Matt McClintock: Are You Making One Of These Running Mistakes?

From Dream Run Camp, as always, I am your host Matt Fitzgerald, coming at you from Dream Run Camp in beautiful Flagstaff, Arizona, where it is spring. Uh, we are presented as always by 80/20 Endurance and our proud supporters of the Coaches of Color Initiative. You can learn more about that at 8020foundation.org if you would like to perhaps contribute to the important cause or, um, become our next coaching apprentice yourself. Um, behind the camera is my assistant coach Lauren Clement. Thank you, Lauren. Um, I'm going to pick on Annika later. Um, guest this evening is professional runner and coach Matt McClintock. Welcome, Matt.

Thanks for having me.

A lot of Matts in this world, aren't there?

Yep.

How do you feel about that?

Not sure. Some could say too many. Too many Matts.

I played on a soccer team with 4 Matts growing up. That was too many.

Yeah.

There's 11 people on the field. I don't know, who's good with decimals? Turn that fraction into like 4 out of 11. That's a pretty high percentage of Matts. So they called me Legs. We had a—

we had two Matt M's in my class of like 12 kids when I was growing up. There were two— there's actually two Matt— Matt McClintock and Matt McLaughlin.

Oh God.

So that was always a challenge.

Yeah. You know what's even more challenging than that? Like, I found this out after I bought this house, another guy named Matt Fitzgerald tried to buy this house, like, right before me. Like, I actually— Matt Fitzgerald swooped in and took this house from Matt Fitzgerald.

The chances are not high.

I one-upped you right there.

You did. You did.

Anywho, yeah, so glad to have you here. I would like to, I don't know, like we're meeting for the first time. Like often when we have guests here, like I have like some kind of like connection with them in the past. So this will be fun. Like I'm just like getting to know you like super awkwardly, like with the camera rolling.

I've read several of your books.

Okay.

Oh, geez. Really? Yeah. Me? I did a book report in my junior year of high school on the Brain Training for Runners book. Oh wow. I read that. I didn't understand most of it, but—

So you were in junior high school and you read that?

I was a junior in high school. It was just when I was starting to get excited about running and I read most of it.

That's a little bit—

As I said, did not understand a lot of it. Makes a lot more sense reflecting on it now.

Yeah.

You know. Yeah.

But— So you were a geek, huh?

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

So that was fast.

Yeah. It all makes sense.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah. It pays to be a geek sometimes.

Not in this, not in the professional running world.

It doesn't. Interesting. All right. Shoot. Well, uh, say more.

I mean, I think that we're not making LeBron James money. Most of us aren't.

Yeah. Something.

But I think there's something powerful in that too, right? It's something that you really enjoy doing, right? Like, it was— I ran for a club in North Carolina called Zap Endurance and decided I wanted to uproot myself and come train with James McCurdy here. So it was kind of a very spur-of-the-moment, you know, decision, but it was a decision that I made for me, right? You always see You start getting a lot of money in sport and stuff, people moving around for contracts and stuff. And I think it's been fun being able to do what I wanted to do, you know.

Yeah, yeah, self-determination. Yeah, yeah, a lot to be said for it. So we, you and I have a few touch points. So we have not met before, but Starting with, like, so you grew up in the state of Maine, yes?

Yeah, small, 800 people in my hometown.

Yeah.

Central Maine.

So I'm a New Hampshire boy myself. I grew up in Seacoast, New Hampshire, very close to the Maine border.

Yep.

Just had to cross the state line to go to Newick's Lobster House.

We'd cross the state line to get to the New Hampshire liquor store.

Yep. Yep.

It's always the stop on the way home.

Yes, you know, grass is always greener, right? Yeah.

Um, what was that like, the liquor store or growing up in Central Maine?

The liquor store, duh. Uh, growing up in Athens?

Yes, yes.

Um, it was—

I think at the time, obviously you don't I don't want to say know any better, right? It was obviously, I didn't—

You didn't know it sucked.

Right, right, right, right. No, I loved where I was from, but it was certainly a culture shock getting out when I left for school, right? Like, my hometown had 800 people. My elementary school, pre-K to 8th grade, had 150 kids. My high school had 250. And then, you know, I went to Purdue University, which is 40,000 students on campus. My first lecture had 350 people in it, and I would be taking— first semester, I was taking exams in the music hall with 4,000 kids that were in, like, the very generic anatomy or psychology classes, like all those basic classes you had to take. So it was a thing, you know, like I said, it was more, uh, what was it like it was more shocking to recount now that experience of leaving that area.

Yeah.

You know, so I have people in my hometown that have never been to the coast, you know, so it was— it's not an area that you adventure a lot outside of.

Yeah.

A lot of people working the logging industry in the woods 80, 90 hours a week and that's what they do. So, you know, I'm very thankful that I was able to go somewhere like Purdue, which is, you know, 22 hours away from my house. And there are certainly some growing pains to that. But to have the experience that I've had and, you know, be sitting here now is always something I recount. My wife is something very interesting, you know, reflecting on it.

Yeah. Yeah. And so You kicked ass in high school in Maine.

In Maine, I would say. It is also funny to then look at some of the times I ran in Maine compared to—

Maine and California.

It's— I think that I've always, you know, I think that they've had a disproportionate number of really good runners for the size of the state.

Yeah.

Emily Durgan, Ben True. I like to count myself in that group, right? But, um, It was always, you know, there was 8 months of the year that you couldn't, maybe not 8, that might be an exaggeration, but 6, 7 months of the year that it was hard to get outside to run, if not impossible. You know, I think the year that I graduated, the very northern part of the state had snow on the ground for over half of the year. So I think it just, training is not— when I was, you know, up until my senior year of high school, it would be train for cross-country from August to the end of October for the state meet, and I'd play basketball for 6 months and not run, and I'd do outdoor track, and then I'd not run in the summer when I was at home, right? Um, so I think it's a very different environment that you're training in there, and I think it's one of the reasons that I was able to When I left the state, I had been running 35 or 40 miles a week, so going to college running 60 to 70 to 75 was all of a sudden a very big shift. We love our California runners, but, and I know you had Danny over here a couple weeks ago, but it is a lot easier in high school to get out and train 89 miles a week in Long Beach. Central Maine.

Point well made. Yeah, and well, let's not forget Joan Benoit Samuelson.

Yeah, Joan Benoit, yeah.

A number one.

Number one, yep. Yes.

Yeah, so how about Purdue? Like, so you did well enough to be recruited there and visited, fell in love, and went, I don't know.

It was the only D1 school that recruited me.

Okay.

The only, or the only large D1. I didn't even get a letter, I didn't get a letter from the University of Maine. I don't know why, but I didn't get recruited by the University of Maine to run. I was committed to a D2 school.

Did Maine have a good running program?

Not right, because they sucked at recruiting, right? Yeah, clearly. I remember Riley, Riley Masters was, uh, he ran at Oklahoma his senior year, but he messaged me on Facebook when like Facebook was a big thing with people my age. Um, I was like, hey, you should look at UMaine. I was like, ah, I'm going to this school. He was like, okay. And then a week later he left for Oklahoma. Um, and then Purdue kind of— my senior year of cross country, I made the Foot Locker National meet. And after making Foot Locker Nationals was when I got contacted by, um, the coach of Purdue at the time. He now coached at Gonzaga, um, a man named Jake Stewart. And, um, I deleted his email. I don't know if he even knows the story. I doubt he's gonna see it, but I'll have to tell him sometime. Um, I deleted—

make sure he sees.

I hope so. I, I deleted his email. He said, hey Jake Stewart, Purdue, like we want to recruit you, typical. I deleted it. And I remember one day, a week out from Foot Locker Nationals, I was running 800 repeats on our dirt track at my high school. We didn't have a rubber track, a dirt track. It was snowing, it was about 15 degrees., and I would— every rep, I would run an 800, and then I'd dive off. My coach would hand me my hoodie. I'd put my hoodie on, stay warm for 2 minutes, run my next rep. And every— in between every rep, it was, Matt, talk to this D1 school. Like, you could go to a D1 school, talk to it. No, I want to go to this D2 school. Run the rep. Talk to this D1 school. No, I don't want to. Run the rep. And then finally, one of them— I got my hoodie on, I got it just over my head, and my coach got me by the collar And he goes, just talk to them. I went, fine. And I went home and I had to dig through the trash, like my deleted emails, and I pulled it up and I gave the whole, you know, hey coach, sorry, it's been really busy with high school and Foot Locker trading. I'd love to come visit. And then, you know, getting on campus. And as I said before, the experience, like I remember driving onto campus and seeing the football stadium, like a Big Ten university football stadium that held 60,000 people. And, you know, seeing the, the basketball arena and like these, all these other runners there was like, okay, this is probably something I need to do if I want to get to the level I want to.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you ran well there. Um, so Yeah, so I mean, like, so now you are playing in the big leagues. You're not in a place with snow on the ground for, you know, 6 months. You're like, you know, it's like serious business. Like, you're training harder, you're learning, I imagine.

Yeah. Yeah, at this point, I've had some medical stuff in the last few months, so I'm actually retired. at this point. I am an assistant coach for James with the pro team.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm.

No, I'm talking about, like. Sorry, I was speaking in the present tense. But, like, talking about when, like. So.

Yes.

So you. You go from, you know, high school where it's hard to even, like, train year round, even if you really, really want to. Yeah, to. And, you know, you know, purpose. you know, in those 4 years there— was it 4 or 5?

4. I was there 4. Yep, I never redshirted. I always wanted to, I never redshirted. Um, we'll say Indiana and West Lafayette are not the kindest winter areas in the world either, but yes, it was certainly one of those like, oh, it's -15, we are going out the door today, put on a jacket. Yeah, you know, not in— there was no like, oh, I don't have to run all summer and I can win a cross-country state championship like I could in high school. It was like, you gonna get your ass kicked a couple times, you know? So, um, yeah, so I think the Midwest, obviously not the weather mecca of the world, but like I said, I think that getting to a place like Purdue and competing in a conference like the Big Ten, especially what it was when I first got there with Reed Connor, Andy Baer, Zach Mayhew, um Muhammad Ahmed was still at Wisconsin at the time. Like, it was one of those that it's like, oh, this is what actual running is, like high level. These guys are top level, you know. And so it was, it made it, made it a little easier to get out the door when it was 6 inches of snow on the ground and 15 degrees and you didn't really want to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you performed well there to the point where you were able to— who knows? Who knows? I know it. No, it's not me getting up. You know, when I said very casual, this is like a very insistent Wine.

Oh, that's something to— they have to verify.

Yeah. Luca Winery, everyone. Luca. L-U-C-C-A. I'm a member. And now I guess I'm also an influencer. That seemed accidental, didn't it?

Yeah.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. That was hilarious. So anyway, I want to talk about Zap because I know those people.

Yes.

Yep. You know I know those people. Yep.

Okay. Pete and Ryan. Yep. I'm sorry, I just, I assume that everybody knows Pete because he's just one of those guys that talks to everybody.

Yeah. Well, I found him. He didn't find me. So, uh, how did they find you, or vice versa?

I emailed them. I don't know how they kind of recruit at the time, but yeah, at least when I was coming out of college, was very like, we want people that contact us that want to be here. Oh, so I emailed them. Smart. I remember, obviously, in my kind of like 22-year-old ego, like, one of the first things Pete said to me after I emailed them was, hey, we're really glad you reached out. Like, we saw you, you're really good, we were hoping you'd email us. And I was like, would you email me? But, you know, I, in my older and wiser years, spending time there specifically for the kind of the environment that ZAP was, as I'm sure you know, the running camps and where, if you had ever been down to Boone and where ZAP was, it's a very unique living situation. So yeah. Certainly, I think they've, they've moved out of the facility now, but at the time it being a very commune, for lack of a better way to describe it, you know.

That's what Dream Run Camp's gonna look like in the future because I've been there.

Yeah. Yeah. And I loved the area down there. It's very what I grew up in, right? Like, yeah, walk home in the pitch black down there, right? Yeah. Be surrounded by the woods and animal noises, not in the town like West Lafayette, you know, with a couple hundred thousand people in a very small area. So it was getting there and seeing it was very like, this is, I want to go back here because it's very reminiscent of where I grew up. Interesting.

I enjoyed. Yeah. Not for everyone though, right? You know, it's like, you know, um, just, you know, could you give a better description? Well, not a better, a fuller description. You did just fine. I'm just saying, like, add, add on to that because it's like You do have to be there to see, but—

Yeah, I don't even know if a description is gonna describe, but in the town of Blowing Rock, I guess it's technically Lenore, 'cause the river is the county line. The creek next to Zap is the county line, and we're technically in Lenore, North Carolina, but it's 2,000 feet down in the valley off the side of the mountain below this kind of resort town, You know, I think Pete always gives the stat that there's 11,000 people is the population of the town, but 80% of the houses are lived in less than 4 weeks a year in this resort town, all very wealthy second homes. But we lived in this mountain valley, very classic Appalachian mountain valley. Lush. Lush, yeah. Rhododendrons everywhere, all that. And I think up until the first 2 years I was there, I don't think we— we had internet, but it was like satellite internet that didn't really work. So there was very limited internet, not a TV in the place, like assigned duties like would be driving the bucket tractor around with the brush hog on the back, like mowing the field. I have videos of us. They— because we didn't have anything to do, we had— they had— they cut a bunch of pine trees around, they stacked them up in the fire pit. And so it's probably— the pile was probably as tall as this room in here. And we had a drone and bottle rockets, and we attached the bottle rockets. We built a makeshift compartment for the bottle rockets, and we lit the bottle rocket, flew the drone up, shot it at the pile of dead pine, and you see this frame probably 150 feet, 200 feet in the air. We were scared for a little bit. And I remember there was a— and you were how old?

23.

All right, there's a story back in the day, like way before internet or anything.

I would have done that when I was like 11.

We didn't have anything to do.

This was—

there were multiple times we had it. We had the bottle rockets with string, like off of, like holding them on string. There's a famous story down there that from the guys back when it started back in like 2006 that they, they made homemade napalm and set the creek on fire. You can make it with apparently like something, gasoline and orange juice, you can make napalm. They set the creek on fire. So it's just, it was such a unique environment. I think, I imagine particularly now in 2024, before with like cell phones and internet and AI and all this stuff that like that, that was what we did. We would find brush that we could, you know, set things on fire. And that was the, that was the, this is how we occupied our time.

Oh shoot. Uh, dang, this is not about running.

It was not. COVID was always, no, I don't want to say COVID was COVID was a unique experience for us. I don't want to say fun, but like, we were isolated during quarantine with the 10 of us. Oh God.

So it wasn't— That is a reality show.

So it, but it wasn't that much different than what we normally had because it was 25 minutes up into town anyway. So we have the, it's, it is on YouTube if you want to find it. We made it, there was a 25-minute remake. That we made of The Shining. We remade of The Shining. We called it The Zappening, and we recorded it on iPhone Music. Full— it's, it's on YouTube still. Oh man, we'll watch every once in a while. I think it's really funny. It's terrible, but I think it's really funny. Oh, that type of stuff was just— remember that? Entertained ourselves. I'll show you it after a dinner. We'll put on a dinner. Okay, please. It was hilarious. It was just all of us.

All right, I'm Sorry, this is why you need to be here, folks watching. You miss out on these moments. So yeah, please don't forget.

No, no, that's right. It's very— a lot of fun.

Wow.

Yeah.

But I mean, it's like—

I'm sure as you can see, it takes a very unique individual to be in that environment, right? Like for fun, we are going to set stuff on fire with fireworks or create this near shot-for-shot remake of The Shining?

Well, you know, like, I give money to ZAP every year. I have since I first went there, like, in 2011, you know, maybe. And like, it was so special what they created there. Like, yeah, yeah, it wasn't perfect, you know, nothing, nothing is, uh, but it was like done by great people with with great intentions, you know, like they, they knew what they were about. Like there was a purity to the, the whole thing.

Um, yeah, I still will see the pictures from camps and stuff in the summer and I miss being around for that. Or I'll be scrolling through my phone or Google Drive or something. I'll find photos from when we were, you know, we'd be playing a board game one night and like just all this goofy stuff and I miss I did really. It was a very special time period for me.

Yeah, yeah. And it had a— they had a huge impact on me, and it definitely fed into what I'm trying to do. I mean, the, the ethos here is like, you know, you know, it's like the specifics are different, you know, like I'm not trying to create a pro team here, but like that, that spirit, like You know, I like, I don't reject any part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, so it's like, yeah, it's fun actually to see just like how that—

right. And I think it relates very interestingly to what I'm doing now where we were, you know, the, the time growing up and running, you know, want to admit arrogant about it, right, about the sport. And like, it's at this D1 school and I was surrounded by great athletes and all this stuff and I had never My mindset was always like, why do you want to enlighten me to the enjoyment of running outside of competing and being competitive in it, right? Now coaching online for James McCurdy, it's— I'm working with those runners that we have at the ZAP Camp all the time, right? And so I think it was a very good experience for me outside of the friends that I've made and my time getting to run and be supported there as a professional athlete, developing kind of a more maybe holistic relationship with running is the right word.

Yep.

You know, I think, and I think that was kind of the start of that development for me to where I'm at now.

Yeah, yeah.

So then the leap from Blowing Rock or Lenore Yeah, we spent most of our time— we were much closer to Blowing Rock. So we always—

we say Blowing Rock. Yes. Uh, from Blowing Rock to Flagstaff, from ZAP Endurance to McCurdy Trained, were you recruited?

No, I was—

um, story of your life, man, right?

No, um, there was a, you know, when ZAP has found its footing again, for lack of a better term. But there was kind of a— there was a very heavy transitional period around the time that I left. A lot of the people that had come into Zap with me had left.

Yep.

Um, a lot of marathoners starting to develop, and I wasn't, quote, very good at the marathon at the time. So like, it was like A lot of my friends had left. There were— I think I was the only man healthy for like a year period of this that was. So we were down to like 4 men on the team, and I was the only one healthy training by myself. And then when everyone else was training, they were all training for marathons, and I was doing some track stuff, road stuff. And so the, the fit just wasn't there for me at the time. And so I had kind of— I didn't like being solely a professional runner, I guess, at that anymore. At that point, like, it really wasn't— especially with COVID when camps had been canceled and stuff, we weren't getting that summer with people. It was, I'm gonna wake up at 7 and I'm gonna run at 8:30 and I'm gonna come lift and then I'm gonna eat lunch and I'm gonna take a nap and then I'm gonna go run and then I'm gonna get dinner and then I'm gonna go to bed and I'm gonna do it again, right? And so I was looking for something to keep me involved in running that wasn't necessarily going to require me to work at like a running shoe store. Zap had already—

I don't think there's anything wrong.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, certainly, but looking for kind of a stay-at-home, not have to be outside my home and stuff. And James McCurdy had already had a pretty close relationship with ZAP and some former ZAP athletes were, you know, Pardon Glovu, Sarah and Michael Crouch were all ZAP runners that are now coaches for James. And so I used that connection to get in contact with James as a way to, you know, I know he knew he had been developing this pro team and I've been coaching 15 athletes on my own that I had recruited myself. Um, and so you're a good recruiter? Good enough. James might be— James is a much better recruiter than I am, but I had some— I, I had already been doing some private coaching with people, um, and I kind of got in touch with James as I knew he was starting to try to build out this pro team and use his business as a way to support athletes, much in the way that Zap used the camps to support. Yep. Athletes. He was using his ability to recruit professional athletes to coach for him as a means of supporting them. So I reached out to him, um, and he brought me on board with the team there. Um, the first 8 months I was working in Boone still. I had finished out my lease, and then kind of in the middle of that, um, my wife Sammy and I decided, you know, kind of, you know what, we don't have really anything holding us to this area. Let's go see Flagstaff, you know, let's move out there and kind of take that shot. If we can be anywhere, why not be in the best, you know, in my opinion, the best place in the United States to train, much to the chagrin of everybody that lives in Boulder.

I'm with you.

Um, you know, and then through that, Sammy also got to be a part of the pro team and is now coaching for James, you know. So I think having the— even in our own house now, the very unique atmosphere where we both work from home. We just this year bought like a double desk for the corner of our bedroom, so we're sitting next to each other with our dog on the bed working, right? So, um, Just kind of one of those kind of take that leap experiences, you know? Yeah. Move out here and see what— when we moved out here, Sammy wasn't working for James and we're just like, we're going to give it a shot. And so he was, you know, we're thankful that he brought us in and it's been a great experience for both of us.

So I love that. So Lauren did something like that recently, but I love that spirit of just like Fuck it, I'm doing it.

Yeah, yeah, that was very much the New England way to say it, right? I would say it. So yeah, to summarize, yes, to summarize, fuck it.

Yeah, uh, so shout out to Sammy. Uh, you're not on camera, right? But like, but yeah, so the, the Sammy being referred to right over here, just off camera. But if you were here with us, you would get to see—

see me.

Yeah. So, uh, yeah, sorry, can't help myself. Um, yeah, so that's another touch point. So we had the, uh, the, you know, the, the main New Hampshire thing, and then we had the ZAP Endurance thing. Um, and you, uh, and so obviously I'm a huge fan of Zap, Pete, and Zika, Ray, and I'm a huge fan of James McCurdy too.

Like, a mile and a half that way.

Yeah. So James, who's been sitting right there before— maybe it was reverse— good friend of mine. A lot of great memories with James, and hopefully many more to come. So it's cool that you two are linked up. With him now. So like, yeah, what's it— I don't know, just dish on what it's like to be— to have more— like, because we're friends, but like, you have a perfect— I'm sure you're friends too, but like, you have a professional relationship with him. Like, what does it look like to be on the inside of McCurdy Trained at this point?

I don't think it's probably— I mean, I don't know how complicated the business model can be, you know.

You're just James, and you're just a coach.

You're just right. Well, and I'm sure as James might be watching this because I was doing this right now— James, stop working so much. He does a lot on his own. We love James. He works a lot. I'm sure as you've known, he's a very hard worker and has certainly built this business up, you know, from the ground up. And in some ways, I'm taking advantage of all, you know, the hard work that he has put in. You know, I think— I don't know if I've met someone individually that works as hard as James does, you know. But from a— as you said, from a business perspective, I get an email that says, here's this athlete, here's their questionnaire they filled out, get in touch with them. And I think the one thing I respect about James and the business more than anything is he is incredibly hands-off with how we work, right? It is not— he does, he does not micromanage what we do. You know, if we have questions, he is always there to answer them. You know, I don't know if I've ever asked James a question I've waited more than 4 or 5 minutes for a response. Wow. Um, he's always on it when we have questions, and he is there to help us, but he also does not micromanage, which I think is a very respectable thing as for a, for a boss, particularly when your whole, you know, he, he coaches athletes, he coaches the pro team here, and when your whole business model is coaching people, you know, I— Sammy is coached by, um, fellow McCurdy-trained coach, um, Jack Polorecki, and that's one of the experiences for me as a spouse of it now is to not insert myself right into what's going on. I, I assistant coach for both of them where I am needed, but I primarily work with the men and James, and because he is working so much and he's traveling for races and things like that, that I'm primarily working with the men. So it is hard to not interject myself as another coach when I'm watching from the outside. And I imagine that, you know, James has close to 1,500 people at that, this point that he's watching us handle and to not interject, you know, like I said, I think is— I don't know if I could do it. I think it's an incredibly respectable thing to be able to do, you know, in the way that he, he does it. He certainly puts us first. This is not a— in my opinion, has never been a money-making venture for him. And I think that's one of the reasons that he's been so successful with it is that he cares about the athletes that we coach and he cares about us that work for him as well, right? And so, um, I think in anything where you are working one-on-one with people as intimately as we do, right, um, I think if it's going to be successful, that model has to be based on caring about the other person's success, performance, them as an individual, right? And I think that's one of the reasons that McCurdy Trained itself is so successful. That's the experience that I've had with it.

Wow, that was really well said. Cool, so you have a question. This is Annika over here.

Okay, um, what advice would you— I guess can go to both coaches. Um, what, what advice would you give to someone like who is, who is relatively new to running, like myself? I just started running like this past fall seriously, um, and who is now— I've never seen myself as an a natural runner. So I don't know, what advice would you guys give?

I think, and this is gonna, I'm sure, speak to Matt as the 80/20 guy, I think broadly, I think that regular runners, recreational runners, however you want to phrase that, I think that people believe that the, the world record setters, all these people that watch on TV and in the Boston Marathon, I think they think people work way harder than we actually do, right? Um, looking at it, yeah, he's laughing. Um, by that I mean I think that people think that we run way harder on easy days than we do. We work out way more, we work out way harder, right? That is the biggest conversation I have with every one of my athletes is try and get is to slow down. And it's the hardest thing that I have to try to force upon every one of my athletes, right? I actually, I had this conversation, this is probably a very, maybe a more extreme example, but I had a, I work with a woman who had, was coming off of some time off running, right? She's getting back into it and we were talking, Matt, I can't do these. 5-mile runs that you're prescribing, like I have to run-walk. Okay, that's okay. But being on the phone with her the other day, she said, oh, one of my friends yesterday said, hey, you know what, let's try not to run-walk. Let's not care how easy we have to run. Let's just not have to walk and see how far we can go. She said, I was running 11:30 miles and I went for 4 miles without stopping. And that was kind of the, the aha moment for me as her coach, looking at that individual perspective, was not that she couldn't run the 5 miles, but she was— the, the times in those run walks that she was running, she was running so hard that she needed a break. Yes. At that point, it was not zone 1, zone 2 training anymore, right? Um, and that was the kind of the explanation was like, hey, like before we can worry about hard workouts and running really hard, we just need to be able to run, right? Like we did— doesn't matter how much lactate threshold or interval training you're gonna do, if, if you run a 3-hour half marathon, which is— I just did math yesterday— 13.49 miles or something, run walking, if you can just run the entire half marathon at 12-minute pace, that's a 30-minute improvement, you know? Like, we don't have to do crazy stuff, yeah, right? At that point. So I think that— and that a very extreme example of what I'm trying to get across to everyone, being like, those easy days should be easy, right? My easy days when I was training— and this applies to Sammy, it applies to every one of the pros that I've coached— are 2 to 2 and a half minutes slower than my marathon pace. I have a lot of athletes when they come in that are running 20, 30 seconds slower than marathon pace on their easy days. Yeah, I've had athletes that run their 5-mile runs every day faster than marathon pace. It's like, no, look at this in this perspective, right? And I think that, that— I, I think it comes from a good place. I think that a lot of people say, hey, like Training's gonna— running the marathon is going to be hard, training for it needs to be hard, right? Therefore everything needs to be hard, right? But there is kind of picking and choosing where that effort is relied on. Again, I read the 80/20 book when you were 5 months— no, 3 months ago, actually. Um, Kind of reinforcing that belief, right? So I think that is the biggest thing is consistency and running easy. And one of the things in your book, in that book that I really liked that you said was that, and I've seen kind of Steve Magnus kind of reiterate this idea that like the reason that people don't like running is because it hurts the whole time. It's hard. And the reason that is hard the whole time is because people aren't running true easy pace. I think Steve Magness even took this a step further and where he said, like, for example, the probably the majority of the American population, the zone true or zone 2 easy running effort is going for a walk, right, where you're getting your heart rate in that zone, you know. And so for an individual like that, anything running is probably close pushing lactate threshold. I couldn't imagine doing all of my running at lactate threshold. I wouldn't do it. Yeah, you know, having those days that you had talked about, um, going out, and if you're enjoying it and it's fun, you're gonna do more of it, right? Um, is important. That's the consistency. Running is in the sport, and it's it takes a long time to get better, right? Like, it's not something that you're going to reach your maximum ability in 6 months. It's you're going to get better in 6 months, but you're going to be better in another year after that and better in a year after that. So setting yourself up in a way that it is kind of the, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint type of idea, right? Like, sure, you're going to, I've seen people that I've coached that go out and they run hard all the time and they get way better. And then in 3 months, either they're hurt or they don't want to do it anymore because it sucks hurting all the time. So, you know, that's kind of my advice for anyone newer is to just be consistent with it and set it up so that it's actually— it's got to be fun before you can— if you're going to do it and get the most out of yourself.

Yeah. Weirdly, that's what happened, like, when I got long COVID and I was like, I'm gonna keep running, and then like every run sucks. I'm like, I'm not gonna—

Right, right. It's just like, why? This isn't fun.

What am I—

You know, and in a sport that requires you to be on your feet for an extended period of time and train for something for an extended period of time, it's gotta be fun enough that you will take that amount of time, right?

Like— It cannot always suck.

Yeah, you can't force yourself to do a 65-minute run every day. It's at some point you gotta have to want to go out and do that run, you know, and you can't force yourself to train for years on end to hit your BQ. At some point you gotta want to do that, and if it sucks, you're not going to want to. Yep.

Uh, Lauren, you want to fire, fire a question at Matt while we've got him? You good?

Yeah. All right. Any advice for new coaches? I think this is some stuff that I talked about with Sammy because I had been working with James for a year before she started, so I felt like I already know a little bit. I think first off, there's— there is an adjustment period and you're always going to be learning, right? Like, I'm just starting to get comfortable with like what I would consider my system, right, instead of experimenting with some stuff. And I think probably the biggest thing is to be— what's the word I'm looking for—

to be—

you're not deliberate, but to be intentional.

Intentional.

Sorry, don't be afraid of telling people they can't do something, right? Like, you can't be a people pleaser if you're doing it, because you're on the outside looking in. And the, the number one thing that I consider my role amongst all, right, like, I don't tell my athletes right when I get them, I'll say, hey, you can go on and find 90% of what I'm going to tell you to do on Amazon in a book. You can find it on Runner's World. You can find it anywhere online, like 90% of the, like, oh, I'm training for a marathon, let's do some long runs. Right? There's some nuance to it that I believe I have, but the number one thing that I think as a coach that sets it apart from just finding something online is having that outside perspective and being that voice when someone needs to chill out. Right? When you— I have athletes that, I wanna run Boston and then I wanna do London and I wanna do Grandma's and I'm gonna run New York. I'm gonna do Chicago before that. No, we aren't doing that, right? And as hard as it can seem in the time, yeah, I, I think that not only do the athletes in my experience respect that, there have been so many times that I have said something to an athlete and I'm like, I've, I've lost this athlete. Like, there's no— like, this was the right thing to say. Like, no, you cannot run today because you are hurt. Right? And the number of times I've said something like that and be like, yep, no, they aren't going to be happy about that. But they come back appreciative because deep down they know that's what they need to do. And it's so hard to convince yourself of that. So I think having the confidence to, to be that person that the athlete needs you to be and said most of the time it is not me pushing an athlete to get out the door, to run faster, or to run more. Most of the time it is reeling an athlete in or saying, you know, I've become very good at reading people. An athlete the other day, she had not been running, hadn't been running, couldn't get her out the door, and we sat down, we talked about it, and we figured out that the stress of where runs were being placed in the week was making it— it was harder for her to get out the door, and then when that stress would build up, she would avoid doing it at all, right? And then would say, hey, okay, I'm super busy today, I'm just gonna do this tomorrow. And then tomorrow something would come up, and then we've— we talked about it, right? And we rearranged that schedule. And now she's out, right? So being that outside voice, she knew what she had to do, but being that outside perspective to help work through that stress and, you know, all the life stuff that people have on, right? Um, I think that's probably the most important thing as a new coach is to realize that your role isn't In my opinion, writing training, it's being that person. And that I think applies to if you're coaching pros, because I've had these conversations with 2:10 marathoners, and I've had the same conversation with 4-hour marathoners, right? I think that just is the role of a coach.

Yeah.

Oh, fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I, I use a very slightly different vocabulary to express the same sentiment, which is that, um, like, my role is to make sure that both at all times, both the athlete and I are dealing with reality. Yeah, yeah. It's like reality is the playing ground. We must agree on this.

Yeah.

And, you know, of course, people, different people have different perspectives. But like, that's really like, you know, everything starts there. It's like, are we— do we have the same facts right in front of us? And, and so you find yourself very much in that, putting— telling athletes to chill because like, it's just how it is. Like, the analogy I always give is like, um, you know, we've all had like friends or maybe like siblings who were like they'd gotten in a bad relationship and like you just saw it, you're like, this person's no good for me. And they don't see it, you're like, how can you be so stupid? And then you get in a bad relationship.

Right, right, well I was gonna say that like I, in my experience looking back on running, like I know all the times that like, it's funny now that I look at the advice I would've given myself. Right, exactly. In college, I had a year that I did not make the track outdoor national meet. Because I doubled at the Big Ten Conference meet. I ran great in both, but we took a 12-hour bus ride back from Lincoln. I got off the bus and I ran 8 miles at 6:30 pace. And then the 10 days later in Jacksonville for the, um, first round of the NCAA meet, I was 14th. I missed making the team by a second, like making that national meet by a second. I had made it, I won the region the year before, but I had no gears. I was exhausted. 'Cause I did something stupid when I got off the bus, right? And I look back and I'm like, yeah, you should have taken that day off and you would have made the national meet. You know, I had been hurt indoors and I was getting better every week until that point when I got nervous, right? I think that a lot of this comes from nervousness in athletes, right? You wanna prove to yourself that you're fit, right? Or that you're capable. And so for me, taking that one day off when I knew it was what needed to be done was, I'm playing catch-up this whole time. I'm getting better, but I'm still trying to catch up. And we got the regional meet, I gotta get this run in. If I don't, I'm not gonna make the regional meet, or I'm not gonna make the national final because I missed this run. And I didn't make it because I did the run. And I can 100% say that sitting here now, right? And it was something I knew at the time and could not stop myself from doing. So I think being that voice for people. Same, same. We've all done it, yeah.

Yeah, well, all right, it's time for noodles. So shout out to, shout out to Taki and the boys. Background. We've also got Andy from Hoka in the background. Yeah, it's about to get lively here at DreamRun Camp. Uh, really enjoyed getting to know you, uh, and you. Um, thank you so much for coming.

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been fun to get to— I love talking about this stuff, so fun to get this experience.

So yeah, that's it for episode number whatever of Live from DreamRun Camp. Thank you all very much. See you next week.

Bye.