In this vlog, Floris Gierman shares a day‑long snapshot of his marathon training routine, highlighting the practice of doing two runs per day—a 40‑minute low‑intensity morning run followed by an evening group run with his Wednesday night crew. He discusses how sleep, heart‑rate‑based (MAF) pacing, and recovery tools like sauna and ice‑bath sessions affect his performance. The video also covers barefoot running on a freshly mowed field, short stride intervals, and how he adjusts intensity when sleep is compromised. Floris emphasizes the social value of running groups, offering practical advice on locating local runs via stores, Meetup, or Strava, and reflects on balancing training with parenting duties. Throughout, he intersperses personal anecdotes (spider phobia, late‑night podcast editing) and references scientific insights from Rhonda Patrick on sauna benefits, providing a candid, instructional look at his evolving training approach.
Chapters
It's really a big huckle. Here we go. Bingo. Even now. Good job, man. Good shit. Look at that. It's almost 6 AM and it's still dark. Days are definitely getting shorter. Going to get a little 40-minute run in before work. A nice way to start the day. And then tonight running again with the running group. So nice little double day today. Let's do this. That was a nice morning run. Been running for close to 40 minutes. Heart rate stayed really low. 125-ish, 130 max. So yeah, I was still able to run a reasonable pace. Felt nice. So it's interesting to see how much sleep impacts things. I think I went to bed at 8 o'clock last night with the kids, so I slept a good 9 hours almost, which is exceptional for me. I don't sleep that long usually. Does any of you run like this sometimes? Like with an arm in front of you because there's so many spiders. I kid you not, I have some kind of phobia against spiders after I almost swallowed one last time. Wednesday night run crew, solid posse, 30 people. I'm trying to keep up. Yeah, nice few evening miles with the crew. Yeah, Jesse, look at that sunset. That's what it's all about. Can't complain about that. That's a good one. Yeah. Phew. Finishing up the second run of the day. I think it's about 6.5 miles. That was fun. Solid run right there. Moon coming out. Nice to be getting double runs in again, especially when it's with friends. Wednesday night run crew. I always really look forward to these runs. It's such an important part, I think, to, uh, to kind of have some friends to be running with from time to time as well. It really mixes up all of these different runs. I think the time goes a lot faster too sometimes when I'm out running with friends. I don't even think that I'm running. It's just being outdoor, catching up with friends, and in the meantime you're actually getting a workout in. And just feels good and feels nice. Such a special community feeling, so much joy. Runners of all levels, runners with all sorts of different backgrounds. That's, that's the part I really enjoy about the running community. Now that I'm out of the base building phase and I'm doing some higher intensity runs again, it's actually nice to do them in a group setting because you just have some friends that can help push you as well. Whereas normally on some of the steeper uphills I might start walking earlier, but now that you have a few friends left and right to help push you, it just— you can just kind of go a little bit further from time to time. That's, uh, that's nice too for these, uh, higher intensity workouts. There are a lot of different places where you can find group runs in your area, so either ask the local running store if they have any group runs set up, or check meetup.com, or Check on Strava or anywhere else. There's plenty of weekly runs happening in many different locations around the world. So just finishing up a little sauna session over here. Actually ended up sitting in here for 45 minutes catching up on some email and, uh, yeah, eating a bit of dinner here post-run. That was nice, felt really good. Keep reading more and more about Rhonda Patrick, all of the benefits she's describing about post-workout sauna sessions, and a tremendous amount of studies that have shown significant benefits from overall recovery to, um, cell repair to overall developing of the sweat glands. The amount of effects goes on. But, um, yeah, I've just noticed once I do it post-workout, my heart rate goes up much quicker, and then when I sit in there from rest, and I think that's like the healthy heat stress that you're getting on your body. Obviously you have to make sure you build it up gradually. I've been doing saunas for several years now, so my body's adjusted well. Don't just go in the sauna and go until max, and, and it can be quite dangerous if you push it too hard. So, but for me, sauna sessions definitely feel nice. Thursday morning, I just dropped off my kid at school, and right next to it is a nice grass field. It's freshly mowed, and so it's nice. I'm barefoot running. It's really nice to keep it mellow but be really connected to the ground. And so what I typically do is 20 to 30 minutes doing a few laps. Usually these laps are at about MAF minus 15 or MAF minus 20. So I'm running at the low 120s heart rate, not really looking at pace here, just enjoying being outside. And then in a little bit, after I'm properly warmed up, I'll do a few strides. Yeah, let's get a few of these, uh, intervals going. I usually go about half the length of a soccer field over here, so really short. Trying to focus on keeping a good pose here. That was it. And so at the beginning, I'm typically a bit more stiff, but once I get through round 5, 6, 7, 8, really starting to notice that those hips open up. And then typically do about A recovery jog, the other half, and then back again. Now once I make it back to the middle, I start with the next short interval sprint. It's not all out, it's purely a pickup. Here we go. So nice on the feet as well, very soft. Boom, that was it. Heart rate only jumps up a little bit. Actually, I was just at up to 140, probably because I'm talking a little bit as well. So I just finished 10 of them. If for any reason you notice during these strides your heart rate shoots up too quick and you go well over your max heart rate, I would suggest two things. One, keeping the stride shorter, even if you do it 5-6 seconds. Just a few pickups that way and just do more of them and make the recovery time in between a bit longer. Even if you do a stride, you recover for a full 60 seconds, your heart rate drops down further again. So either by slowly jogging or jogging a lot slower, or actually taking walk breaks if needed as well. So just a few things to experiment with and Once you develop your aerobic engine, you'll be able to do these strides longer and longer and still maintain aerobic as well. So just experiment with it. It's Friday morning and we're running to school. We're a little bit late, so we're doing 6-minute miles, right, Teddy? Yeah. So sometimes I kind of do it on purpose, leave the house late. Yay, that was fast! High five! Good job! There was a nice little warm-up. Last night I was video editing until 3 in the morning for the Zach Bitter podcast that launched this morning, and so I only ended up sleeping 2 hours 45 minutes. Because we had to get the kids ready for school again. Welcome to real life. So my strategy when I end up sleeping poorly the night before, it's usually I just take it mellow the day of, as in I don't do any speed work really, or I don't do any hard intensity workouts. Also, I try to go to bed extra early tonight. I can't really catch up on sleep, but at least Trying to go to bed when the kids go to bed as well will help get at least 8 hours of sleep in tonight. 20 minutes in, and now that I'm warmed up, it feels so nice. I was planning on going short, but now I might actually go a little bit longer. It's funny how those things change once your body warms up. Hello! How's that? I was planning to run for 40, 45 minutes maybe, and once I started running and it felt good again, kept it going. 65 minutes. Close to 8 miles. Yeah, it's funny how that goes. I have that all the time, that initially I just go out mellow, and once it just feels good, why stop, right? Keep it going. I haven't been drinking coffee for the last 3 or 4 weeks now, so zero caffeine except for an occasional tea here and there. So the ice bath definitely helps wake you up during the day. Let's do it. Usually in the ice bath, I keep my socks on. The main reason is that your toes just start hurting. You can train it, and over time I will take them off. But yeah, if you want to get used to ice bath, putting on some socks definitely helps. Keeping your hands out of the water can help as well. I'm super awake. Sometimes I wonder what the neighbors are thinking, but most of them are at work right now. Round 3! Reminder for next time to bring some water. And it shattered the glass in about 1,000 different pieces. These runs tend to become easier and easier.
