#79: 80/20 Training to Race Faster, Round 2. Matt Fitzgerald and Ryan Whited

You will tend to improve the most and perform the best if you do about 80% of your running at a truly low intensity. 80% low intensity, 20% moderate to high intensity, which is what elite performers do across all endurance disciplines. So when you make that shift from getting out of the moderate intensity rut that so many of us are stuck in to training the way the elites do, but scaled down to your level, it unlocks performance.

People get stuck on a pendulum between pain and injury, and they will try to participate in their activities, experience pain, suspend their activities, and then become deconditioned, and then try to return. And so they get stuck going back and forth, trying to hit in the middle, like 80/20, you might say.

Today, a follow-up conversation about 80/20 running, low-intensity running, high-intensity activity, exercise, and pain management are some of the topics we're going to discuss. Matt Fitzgerald is an acclaimed endurance sports author, a coach, and a nutritionist. His many books include 80/20 Running, The Comeback Quotient, and On Pace. Ryan White is a personal trainer, an elite climber, and the founder of Paragon Athletics Gym. Matt and Ryan co-authored a new book called Pain and Performance with several eye-opening learnings and takeaways. Before we dive in, I want to share a few results from members of our Personal Best Running coaching program, and this is what really gets me excited every single day. For example, Jordan qualified for the Boston Marathon after trying for 5 years. He couldn't be more pumped. Chris absolutely smashed his 10K PB by 10 minutes, and Megan is feeling stronger than ever after finishing her longest training run. If you're looking for additional guidance in your training and racing, check out pbprogram.com. Those are the letters P-B- pbprogram.com. I want to share a few more of the hundreds of success stories. PB Program member Anuj bettered his marathon time by 22 minutes and is loving every second of it, smiling ear to ear. Daniel Edwards tried to break the sub-4:30 since 2016 and now at the age of 50 is in better running shape, running a 4:16. Maria ran a PB for a 1K segment, beating her 2019 record. And Stan Reagan is one of our PB members. He tried to break the sub-4 4 times 23 years ago, and now at the age of 50, he was able to run a 3:45 PR. John Wessler hitting his goal of sub-2:55. It was challenging at the end, but he did not hit the wall. And Brian shares that his love for running has returned. Lastly, over here, Flad, he ran a Boston qualifier and 23-minute personal best. He could not have wished for better results. The list of results really goes on and on, and this is so satisfying for me to see on a daily basis, as well as for our other personal best coaches. So yes, if you're looking for additional guidance in your training and racing, check out pbprogram.com. This episode was brought to you by Element. This is a delicious electrolyte drink mix that I drink daily, sometimes 2 times a day. It contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio of 1,000 mg of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium and 60 milligrams of magnesium. Electrolytes facilitate hundreds of different functions in the body, including the conduction of nerve impulses, hormonal regulation, nutrient absorption, and fluid balance. LMNT is used by everyone from the NBA, NFL, NHL players, Olympic athletes, Navy SEALs, to everyday moms and dads and exercise enthusiasts. Right now, LMNT is offering a free sample package of 8 flavors with any of their orders. That is 8 single serving size packages free with any LMNT order. It's a great way to try all 8 flavors and share LMNT with a salty friend. Get yours at drinklmnt.com/flow. This is drinklmnt.com/flow. Hope you enjoy my conversation with Matt and Ryan. Hello Matt, hello Ryan, welcome to the Extra Mileage Show. I'm glad you guys are here.

Yeah, thank you so much for having us.

Absolutely. We have a few exciting topics to dive into here today. We're going to start out with almost like a round 2 of the 80/20 conversation that Matt and I have had previously. That video already had more than 100,000 views here on the YouTube channel. Several different follow-up questions and things that came out of that. And then also want to talk about a new book that you guys just came out with, Pain and Performance. And that book is out now, and I want to make sure there's several different exciting topics to dive into. So, yeah, really looking forward to this conversation, guys. Let's start out, Matt. Basically, let's backtrack first to the beginning for a little bit here. Can you explain the fundamental principles of 80/20 running for those who are not really familiar with it yet?

Sure thing. It's counterintuitive but true nonetheless. That if you want to, at any level of running, whether you're, you know, a miler or a 100-miler, whether you're a beginner or a very experienced runner, you will tend to improve the most and perform the best if you do about 80% of your running at a truly low intensity. So an intensity that, that still qualifies as exercise, low intensity doesn't mean sitting on the couch, you know, 80% low intensity, 20% moderate to high intensity, which is what elite performers do across all endurance disciplines, not just in running, but, you know, across the board, but it's what very few sub-elite and recreational competitive runners do. And so when you make that shift from getting out of the moderate intensity rut that so many of us are stuck in to training the way the elites do, but scaled down to your level, it unlocks performance.

How would you go about— like, there's many different ways to calculate this low heart rate zone. Do you have like some of your favorite methods to calculate this?

You know, the borderline between low and moderate intensity, and so that's, that's the line that too many of us are, are above when we don't intend to be. You know, the definition of that, it's actually, it's a ventilatory threshold. So it's defined by your breathing rate. And in order to know your breathing rate, you have to have your breathing measured. And I'm guessing that nobody listening to this podcast right now has a breathing measuring machine or wearable. You know, the nice thing is though, that is what defines that threshold. You can find correlates with it. So heart rate, pace, you know, power for those who are used to Stride or other power meters. So in heart rate terms, for the typical trained athlete, we're talking 75 to 80% of your, of your maximum heart rate. In pace terms, it's going to be around that ventilatory threshold is going to be around 65% of your maximal aerobic speed or your speed at VO2 max. And that is a pace you could hold for. 6 to 7 minutes in a time trial. So you can go out and do like a 6-minute time trial, see what your velocity, average velocity is in that time trial. Multiply that velocity by 0.65, convert it back to pace from velocity, and then you'll have a pace that is pretty reliably, you know, close to your ventilatory threshold, which is probably gonna be slower than you're running your easy runs.

Currently. Yeah, because out of your experience, because I've seen quite a few people starting out with a low-intensity running journey and really noticing they have to slow down significantly. Like, what are some of the things that you've noticed from your end? Like, why do you feel that for many athletes it's quite challenging at the beginning? And what are some of those initial stages like?

Yeah, I think it really is multiple factors. For my book, 80/20 Triathlon, My co-author David Warden and I made a laundry list of like all the reasons that people get stuck in this moderate intensity rut. I think it was 8, and after the book was published, I came up with a 9th. But number 1, I think, and this is based on research, is that if you just ask, you know, either like average Joe or Jane runner, or even just a random person on the street to hop on a treadmill and run for 20 minutes and choose their own pace. So no direction beyond 20 minutes, fill that time however you please. Very, very consistently, and these studies have been done, people will choose a pace that is slightly above that ventilatory threshold. And my speculation, and I'm convinced it's true, though the study hasn't been done, is that the reason people, and you know, what's interesting is that physiologists being physiologists, you know, their speculation was that, I mean, they saw the trend, like everyone is choosing a moderate intensity, not low, not high, moderate. Like, why? And their speculation was like, there must be some physiological explanation. Like, you know, maybe people are just automatically unconsciously choosing their most like efficient pace., but when they measured everything physiological they could possibly measure, they found no consistency. The only consistency was that rating of perceived effort. So their conscious perception of how hard they were working was the same for just about everyone. And my speculation is that people are choosing that neither here nor there intensity because they have two competing ingrained human instincts. At play, kind of a tug of war. One is we're very task-focused. So when you give us a task, we want to get it done. We want to get it over with. And so if you're trying to get a task done, that pulls you to go faster, to go more intensely. You got a pile of wood you need chopped, chop it, you know, because you want to have a shower and a cup of hot chocolate. So, you know, get it over with. I get it in a time-based task, you can't get it over with faster, but still our orientation is get it done. At the same time, the more intensely you're working, the more you're suffering. And there's also a deeply ingrained instinct against suffering unnecessarily. When we sort of unconsciously compromise between a desire to get it over with and a desire to not suffer unnecessarily, where do you end up? Right in between at a moderate intensity. And I'm convinced that that is really, you know, secondary to that is this idea that like, well, if it's easy, how can it be doing me any good? But I really think that one is number 2 or 1A. And what I just explained is really primary.

For those wanting to start out with 80/20 training, do you have any high-level recommendations, any advice over here?

Yeah, step number 1 for sure is like, You know, I call it intensity blindness where like, if I ask a runner to go out and run for 6 miles, 45 minutes at low intensity, they'll go out and run for 6 miles or 45 minutes at moderate intensity, come back and say, coach, I did just what you said. And they didn't, not intentionally, not willfully, but You know, they, they just don't understand what, you know, you know, low intensity is. You gotta put some empirical foundation to like, you know, that, that dividing line. So which requires some kind of testing. And the, the, it's not that hard. You don't have to go to an exercise lab and put on one of those masks and do a VO2 max test. You, there are rough and ready ways, but you, you need to find where your ventilatory threshold is. Because it's not, you know, where you think it is. That's step 1. And then step 2 is you have to, you know, if you're going to get on board with this 80/20 training method, you have to plan accordingly. You know, even if you, you know, know what low intensity is for you, I've seen it like a million different excuses for, you know, fudging it, gaming the system. And so you need a plan that is an 80/20 plan. Because otherwise it's just, you know, good intentions aren't enough. So those are the two key things like testing and planning.

One last question about this topic before we dive into the whole topic of pain here is when you look at like Arthur Lydiard, Dr. Phil Maffetone, some of these coaches have the approach more of a base building period where there's no low, like no high intensity training. I'm personally a fan for certain parts of the training cycle to also like hold back break on any higher intensity training for a little bit. And this can either be like an in-between period where you're really developing that aerobic base, or sometimes also when dealing with athletes who are very injury prone, who might not necessarily be able to handle even that 20% of high intensity running. So I'm kind of curious to hear if you have any thoughts on that at all around this topic. So base building, zero high intensity versus 80/20, especially in those early stages.

Yeah, I mean, for the most part, like I, you know, in my coaching I use more of like a nonlinear model of periodization versus the standard linear periodization model. Because, you know, I just think like if you look at all of the relevant components to, you know, running fitness, like I don't think it's wise to lose touch completely with any of them. You know, so like, I mean, I get it. Like, you know, you know, maybe the first 2 weeks after a, you know, a peak race when it's mostly downtime or, you know, injury recovery, illness recovery, you take, you take certain tools outta your toolbox, but you know, it's easier to lose it. And, and so, you know, you, it, when you reintroduce high intensity after a period without doing high intensity, it's risky. That's actually riskier than keeping it in. Even at like, it doesn't take much to just stay in touch with it. And you know, it can even be just a matter of like actually just sprinting all out for 8 seconds up a hill, you know, 4 times, once or twice a week. Like that alone will suffice to make the transition back to true 80/20 training a lot smoother and less risky. So yeah, like for, for short periods of time or when it's absolutely necessary, yeah, go ahead and take, you know, certain tools out of the, out of the toolbox temporarily. But for the most part, I like to keep everything in the mix year round.

Absolutely. No, that's good to hear. And I like your thoughts about some of the drills or some of the hill sprints or any of these short ones as well. Ryan, I would love to hear from you. Can you talk a little bit more about the concept of training as treatment, like in a little bit more detail? What are some of the strategies that work best for managing pain in an athlete, both in training and in racing?

Our own gifts are appealing and changing are the things that we've used throughout our history. And in the last 100 years is when we started delineating between what was therapy, therapeutic movement, and what was just movement. It's sort of a carryover from the Dr. Kellogg and eugenics time in history. We decided that there were correct ways to move and there were these measurable things. But really, there's so much variability in each person that we're finding out now that those tools aren't very helpful a lot of times and might even cause a lot of problems. So yeah, so really it's more just leaning in on what we've always leaned in on, and that's just adjusting things and allowing time.

Work its magic. Previously, like a lot of us, like the three of us on this phone call, seem to have had indeed that concept or the idea of like, all right, you get injured and you take rest, you take time off and you start working through that injury. Whereas looking through some of the fundamentals or concepts in your book, it really sounds like you're advocating actually still finding ways to be active throughout an injury even. Can you explain that a little bit further of like There's a few study examples that you even mentioned in the book where they look at a different group of athletes. The one group actually fully takes rest and then starts training, and the other has more of an active recovery. Can you explain that concept a bit further?

At some point, we decided that rest is how everything healed. But really, we know that tissues heal with use. Even our psychological recovery recovers with pushing back into the thing that was uncomfortable. So it's a matter of knowing how to feather that experience and how to like, you know, move around those things because you can't just push through something, you know, that's not a no pain, no gain type mindset. That's not what it is. It's different. So it's just a matter of realizing that how we heal and how we progress is by sort of continuing doing what we do, even Uh, like in, in our running groups, you know, our climbing groups and in those activities, you know, it's important to stay involved in those things because it's, it's been shown that the more important your activity is to you, the more likely you are to have a pain experience in relationship to that activity because it's so important. So your nervous system can react by overprotecting it, if that makes sense.

Matt, can you share any example from your own running and recovery process of how that has changed from your previous approach to like more of this updated approach?

Yeah, I mean, this gets into why I wanted to write this book with Ryan. You know, there's a spectrum, you know, among athletes, those who experience a lot of pain and those not so much, you know, those who quote unquote get injured often. You know, I was always way on the side of the spectrum you don't want to be on. And I wish I had met Ryan earlier, but Ryan didn't know what he knows earlier.

So that's true too.

But, so I had a lot of little injuries as a runner and a triathlete and a few very big ones, 3 in particular that kept me out of competing for each at least a year and one of them more than 3 years. I lost some of my prime years to injury. And in each of those cases, I sought medical help. I went to orthopedists, I went to sports medicine specialists, I went to physical therapists. And for all 3 of those big 3 injuries, including surgery, like none of the expert medical help, I overcame all 3 of them eventually. In none of those 3 cases was it a doctor who fixed it. It was me who fixed it ultimately. And specifically the cure was the cause. You know, what got me over the hump was training. You know, it was like, you know, just not being bullheaded and stubborn, you know, no pain, no gain. But I, like, I love the, you know, the metaphor of a dance. Like you're doing a dance with your pain and sometimes the pain is leading, sometimes You're leading, but you kind of have the same goal if you recognize it. And all 3 of those injuries I thought might be quote unquote career ending, but they weren't. And so when I met Ryan and learned about contemporary pain science and all that, it just, it finally made sense of something I had experienced, but that no doctor or physical therapist had ever taught me, you know, because they didn't know. And so it just resonated and I, I'm like, okay, I used to think I was a freak or a weirdo. Why is the cure the cause? You know? Yeah. Then I'm like, well, I'm not weird, you know, I'm just like everyone else. It's not that like you should never see a doctor for anything. That's not the lesson, but that, you know, so much of the power to work through pain injury, you know, it, you know, there's no one better positioned to do that than the person experiencing it. You know, and you, you, you might need some guidance and, you know, to understand some principles. And it's not like a paint-by-numbers thing. It is a little bit, you know, it's a trial and error. It's like a dance, you know, you know, just like my experience, like really, like I'm, I'm exhibit A for everything that, that Brian teaches.

Sadly, there's very little pain education. In the continued ed of PT and or any other sports med folks. And so they, they, that's just not a part of the curriculum. It might have changed now because this is really coming up a lot now. But historically, if you go to see somebody for something, if you go to see a therapist for something that hurts, they actually don't know a lot about why something hurts.

Let's talk through this a little bit more though, also in, in practical terms. For example, Ryan, I recently, or last year, ran the Berlin Marathon. And 3 weeks before Berlin, like, I was up to about 68 miles, 70 miles a week. Things were all feeling good, felt like in good shape. And at one point, I overdid it, like a Sunday workout, long, hard workout. Monday is supposed to be a rest day, but I ended up, like, overdoing it, ended up still going out with a friend who called me, like, ended up—

I've heard that story.

Without warming up on any of these kind of things. Anyways, all of a sudden, the calf is really angry at me. And it's one of those things where I could not possibly feel that at that point, me going out and running more would necessarily help that much. Because there is really that fear factor of, like, I've been there a few times with my calf, of the calf just getting angry and jumping back at. So I did end up taking a little bit of rest. Doing some more active recovery on those kind of things and still was able to run the Berlin Marathon 3 weeks later. But it's this fine line with at what point do you feel rest is the right way to do? At what point, how much pressure can you put on it? Like, I'm just curious to hear your thoughts over here because I honestly would be scared to run on that calf like 2 days or 3 days after it happened. So How would you go about it then with your new knowledge here?

I still think you did the right thing by taking a little time off, but you said you did change your activities a bit, but you stayed active also. So you met, did you jump on a bike or something of that nature?

There was still biking, there was still pool running, there was still backwards walking, there were still different things that could be done.

So that's training.

It was just, yeah, it was just not running indeed. Yeah.

So you just took a step back, but one of the biggest things that might be helpful is contextual change. Knowing that, that your calf was really upset, but there wasn't, didn't mean that there was tissue damage to your calf necessarily. So knowing that your calf is intact, it's healthy, but it's painful can help reduce some of the fear that you were experiencing and concern that you were experiencing. About having spent this, all this time leading up to this event and blowing it within just a few weeks. So a lot of times I'll tell people, you know, I hope this is comforting. I'm hoping that it kind of brings down that fear and you can know like, okay, this can calm down as quickly as it got upset.

Matt, I would like you to share the story of your 50 miler and what happened a few days before that. And how just your thought process and your approach actually still— you were almost injured going into it, or with severe discomfort in a few days before it. You were still able to go after that 50-miler. So tell us a bit more.

Yeah, I mean, this is one of those Exhibit A anecdotes where I was training for my first ultramarathon, the American River 50-miler in 2016. And I ran my hometown marathon, the Modesto Marathon in California, 2 weeks before as, you know, just a, like a, a hard training run. I, I didn't go all out, but I ran hard and it was a marathon. So a little over half the distance I was preparing to, I had a very good day until I was about a mile out, just over a mile out from the finish line. And I was going down, it's a flat course, but it has a, you know, a couple little rollers. I was coming down the last little hill and it was just one of those more of an acute type of thing where I just, I landed and there was just an explosion of pain in my right knee. And you know, I was that, you know, being a typical headstrong endurance athlete, I'm like, well, for Christ's sake, you know, I'm like, you know, the fastest way to get out of this is to finish. And so I just gunned it out. It was very, very painful. And after finishing, you know, I realized, well, wow, I really did a number on myself and having a very rich history of pain and injury up to that point, I kind of had a sense of what I was dealing with, that this was kind of on the more serious side. So, fortunately, as a triathlete as well, like cross-training, I guess kind of like you, Floris, no big deal. It's there. I like to bike, I like to swim. And so I just cross-trained and like waited for it to to calm down, but I was nervous, you know, 'cause like it still hurt and, you know, I would've loved to like, you know, cross-train for 3 days and then get back to running, but I could tell the knee just wasn't ready. It hurt even walking. So I waited until actually the day before the race, or it was maybe 2 days before the race. I'm like, well, I'm going to, I got to test it, you know, see what I'm dealing with. And I went out just, it was going to be just like, just a test, not a, not a workout, not a run. I mean,, you know, just a test and I made it 10 minutes. And you know, for me the test was always like, if it's getting worse as you go, you failed the test. And you know, I pulled the plug after literally just 10 minutes, but I was obligated for certain reasons to go to the race anyway. And so I went and, you know, I had had enough experiences with, I knew that pain is mercurial. And it can surprise you. And this is, again, this is before I knew Ryan, so I didn't know the science, but I'm like, you never know. Like, you know, I was very doubtful and my plan was I had a, I had a, my wife and I were staying at a hotel that was at the close to the 7-mile mark of this 50-mile race. And I'm like, you know, I'm going to start because I kind of have to, but you know, worst case scenario is like I bail after 10 minutes and have a 7-mile walk to my hotel., but I started the race and nothing, you know, you know, it's funny, like I bailed out of a 10-minute run due to pain, like 1 or 2 days before this race. And then I ran 50 miles, like no problem. And the pain never came back. It was gone.

Done.

It's amazing how common stories like this are. It's just that we don't put it together until it's held right in front of your face. And then you go, oh, I don't think pain is actually directly correspondent to damage.

So what are some of the lessons that you learned from here? What are some of the advice for anyone listening based on an experience like this?

I think knowing that pain and damage, they don't equal each other, you know, they're not one-to-one in ratio. So knowing that pain can be extremely profound with everything kind of being okay. It happens more often than you think.

I want to share an example from my first marathon I ever ran was in 2007. Before this marathon, I was so nervous that in the days leading up to it, I felt someone was jabbing a knife in my back. Literally, I felt like, this is horrible. I can never run this race. Da da da da da. All like this whole negative cycle of like just tense in the body, just tight, like Many athletes listening to this have probably gone through a taper before a race where all of a sudden, after months and months of training, you start to cut back your running volume and your body starts fixing itself and you start feeling your knee that you never felt before, your calf or any of these. Well, with me, it was just like someone was jabbing a knife in the back. Sure enough, race day comes around. Although there's that fear in the back of your mind of like, I hope I can breathe normal because there's all this tightness. You just go through your routine, you make your breakfast as if you go do a long run, and you go to the start line, and all of it disappears 5 minutes after. Even when you're in the starting corral, it already kind of goes away, and you start running, and you didn't even remember that this happened. This was, to me, once I read Matt's story in the book, and once I could relate it to some of my own stories, it's fascinating how pain can play such a role and how big of an impact the mind has in all of this as well.

Rumination and anxiety go hand in hand with back pain. And another thing, so if that hadn't cleared up, so if it hadn't cleared up and it got worse over the next week, then you went to see somebody that didn't have much experience in knowing, you know, about pain, even though that's their job. Then, you know, they would say, we should probably get a scan of your back. So they do a scan and they say, you know what, your discs are degenerating. So because many people's discs change as we age. Yeah. One of the pieces of research I looked at from radiology, they looked at, I forget how many female volleyball players, but I think 62% of them at 18 years old had disc degeneration present, that's not an abnormality at that point, right?

That's normal.

So slides.

Yeah.

So if you had gone to get a scan and then they confirmed to you, see, told you you're broken, and then it just, it confirms your bias, you know, like, oh, I need help and I'm breaking down. So it's this vicious cycle. It's a really sad thing. Yeah, that was a lot of why I gave up 10 years of my life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about discomfort for a little bit during race day, because I would love to hear, like, I think there's quite a power of the mind that we have talked about. You covered this also in your book. When you're going through challenging stages on a race, let's say anyone listening here is going to be doing a marathon, and at some point, you know, it's going to get challenging. But how you experience discomfort also has a direct relationship to your mindset, being able to run in the present versus thinking how much further ahead you have to go and whatnot. Can you share any thoughts of how to be okay with discomfort or what you can do as an athlete to set yourself up for success, knowing that some of this discomfort might come on race day?

Practice. Yeah, a lot of time being uncomfortable. Helps. So as we all know, and then I do think a lot of times those contextual changes, you know, those like knowing what is okay and what is not okay during that experience, that's helpful as well.

Anything to add to that at all, Matt?

Yeah, I agree with what Ryan said, certainly, because this was my journey, you know, I've told this story in writing many times, like, you know, I had a deep, deep aversion to that kind of discomfort as as a teenage runner and it really ended up ruining the sport for me and I quit really because of that. I couldn't, I could not handle it and then got back into it later and it was really my mission. Yeah, I wanted to fulfill my potential on a performance level, but for me, like there was no separation between that journey and the journey of recognizing that my primary limiter was psychological and specifically that aversion to discomfort. And what helped for me was actually making that a conscious goal. 'Cause I think for so many endurance athletes, it's like, yeah, discomfort is the thing you have to put up with to achieve the goal of performing. But for me, I'm like, I still care about performing, but like I'm actually going to like shift my mindset for a time and make getting good at discomfort the goal, because I know, you know, to the degree I get better at that, I will get better at running. And that really helped because, you know, for so many people it's like they sort of just like vaguely hope tacitly that they'll get, you know, tougher. And like, it's not probably really going to happen unless it's more like explicit. It's like, you know, I'm going to take this on. So, you know, yeah, you have to practice to Ryan's point, but if you practice like intentionally, I want to get better at this. And like, just because you don't have to be a masochist, you don't have to like pain, you know, you just have to understand like it's part of it. And like there, it can be like an acceptance and embracing of it. And for me, I experienced a 180-degree transformation. Like I got really, really, really good at suffering. Yeah. So it's, you know, I'm living proof.

Another exhibit A that it's possible. For me, one of the big changes that happened throughout my training in my early days and like later on as I matured as a runner a bit, I used to, when I would do speed work, I always thought you had to go to 100%, like 100% max red zone efforts. Once I started realizing you could get a lot of benefits at 90% of max heart rate, 92% of max heart rate, but not pushing it much beyond that because the recovery would take much longer, I would just feel absolutely miserable. I've only done one CrossFit workout in my life, and I puked at that CrossFit workout, and it was just freaking unpleasant. And like, every time when I did— like, when I was doing that, it just reminded me of some of my early, early stages of the running where it was just like all out or nothing versus like— and I think once you can kind of transition that part. So that was just one takeaway for me in the speedwork front. Yeah, I do think what you're saying, though, Ryan, like, the more you— even the more you race, the more you just gain that experience of what does it feel like to get to mile 10 of a half marathon or mile 20, 32K of a full marathon. Many people don't really get to that stage often. So actually going through those motions, running on empty, knowing what that kind of feels like. Yeah, that experience from training, but also from racing helps there.

It comes with it, you know? Yeah, I like to say And he comes with bees.

Yeah, totally. I'm curious to hear from either one of you, what have you found out about placebo and the placebo effect during the writing of this book?

I would say more about, I'd be inclined to say more about nocebo. I don't know if you've gotten that far into the book when nocebo is discussed.

I did not. That might have been towards the later stage, but I don't recall seeing that part yet.

When, when it's suggested to you that you're sick, like if you did go to see somebody for your back and they diagnosed you with something, then there's a nocebo effect that accompanies that very often. So all of a sudden it's, you're more likely to experience your symptoms because it's been suggested that you should by a medical professional.

It almost goes hand in hand sometimes. Like I'm a fan of trackable devices, but for example, I wear the Oura ring. And sometimes before race day, you know you're going to not sleep that well. And when you look at your sleep score the night before a race or 2 days leading up to it, and it's telling you you should be resting and you're supposed to be doing a hard, hard race that day, it can almost ding your confidence and you almost start to doubt yourself where maybe the days leading up to a race, you might not want to look at some of that data because of what kind of an effect it can have on your day too.

Yeah, the psychosocial parts of the things that we participate in are huge, and we just haven't, haven't been given the credit that they deserve, really.

Is there any advice that you have to anyone listening about self-talk? I know there's sometimes athletes that I come across that keep calling themselves injury-prone, or that keep calling themselves, I have a runner's knee, or I always have this issue. Do you have any advice to those type of athletes?

I think we both probably have something to say about this. So I usually, when I work with people and they say, oh, that's my bad knee, I always ask them to change to my healing knee. Like changing the language around that experience is important. Don't say it's my bad knee. It's my healing knee. It's my changing knee. That's a good bit of the stuff that I work with. And then Matt, I'm sure you've written so much about psychology.

I'm sure you have something to say about it. Within this conversation, I've described myself as injury prone. And I remember, you know, because it was interesting, you know, so you and I met Ryan, we decided to collaborate on this book and this is before long COVID kind of took me out, but I was still like really getting after it as an athlete at age 48, 49. And I suffered an injury. This was another one that was more of the acute kind versus like, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the overuse type of thing. And, and so, and you, you, you, I, it was actually, it worked out great. You know what I mean? Cause I got to experience your, your, your process. And I remember you telling me like, stop talking about yourself. That way. And, you know, I internalized that. And for me, you know, it was really like, stop thinking about yourself that way. Like, and I really was able to, like, I can still say, oh, I was injury prone, but my thinking really did change. And now as a coach, you know, I'll never have kind of like the, you know, the specialization that you have, Ryan, but, you know, as a coach, you have a role, right? You know, like all the time I'm working with athletes who experience pain, who are limited, their training's limited by pain. And I use this stuff, I get them, I feed into them what you fed into me, and it is really difference-making. It's not like you're policing people's language, but like you're getting them to shift their perspective on like, just how normal pain is. I have athletes now where I'm like, oh, it's good that this happened because it was inevitable, and this gives us a chance for you to level up. You know, 'cause like, you know, we're, we're going to get out the other side of this. And, and once you have gotten out the other side, you don't have to do it again. You know what I mean? Like, like you're, you're, you're, you're actually, pain helps you, you know, working through pain as an athlete helps you become more durable. You know, you don't wish it upon yourself, but you understand like it's going to happen and it's useful. You know, if you're not just like nodding your head, but you're like, yeah, that, that kind of makes sense to me. Like I'm, I'm buying in as an athlete. It really, it made a difference for me, you know, when I was still training training and competing, and it, I see it making a difference for the athletes I work with now.

99.9% of pain is of not any medical concern. That's not an actual statistic, but it is a useful reframing.

This is fascinating. I want to, I want to talk about page 88 of your book. You give the example of a woman, Jessica, who always had hip pain when she was doing like a split squat movement and you filmed her and she actually experienced that pain while you were filming her. Then you actually had her perform this split squat again, but you actually had her watch this video at the same time and suddenly the hip pain disappeared. So all you had done was really deflect the attention in a way that caused her nervous system to do something other than the usual thing.

How common is this?

Probably more common than we realize. We just don't catch it.. So incidentally, Jessica has gone on to have several good races. Yeah. So since the writing of the book, yeah, I would imagine those kinds of experiences happen more often than we realize. It's just, I'm there to point those things out. You know, it's very often like, I will tell you a story. I worked with a doc that had pretty profound back pain and there are certain movements in class that he just, said, oh, I can't do that. But I would watch him do that exact movement, putting his shoes on, but in a different plane before we started class. So he just didn't realize that he was doing that in a different plane. So sometimes, honestly, if somebody is really struggling with a specific movement, if we just ask them to do that same movement in a different plane and then point it out to them, they go, I didn't realize That is exactly what I was doing. So, but so when you like present it like that, it all of a sudden they go, oh, there's opportunity for change here.

The mind plays such a big role in this. I like, I like Ted Lasso's approach where he made like a big sign of belief above the locker room and like, yeah, there's so much to be said there.

So, so much of pain is the expectation of pain. You know, that's one of the things I learned. I love that term expectancy violation where it's like, you know, just like you got to find a way to, you know, to just to shift things where it's like, oh wow, I don't actually have to experience pain when I do XYZ.

I talked with my friend Laurens van Lingen about that topic where let's say I'm doing 8 times 1200 on the track and I'm doing it at a pretty high intensity. And at some point, let's say I'm 5 or 6 rounds in and I know like, all right, I'm, I'm struggling to maintain pace. It's pretty challenging. And I still have 7 more to go. Once you start thinking, I have 7 more to go, it becomes really challenging. Whereas the rep itself, when you purely focus on being here right now, it is totally doable. It's the perception of how much more you gotta go. Oh, I'm only mile 18 of the marathon. I still got 8 miles. But running aid station to aid station, running in the presence, like, yeah, this is There's so much about where is that discomfort and how much of that is actually in the mind. At some point, you guys have a few different thoughts around how to manage pain with exercise, like almost like the process of building self-efficacy. Can you, can you talk through that a little bit more? Let's say someone is listening over here, someone is experiencing pain, someone is experiencing an injury and wants to like work through that. Do you have any high-level thoughts on that?

Earlier when you asked about learning to get uncomfortable. Practice is the main thing, like pushing up against it builds your efficacy. Pushing up against it with friends will help also. And this is, this is actually in back pain research. It's been shown that you are less likely to have a recurrence. And if you do have a recurrence with chronic low back pain, that it will be shorter-lived because you know how to return back to activities. So if you just practice bouncing back all the time, then you're going to get good at it, better at it at least. And if you've built a community around you, like I've been working with the same group of guys for about 14 years, and I always tell them the day that you don't want to come in, one of them has had a history of back pain. And I'm always like, the day that you don't want to come in is the day that you need to come in and work with your friends. And you'll be very surprised what you can do.

And it's always true. Absolutely. What are some of these other factors that can impact our pain or discomfort levels? Like, I've seen certain correlation directly between your stress in your daily life or poor nutrition or lack of sleep. Can you share some, some thoughts around this?

Yeah, beliefs have a lot to do with it. So if you believe that pain is a 1-to-1 ratio of damage and your level of pain and discomfort, if that's just a part of your belief system and health, you're going to have your bias confirmed often because our tissues change all the time and you're just going to look for that confirmation all the time. So, you'll build out the belief system.

I will say when I have a poor night's sleep, or when I'm highly stressed in daily life, it seems I'm able to sometimes push myself less in workouts than when I'm well rested. I'm in a relaxed state because I think even the power of relaxation, right? Sometimes we get into a race and we might start experiencing some discomfort, and it's so natural for us to feel like we tense up, we tighten, we try harder. Versus actually telling yourself, I should be relaxing a little bit more. I should just let it come to me versus me trying so hard. And I found that quite powerful sometimes, even on days when I'm feeling a bit off or the sleep hasn't— like, just that kindness towards yourself versus trying to force it. I'm just curious, Matt, have you had any experiences around that at all?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Because whether I call myself injury prone or not, the fact of the matter is I lost a lot of time. To pain/injury. That's just a fact. You know, it wasn't because I got lazy that I stopped racing. Like, I really, really, really wanted to train, to train hard and race, but pain, the pain was too much. So that got me thinking, like, why? You know, because like, there are other people out there who just seems like they can get away with anything. You know, early on, for sure, when I was younger, I did stupid stuff and I was like, well, I brought this on myself, but I'm an idiot, but I'm only so much of an idiot. So eventually I stopped hitting my head against the wall and started like making unforced errors, but still pain was an issue. And there is research out there. I know Ryan knows more about this than I am. Like there are genes that affect like the makeup of the like the collagen in your tendons. And like if you got, you know, the wrong genes, you're more likely to suffer tendon injuries. So, you know, that's a thing. That's why they call it the biopsychosocial. We're not saying like biology doesn't matter, but for me, I'm like, well, you know, chances are I got some of those genes you don't want to have. But, you know, it was pointed out to me when I was having a conversation about this with a former Olympic triathlon coach is, she's like, you know, Matt, you're kind of tightly wound, you know? And it's like, have you ever thought that like maybe that has something to do with the fact that, you know, you get hurt a lot? And, you know, I didn't want to hear that, but I, you know, I sat with that idea and, you know, the more I've sat with it, the more I feel like there's something there, you know, where like, no, I'm the kind of person where like if I'm on a road trip and, you know, it doesn't really matter where, how long it takes to get where we're going, we're going to have a great time when we get there. But if there's like a traffic jam on the way, I lose my shit. You know, I'm just like, I'm not a road rage type of person, but like, you know, I'm pounding the steering wheel. It's like, What? We're making terrible time. I had a goal. I wanted to get there by 3:12. It's going to be like 3:17. Like, who cares? And my wife is sitting in the passenger seat next to me. She doesn't care. So it's not like I have to have a fit, but I really think there's something there. And so, but recognizing that is empowering. It's like, okay, well, let's just assume that because I'm tightly wound, That does make me more like sensitive to pain or whatever. It's like, you know, let's try to learn to relax a little bit.

I drive a VW van.

Hurry is not in my vocabulary. Matt, what month were you born? Are you August?

Are you a Virgo?

I'm a Taurus. Ah, there you go. There you go. I was just curious about some of the correlation. There you go. One part that I found interesting when looking at some athletes is when they get into discomfort or into the pain cave, they're actually smiling. Eliud Kipchoge is one example of that. Even when you looked at him running like the sub-2-hour event, you see, you know that he is in a lot of discomfort, yet still he's able to like smile or find ways to channel his discomfort. Have you guys noticed any other cues that athletes do to help them through challenges or through discomfort when it comes down to race day? I know it might be a challenging question, but that was just one that stood out to me.

Like I was like, yeah, yeah, he is standout case for sure. I, mantras, I guess I've noticed a lot of people lean on mantras. Yeah. Some of our athletes, one that ran, uh, the, um, Arizona Trail, which is like around 1,000 miles. Yeah, she had this hilarious mantra. I can't exactly remember it. I won't attempt to butcher it, but it was something about being a unicorn and she just repeated it for me.

4,000 miles.

Me, me, miles.

Yeah.

Yep. Self-talk is huge. I mean, there's a variety, but one is like reminding yourself that everyone else is hurting too. I love to use that, you know, that joke of you and your friend are being chased by a bear. You don't have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than your friend. And when you get scared of racing and when you have that aversive reaction to the discomfort you're experiencing, it's easy to think, oh, this sucks. Like I'm a loser, I'm failing. But if you just remind yourself, it's like, look around, everyone's hurting. And to have an advantage, all you have to do is accept it that much more. Than the people you're competing against. Like, it doesn't have to— you don't have to love it, you just have to embrace it just a little bit more and let you— and let your rival get eaten by the bear.

Spot on, spot on. Yeah, realizing that other, others are in similar situations or worse is, is definitely a good one to channel that energy, for sure. I want to be respectful of you guys' time over here. Where can people find your book? When is it going to be available? And, um, Where can people find more about you guys? I got a copy. Perfect.

There you go.

Amazon.

It's available on Amazon or anywhere, any bookseller.

There you go. What about like international? It's going to be available as well, I assume, at different locations.

Matt might know more about that. Yes. Yeah. We've got an audio version coming out pretty soon and then we're working on like translation editions of our literary agent. That's her responsibility, but yeah. Available in North America in print and digital, coming soon in audio.

There you go. I have one more very important closing question before we do. Where can people find out personally more about you, Matt and Ryan?

Even on our website, Paragon Athletics, you can read some of my bio.

Great. I'll make sure to link to that.

And you, Matt? Yeah, just I'll reiterate that for those who want, you know, like they read the book and they want more. Paragonathletics.com can help. Like there's additional resources for walking you through this training as treatment process. And then for me, my personal website, mattfitzgerald.org. And then, you know, coming full circle back to 80/20, if you want, you know, 80/20 training resources, 80/20endurance.com.

Perfect. And I'll make sure to link in the show notes to that as well. Would love to hear from both of you here in closing. Do you have any last thoughts for athletes looking to improve, to become a stronger, healthier, and happier athlete? I'll start with you, Ryan.

So something that I have seen through this process is people get stuck on a pendulum between pain and injury, and they will try to participate in their activities, experience pain, suspend their activities, and then become deconditioned, try to return. And so they get stuck going back and forth between injury or pain and trying to participate. And if I could say anything, I would say try to hit in the middle, almost like 80/20, you might say. So yeah, if you land in the middle, it's, you're much less likely to get on that pendulum.

So consistency.

There's a book whose title I love, Everything Is Figureoutable, and it's really true. Like I said, I've had 3 injuries that I thought, each of which I thought was career-ending and they weren't. So no matter situation you find yourself in, you know, and there are some immense challenges that we face as athletes. It's figureoutable. Just trust that, know that there are so many examples that it's true. Just, you know, you have to have a little bit of faith because sometimes it's like, I don't, you know, just because you haven't figured it out now doesn't mean it's not figureoutable. So just trust a certain process, be patient., and, and you'll get out the other side of whatever you're going through. Awesome.

Thank you guys so much.

Really appreciate you.

This was a lot of fun and look forward to future conversations again down the line. I'm sure that there's going to be more books and more projects. You guys both have your hands in so many exciting things over here. So looking forward to following your journey there.

And, yeah, maybe next time in Flagstaff, Matt will go for a run out there as well.

Right on. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having us. Thank you guys. Yeah, absolutely.

Have a good one. Talk more soon.

Sounds good. Thanks, Floris. Thank you for watching. What was your favorite lesson, takeaway, or quote from this episode? I would really love to hear from you in the comments. There was several for me, one really being about the taking proactive action throughout injury. So not only sitting on the sidelines and resting, but really seeing what some of these other things are that you can do and exploring that. That with some added load, with some more cross-training, with some additional activities. But just sitting on the sideline alone is not going to be the answer to your injury. But yes, would love to hear from you. What were some of your key takeaways here? For me, it's been really exciting to see all of the different results that members in our Personal Best Running Coaching program have been experiencing. A lot of different breakthroughs. People who have been stuck in their training all of a sudden finding different ways to continue to improve and having that joy in that training. So yes, if you're looking for additional guidance, check out pbprogram.com. Do keep in mind we have a 60-day money-back guarantee, so even if you want to try it, see if it's right for you, there's no risks involved over there. If you would like to check out more, pbprogram.com. Thanks for watching and have fun out there on your runs.

Bye now.