to tempo runs to speed work. I'm curious about what was your speed work like in some of those training cycles leading up to that for the half marathon or for the marathon?

Yeah, I mean, I was just talking to one of my athletes who just ran the New York City Marathon about this on the way over here. I was like, you know, we didn't even get in this 5K, 10K training block that we really needed to get in before we even started your marathon training. Like, that 5K, 10K block for, for me and for us at Run Free, that's like the foundation of everything. Because if you want 4:45 pace to feel easy when you're out there racing a marathon, it better feel easy to run 4:20 pace for a 5,000, you know? Like, it's just— there's no way around it. Like, if your top-end speed for 5,000 meters is 4:40 pace per mile, you're not going to feel comfortable at 4:45 pace. And I had that happen to me. There was times when I ran the Chicago Marathon, for example, where training had been going super well, I'd been grinding out all this longer stuff but didn't have that 5K speed under me. So I got out there, I remember the first 5 miles of that race, I was thinking in my head, I was like, kind of feels like I'm running a 5-mile race right now. Like, it feels like I'm pretty close to that top-end speed. And that's a big deal, like, just from a feeling perspective. Obviously there's all this physiological stuff going on as well, but just to mentally be like, okay, this marathon pace, it feels chill. Like, you want it to feel—

you want to be able to hang.

Yeah, yeah. Like, to believe that you can carry a pace for 26 miles If it's feeling hard from the beginning, you got a long ways to go just mentally. It's going to be a mental battle for you and maybe one you can win, but it's tough. Not a lot of people do win that one.

Yeah. When we look at the— some of those actual workouts, were those like— like what were the durations of those? What were the intensities at like as a professional athlete? And then like we'll talk a little bit later on about some of your coaching, what you're doing now.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting, like people's different approach to speed. Like, I know, like Jared Ward, for example, Olympian for the United States in the marathon. Like, they don't go shorter than 800 meters on their speed short days, you know? So, I mean, kind of to answer your question, usually you have kind of like Track Tuesday, right? Well, that's your speed day, interval day. If you go out to the track on Tuesday, it's going to be packed with people out there. You know, everyone's out there. And that day is super important. But what you do on that day, I think, is highly dependent on your own strengths and weaknesses. So for me, speed development, mile development, 5K development doesn't come natural to me. So I got to work really hard on it. So I'm going to have to do stuff that's a little bit different, in my opinion, a little bit quicker. So I might be up here if I'm at 7,000 feet and do 20 times 400 meters on 60 seconds rest, not super fast, but like spending a lot of time at, say, 64, 65 seconds per lap compared to someone— if like I'm coaching Ben Blankenship right now, he's a 1500 Olympic finalist at Rio, and he doesn't need to be doing that super short stuff. You know, he needs like a little bit longer work on those interval days. So it's really, you know, it's individualized, and that's really the gold standard of coaching in my opinion. You know, it's like, and you don't— even in college, we didn't have things super individualized to us, at least when I was at Stanford, until Andy Gerrard got there. And then he did kind of tweak things for me personally and for some other guys on the team that he saw was necessary. But, you know, customized training that's built for you and with you in mind is— that's the gold standard. That's what what you're gonna see optimal results with.

Yeah, every athlete's different.

That's for sure. Yeah, n equals 1, but these principles that you can learn are so, you know, translate to everyone, but then the application of those principles is gonna be an n equals 1 thing.

We see quite a few runners, like recreational runners, non-elite runners, spending most of their time on running and they ignore Sometimes the strength training, the mobility, any of that. When you obviously have had different experiences with strength training and lifting over the years, what was your approach initially towards strength training? And like, how do you— how has that viewpoint changed over the years? What do you know right now about strength?

Yeah, so I hated the gym. My goal was to get in and out of the gym as quick as I could. And, you know, I didn't need to do any upper body stuff, so I wasn't doing that. I was doing core like 5 days a week, doing leg weights 2 days a week. But really, like, looking back on it, not doing super effective training in terms of my leg weights, that I would do it much differently now. And I do do it much differently now with my athletes. I've since, you know, since retiring from running, I've just learned like how much heavy lifting, how much I need that. Like if I can't— like I had a hernia repair this last April, couldn't lift heavy for a couple of months. I'm still lifting, but lifting light. And man, my results just went down, down, down. Even though I was consistent with it, I wasn't missing days. Nothing had changed. Except for I couldn't lift heavy. So again, individualized thing like what do you respond best to? But I think most distance runners gravitate away from the heavy lifting because we have these tiny frames. It doesn't feel good to have 200 pounds on your back when you're 130 pounds, you know, at 5'10". Like it feels like it's like crushing you. And there's things you can do with squat sponges and wrap it with towels and try and make it feel better on your shoulders. But like, I didn't feel like lifting heavy, but it's probably what I needed to do the most. And that's why I coach now. It's like I got to make my athletes do things that they don't want to do because it's their weakness. It's not fun to do things you're not good at. And that's why I didn't like the weight rooms, because I wasn't good at it. I wasn't strong. Like everyone was lifting more than me, including my other teammates on my pro teams. I just didn't enjoy it at all, you know? But now knowing the value of it and knowing I cannot even run at all, like I did zero running for a number of years and go out there and sprint 100 meters faster now than I could when I was running professionally and doing, you know, 40-meter sprints twice a week and all the speed work and all this weights and and now I'm faster than that guy, you know? And of course not faster over anything over like 100 meters, but I feel the difference in the power in my legs. And when you feel that as a runner, when you actually feel it translate, you're like, oh, okay, I was doing this in the gym and now I'm out here sprinting and I feel like I'm like Usain Bolt, you know, like in the frontside mechanics. I feel like a sprinter. You're stomping into the ground, you're able to push off and feel the power in your legs. And that's when it gets it's super fun. But if your weights aren't translating, kind of like how mine weren't, then you kind of don't see the value in something. You, you don't put your whole heart into what you're doing. And I've always said, like, how you do what you do is way more important than what you do. You have two guys doing the same exact— or the same guy doing the same exact training. In one way, he's just like trying to force it and grind it and go as hard as he can all the time, you know. And the other guy's just like confident it. He just lets it come to him, lets his training come. He's not so worried about the pace and the numbers. He's willing to just look at that and be like, okay, I was off today, so I took it a little easy. The other guy's just grinding, just hitting it. I'm gonna— if I'm doing worse, I'm gonna try harder. Like, that guy is not going to be responding while they're training compared to the guy who's well within himself. And we see this all the time in big training groups. Like, these training groups might be training specifically for the top-end guys. The top-end guys are doing these workouts and they're kind of chilling in them. You know, they're feeling good and the other guys are like racing it all out, you know, and they're not getting the same results that the topping guys are getting because they're training at someone else's effort level that they shouldn't be training at.

It was interesting to hear you actually say that you did not like lifting, you didn't like the gym. So when there's athletes who are intimidated by the gym, how do you go about this? Because there's plenty of recreational runners, they understand it's important to do strength training, but they don't know how to go about it. Like, do you have 3 to 5 favorite workouts to go to in those cases? So how do people ease into strength without like getting too intimidated by it?

Yeah, easing into it, super important. Anytime I take someone who hasn't been lifting, I have them start lifting, I'm like, all right, for the first week, like, stop. Like, like, you could do 10 more reps if you wanted to. It's got to feel super easy because you're gonna get super sore. It feels really easy, you know. So there's that aspect of it, the physical part And then there's also, like you said, the intimidation of walking into a gym. And I think the main intimidation thing is feeling like you don't know what you're doing. You know, anytime you're in any scenario where you don't feel comfortable, it's probably because you don't feel like you know what you're doing in that scenario, you know? So going in there with a lifting coach initially, they're watching you move, they're taking you through everything. You're going to feel so much more comfortable in that scenario compared to if you just like wander in a gym, you're watching YouTube videos and you're like, I hope I'm doing this right. I've seen some pretty silly stuff in the gym. Them, you know. And so it's one of those things where it's like, it's worth it to like get in, like have a strength coach you're working with that knows what he's doing, that's watching you move. And ideally you're lifting with other runners too, you know, because lifting is totally relative to like genetics, body style, and your sport. It's like my guys that I'm training now up here in Flagstaff, they cannot lift with me on upper body stuff because they never do upper body, you know. And so But if you're in that team environment, you're just like, okay, how is my strength relative to other runners? That's really, you know, giving you some information and feedback. But, and just keep it fun. Like the way to be consistent is to love your training and have a good time with it. So I'll often ask my athletes like, what are you craving? What do you feel like doing if you walked into a gym? And some people are like, nothing. And that's it. That's a pretty common thing. And that's fine. You know, if it's nothing, fine. But if there is a lift you're like, I just love this lift, you know, like go do that one, you know, and then go to the next. And there are things you gotta force yourself to do, you know, like I said, stuff that doesn't come natural to me, to anyone. You're just gonna have to force yourself to do it. But I think starting with the things you like, you know, so you have this positive association with going to the gym, you get to do something you actually enjoy and something you like. You're not just torturing yourself. And then also time of day. So when I was running professionally, I'd always lift at like 5 o'clock in, in the afternoons. I'd just be starving, like, because I just finished my second run of the day. It's already been a big caloric expenditure day for me, and then I'm just trying to hang on till dinner time, and I'm just so low energy at 5 o'clock, and I'm trying to like move a lot of weight. Like, you're not gonna have a good lift. No one's gonna have a good lift if you're doing that. So I think knowing yourself, being like, okay, my energy I can do my run workout at this time and then I know my energy will be back in a good spot during this time. I'm trying to put my weight workout in that little box if I can. Not, you know, not everyone can. If life happens, you got to fit it in when you can. But if you— if possible, trying to work out when your energy is the best is super helpful.

How has the nutritional intake changed? Because obviously, like, you went from as low as 127 pounds to now like 190.

Yeah.

Where are you at right now?

Yeah, I'm like 187. Yeah. Yeah.

So obviously a massive change. Like, yes, your training volume has gone down significantly running-wise, and you started lifting heavily. But when we are looking in general, like, for people who want to gain strength but also improve their running fitness level, can you talk a little bit more about the nutritional component over there?

Yeah, the nutrition component is everything. So like, if people tell me, hey, I want to get bigger and stronger, like, how to do— I'm like, are you willing to eat like 5,000 calories a day because that's what it's gonna take. Like, your body doesn't make something out of nothing. If you want to get stronger, if you want to grow, and even just to get stronger, you can't be in a caloric deficit. At least I've never gotten stronger when I'm in a caloric deficit, ever. What if— and that's the first thing I look at if training isn't going well, it's kind of sliding. Like, I was just thinking about this the other day in the gym. I'm running a little bit light for me body weight-wise. Guys, so I'm not at peak strength right now. And I was like, yeah, I've kind of like, like let myself eat less now, you know, and I can see it, it's reflected in the weight room. So nutrition, hugely important. What's funny is my nutrition in terms of timing hasn't really changed at all. So when I was running professionally, I would eat every 3 hours, about little snacks or meals every 3 hours, and like never miss, like ever. If I missed a snack, it was a bad day. It was like I was going to be grumpy, you know? And now, like with lifting, I have to eat more than when I was running, which is crazy because I'm not running. I hardly ever run now because it's also very difficult to get— for me to get stronger if I'm running much and to get bigger.

Talk to me about that part.

Yeah. I mean, again, like there's, you know, different classifications for people and how easily they put on weight and size and strength. And I'm definitely like in the hard gainer category, you know, I think it was ectomorph or something like that. I always get them confused because they sound kind of the same. But I'm definitely like a hard gainer, you know, and the endurance stuff comes to me like super quick. Like I, I can still like beat my guys on a rower in a rowing competition, like my pro athletes, you know, like the endurance stuff, like I can just touch on it and still be pretty good at it. Like there was a time I didn't train, I didn't run for 9 months, and then I was just curious. I was like, let me just hop on a treadmill and see what I can do. And so I hopped on a treadmill at sea level and ran like a 5:18 mile. Hadn't run in like like 9 months, just lifting, lifting heavy, trying to get big and strong. It's like my bulkiest and softest weight, you know. So that stuff, a lot of it is like, how well do you know yourself? You know, like, I know, hey, if my goal is to get bigger and stronger, I better not be running very much because it's going to take away from that goal. But nutritionally, like, I think protein becomes a lot more important when you're lifting. So, uh, like, I take in a ton of protein like every day. And again, like, consistency is king in everything. Everyone's looking for like a magic bullet. Like, what is their workout that they do? It's like, no, there's consistent over a long period of time. That is everything. It's everything in the weight room. It's everything in running. Like, that is like the magic bullet that everyone's looking for. So, you know, being able to train consistently, not getting hurt again, lifting is super helpful for that. That's a big reason why I have my guys lifting now is because we got to try to avoid injuries. As much as possible and stuff's going to come up, you know, like injuries are a part of the, the running journey. That is the toughest part, the least fun part. Like I'm just— it's putting a lot of gray hairs in my head with my athletes when they get banged up. Like I have a number of athletes banged up right now and I'm like, oh, like I just lay awake in the middle of the night thinking about like, how can I get them right? What's going— is there anything I could tweak in their training? You know, I hate the injuries. Injuries, but it's a part of the journey, especially if you're pushing the envelope and you're seeing what your body's capable of.

Really on that razor-sharp edge at that point, pushing it to the line.

But yeah, and then if it's like one thing goes wrong, throws your stride, right, and then everything can be off. And others— I mean, that's exactly what happened to me in 2012. Had plantar fasciitis before the Olympic trials in the marathon, had to just run through it, had no choice, right? And so I ran through Stride's a little bit off. Then I'm training for the Games, hip gets messed up. And then in the Games, the other hamstring goes. Then I tore the other quad and I tore the other quad and I got sacral stress fracture on the other side. This is over a period of like 3 years and it was just ridiculous string like that. But it's because my mechanics were thrown off, you know? So that's why it's so important. If you get hurt, you need to take a video of yourself running on a treadmill like 3 different angles. You need to send it to whoever your trusted therapist, coach, whoever. Form analysis. Like, we have a guy who does that for us to run free, just looks at people's running form. You need to make sure you're running right when you come back, because otherwise you could just have a whole string of injuries that could, like, ultimately, like in my case, like, take me out of the sport.

How much mobility comes into play over here? I know strength, we talked about that part. What about— what are your thoughts on mobility for, for runners? Because we, we want to be flexible, but we also don't want to be too flexible, like What are your thoughts here?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, mobility is an interesting one and one that I'm not good at. Like, to this day, like, my mobility is terrible, my flexibility is terrible, but my flexibility was never very good. So like you're saying, like, you want a certain amount of tension in your muscles because tension's quicker, right? Think of a spring. If it's tightly loaded, it's going to bounce off the ground quick. If it's a big, you know, like, loosey spring, it's going to be really slow to react off the ground. So being tight is not necessarily bad, but you do want full range of motion for you. Right? And that's where like mobility work is super, super helpful. So like all my athletes do some type of mobility work, not necessarily plans that I came up with or anything, but I do like things like to open up your ankle joints, open up your hip joint, some flossing, stuff like that I think can be super, super helpful. But again, you're not, you know, looking to become as flexible as possible. Your goal is just to have full range of motion and and strength within that range of motion. So actually like lifting is also good for flexibility. Like a lot of bodybuilders are super, super flexible 'cause they can take their body through these ranges of motion while it's loaded with a bunch of weight on it, you know? So that also plays into it.

I've seen some of that, some of these really bigger guys still being quite flexible.

Yeah, like doing splits and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Exactly. And like you're saying, everything is connected. So if your ankle is tight, that's gonna in some way overcompensate your body, or your knee might start diving in, or your hip might be— and yeah, once there's one thing off, it can really— yeah, chain reaction.

Exactly. Yeah, and that's a super frustrating process. It's like, dude, I just got through this injury and now this one's hurting. You're like just pulling your hair out, you know? So you really need help, you know? Like, you need, you need to get a team of people behind you, people that you trust test so that you can again send them that video, have them watch you run and tell you what you need to do to eliminate any kind of hitches out of your stride. And it's also good to have just like baseline footage of you when you're healthy. Like, this is what I run like when I'm healthy because obviously everyone's form is a little bit different. So, you know, you want to have both of those pieces of, uh, of material.

Talk to me a little bit more about the Run Free training program because I looked, looked into like all of the different things that you're doing and really nice to see a holistic approach to training. So you're not just focusing on that running component, but also about the nutrition, the strength, the sleep, all of these other things. So tell me a little bit more about how you guys developed this and, and what you're seeing with your athletes.

Yeah, I mean, the training is just one piece of the puzzle, you know, and that's usually the piece that people are most concerned about. But what I found is like things like you said, like nutrition, sleep, can be way more important because those limit what you can do in your training. If you're only sleeping 5 hours a night, we can't train as hard as we could train if you're sleeping 9 or 10 hours a night, you know. So like, we'll ask our athletes when they're coming in, we have this whole big long athlete intake form. And you know how that got designed is because I was like, I never had a coach— and I worked with some of the best coaches in the world, nothing off them, they were amazing coaches— but they never like sat down and we went through everything. Go through my sleep habits, go through my eating, my nutrition, my form, like like I never did that with the coach. I was like, that would be really cool to like start off on this foot where it's like, okay, let's do a deep dive, not just into your training history, but let's, let's look under everything. Because like we could train an athlete really well for a year and then find out, oh, he's only sleeping 3 hours a night. I wish I would have known that a year ago. You know, we would have trained you totally different. So you got to look under the hood at everything with an athlete. And if you're not, then you're you're not doing your job, in my opinion. Like, you— running is a holistic thing. Your whole body's out there. Like, it's not just a piece of you, you know? And so it's very different from any other sport where sometimes you can get away with like minimal sleep, your nutrition can be kind of off. It's like when I went to that— throw that first pitch at the baseball game, I remember walking past all the players, their car, and there was Dunkin' Donuts boxes on like every single car, like on their dash. I was like, I don't know if they pay him to put them on there or what. I hope they're not like eating those right before the game, you know. But in running, you can't get away with that. Like, your nutrition, if it's not good, it just means you're not running as well as you could, you know. And I'm interested in optimal results for each athlete, you know. And that's going to vary a lot from athlete to athlete. We all have different varying levels of, uh, you know, giftedness in the sport. But it feels good when you start to get close to that optimal. And I don't know if like I was ever even there, if Anyone ever feels like they're actually there, maybe Kipchoge does. I don't know, he seems like the only guy that you can be like, yeah, he's probably about there. Um, but it feels good when you're like, yeah, I'm getting everything out of myself right now. And the only way to do that is to look at everything.

Everything is connected.

It's all connected.

Yeah, that's for sure. What are some common mistakes that you see runners make? Like, you see runners of different levels In particular for non-elite athletes, recreational runners, what are some mistakes that you see there?

You know, it's funny, I think the mistake that I see is common amongst both elite and non-elite, and that's, in my opinion, running your easy days too hard. So my dad, he told me when he was— he was the one who initially coached me when I was in high school— he said, make your easy days easy and your hard days hard. Simple, straightforward advice, but some— like, a lot of people people need to hear that because like myself, I like to push all the time, you know. And I'm now too, because you have a GPS on your wrist. If I didn't have that when I came up in the sport, you didn't even know how fast you're running. You're just running for time, you know. Um, but now like you can look every second, see what your pace is and stuff. People get way too married to numbers. So like for easy running, like if your body's feeling good, like I've had easy runs where I was running like 5:25, 5:30 pace at sea level. Before I ran 2:04 at Boston. Like the day before the race, I was running 30 minutes, but like at like 5:20 pace because I was feeling so good. So like it's okay to run fast if you almost can't help it. You're like, oh, this just feels like I feel too good. But if you're trying to force your pace at all on your easy running, like you're missing the mark. Like the goal of easy running, the primary goal, I guess there's multiple goals, but it's to recover, right? Recover from that last workout, set up your next workout. It's not to get— achieve fitness with that run. I mean, there's going to be fitness adaptations and stuff, and there's other lots of positives to, to running, but you want to be as recovered as you can for your next workout so you can go back in. And then what I'm learning a lot with myself is I just, I love to hammer. And so like when I was running, all my like long thresholds and stuff were like harder than the races because I was running them so hard. And looking back on that, I, I wouldn't say it's necessarily a mistake that I made, but it could have been. It's something I wish I could go back and live parallel lives, have one guy like just running how I did it and another guy who's just like, no, I'm just gonna take the edge off everything, you know. Everything's gonna be like 95%. I'm just gonna feel like I'm just holding back and it's kind of annoying, you know, like that, that effort level where you're like, I know I can run way quicker than this and I'm making myself hold But then you're holding back, you're bottling that stuff up. So then in the race you can really open it up, you know? So I've been curious to see how I'd respond to smarter training that isn't like— like training shouldn't be the testing ground. Training is time to train and grow and get better. It's not— I mean, there's a time and place where you do time trials and races and stuff and you see where you're actually at. But I have to remind myself all the time, like, I'm training here. I'm not testing myself. I'm not trying to prove anything to, to myself, and I don't want my athletes to feel like they have to prove themselves to me. So like, I was out with an athlete this morning, we're doing some threshold work, some lactate testing out on Lake Mary, and we're talking about paces, and I didn't even give them any numbers at all. I was like, I just want you to run at effort level that I feel like, you know, you're holding yourself back like 2 to 5 seconds per mile, you know. And then that's— it's a tricky way to train because you're like, am I in that effort level or not? And you can look at other data such as heart rate, such as blood lactate, you know.

There's even breathing pattern to some extent, probably, right?

Oh yeah, no, I can pick up on how hard my athletes are running just by being on the bike and hearing them breathing. And when I can— the breathing pattern, like, it's faster typically, you know, and more labored. I'm like, okay, chill out, take some deep breaths, let's just like relax on the pace a little bit and like collect yourself, you're going too hard, you know. So yeah, there's, there's lots of different data points, but, um, Yeah, that's a big common mistake I see is like people just, they run their easy days too hard and then their workouts aren't that hard because they're a little bit tired from their easy day. And so then it just creates this— you're kind of always training in this like gray middle zone that isn't really all that helpful. You know, like you want your week to look like intensity's up here and then it's down here and then it's up here and then down here. You don't want just like just—

but like you were saying earlier, like you were doing your workout sometimes rather hard, like red zone. And then there's different approaches between different pro athletes as well, because you look at an Eliud Kipchoge and he wouldn't necessarily go deep into that red zone or even like a Killian or some of those athletes. So once again, what works for one athlete might not necessarily, but it would have been really interesting to see the end result between—

Yeah, I mean, maybe I would have run a lot quicker. Maybe not, though.

Then again, you also didn't have carbon plate shoes.

Yeah, well, that certainly, that would help a little bit. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I can only imagine a lot because even those times that you have run in 2007 and 2011 haven't been broken yet.

Yeah.

Even though the carbon plate shoes, the data tracking, all of these different things have evolved a lot in the last 15 years. Like, do you think about that sometimes? That would have been different.

Yeah, I mean, it would have been fun, you know, when I think about like how I felt at Houston, just felt so good, so fluid, felt like— I mean, I was by myself the entire race, like from the beginning, you know, and just feeling good the entire time. You know, if you watch me finish that race, you're like, you have more energy at the finish than you had at the start. And that's kind of how I felt, you know. So you think about a day like that and you're like, man, if I would have been in some, some carbon-plated shoes, that could have just been super fun, you know, see what you can do. But I am surprised that, you know, And that's why I'm coaching, right? I, I don't want to have the American record. I want other guys to be taking it to the higher level. And if we're not, something's off, something's amiss. Because I, I have a certain level of talent for sure. Like everyone in my family has a big engine, so to say, you know. But I'm not the most talented guy on the planet, that's for sure. Like I worked super hard, I was really consistent, I was dialed in, and I had a lot of amazing people helping me on my journey. A lot of amazing coaches, therapists, strength coaches, nutritionists. Like, I was working with some of the best, you know, so that was a huge advantage having all that. So yeah, I mean, you can't— you can't— we might be watching Kipchoge out there, but we don't see like the whole team of people behind them that are supporting them.

For sure, absolutely. It's a team effort right now.

It is, it is.

So yesterday we went to the Grand Canyon and we were running down South Kaibab. We swam in the river, then actually ran back up to Bright Angel. It was an incredible epic adventure, but on the way up we had to climb out of the canyon, and that was a solid 5,000-foot up. I was wearing a camera, camera bag with a whole bunch of camera equipment, and it was rather heavy. Then one of our friends started bonking, so I ended up carrying his bag with a bunch of stuff too, right?

Yeah.

So eventually I was carrying about 30 to 35 pounds, and I was so sore this morning. My quads were like, wow. Then I was thinking about your project that you have done in the Grand Canyon, and my respect level went up like another 20 notches. Can you tell me a little bit more about your adventure? What was your reasoning, and how did it unfold in the Grand Canyon?

Yeah, so now it's super fun. I mean, I just, I train for things that sound like fun challenges for for me to do, you know. So this was a challenge that I dreamed up with one of my sponsors, 10,000, and, uh, the goal was to split a cord of wood because I've always loved working with wood— splitting wood, carrying wood, chopping wood. Like, I've always loved that since I was a little kid. We grew up with the wood-burning stove and we had to go out in the forest and get our wood, you know. So the goal is to chop a cord of wood at my house up here in Flagstaff, drive the 90-minute or however long drive into the Grand Canyon and then go down. I was running down there with these— you've probably seen them before if you've been camping at all— the big 7-gallon water jugs that are blue. So I'm running down the path, and we, we started going down the path at like 3 PM.

Which, which one? Which one?

Uh, South Kaibab.

Oh, there you go.

So we start going down like 3 PM. We talked this other girl who's not even thinking about going down, we talked her into going down with, like, with us. So she ran down to the bottom in the afternoon too. So, so we get down there. I don't remember how the run down was. Super fun. I loved it.

You're cruising. Yeah, it was like just nice.

Yeah, you can move along on it.

It's a bit awkward running probably with two, two empty jugs.

At least I was like even, you know. But yeah, people were looking at me, giving me some looks. They're like, why are you carrying empty water jugs down there? So we get down to the bottom of the Colorado River, and honestly, the whole time we're dropping down, I'm just like, I gotta come all the way back up this carrying two 70-pound water jugs. And, uh, it was intimidating for sure. It's very similar to the feeling I have before marathons, you know, we're like, I don't know if I can do this. Like, this is a big task, you know. So I fill up these water jugs and by now it's like almost 5, 5, and it's about this time of year, it's in October. And, uh, so fill up my jugs and I start doing farmer carries out of there. I love farmer carries. I think it's a great exercise for runners, um, and for strength out strength athletes alike. So, um, I'm carting this water out of there and it was the hardest thing, honestly. So yeah, it's 10K, the South Kaibab Trail, 10K from the bottom to the top, and you're climbing 5,000 feet. And, uh, it was super cool, really fun, because it got dark on us. Obviously we're out there with headlamps. I'm out there with my buddies and my brothers filming it and stuff, just like all my favorite people are out there, and we're like out playing in the Grand Canyon. Like, it was great, you know? But the hardest part of it was actually the cardio aspect. So like my hands and grip and traps and shoulders, all the stuff that you'd expect to like really be nailed were pretty good for the first like 4 or 5 miles. Like I wasn't really struggling with that aspect of it, but it's like doing a really intense track workout where it's like, go as hard as you can for like 30 seconds Set it down, rest for 30 seconds, go again, and then do that for 5 hours.

Oh my God.

So yeah, I mean, we, we finished it out, you know, in the dark, and the stars were just blazing. We are the only ones out there, you know. And I remember just getting to the top, and then we just poured the water out the top.

What were people thinking when they saw you halfway through that thing? They must have been like, what is this guy doing?

Oh Yeah, and we saw a park ranger when I was starting back up, and I'd come up like a mile or two. It's like the first stop where there's some benches and stuff, and a park ranger is there, and she was taking a picture of my water jugs and me carrying them. And she's like, I've seen some crazy stuff in the canyon, but this is about the craziest.

So how do you get into that pain cave and deal with that? Because you have experience from that on race day. You know that to push yourself to the max, you're gonna experience discomfort. Same over here. How do you deal with that? What do you say to yourself? How do you get through that?

So you have to enjoy the pain cave. You have to want to go there, you know. I think that's step number one. Like, a lot of people— and sometimes for myself in certain realms, you know, usually not the physical realms but other realms where I don't want to do something, I don't want to force myself to do it because I don't see it as being like a good helpful thing, you know. Whereas like physical pain, like running or carrying those water jugs, like I love being there. Like I love the sensation of it. And it sounds kind of like kind of sick in some ways when you talk about it out loud, but if you can develop that like, ooh, I like this, you know, I want to go here. Like actually when I was running my marathons, like I can't wait till we start hurting because that's when like I'm at my best, you know. Like that's when this really starts. This is when it gets fun. You know, like, I got— it's fun the first, like, half, you know, you're having fun and looking around and feeling chill and feeling good, hopefully. Um, but I loved it when it started getting grindy, you know, and that just comes from going there all the time, you know. Like, I was doing it as a kid when I was out carrying wood in the forest with my brothers, like, let's see how much wood I can handle and let's see how far I can take it. My arms are, like, shaking, and sometimes I don't make it back to the car, I have to drop it all and pick it all up and do it again, you know. But I developed this positive association with the pain cave where I was like, ooh, I like this. I like this place, you know.

Are you saying things to yourself?

No, you're just in it. You're just in it and you're just loving the sensation of it. That's it. Like, the mind is actually pretty still. It's almost like a form of like meditation. Yeah. And I still— I love it to this day. Like, I still go out and do it. And go out in the forest by myself, just going as hard as I can up a mountain ridge and just in the pain cave just because I want to be there, just because it's fun, you know?

And I see you running though in those stages, and it looks from the outside, you look very comfortable. Yeah, it doesn't look like you're gritting your teeth. Like, talk to me about relaxation and running.

Yeah, relaxation is everything. I learned this at Stanford during my time there. That was something we talked about all the time. We're like, you got to be as relaxed as you can possibly be because if you get tight You're losing range of motion out of your muscles. Like, nothing good happens when you get tight. So, I mean, you see it in sprinting, you see it all the way up through the track events and in other sports as well. It's like you want to be in control of your body, but also like it's flowing, not like it's like robotic forcing things to happen. It's like just flowing, you know? And same thing with running, it just should just be like flowing out of you, not like force thing. It's like, let it just come to you rather than being like, I'm going to force myself to run like Kipchoge and hold my hands up here. Like, that's the thing. Running comparison kills people and running kills people. It killed me. I wanted to look like the African guys, and so I had to get down to 127 pounds to look like them at 5'10". And I was terrible at that weight. I was terrible. All the women were beating me and not nothing against women. There's some fast women out there. But if you're a pro male marathon runner, you usually don't get beat by women. And I was terrible that way, and it's because I was trying to be African, you know. And now, like, people are trying to be the Ingebrigtsens, trying to be Norwegian. Let's train like these guys do. And there's principles to be learned. Like, I'm messing with it myself. Like, we're incorporating some of the same stuff they're doing, and we're trying stuff out. But it's like, I'm not trying to be Norwegian. I don't want my athletes to be Norwegian or to be Kipchoge. And I've tried that. I've tried to train exactly the same as Moses Mosop, the Kenyan guy, and they posted his whole buildup before Boston, before he ran 2:03 at Boston. I tried to do that buildup and I got hurt. I didn't even make it to the starting line, you know. So it gets real ugly when you start comparing yourself to other people and running. You really got to just be laser-focused on like me just becoming the best version of me, knowing my strengths and weaknesses,, and then having someone who knows how to program around that, that's going to get me to be the best version of me.

And you're talking about that, that weight part in particular, like I see that sometimes too, that people are so obsessed about, I have to hit this race weight because this is supposed to be like, it's gonna be the fastest way possible, but it also increases your injury chances, it increases, you know, hormonal disbalances, any of those kind things. And you have experienced that firsthand yourself.

Yeah. And I think what's really important is to know where you'd sit naturally. So like, for example, like all my brothers who don't run and do anything, like they would prob— we'd probably all be about 165, you know. So if I'm racing the marathon at 137, I'm quite a bit under my normal body weight, you know. Like, that's something I gotta watch and realize and be like, okay, being far under my set point, my body set point, like you said, it's gonna be really hard hormonally, injury-wise. My risk is going to go up. I just, I can't stay down there the whole year. And so I had to have these huge fluctuations where I'd get down to 137, that's what I raced ideally at, and then in the off-season go up to like 150, and then gradually— and I'd feel so much better if I did that. I hated doing it because it means you have to let go of your fitness and you come back, you're used to running 137, You come back from a 2-week break and you're running 150.

Wow, you balloon up that quick.

Yeah, like, oh yeah, it was like— I mean, I'm not proud of the way I went about it.

Ballooning is 150, but I mean, like, you gained—

yeah, I put on that much weight. But I mean, it was like, it was like every day was an eating competition. It was. And I wasn't doing any physical activity. So I think the principle here is not to do it how I did it necessarily, but to realize you really have to let go at some point during the year, especially if you're like me and you're way under your body weight. You got to let go. You got to let the weight come back on, and then you got to gradually work it off if you're going to stay in a healthy state. But not everyone's like that. Like my wife Sarah is running professionally. Her body weight only fluctuates, you know, maybe 5 pounds throughout the year. Not very much at all. But that's because she would naturally sit maybe just a little bit higher than she is right now. You know, so you got to know like, okay, am I in a healthy state this body weight? And if you're not, if it's not sustainable, then you can't sit there year-round or else you can get yourself in a lot of trouble.

I've seen a lot of athletes under-eat, and I've even noticed I've done it at times, and you just notice your sleep is off, your recovery is off. It, it's a very important part of the whole holistic approach to training for sure.

Oh yeah, yeah, nutrition. I mean, that's usually if someone's feeling really bad, I'm like like, okay, let's look at your nutrition. Are you getting enough food? How often are you eating? What are you eating? Like, let's look there first because yeah, you can totally change how you feel and how you respond to training. Just increase your snack before bed by 300 calories. But like, I get it, like I was the same way. Like, body weight does make a huge difference. Like, if I'm at 140, I'm probably like 209. If I'm at 137, I'm like 206, right? Like, it just— those couple pounds, it makes a difference. So you can't just like like not pay attention to it, or certain people I guess can, you know. Um, but I always had to watch it because again, my natural set point body weight was like 165. That's where I wanted to go up to. And so I had to do some, do some things to manipulate some things to, to get myself lower because I was, yeah, like I said, if I was 140, I was like not looking good.

You talked about your brother earlier, and I met him recently at Mammoth Trail Fest.

Oh, you did?

Oh, he freaking crushed it. You won Both the 50K and the Race to the Top. And I was like, who is this guy? Oh, it's Chad Hall. It's Ryan Brothers. Ryan Hall's brother. I'm like, ah, there you go. That probably explains. Yeah, he's a really strong athlete as well.

Again, like I said, we all have big engines at our house, you know. And he's got a huge engine. He's gotten into cycling and stuff. And I've actually learned a lot about that, you know, cross-training. Like, I think you can be a faster runner if you incorporate cross-training in your training regimen compared to if you— all you did was just run and lift and do the standard things. Like, I think there's things that are left on the table when all you do is run. Um, threshold-based training, for example. It's like, if you're on a bike, you could do a threshold— is like 2 hours long, like in the afternoon after your morning workout, right? Like, but if you try to do that running, you're gonna kill your body and get hurt super quick, you know? So, um, aerobically, I think you can get a lot more out of yourself if you're willing to do some cross-training on top of your run training, even if you're 100% healthy.

Let's talk about failure for a minute, because I've noticed you aim exceptionally high and you don't always reach your goals.

What are your thoughts on failure? Yeah, I heard one of my pastors in my church said something that always I've thought about so much. It's like, if you're going to be a dreamer, you better develop a sense of resiliency, because you're not going to make your dreams, like, very often. And if you're like you said, your goals, your expectations are way high. Like, you got to be able to get back up quick. And that was a skill I didn't have when I was in the sport. Like, I'd have a bad workout and then my whole season was going to be a downhill slide from there, you know, like it was like tiptoeing around on the ice, you know, you'd be real careful. You had a bad workout, season over. But I got better at it. And that's what you want to realize is like, you can get better at this skill. You know, some people think mental toughness, either you have it or you don't. No, like it's a skill you develop over time by going there all the time and practicing how to deal with these moments. Like that's how you get good at this, right? But if you believe like, oh, either I have it or I don't, then you're probably going to think you don't and you're going to be out of luck and then you're always going to doubt yourself, you know? So yeah, with mental strength and failure in particular, it's like, again, talking about liking the pain cave, you almost got to like change your mindset completely and see failure as a good thing. You know, you look— everyone says this, you learn so much more from your failures than your successes. And it's true, you learn way more from your failures. Yeah, that's why everyone says that, because it's true. And so that's what I look at my failures like. Oh, I failed. Or like Rory ran Toronto and we thought he's in better shape than he ran, ran 2:13. It's like, okay, Hey, we just learned some really important information about stuff we need to tweak and consider going forward, you know. And of course, you gotta be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, you know. You don't want to have one bad workout or race and your reaction is like, let's change everything up, you know. Like, you can only manipulate— it's like we're really doing science experiments on one person every time out there. And really, like, if you want to know what works and what doesn't work, you can only change one variable at a time. You can't change like all the variables, but there might be a time and place for that where you're like, okay, your nutrition is terrible, your sleep is terrible, and your training, you're running your easy days too hard or something like that. It's like, we got to change all that right now. Like, it's just got to change because the principles show us that like that's not the most effective way to live and train, you know? But embracing those failures and just being like, this is a good thing. Like, I failed. Oh, I just got like, like an advanced path on my journey, you know, like this is really going to help me.

What was one of your most epic failures when you're thinking back? Like, oh, that one didn't reach my goal, but you know, you have to—

So before the London Olympics, so I qualified for the London Olympics at Houston in January. And so I'm on the team. So I kick things off. I mentioned about how, like, I, you know, I was racing way below my set point and I always had to put on weight. If I didn't put on weight and I tried this a number of times, Every single marathon, the next one I either didn't start or ran terrible every single time. And every time I didn't do that, I had a good marathon. So it was like, it was 100%, right? And so anyways, I run the trials and I had really good intentions, really good heart. Um, I wanted to— I was going through the season where I was gonna do faith-based training where I was just gonna be like relying on God to give me wisdom on how to train on a day-to-day basis was, you know, the short of the long. Um, so I was going about this, I was like, I really want to hear from God well. And one way to hear from God well— I mean, there's a lot of different ways, like making yourself super tired in a run, like being out in the forest, that's one of my favorite ways. But, um, in this situation, I was like, I really feel like I need to do a fast. So, and fasting is a great way to hear from God. Like, oftentimes God shows up when we're the most vulnerable. You know, we're hurting, when we're uncomfortable. Like, that's when we're walking. Yeah, it's because we start looking for him. I don't think it's the other way around, you know. It's like all of a sudden we're like, oh God's out there, we should, you know. Um, so anyways, my intentions were good. Just wanted to hear God's voice, just wanted wisdom. That was it, you know. So I fasted for a week. I was already at 137, and I lost weight obviously during that week, a substantial amount of weight. And so like if you watch the 41st Day, the documentary about me, you see me training early on in my buildup. I already look kind of sickly lean and that's the kind of— you shouldn't look like that unless it's like right before your marathon. And really, like, I never even raced a marathon well looking like that. So I started out that whole buildup. I was starting out on a really bad foundation, a foundation of unhealth. I didn't let my body reset, didn't let myself get strong again, didn't let myself come up for air. I just was like, nope, we're going to go even harder now. You know, and you can see this, this part of me, I love going hard, you know, at whatever I'm doing. And my buildup started off fairly well. And I was also dealing with the plantar fasciitis and that was causing other hitches in my stride that was throwing other stuff off. And that whole buildup was just I was like, man, it was a miracle that I even made it to the starting line of that race because physically I was just in such a bad spot. And so looking back at that now, I'm just like, that's stupid, you know? And as funny enough, in the Bible, like King David one time— I think it was David or Solomon— he, he made his army fast before they went to war and they got destroyed. And so my pastor, like months after the Olympics He's telling this story. He's like, yeah, you don't call a fast before you go to war. And it's just like the light bulbs just went off in my head and I was like, that was so stupid. Why did I do that? And you learned a lot on that one. Yeah. And my athletes aren't doing that now. If they want to fast for a week, I'm like, find a different coach.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So you wrote quite a bit about those experiences of you training on your own with guidance from God in your book. Tell me a little bit more about your book because it was a fascinating read. What was that experience like to write that?

Because that must have been a mental marathon for you as well to do that. Yeah, it was actually super enjoyable for me. It was almost like a form of therapy, you know, like I was looking back. Rarely do I look back at my whole life and try to connect all the dots and be like, oh yeah, that led to that and that led to that and that wouldn't happen if that didn't happen. You know, so I was looking back and I was like realizing things about my journey and what my journey was about and who it was for. And it was super— I mean, if I wrote it for me, it was enough, like super therapy for me. So I mean, how I wrote it, I was really intimidated by that because, you know, I graduated from Stanford and stuff, but academics was never super high on my priority list. And so I never pictured myself being an author. And I'd heard stories about other athletes who've written books and talking about locking themselves in the room for 9 hours. I'm like, I'm gonna lose my mind if I do that. If I have to lock myself inside for like 4 hours, I'm gonna lose my mind. So all I did is I got up every morning, 5 AM, had a big cup of coffee, and I sat there in the quiet of my house when everyone else is asleep, and I just wrote. And again, kind of going back to what I was talking about in the gym, like, when is your energy the best? Same for like creative creativity, at least for me, you know, like you gotta be really strategic about when you try and do creative things because there's times I'm a lot more creative than others, you know. And that was just like that quietness, I think, kind of created like clarity for me, you know, the quietness of that 5 AM hour, dark outside, nothing happening, and I'm just like in my mind, you know, like, and it's all coming out on paper. So actually, like, the writing of the initial manuscript didn't take a super long time. I want to say like a couple months. And then obviously there's a lot of editing back and forth and all that stuff, and you're re-combing through it and stuff. But the initial writing just kind of like flew out, just came out of me naturally. So I was really excited to share it with people when it came out, you know, because it was just so helpful for me. I was like, if it's helpful for me, I think it's going to be helpful for other people as well. And that's, that's really the goal of it.

Yeah, it was really nice to read it. A deeper dive into, or even your, your mental state, or like your whole approach mentally, not just like how you went about your training, but even how, how do you look at it all connected?

Yeah, yeah, it's always interesting, fascinating. I love doing this myself, like getting into the minds of other athletes. Like, uh, recently I've gotten into like mountaineering and scrambling through the mountains and stuff, and I'm kind of scared of heights, don't love heights. And oftentimes in those situations you find yourself on these tiny little rocky ridges and you're like, I don't feel super comfortable right now, you know. And so anyways, my buddy sent me this video of Alex Arnold. Yeah. And he was taking some— I think it was a— I don't know where the guy was from, another climber through his first free solo. And so he's coaching him through it, and you know, he's just telling this guy things that he's thinking all the time. And he just kept telling him, he's like, just take the next easy step, just take the next easy step. Step. Like, don't— and that's, you know, Run the Mile You're In is the title of my book, and that's been like my mantra with running is like, do not look too far down there because it's scary when you look out there. Just focus on this mile that you're in right now. There's enough grace for right now. There's not enough grace for mile 26 when you're at mile 2, you know? Like, let's just be here right now, and that's when you can do really special stuff. But yeah, Alex is telling them, that guy, the same thing. He's like, just take next easy step. Just take the next step. So when you're inside the head of another athlete and you're like, oh, that's what they're thinking about when he's on El Cap with no ropes just flying up this thing, it's, it's pretty cool.

Yeah. And it really applies to all of these different things, right? It's like, think about getting to the next mile, the next aid station in a race. Think about the next 30 seconds while you're getting to the Grand Canyon all the way to the rim. Or think about just writing that next page instead of the whole book.

Yeah.

Like for training, racing, and life, like on a bigger picture.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, it's applicable to everything. Just like bring yourself back to what you're doing right now and it's gonna go well, you know. As soon as you start thinking about how far you have to go and all that—

yeah, where can people find the book? Where is it available?

I think it's still on Amazon. Um, that's probably the best place to get it.

Yeah, and I will make sure to link as well to your website and to— yeah, the available sources for that. Yeah. I have one more important question, kind of in closing, but before we do, where can people find out more about you? Where, like, about your running coaching, about your personal website, you and Sarah have a website together, tell us a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Run Free Training is my personal coaching business I started along with my buddy Jay, and yeah, we're taking that holistic approach with all of our athletes there, and it's every level athlete, we have middle schoolers all the way up to like people in their 70s, you know, and training for all different events. So that's super fun way for me to like continue to share the journey with people.

Must bring so much fulfillment for you. Yeah, seeing athletes improve and, and seeing their journey along the way.

Yeah, and just being a part of the community too. It's like these are all people who just love running, they love trying to see what they can do in their own way at their own levels. And like we're just all kind of like like-minded people. We had to run free for free camp right out here at Humphreys, and we were hiking up the camp with the people and just chatting and just having a good time. Just, these are, these are our people. This is, you know, this, the community, the endurance community is really special, you know. And, uh, it's like you talk to someone, you're like, oh, you've run a marathon before? It's like, no, you have that thing in common with them, and then like there's a connection there that, um, is really, really special. So just being a part of that community is huge. So, uh, runfreetraining.com is the website where people can check that out. I'm probably most active on Instagram, so Ryan Hall 3 is my handle there. And yeah, our website, RyanandSarahHall.com. And then we have a foundation, the Hall Steps Foundation, which, you know, kind of fulfilled that thing in me when I was 13 of like, how do you do what you're doing for someone else, you know? And there's a lot of different ways you can go about it, but one of the ways we've done it is through the Hall Steps Foundation. We're doing work in impoverished areas all over the world, but especially in Africa.

And, uh, yeah, just trying to make our— seeing that part and the amount of money you guys were able to raise, um, tell real brief because I do want to hear about that part too before we jump onto the closing question.

Yeah, yeah, like we did say the Chicago Marathon with a group of runners one year, and we raised enough money to fund an entire clinic that we partnered with our buddy who won the Boston Marathon, Wesley Carrier. We partnered with him, built a whole clinic just because of people, a group of people, not even that big of a group. I think we were like 50 people got together, we fundraised, we ran the Chicago Marathon together, and they were able to fund a whole health clinic for this rural area of Kenya where they had no access to health before that. Like, Wesley's brother died of a snake bite because he didn't have access to a health clinic. So things like that happen, you're just like, that shouldn't happen again, you know, we can do something about You're firsthand changing lives right there. Yeah.

And where can people find out more and donate?

Yeah, the Hall Steps Foundation is the best place to find us, and people can run any race anywhere, you know. We do have a couple races where we have bibs for them, but most of the time it's just people who have similar hearts, similar passion to us, and they're just, you know, running for the Steps Foundation, doing some fundraising. And then we're able to put all that money— all of our money goes towards the projects that we're building. So we're all volunteers. No one's, no one's making anything off donations.

You and Sarah are such positive role models. Like, seriously, like, the impact you guys are making, it's, it's fascinating to see.

So, oh, thank you.

Thank you for all that. One closing question. There are many athletes listening here, like endurance athletes that are recreational runners that are looking to improve. Do you have any closing thoughts on ways to become a stronger, healthier, and happier athlete?

Yeah, pay attention to what you love. That's, you know, you got to be excited about what you're doing. Like, if you want to be consistent, have goals that are exciting for you, that get you out the door, you know. Have races that you're excited about. Like, I tell this with my athletes all the time when we're designing a racing schedule. We're not always like, okay, we're gonna set up this meet and perform the best because the highest perform— it's like, no, what races are you really excited to do? And let's go there and do those ones. Because those aren't net— sometimes those are the same as the high performance meets, but sometimes they're not, you know. And so really, like, paying attention your passions and feeding them. You know, the more you feed your passions, the more you're just gonna love what you're doing, you know, and you're gonna want to do it more and be more consistent, do a better job. But it might start with something really small, you know. It's like, oh, let me— I'm really excited about this, like, Spartan race or something a little bit different, you know, that not a lot of people are doing. And just start going that way, start feeding that passion, see where it goes.

Passion is so important to be able to train consistent and do it with joy. It's so interesting because You said that, elite kipchoge, and Killian across the board. That one keeps coming back and I love that part. And it's a really important point.

It's a key. Yeah, it's a key to success. You got to enjoy it.

Ryan, thank you so much. I really appreciated you, this conversation, and I look forward to following the rest of your journey in the coming years here.

Yeah, thank you. I enjoyed chatting.

Thank you so much for listening.

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