Avoid These Running Mistakes! Don't Hit The Wall | Coach Amelia Vrabel, Ben Edusei, Floris Gierman

When things don't go according to plan, we grow, we learn, we adapt, and we just go through these different cycles. It is up to us to decide if we make these mistakes, what is our mindset towards these mistakes. We can either get very frustrated and angry with ourselves, or we can see it as a growth moment. And this is where the power of journaling comes into play as well.

You create the conditions for speed to happen. You don't force the speed, right? You set up your conditions for success. You can prep yourself, you can make sure you're well rested, you can make sure you have things ready to go, you can get rid get rid of as many distractions as possible, get rid of the things that slow you down.

Would it be worthwhile sacrificing 10 to 15 minutes of a run to do some strength work at the start or at the end of the run? And my answer every time is 100% yes, it would be so beneficial for you.

Hello, hello, my name is Floris Geerman, host of the Extra Mileage Show, and over the past 15 years I've made many different mistakes in my running journey, both in training and in racing. Today, I invite two of my good friends to have a conversation about this. And these are Coach Amelia Freybol from Colorado and Coach Ben Idusai from New Zealand. Both of them are active coaches in our running coaching program, the Personal Best Program. And it's been fascinating because we have seen a lot of athletes improve in their running journey. Yet we also often see common mistakes being made. And so that's what we're talking about in more detail today. If you would like to learn more about our running coaching program, check out pbprogram.com. This is the program that the 3 of us are very active in on a daily basis in the Facebook community, in the Strava community, and also on twice a week Zoom calls where we have open dialogues to help people improve in their training and in their racing. So yeah, more info can be found at pbprogram.com. I will say some of the mistakes that we're going to cover are common, yet there's quite some uncommon mistakes here as well, and several different things that I wish I would have known in different stages of my own running journey. And still, even up to today, I make plenty of different mistakes, but it's about how do we set ourselves up for success and how do we learn from these mistakes and actually grow. And we'll talk much more through that, especially towards the later stage of this conversation. Amelia Frebel is a master certified instructor at Chi Running and Chi Walking. She has trained and worked with Danny Dreher, the founder of Chi Running and Chi Walking. She is also an experienced endurance athlete with more than 25 years of race day experience. Ben Itusai, he's a mobility, strength, conditioning, and running coach. He has a degree in sports science. He's a qualified plant-based nutritionist, and he's the founder of Zone Blue Run Club in Wellington, New Zealand. This was a fun conversation with several different mistakes that I honestly had a laugh about. Several of these that came up because it was so recognizable, and I'm pretty sure that some of these mistakes are recognizable, but there might be some new ones for you as well over here. This episode is brought to you by LMNT, which is a delicious electrolyte drink mix. I'm often asked the question, when is it best to time taking in your LMNT? Some common ones are first thing in the morning, right after waking up. This is personally when I take it as well. Another one is 30 minutes before a workout, before a high-intensity activity, or also when you want mental clarity to be at a premium. It's good to remember though, it is much better to top off your electrolytes versus trying to catch up afterwards. Also, it is good to test out when is the right timing for you, and journaling is a powerful tool over here as well, just to see what is the right amount for you and what is the right timing for you. For a limited time, try all the flavors with a free 8-count Element sample pack with any purchase when you go to drinkelement.com/flow. Check out drinkelement.com/flow to get yours. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Coach Amelia Freybol and Coach Ben Idusai. Coach Ben, Coach Amelia, welcome to another episode of The Extra Mile Show. Glad we get to record this here today. Thank you for having us. Good. It's kind of interesting because I feel we're doing these Zoom calls on a weekly basis quite frequently that we see each other. And now I actually figured let's just jump on a call with the three of us and talk through some of the common mistakes that we see runners make, because we see a lot of things going well among athletes in training and in racing. Yet we also see a lot of similarities of some of the challenges that people experience or some of the mistakes that people make. So Maybe we can start off with you, Amelia. What is one key takeaway from, from some of the mistakes that you have seen firsthand?

Yeah, and thanks, Floris. I appreciate you having me on here today too. And I often joke like I am an expert at mistakes because I think I've made them all. But I'll just kind of mention a few of them that have really jumped out at me. Number one, I think many, many runners could benefit from and make a mistake is not running their easy runs easy enough. And I think we tend to overestimate what easy is, but the reality is you can't really recover, you can't build your aerobic system if your easy runs are too hard. And easy running is not marathon pace. I think I see a lot of people say, "I'm running easy today," but yet they're running 30 seconds a minute a mile faster than their marathon pace. And that right there is not easy enough. And this is why I feel like heart rate training is really helpful because it takes a lot of the guesswork out of it. Because for me, I know that I could say my easy running pace is an 11-minute mile, let's say. But every day your body's a little different. And some days my easy running pace is a 12 or 13-minute mile because that's what my body needs. And so I just throw the heart rate strap on and I just go, okay, I'm going to let it tell me where I need to be today. And it kind of helps because it takes that guesswork out of it and really makes sure that you don't go out there and do too much on those days that you're really supposed to be recovering.

Spot on. Definitely see that one myself a lot as well. And it is different in different parts of your training cycle too, right? Like, if you're in peak training shape, your low-intensity runs might feel different than when you're just starting to get back into training again. Like, even for myself, I took a little bit of a break from running after the Berlin Marathon, just started running again, and all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, the paces have changed a little bit, and I definitely got to go a bit more by effort instead of by some pace that you know that previously run your easy run set. And then you, Emilia, you live at altitude. And so does that element evolve versus sea level? Or Coach Ben lives in New Zealand. All of a sudden, he might start experiencing some of the wind again over there, or, yeah, that we often hear you talk about.

Yes, yes, very much so.

Yeah, right on. That's a good one. What about you, Ben? What about anything from your end that you often see?

First and foremost, thank you for having me on, and it's awesome to catch up with Coach Amelia as well. Um, a big issue that I tend to see when it comes to working with the PB program is runners who are kind of putting running before their physical and mental well-being. And a big issue that I tend to see is they are— the running takes over all aspects of their life, um, which is good to a certain degree. But if things don't go according to plan, that's when we start to see, you know, issues with their mental well-being or trying to do too much and then breaking down. And first and foremost, we always talk about this on the Personal Best program, it's we are running because we love to run, we want to improve our health and well-being. If that isn't the case for your pushing yourself too much to the point that you're breaking down or suffering, then we've kind of lost track of where we need to be. So that's definitely something that I've fallen into the path of before numerous times, um, and it's something that I think having people to keep you accountable, remembering why you're running, and giving yourself adequate breaks, you know, making sure that you are doing enough low heart rate running, having time away from running is super important and something that a lot of kind of running programs or running people don't really talk about. So it's having the flexibility to be able to do other things apart from just running all the time, because the aim for all of us is we want to run as well as we can for as long as you can. And if we are putting too much pressure on one race or one performance, I feel like that kind of puts us in a downward spiral to affect us later on. Physically and mentally.

Yeah. We often talk in the PB program about health first and running performance will follow. And I think that goes hand in hand over there. Dr. Steven Seiler said it so well. Even if you have athletes would have a toothache, they would not be allowed to go up at altitude to go to a training camp. They would keep them down purely because your body is not optimal. You can try everything you can, like, to try to improve, but if your body is not in the right spot, so heal first, get your body first in the right spot before focusing on that. And I think you already touched on flexibility. That's one other one that we have often talked about. We see some people really strict. I followed every single workout in the schedule. I did everything. And whenever I hear that, it's not necessarily always a good thing that unless everything in your personal life is going exactly according to plan, 100% sticking to a training plan is not always a good thing. Sometimes you want to have that flexibility where you maybe dial back a running intensity or running duration a bit, or sometimes you feel good and you pick it up a little bit there.

100%. And I think that we need to remember sometimes we are humans first, and running should be a pleasurable thing where sometimes I feel like I hear a lot of runners saying, I have to run. My mentality is I get to run. It's a blessing. So I think if we can kind of sometimes step back and just look at why we're doing this and the reasons why we want to be healthy, that will kind of dictate what we need to do when it comes to stressful times in our lives.

Yeah. What would you say? I'm curious to hear from you, Amelia. If someone comes up and says, I have this feeling of that I'm almost dreading a run, or I feel like I have to go on a run versus I want to go on a run. What would be some of your advice in those cases?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we shouldn't be in a situation where we're dreading to go on a run. I mean, ideally we're like Ben said, we, you're doing this because we enjoy it. And I think if we're getting ourselves into a situation where the run is not something we're looking forward to, you know, we need to take a step back and, and understand, you know, how, what else may be going on in our lives because running is just one piece of it. And oftentimes not only are you going to have a poor performance on your run if you don't have everything else together, but the run itself isn't even going to do much for you because you don't have the rest of the things. Like I always go back to what Ben has said many times is it's not how much you train, it's how much you can absorb. And if you just simply aren't in the right place to absorb that training, then the training's not really going to help you and you're going to set yourself back because you might have gotten up early and lost sleep to go do some training that isn't really helping you. And then it might be something you're not looking forward to. And it's that, like you said, it's that spiral you get into that we don't want to be in. We don't want to be on the struggle bus. I always tell people, if you're on the struggle bus, get off. You don't have to be on it. Get off the bus.

100%. And I think even there, get off the bus, meaning even if you take 1 or 2 days completely off from running, from working out, maybe just go for a walk, maybe go enjoy the sunrise, or just don't, don't think about working out for 1 or 2 days. You might be surprised how much just that 48 hours of not running can help from a positive reset as well, both mentally and physically.

And you'll want to run again, chances are, right? It's like you give yourself enough space. And then it starts to become appealing again. Right. And that's exactly where you want to be because then you're in the right mindset, you're in the right space to go out there and make that run productive.

So, yeah, absolutely. Here's another mistake that I sometimes see. Like, there's quite some people listening to this podcast or watching this video that are into low heart rate training. And at the beginning, for a lot of people, it's challenging. All right, I have to slow down. It's like, it's a much slower pace than what most people used to run. But after a few months of low heart rate training, sometimes people become so familiar and comfortable with low heart rate running that they almost become afraid of speed work. And so that one, even yesterday we had a Zoom call and someone brought up like, oh yeah, I've done several months of low heart rate training and I'm a bit afraid of speed work. And when trying to identify like what is the reason that people become afraid of speed work, it's often two different things. One is I am afraid that if I start adding speed work, that I'm adding too much stress to the body and it's going to block my aerobic progress. Like, that's one part, whereas, yeah, I understand there's a time and place for low-intensity running, but we absolutely, when our body can handle it, want to add in some speed work. We'll talk about that in a little bit here. But the other reason is that there's athletes who are sometimes injury-prone. And at that point, adding in speed work, especially when we're going pretty high intensity, it adds additional stress on the body. It adds additional injury risk to the body if our body is very injury prone. So I absolutely understand that part. Like, ah, injury prone athletes have to be careful with that, identify what's going on, like try to fix their body in whatever way, shape, or form they can to strengthen it. And Coach Ben can probably share more about that later as well. But then if we are injury free and we are ready to start adding in some speed work, like, don't be afraid of that part. Like, make sure that you ease into speed work. You don't want to go from, like, several months of low heart rate training right away to, like, zone 6 and going all out out there. But at the other hand, like, stimulating the higher— yeah, the higher heart rate zones comes with a variety of benefits too. And even on race day, for most distances, you're going to be training or racing at a higher heart rate, probably up to the marathon distance or 50K. So yeah, don't be afraid of that part, but make sure that you ease into it and don't go too crazy out there either.

I think people are afraid sometimes too, because they might have past experiences where speedwork was a sufferfest, right? And I think it's key to remember when you do speedwork, it's not supposed to be painful and be a sufferfest, right? Yes, you're supposed to get out of your comfort zone. Yes, you're supposed to breathe a little harder. You're doing a little more. But if you're doing it right, it's such short bursts that you actually should feel pretty in control. Again, out of your comfort zone, but that's good for you. But I think there has been a lot of people with a history of having speed work be just painful that they're kind of afraid of what it is. And it's like, well, no, no, no, don't focus on that as part of the speed work. It really allows you to learn what those paces feel like for short bursts so you're more ready when you get to the race. And there's really— I also heard somebody say on one other podcast, there's no bad heart rate training zone, right? You shouldn't spend all your time in zone 4, sure. But if you get a taste of where you are in every zone, it'll definitely help you on race day because you're probably going to hit every zone at some point in time and on race day. And so, you know, it's just like doing speed work, it helps prepare you.

Totally.

I've got to be honest, I love, I love putting a bit of speed work into my training. It's just, I don't know, for me it's a, it's a freedom. It's something that you can do because, you know, when I was getting into math training and stuff, I was like, right, well, you've got to stay quite vigilant at first. Um, and then I was like, right, I am so ready for this. And I always look forward to speed work. It's I don't know why, I might just be that way inclined, but I know a lot of runners on the PB program probably follow similar to myself. And it's just, yeah, occasionally I'll just go for a run and turn the heart rate monitor off and just let me go where I want to go. And I think from a mental perspective, that is a really good thing to do.

Absolutely. I'm a big fan of fartlek workouts too, purely instead of being so structured of this workout now, like we're going to do 3 minutes times 8 with this much rest in between. There's a time and place for some of that. But absolutely, from time to time, just to go out there and run by feel. And I still find it interesting, whether it's afterwards or during, to look at the heart rate sometimes, but not making that a key focus. It's purely like, how am I feeling at that point? And I think Eliud Kipchoge said it best, like, you want to finish a workout and still be able to smile. And I thought that was such a good indicator that you're running at the right pace, but not going over that.

So yeah. And I think going back to the first thing I said, because Ben, I agree with you, I look forward to speed work too. In fact, I remember when I started the low heart rate training, I was so excited to finally do some speed work. But again, it goes back to that really only happens when you're running your easy runs easy enough. Because if you're not running your easy runs easy enough, you're not going to look forward to speed work because you're not going to be fresh. You're not going to feel like, hey, I want to get out there and do this. You're going to be like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to have this. And I think that's another thing where it's like you almost have to go easier sometimes on your easy days. And then, you know, when you're feeling ready to do the speed work, then you're in a good spot, right? Because you're going to be ready to give that a great workout and it'll really benefit you.

Spot on. And Amelia, that can be based on do your low intensities low enough, like intensity-wise? But we can even talk in that equation about running volume. Because we also see plenty of people running way more volume than probably is beneficial for them. Even at a low heart rate training, you can overdo it. And I think this is one of those that if you're noticing, I'm not able to hit my paces that I want to be hitting during speed work, and you're doing your low intensity low enough, maybe you might want to look at the overall training volume over there and that you're able to recover well from that.

So yeah, yeah, for sure. Yes.

What else, Amelia? Any other ones?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's, it's interesting because I've been running now for 25 years, maybe longer. I can't remember anymore. And, you know, we have a lot of tools in place now that we didn't have. I mean, you know, I didn't even have a Garmin back then. I didn't have any kind of GPS watch. You know, I used to drive my car around to sort of figure out how far I ran. And I just guessed sometimes. But we have things now like GPSs and Strava and different social media platforms and things like this where I think a lot of people can make mistakes kind of letting their ego get in their way and being too concerned with how they're perceived on some of these social media platforms. Like, gosh, I don't want my friends to think I'm running too slow. So, you know, I want to have a good time. I want to show something good. And it's like, That is not really the right mindset for, for progress. I mean, you have to progress from where you're at and not where somebody else is at, right? So unfortunately, I mean, there's so many good things about social media and these platforms like Strava and such, and I love having them to connect with people, but I also feel like in many ways they allow people to sort of let their egos get in the way. They race their training. They're kind of like, well, I don't want it to look bad on my— what everybody else sees. So honestly, personally, I don't care. Look, if you want to see how slow I run on Strava on a daily basis, be my guest. But it is unfortunately something that I think a lot of people think, well, I must be doing this wrong. Everybody else is running at a different pace, so I must be running at a different— I must need to run faster. And you kind of let your You kind of let your ego get in the way when at the end of the day, like, that's going to block you from progress, full stop, you know, and anything in life, by the way, not just running. But, you know, you really have to throw your ego out the window, understand where you're at, and start from where you're at. Start where you're at and, you know, trust the process and do what you need to do and just, you know, get out there and do what's right for you. And not what everybody else thinks. So, I see that a lot, unfortunately.

Yeah, when I first started math, I remember, I think me and Forrest have talked about this, I used to have people who were considerably older than me running past me, and I came from elite football or soccer, so my initial thing was, right, I've got to either maintain or beat them. And it was a real shock to me because I I thought I was fit, but reality was I wasn't aerobically fit. And the great thing about math, and especially doing the math tests, and that's something that I feel like we really need to focus on, that's an indication of how you are doing and if you are improving. And I think it's a really good tool to use, especially when ego starts to creep in because yet again, why are we doing this? That's all, I always go back to this. I'm doing this to get fitter, to get stronger. If I'm not getting fitter and stronger, what am I doing? You know, so yeah, I think the ego is a huge aspect, and, um, it's something that I see especially with quite a few younger runners as well. I will be honest, I'm the first getting to running, so it's just kind of remembering, you know, you can only absorb so much training. You know, why are you doing this long term? What are your targets? Don't get don't fall for that Strava trap. As I say, it's like there are times when I look at Floris's runs and I'm just like, my God, I wish, I wish I could do that. And I'll go out for a run and it's like, well, you know, Floris is running his own race, you know, he's on his own journey, I'm on my journey. Can we help each other? Of course. But let's just remember, you know, each person is on their own individual journey and just celebrate the wins that you have through your journey and stop comparing to others because As you say, comparison is the theft of joy.

So 100%. I think the comparison is— and that can be seen in a variety of different ways, right? You can compare yourself to others and you might notice, like, whether it is jealousy or whether it is, like, yeah, that's the ego component that comes into the way. But I think for me, even, it's sometimes the comparison between myself in peak shape or when you're not injured, when you don't have an injury, or when, like, after you're recovering from something or you've had a break, you've had a sickness and you start running again, it can be quite humbling. It's almost like you're starting over again. And at that point, it is so easy to look back at like, oh, my pace used to be here, my heart rate used to be here. And like, even comparing yourself to your previous top peak shape, I think it's kind of a trap where it doesn't bring much happiness over there. I thought Maria had a very valid comment of like, just compare yourself to where you were 5 years ago or 10 years ago and see what are some of the positive changes that you have made. And I think sometimes on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis, it's hard to see. But once you start noticing all of these little things, they definitely start adding up. And just not being so hard on ourselves. Very often, like, it's very— it's easy, like, even Coach Ben and I have conversations offline sometimes, and for us, it's very easy to coach other people and to be kind. Yet sometimes the internal dialogue might really be like, ah, I didn't accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. Or like being really harsh on yourself versus you're not that harsh on someone else. It's just more the inner critic sometimes.

Yeah, I'm way kinder to other people than myself. I think all of us are, to be honest with you. I can listen to problems problems all day, but if it's problems myself, I have a different approach. Yeah. So it's good. As I say, I think a huge thing about this group is having accountability buddies because it just allows you to see what's really going on and how much, as you say, how much you've been able to achieve in a very short amount of time or long period of time. So, yeah, I think that's absolutely amazing.

That's a big one. What else, Ben? Any other ones on your mind?

Yeah. So a huge part, and Amelia touched on this before, my, my motto is it's not about how much you do, it's about how much you can absorb. And that goes into all facets of life. And for running, we always tend to think more is better, um, and it's by doing that we're not focusing on recovery. Now, my philosophy has always been make recovery your priority, because if you do that, the likelihood is the work that you're going to be doing is you're going to week, seeing the benefits. So we tend to get into that mindset, oh, let's get an extra run in, or let's do extra training, whatever it may be. Oh, I'm sleeping less. Not focusing on, you know, the fundamentals, what we need to be doing. You know, are you sleeping enough? Are you eating enough? Eating enough of the right food? Drinking enough water? You know, having some downtime. And I feel like when we think more is better, which we tend to do in today's society, Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't work out in the long run. So big focus point for me is, you know, are you— do you have a bedtime routine? You know, do you wake up around the same sort of time, the sleep cycle? Are you eating at regular times if possible? I understand people have jobs where they're working shift work and stuff like that, but trying to maintain these— I think running is the reward. If we can focus on all these foundations, then that will allow us to become a better athlete overall, and that's what we want to which then also makes us a better runner.

Totally.

Totally.

Yeah.

I often try to explain to people too, it's like sometimes people have a hard time seeing that, right? They have a hard time really understanding like how sleep can help them. So one of the ways I've reframed that is, okay, think about how you would feel if you didn't sleep, if you just ate junk food all day long, if you had so much stress in your life. Your runs will be terrible, right? Your runs will be absolutely horrible. And I think people can understand that when you go to the other extreme, like if you're, if you're, if you weren't sleeping, they can understand that. Okay, so now that you agree that that has an effect, then what about if you made a few small changes in the positive direction? It's like, oh, that has an effect too, right? So like you said, I mean, that can be the biggest difference in a lot of people between improving or not improving has nothing to do with their running at all. Totally.

For me, a reframe as well was once I started sleeping, I started seeing sleeping as training. That sounds a bit odd, but it's like, all right, there's a lot of different things you can do to improve your overall training and health. Sleep is one big component on that. Running is only a small portion. So, yeah, that one is a big one. Earlier this week, we had a conversation on Zoom, someone was not progressing in training and had a hard time hitting the long runs. Like, at the end, it was starting to become painful or start to become very challenging to even at a low intensity to hit like 20 miles or beyond on the legs or 2.5 hours. Went through a few different questions, and eventually the question came up, how much are you actually sleeping? And, and the answer was 6 hours. And I was like, I'm trying to run 10 hours a week and sleeping 6 hours a night and having a 1-year-old kid. And I feel like that, that right there explains what's going on. There's a time and place for certain running volume. Yeah. And even when a few weeks ago we had, or a few months ago, we had a PB call with Dr. Maffetone. One of the key takeaways was most athletes can benefit most from training a bit less and focusing more on adaptation and absorption of their actual training. And I'm so glad that he said it firsthand, that everyone could hear it instead of— like, we repeat that quite frequently and we talk about that, and we don't want to sound like we're like these holistic coaches where we're trying to protect everyone and do less and less is more. Of course, you got to go out there, you got to train consistent. You gotta put in the work, but there is a time and place for a certain amount of training hours. And that's even in my Berlin marathon training video, I put that I simply could not get away with 8 hours or 10 hours of training at this point in my life. And I think a lot of people underestimate how much more they need to recover versus training more. And so, yeah, that's a, that's a big one there.

Yeah. I mean, I think that, that kind of comes to the whole, You know, yeah, obviously you're not going to progress in running if you don't train at all, right? Like, obviously you're not going to progress in running if you don't, you know, follow some sort of gradual schedule progress and have all that. But it's one piece of it. And I think that's one area that I see people make mistakes on quite often, is thinking running is everything. And yes, it's important. I mean, no doubt. Like, and sometimes I even see people think the long run is everything. And it's like, okay, just within your running diet, there are different things you need to be successful. There's different runs that you do for different reasons. And just like there are different runs for different reasons, there are other things outside of your running diet that are important. Sleep, Ben, you mentioned, that's honestly probably the biggest one because we are humans. Fundamentally, we need sleep, right? There's just no getting around that at all. And then diet and overall stress. I think the overall stress thing sometimes interweaves itself into some of the other things, right? If you're highly stressed out at work, you're probably not sleeping, you're probably not eating well. Who knows how your training's going? So there's all these areas that I look at it as they're opportunities. Like Todd said on the last call you had with him on you know, one of the last episodes, they're all puzzles to be solved. So it's kind of exciting when you look at it that way and you can go, okay, this is another piece of the puzzle I can optimize. It's not just about— if you focus all your effort on one little piece and you're just completely ignoring the other ones, you're only going to get so far. But if you look at it as like, okay, here's all these different things, I have different variables I can play around with, you might find some of the ones that make a bigger impact just by a small change. Than other ones would take a huge change to have a big impact. So for me, I think that's one that is just, as I've gotten older and I've really started to value some of these other components more, and you just do the math. I mean, you're only running like 1, 2 hours a day probably at the most. There's like 22, 23 other hours that make a lot of difference, right? And it's it's silly to think they don't because it's just, again, do the math and you realize that.

So spot on. One of the biggest outside factors that I don't see that many people talk about, it has gone through different trends about digital minimalism and whatnot, but it's the behavior of phone and digital addictions. I think that indirectly has the biggest impact on people's overall awareness. People's mindset. I went to pick up my daughter from school the other day. We rode the bike to school and parked it there. I picked her up and I was waiting among other parents. There were like 8 other parents sitting there and some had younger children and some were just waiting. Literally everyone was on their phone, completely neck bent over in the most messed up neck position. And I'm just looking around me and I'm just thinking, what kind of world are we living in here? Am I really the only person without my phone over here and just trying to be present? And this is something that kids, but also other people around us see too. And I'm obsessed by that topic in particular. Even if you have a dinner conversation and you leave your phone on the table, even the slightest little things, if you still have your phone around, that almost seems to become the priority. And so I think the The more that we can even get back to setting certain boundaries, like some of the listeners here, or many of the listeners here probably know a time before the phone was 24/7. And even there, it wasn't that you were working 24/7, that you were always connected. First thing you do is wake up and check your phone, and last thing you do before you go to bed was check your phone. It almost has become the norm over here. And I think what Ben was saying earlier about talking about the evening routine, I think that is so important. Like a lot of people might focus on a morning routine of like, oh, I do these few things in the beginning, but even what you're able to do for an evening routine tied into digital behavior, I think it's a really big one there.

I mean, I work as a PT, a physical coach, and I'm seeing the side effects of that. So, you know, so many people are struggling to move freely just because of cell phone usage and it's it affects performance, affects the way you breathe, affects probably the, the way you're sleeping. About 100% affects the way you're sleeping, which then has a side effect on so many different aspects. And, um, yeah, I think I look at— I've got a child, you know, 4-year-old, and he's got a bedtime routine, and there's a reason why. It helps him to get into that mode of I need to recover. For adults, for some reason, we feel like we don't need to put them in there anymore. And it's like, well, why are we doing this for someone who's younger, who we understand the importance of sleep for them so they can grow, recover, but we don't do it for ourselves? So yeah, it's just something that does fascinate me. And it's just, there is nothing worse than being tired. When I'm tired, I am useless. I'll be honest with you. It's like everything gets that little bit harder. It takes a little bit longer. I get a little bit more stressed. So if I eliminate the tightness. And I'm so happy when I'm like that.

Yeah. And just to add to what you were just saying, like, you're seeing a lot of clients that have, like, yeah, the tightness of that part of the shoulders, probably even when you can run relaxed with an open chest and you don't have those, like, bent over forward shoulders kind of part, like, what are you using, a mouse, a keyboard, or, or like your phone all day long? Just that part alone, it makes running easier. I think a lot of people don't think about the importance of a correct posture for you to be able to run relaxed. It literally would make minutes difference in your running times if your body is functioning properly.

But yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. And that's something personally I, I have to work on. I mean, I know I tend to let my shoulders kind of go up and hunch up and it's, you know, it ties it all together. It's more stress. You're not going to run well with more stress. You know, if you have that it's affecting your sleep. And I think just the fundamental, like, if you can't— going back to the dropping kids off at school or what you were mentioning, it's like, if you can't be still with your thoughts for 5, 10 minutes without feeling compelled to take something out, then how can you concentrate during a race? I mean, for an hour or 2 or 3 or 4 or longer? I mean, And that in and of itself trains you. Again, it goes back to like there's a lot of things you can do to help your running that don't involve running. If you can train yourself to be present, if you can train yourself to be able to sit with maybe you're a little uncomfortable. Hey, you know what? I get it. People generally pick up their phones because they're like bored. They don't know what else to do. They're like a little uncomfortable just sitting there doing nothing. But that's good. It's kind of like doing speed work. You know, you got a little uncomfortable and you learn how to deal with the uncomfortable part of it and ultimately you get stronger. And I think there's always opportunities. I mean, I'm guilty as anybody, but it happens, you know, and it's sometimes important to sit back and go, okay, do I really need to pick up that device right now? Or maybe I just sit here, maybe I just take some time, give it a pause, breathe, what's really the best thing I can be doing right now?

It's so funny because we talk about meditation sometimes and just sitting. And I saw your message in the Facebook group this morning, Emilia, where I think you and I did the exact same morning meditation from the Calm app. And there was an interesting quote in that that you posted, but I literally wrote it down myself as well. And it was, the day you stop racing is the day you win the race. By Bob Marley. And I thought that was a fascinating one when everything basically comes to us at the right time and you can't force that process. And I thought that was such a spot on one. Very often we see athletes trying to force improvements, trying to like, I need to be doing this right now in order to move forward. And there are basic fundamentals indeed of training consistent, to be impatient, running majority of your runs at a comfortable effort when the time is right, adding in some speed work, building a few weeks, stepping back, letting the body recover like we have talked about, right? Nutrition, stress management, sleep, all of these different things. But when we're seeing that something might not be working, when something might be off, we got to really ask ourselves the question, are we allowing the space right now for improvements to happen? Here's another example from someone recently that I saw the running data when someone said, I'm not improving or I'm going backwards. And I looked and this person was training 16 hours a week on the treadmill. 16 hours a week. And when having a conversation about, hey, you might want to dial back that volume, like, quite significantly, and maybe go outside and actually run with some fresh air in your face and actually just letting the joy of running. And why is it that you're always running on the treadmill? It's like, oh, I can keep my heart rate more consistent. And it's like, okay, there's that part, but most probably you're going to be racing outside too.. And so you might want to gain some more race day experience, even if that means, like, you might have to slow down a bit more outside, and that's totally fine. But I see that too many times, that people get very glued to, I need to be doing this and I'm not improving, and almost becoming stressed or frustrated about that versus actually stepping back and allowing enough of an environment to thrive in, to create excitement. We often talk about the importance of asking yourself the question, is this run bringing you joy? Are you excited to go out and train? And whether that is at a low intensity, sometimes you might just feel, hey, I really want to do a higher intensity session right now. I feel like I want to get in some speed work. I have all this excitement level. I want to run with a friend. By all means, go for it. Don't be so strict to one specific workout there.

I always— people always ask me, when am I going to improve? When am I going to see that? You know, and it's kind of like asking, you know, when is the tree outside your front yard going to get larger? I mean, it's a silly question. It's like, or when is my garden going to grow? It's like, yeah, like you said, you have to plant the seeds, you have to water it, you have to get the sun right. But you don't know what roots are growing underneath there that you can't see. And you certainly can't will it to grow any faster. It's going to grow at the time it's ready. And certainly you can set up— one of the things I always learned from Danny Dreyer from Chi Running is you create the conditions for speed to happen. You don't force the speed, right? You set up your conditions for success and you have the ability to decide if you're going to water that plant or not. You can make sure you put it in a place where it gets good sunlight. You can control some things, but You know, you can't force it to grow, you can't will it to grow. And so just like, you know, you can do with your running, you can, you can prep yourself, you can make sure you're well rested, you can make sure you have things ready to go, you can get rid of as many distractions as possible, get rid of the things that slow you down. Because that's another thing, you know, I learned, it's not always about doing more, it's looking around and going, what's slowing me down? And getting rid of that, whatever it is, in running or whatever, 'cause there's always things out there that are slowing us down. But at the end of the day, we're gonna progress at the rate we progress, you know, based on the conditions we set up. And so, you know, that's why I always tell people to find the wins when you can because, and celebrate them, celebrate the little wins along the way because you're making progress and you might be making progress even when you can't see it. But when you can see it, you know, that's great. It always gives you kind of a little bit more to know that, hey, I'm seeing something. And it might not always be your math pace,. It might just be you feel better. You might wake up with more energy. You might be excited to do that speed work that you never used to be. And those are all signs of progress.

You might be able to run without getting injured for several weeks and months in a row. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways we can look at it. Yeah. What about strength and mobility, Ben? What are you seeing there?

Oh, so big section. Strength and mobility, usually The, the big problem is that people feel like they don't have enough time, lack equipment, um, feel like it can affect their running performance if they do too much, if they get too bulky. Uh, so they tend to neglect this. When you neglect it, that's when things start happening. So, um, yeah, I think yet again, what— why are you running? Are you running to be a healthy runner? Lead into your life. It has been shown time and time again strength work is included. Now, does that mean you need to go into a gym and lift big heavy weights every day? No, that is you lifting yourself, you know. So I always say body weight is the key. And the great thing about body weight, you can do it pretty much anywhere. And if time is a factor, because yet again I understand people have, you know, demanding lifestyles, is would it be worthwhile sacrificing 10 to 15 minutes of a to do some strength work at the start or at the end of the run? And my answer every time was 100% yes, it would be so beneficial for you because if you're doing it before a run, you're going to allow the body to warm up, you're going to be activating muscles, which just means that you're going to be more primed, and if anything, it's going to help your running technique. If you're doing it towards the end of the run, what you're doing there, especially if it's low intensity, you're not too fatigued, which then means that you're building muscular endurance and you're allowing your body to strengthen, which then means it's going to be able to recover a bit faster. So big components for people is a lot of runners don't like strength work. I get it. I do. I'm one of those weird— I come from a strength background who went into running, so strength work is a priority for me. But for other runners, it might be something that they've just never really thought of, or they just don't like the thought of. And I don't know if it's a negative experience, I just never— just don't enjoy doing it. But As I say, running's always the reward. If you want to run for a long time, there are certain non-negotiables. And to me, incorporating strength work or activation work, stretches, movements is key because you're an athlete who likes to run. You're not just a runner. And for an athlete, you need to be able to do multiple things instead of just running in a straight line.

So for someone who's not who makes it an afterthought as far as for strength or mobility, what would any high-level thoughts be here? Like how many times a week? Or like we sometimes even talk about shorter amounts doing it throughout the day. Like do you have any ways to just get things dialed in without overdoing it and thinking you have to go to the gym for an hour and a half 4 times a week?

So this is where the, the programming can help. So we shouldn't ideally be running every day. I mean, some people can do depending on what they're training for, but there should be days that we cross-train. And that's kind of— I think of cross-training like if you're having eaten a diet, to have variety. So if you're struggling to get the strength work in, you can do some bodyweight work on your active recovery days. So if that's a bit more core work, can be some planks, side planks, some very basic things that don't require much, um, uh, equipment. It can be some squats, some lunges, you know, just being able to hang from something as well, which is going to help to lengthen the body because we want our body to be long and strong when running really just makes our body quite tight. So we need to offset that by doing stuff. So first thing is, can you incorporate a morning routine maybe where you 2, 3 exercises? You know, you have a stopwatch on, 5 minutes, can you do a couple of them exercises? If you can, that's great. Can you do something at the start of your run? You know, 1 or 2 exercises, some lunges, just some single leg activation work? Great, that's another way you've incorporated strength. And so you've got 2 strength sessions in without really being at the gym, taking next to no time. At the end of the run, could you do a couple of stretches? Awesome. There's some mobility work towards the end of the day. Could you sit on the floor? We talk about archetypal postures. I'm sitting on the floor right now, so you're probably seeing why I'm moving around. Doing this for quite some time will be a test on the body, but it's a form of strength training. So it's what we've all said, it's all about the environment that we create, which enables us to do this. So there would be the basic ones. First thing in the morning, before, after a run, on your active recovery days, maybe doing like a small routine. Um, and by doing this and staying consistent with it— that's the key point, you've got to stay consistent, similar to the running training— if you're not consistent with it, you're not going to see the benefits. And if you're someone who wants to run for a long period of time, you need to have strength, but you also need to have the range of movement in the joints, around the tendons, ligaments, in order for you to perform well Spot on right there.

And I'll be the first to admit that it's not always my number one priority either, but I do know the importance of it. And you're one of the key people who often hammers on that as well.

Yeah, I remember Berlin, Floris, and I was like, let's do some mobility. And he kind of looked at me, he was like, really?

I was like, yeah. Yeah, Ben and Ash were were my two roommates in Berlin, and we had a good laugh about some of the mobility and strength work. Like, Ben was going through a routine, and both Ash and I were looking like, yeah, we'll leave, leave some of this over to you because you made it look easy.

And yeah, it was, it was not easy to begin with, but yeah, I, I think it's— I'm, I'm not Ben, right? Like, I didn't come from a strength background, and, you know, I think I'm probably more the typical runner who, you know, doesn't do as much strength training as I probably should. I, I will say I see a ton of value in it, not just as a runner, but just as I've gotten older, you know, in, in the reality of being able to function when I'm, you know, 80, 90. I mean, you, you fundamentally need to train your strength now, you know, and 20 years ago, but definitely something just to be able to be be highly functional as you, as you age, um, and, you know, prevent little things from becoming huge, huge things. But, you know, one of the things I think for me is being able to break it up into chunks, because it is hard to, to sort of say I only have so much time to run and then I'm going to take an hour and strength train instead of doing what seems like it would be more valuable to me as a runner. Now, I'm not— it might not be, like, right here, like you're saying, it really might be more valuable for me to do the strength session. But I find just as somebody who is more— I mean, the running to me is just a little more fun, probably because I know what I'm doing. When I'm strength training, sometimes I'm not really sure if I'm doing it right or I'm doing enough or I'm not doing enough. But I find some of the exercises, Ben, you've put out and Flourish, you have in the PB program are just 5 minutes or less kind of things and they all add up. And then over like a month, you can see, gosh, I have done those couple hours of strength training. I just didn't do them in a couple hours at a time, but they were just like small chunks of time that just like your miles, all those little minutes add up. And the more you're able to move throughout the day, the more you're able to lift some things that you might not have been lifting and pay attention to your form. And again, it's being present. It's training a lot of other things besides your muscles too that I think like, you know, it's something that I personally am working to make more of a priority as a runner, you know, just because I— my why is to be healthy when I'm, you know, much, much older. And, and to me, the strength component is huge.

So the last thing is it's got to turn into a habit. And I think when it comes to habits, you've got to make it achievable. Um, you know, I would love everyone to be able to spend an hour in the gym just doing stretching and another hour— that's not the case. So, you know, whatever time you do have I'll always say to somebody, make it so it's too easy to do. You know, so it's, it's a, it makes it into a non-negotiable. You know, can I do one exercise? And, and you know, the, you see online, this one exercise will make you a better person, person or better runner. All of them have some benefit, you know, so it doesn't matter which one you do. It might start off, you do your favorite exercise first. And then eventually you start incorporating some exercises that you find a little bit tougher. But yeah, what we've just gotta do is just think of doing something. And as you say, as you're doing it more and more often, you start to see the benefits and then you can include more things in. So yeah, just sometimes I think everyone's trying to do this full 45 minutes. So my strength routines are 15 minutes. I deliberately make them 15 minutes. I do lots of warm-up and cool-down. But if you actually look at the main core of my session, It's 50 minutes of work.

Yeah. Sometimes even if you want to, if you try jump roping and even like the other day I was jump roping for like 2 or 3 minutes and felt like an hour. It's kind of like running on a treadmill. You're on there for, I was doing aqua jogging. I hadn't been doing that much. And I swear I thought I was on there for 45 minutes and I looked and it was only 5 minutes. And that's pretty similar to running on a treadmill for me. I just want to, I'd rather poke my eye with a fork than run on a treadmill or do aqua jogging. But yeah, anyhow, let's talk about race day for a little bit because I think we have all been there when race day might not go according to plan. And so last week I was in Chicago and I was talking to Kofuzi and he mentioned he took a 6-year break after running his first marathon. Funny enough, that was exactly the same with me. Me. It took me 6 years before I started running another marathon again after that. So I'm kind of curious, is there anything race day specific, just before, during, or after, that comes to mind over here for you guys?

The number one thing— you want to talk about a mistake people make in a race— is going out too fast. Just 100%, that is the number one mistake I see people make. And it's— you know why? Because it's so easy to do. Because that pace feels so good at mile 1 and you don't know you're going out. I mean, people wouldn't make mistakes if they knew they were making mistakes. The problem is that they have— there's so much adrenaline and there's so much excitement and the crowds and this and that, and they're like, I must be having a fantastic day. I feel amazing. Well, you're probably going out too fast. You might be having a fantastic day, but the challenge is there's a really fine line between going out even a little bit too fast and completely blowing up. And so again, this is kind of where doing more of those speed sessions really can help us dial in where's that place that we can be relaxed and focused at the same time and a little bit outside of our comfort zone, but not like crossing over that red line where we can't maintain it. So because it's really hard, and especially for new runners and people who are new to racing, my biggest piece of advice is go off, go out way slower than you think you might need to. And you know what, there's enough time in that race that if you went out a minute per mile too slow in the first mile, that's 1 minute. 1 minute, you can make that up over 25 other miles. But if you go out, you know, 1 minute too fast in the first mile, trust me, it's going to cost you more than a minute. Trust me, it's going to cost you probably a minute for every one of the last 10 miles. And maybe more. So number one mistake I say is go out slower than you think, and chances are, you know, if you have some gas in the tank at the end, you can dial it up a notch and almost get back to really where you gave it your 100%.

A second one, oh, from my own experience, um, definitely a nutrition aspect, uh, is don't don't go out the night before. Um, I know it sounds obvious, but just stick to what you know, um, before race day. Because my first half marathon, I learned, uh, big time about 17Ks in. Uh, yeah, when I'm at the portaloo, um, watching the time go by, uh, that was a mistake that I made. Um, so yeah, just Practice what you're going to eat a couple of days or your long runs. That's a great opportunity for you to get used to some sort of routine. Racing is a stressful experience. It's exciting, but it's very stressful. So your body and your guts and your bowels might react to that. So if you can take things away and get used to a bit of consistency with that, it will like it. So for me now, every Sunday, it's the same thing that I would have like I'm doing a race day if I'm going for a long run. And I find it kind of gives me a bit of peace. And at least I've had this, I know I feel good when I have this. So yeah, nothing new. And that's also clothes-wise as well, because I've also had another bad experience wearing new clothes and having gone into the shower and the chafing. Oh my God. I was like, oh, I've never had it on my nipples. And I honestly thought something was Seriously wrong with me. So, um, yeah, that was— that's another one. Uh, so two things are not— don't try anything new, and food, just play it safe, just basics, nothing fancy, no fancy spices or anything day before a race, because you will pay.

Yeah, and you know, I've had that happen too. And, and you know, it's, it's— you do all this training not to spend several minutes waiting in line to use the restroom during a race, right? Because those are— that's just time you don't get, you know, there's just, you know, so it's, uh, yeah, I mean, fortunately, I think, like you said, those are, those are other things to practice during the training. The training's not just about getting in miles, it's about, you know, practicing your, your body and how you feel and, and what's going to work for you. And if you find out what doesn't work for you in a, in a training run, that's awesome., it's way better to find that out in a training run than on race day.

Absolutely. Some of those training runs can make you— can humble you quite a bit. I've absolutely blown up on some training runs where you underestimate the long runs and you don't take any calories with you and you still try to run it hard or the end hard or on very limited sleep or any of those kind of things. It's funny because All 3 things that you guys just mentioned and much more were all part of my first marathon. It was starting out like Superman, feeling freaking amazing until like mile 18 or whatever, 30K in when you think you're going to die and you have to beg a stranger for a Gatorade. All the way to not having any sort of plan nutrition-wise, like staying up way too late the night before. And that part, having Russian roulette with the nutrition on race day, what you just picked up on the on the expo the night before or the day before. And I think sometimes too, and this might be an interesting one to just mention, I feel in the early stages of a race, we can often think clear still, and we are like, okay, this is the plan. I might take a gel or I might take some calories at this and this time interval. Very often, though, at the later stages of a run, you might forget about taking in calories, or you might forget— your mind just can't think that clear anymore.. And so I found sometimes even setting an alarm for like, all right, this is what the plan for nutrition, and this is the alarm that I'm gonna set in advance, just so every 30 minutes or whatever your time slot is, you take in some calories.

So I think that's a great one. Because when I ran my first ultra, I was in a state of shock after the 40K walk. I had never ran I ran a marathon and I ran 60Ks and completely forgot to take anything on. And 10Ks before the end, I've had cramp before, but cramp both calves, both hamstrings, my quads, my neck. And I was just like, I didn't know what was going on. Everybody was kind of looking at me concerned. And it was because And they looked at me and they're like, you've not had two of your gels and you've not had your electrolytes. So it was that simple mistake there. If I had had them, I hopefully would not have gone through that because I'm doing another ultra this year. Um, but yeah, that, that there, that alarm, because you just— your ability to think, I didn't realize how much it can affect you, but your ability to think calmly is just gone. You're just purely in survival mode, which is one step after another. So yeah, so I think that's a really great point that you put for us, having alarms set on. That's definitely one that I'm going to be taking on board for future events.

I mean, fundamentally, your body is using all your glycogen, right? And your brain is not getting as much as it's used to. And so it's not uncommon that we sort of, quote unquote, lose our minds when we run a long run. So we have to almost go back to like really idiot-proof kind of stuff where you have an alarm or you write something on your hand or your bib. Or, you know, I, I, I will say I've made a lot of mistakes running, um, but one thing I did not make any mistakes on is in my first marathon. And that is only because my mother ran my first marathon with me, and she was like 60-some marathons in at that point. And she stopped me from making every possible mistake that I was about ready to make. Oh, we're starting off way too slow. Oh, I don't need this much water. Oh, you know, she— oh, we gotta walk for every water stop. We gotta start off at this pace. And I truly am and will forever be grateful for her to do that marathon with me. And it— by the way, she could have run a lot faster than I did that day, but, you know, she really was right there making sure that everywhere we could do it right, I did it right. And I just listened to her. And I mean, that's— I'm grateful. And I know not everybody has that, but I mean, goodness, I just think of all the mistakes I would have made.

That's so nice that your mom was so helpful and supportive. I'll mention an example. In 2019, I ran the New York Marathon for a project for Strava, and they were following running 3 first-time marathoners, and I was one of the GoPro followers. And the runner I was running with was Matthew. He had never run a marathon. He had trained. He had lost a lot of weight in the journey. He was ready for the marathon. And he started out exactly like my first marathon, where it was like, oh, yeah, totally got this. And like, hey, big smile on the face and like trying to, like, just using quite a bit of energy early on. Where the only thing I told them was, Matthew, we might want to dial back the intensity a little bit, like maybe just a few notches down a little bit. And like, I'm glad that at least we dialed back the intensity a bit because slowly but surely there was like a crossover point and it was probably around mile 13, 14, 15 where that smile became less and less. And at one point it became more and more of walking, through the aid stations. And at the end, they was like hanging on for dear life trying to finish this thing. But I think sometimes even experiencing some of those things— every runner will remember some of their first races, whether that's a first half marathon or a first marathon, because not everything goes according to plan. And I think even from those things in the process, we can, we can learn quite a bit. But that being said, it was very nice of your mom that she She definitely avoided a few, few issues there.

And you know what was funny is she left me, or I guess I left her at mile 17. She said, I need to go to the bathroom, and I said, well, I can't stop because if I stop, I'm not starting again. And she was like, little bird, fly away. And I, I went off, and I, I had, I had a big smile on my face truly for like the last 9 miles of the race. Because only because I did not go gangbusters at the beginning. And I had— that's why I tell people, I'm like, you can actually feel really good at the end of a marathon if you don't go out too fast. And we really went out nice and easy. And I, I was still— I had a really great first marathon, and I finished with a smile. I didn't even want to stop at the end. I was like, I've been running so long, I don't, I don't feel like stopping, you know. But it was just— I, I, again, I just credit my mom so much for helping me because because it's so easy to make even the smallest little mistakes and that just propagate throughout the race. And it's just, you know, you don't realize what you're going to feel like. And that's the thing. And I kind of— why many times you see me commenting on the Facebook group, like, just be careful not to run your first marathon for time because for many people it's the first time they're ever going to be at like mile 23, you know, or mile 24, and you just don't know what you're going to feel like there. And so So it's better to just have the goal be, I'm going to finish, I'm going to finish strong. Even a goal like I'm going to be able to finish with a smile on my face or finish and try to be as consistent as possible and finish not way slower than I started. I mean, whatever pace you're at, you can achieve those goals and you're just going to feel a billion times better. Because to be fair, like, I'm not sure I would have run another marathon if I had finished feeling horrible. And the only reason I probably ran a second marathon was I did finish feeling pretty good. And I was like, okay, now I know what this is all about. Now I can set a goal for the next one. You know, now I can see what's the right pace for me to go out at and, you know, how I might feel at the end. And it's just, you want to make that a positive experience because it's like anything else, it's just one step in the journey.

You know, it's, it's not the whole thing. Oh, Amelia, you're wiser than me, I tell you that. My first couple of experiences, oh my God, I was like, what is this sport? I was like, why am I doing this? I regret every bit. And somehow I end up coming back. I don't know if I just might be a little bit touched in the head, but it was, yeah, my experiences I look back on it, I giggle now, but at the time I'm like, I'm never doing this again. I'm never doing it. But lo and behold, I'm still here. So yeah, but you definitely sound like the more sensible approach.

Anytime you can learn something, it's never a failure. And that's the thing, you always gain something from that.

I'm sorry, Floris, I didn't— Oh no, you're good. I saw someone post the other day in the Facebook group and he said, I have a few goals goals for— I had a few goals for the marathon, and one was like to finish healthy and strong, and one was like this finish time, and then the other one was not to shit myself. And I had so many questions about that one, but he accomplished all three. And so I was like, I was happy to hear that part. So congrats, whoever you are. Congratulations.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, I want to be respectful of everyone's time here.

Any Any closing thoughts at all, Amelia? I mean, just to say, like I've said a million times, I've made all the mistakes, you know, it's, but you know what? You can learn something from every mistake you made. And I truly, I'm not saying go out there and make all the mistakes. I think one of the reasons I love to help people is I want them to not make all the mistakes I made, right? Because I did make a lot of mistakes and, you know, some of them set you back and really don't allow you to have running be as fun and joyful as it really should be. But, so I would say hopefully we can help. Hopefully there's just a few things people can take away that can prevent them from making mistakes. But you know what? You're going to make a mistake and it's okay. You're going to make a mistake and it's going to be okay and learn from your mistake. And when you make the mistakes, think, okay, great, I made a mistake, now I can learn from it, and you will be stronger in the future. If you just make mistakes and you don't learn anything from them, you're going to keep making those same mistakes. But, you know, fail, keep failing, fail as much as you need to, because if you learn every time, you're going to come out way ahead.

So, fail forward, I like that. That's right. Oh, for me, I like little catchphrases. So, It's not about how much you can do, it's about how much you can absorb. So take that in all aspects of your life. Uh, move to improve. So the whole thing is, as long as we're moving, we're improving. So remember that, um, diversity is the key. That's when it's coming to your training styles, nutrition, just making sure that you've got a variety of different things to do, making sure that you are doing everything to make sure that the running is the reward. So focus on them foundations.

If you focus on your conditions, the results will come. Spot on right there. I have two things. One is there's often a lot of focus on the actual goal, on the running finish time, on the I really want to reach this and this time. And whether you make that or break it, that is what determines the success of the training cycle. And I think that's sets you up for disappointment, sets you up for failure. It is very rare. It's— every training cycle is different. Every race day, everything can happen. And there's so many different variables that come into play to have you go through a successful training cycle, to get to the start line healthy, then to have a great race day and to finish your race in your A goal time. There's a lot of pieces of the puzzle over there.. And so every training cycle, we learn a lot. Every race cycle, we learn a lot. And so when things don't go according to plan, we grow, we learn, we adapt, and we just go through these different cycles. And it is up to us to decide if we make these mistakes, what is our mindset towards these mistakes? We can either get very frustrated and angry with ourselves, or we can see it as a growth moment. And this is where the power of journaling comes into play as well.. If we can actually write down directly after some of our training runs what went well, what was my intention for the run, and how come it went a little bit different? What went well? What can be improved? What are my learnings here? And even if you do that at the end of the week, this is one thing we often do in the PB Facebook group and Strava group. We recap what were some of our takeaways, some of our learnings from the week. And I think that joint learning from each other and just seeing not always everything goes according to plan, and that's okay.. And I think in particular after your race day, write down right away when it's still fresh in mind, these were some of the things that I learned from race day. This was my intention. This is where it went south. This is where it went really well. So the next race you're going to do again, you can just look back through those notes again.

So one more point, find a good community. There's no best community, but if you find a good community that can support you, I think that is a huge thing that is often overlooked. We can't do everything by ourselves.

We need other people there to support us. We can learn from every single person in that community because even though they don't have the same life as us, like, if you actually approach things with, you know, a mindset that I can learn from every person I come across, you know, you will learn a ton. You know, I think unfortunately sometimes people think, well, I'm super advanced, what can somebody who's a beginner teach me? But that's so— it's, you know, Ben, I'm sure with your your, you know, your kids, you can learn a lot from them, right? And they're way, way younger, right? But you can learn from anybody if you open your mind and you allow yourself to, to learn something. And so I love having the community because I learn from so many people from all over the world in so many different situations that just even if you just think about something a little differently, you know, you might learn something.

So it's great. Absolutely. So well said. Thank you guys for jumping on that real, real brief before we get go offline.

Ben, where can people find out more about you? So yes, I'm on IG, so on Instagram you can find me there. What's your handle, just so we have it? Oh, so it's just my name, Ben Adusei. Floris, you can type it in. There will be stuff coming up on YouTube as well again soon. So yes, so have a look there. And you can follow me on Strava as well.

It's just my name.

You can what I'm doing. Cool. And Amelia? Yeah, I'm on Instagram as well. Focused Footsteps is my handle. That's also my website. So that's probably the best way to find me. I'm also on Strava and love connecting with members of our program for sure.

And it's great to see the community moving forward and, yeah, so much good stuff out there. Absolutely. I will make sure to link to all of that as well. And we are going to be out at several future races as well. We're going to talk about some more PB meetups at different races in person, whether that is at some of the world majors or some of the other races out there as well. But yeah, guys, thank you so much for jumping on and we'll see you soon again on Zoom, I'm sure. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good one. Bye now. Thank you for listening. If you're looking for any additional guidance in your training and racing, check out PB pbprogram.com. This is our heart rate-based running coaching program. It's quite holistic, but it's been really exciting to see all of the different results from runners, from beginners to advanced over the years. So yes, more info at pbprogram.com. It's always a blast catching up with Emilien and Ben, and I would love to hear from you. What are some of the mistakes that you have made in your running journey? Please let us know in the comments below. Also, was there one favorite lesson, takeaway, or quote? Let us know, because it often becomes like this compilation of different comments that you can learn quite a bit from as well, from other community members over here. Have fun out there on your runs.

Bye now.