What easy training could do for you, with Amelia Vrabel.

You know, getting hurt and making me really get into Chi running has been like the best thing that ever happened to me because, you know, maybe I wouldn't have, you know, become an instructor. Maybe I wouldn't have learned it again. Maybe I wouldn't have done all these things. And so I try not to look at things and go, well, you know, if I had done this or I'd done that differently, then— because, you know, I think all these things happen for a reason, and you kind of sometimes have to take the long road to find out where you're going to end up. But yeah, I would say like I was training too hard on my my easy. I didn't know what easy was, basically. And I think that's a major problem with people. When, when I see people say easy, okay, easy is not marathon pace, okay? If that's easy, then your marathon should be faster. I don't care what pace of a runner you are, but easy and marathon pace are not the same pace. And easy is definitely not faster than marathon pace. So, so, you know, that's kind of where I, I, I had, um I would say if I could have done anything, it would just understand that the value of what the RealEasy would have done. Because I, I think what would have— what I would have been able to do would have been to have more volume, and I would have been a better runner for having more volume. But I always had this volume limit because I knew that once I exceeded X, something was going to give out. And, you know, that I feel like would have been a thing to keep me running better.

So What, um, if you would give any, any other recommendations to people looking to improve in their running, because there's a lot of people listening to this who are looking to become not just a faster runner but just like a stronger runner, a happier, healthier athlete. What are any other thoughts besides what we've already mentioned here that you would give as recommendations there?

I think get out of your own head. You know, I think so many people struggle with trying to do what everybody else is doing and feeling like they need to be at a certain pace to be— I mean, funny story, when I was little, because I would see my parents go to breakfast and, you know, sit with all their friends after races. When I was young, I really thought that if you couldn't run a 10K in 40 minutes, you had no business running. And I find that so humorous now because I know actually very few people who actually are faster than that for a 10K. Um, but I think people tend to think, well, what's a good time for this? Or what should I be doing for this? And it's like, you need to start where you're at, wherever you're at, you got to start there and trust the process and realize that, you know, your goals need to be long-term because having a short-term focus on running is just going to frustrate you because You know, you can't improve in the short term to the degree that you want to. And so if you can't keep it up, you won't improve. And no matter how you choose to go about running, the bottom line is you're going to get better running if you can do more running. And if you're always hurt, you're not going to be able to do more running. And so like, there's so much, there's so much focus on what people's training paces and where you should be for this and where you should be for that. And I'm like, okay, look, I, If nothing else this year, I've proven to myself that I can train at a 13-minute pace. And when I need to run sub-8 in a 5K, I have no problem doing it. I mean, is it hard? Sure, it's hard. But like, the bottom line is I was doing much harder effort on a day-to-day basis and I wasn't running any faster when it came down to racing. So I think that's kind of a big thing. It's hard to get your head around that though. I think there's a lot of thought that like, I have to you know, I have to do this every day just like I'd be in a race. And, you know, there's a lot of focus on no pain, no gain, which is— I'm totally anti-no pain, no gain because it doesn't work. And I think when you take a step back and you realize, like, you know, whatever your favorite football team is, do you think they play a game every time they practice? No. You know, they do drills, they work on their technique, they work on little speed things, they work on endurance, they lift weights, they do all these things. And then they do all these things and then when they're ready to play in, you know, the Super Bowl, they're ready mentally, physically, everything. And it's no different with running. You know, the only really cool thing with running is it's the only sport where you can compete against the best athletes in the world because you're never going to play football with Drew Brees or play golf with Tiger Woods. But you could hypothetically run the New York Marathon with the world record holder. And that's pretty cool. I mean, no other sport really has that ability. And yeah, you might not consider yourself a competitor then, but heck, you're in the same race.

So, you know, we all got the same conditions and circumstances.

Yeah. And that's the other thing is, you know, don't get too caught up in the conditions and the circumstances because everybody has those conditions and you've got to make yourself resilient for as much as you can within reason. You know, a friend of mine in Minnesota posted on Facebook that she had gone running and it was 5— what was it, 13 degrees? And it felt great compared to yesterday when it was -5. I'm like, that's why you run when it's -5, you know? And it's like, people in Minnesota get that because they have to train in the really cold. It's like, yeah, when you run in the -5, then 13 feels awesome. And then you've got to— like, when you're having a hard day and you get a really hard workout, I try to tell myself, well, I got that one out of the way. I don't have to have it come at me on race day because you're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days. It's a numbers game. It's like that with anything. And, you know, hopefully you get them in a, in a workout that you can learn something from. And yeah, you'll have them on race days too. I've, I've had plenty of races where I go, oh my goodness, like the bad day came out and there it was. And, you know, all you can do is try to learn something from it though, because You know, it's only a race. They're going to have it again next year. You know, can't get too focused on, well, I signed up for this, I got to do it, or I got to get to the next one. It's like, you know, every race they run every year. So once they start it, they very rarely stop doing them. At least, you know, most races that you're kind of be big thing. So you, you know, you got to get out of that short term. And I always tell people like, I'm, I'm planning to run when I'm 80. So if I thought short term, I would not be there. And It adds so much to my life when I can have it become a destressor, not a stressor. When it starts to become a stressor, then, you know, nobody really has time for that because they've got lots of other things to accomplish.