Strava can be a great source of motivation as it gamification of the sport of running, but can there be some downsides to the app? While it can be fun to scroll through and see what friends are doing for runs, does it promote constant comparison? In Jan 2023 I started to feel like people were ‘watching’ my training as I geared up for Boston 3 months postpartum from baby number 3.. Were people actually watching? I don’t know, but the fact that I was feeling ‘pressure’ to ‘perform’ or show up on strava was real. I decided to go ghost on strava for 3 months, and it was an interesting experience. 

Self talk while running

Thinking that people will be analyzing your splits

Wanting the average pace to be XYZ

Coming up with excuses for how the run went and what you would write

Getting back to the basics. 

Running for yourself

Taking out all the chatter

Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation

Why do you run?

Did you enjoy running more when people didn’t see your stats?

How can you find balance with technology and running

Boundaries

Having a reset

Sitting in the discomfort

We talk a lot about marathon training on this podcast, but we should take a step back and chat about how to know if you are READY to train for your first marathon. It’s always about balancing risk vs reward. Training for a marathon is HARD on the body and if you don’t have a strong base going into the training you are increasing your risk of injury or burn out. We developed a prerequisite to marathon training plan a few years ago. This is a program you would do BEFORE starting your marathon training plan to ensure you are in a good place to marathon train.

https://run4prs.co/2019/07/08/training-for-your-first-marathon-part-1/

Knowing what kind of runner you are is key when it comes to planning races. You may have seen a lot of hype on social media or the media in general about the world major marathons like NY and Boston. Even when I tell people I coach runners, I often through out names like “we help people train for the NYC marathon”. Why? Because most people have heard of these races. But just because they are well known doesn’t mean they are the end all be all of running. In fact, there are dozens of marathons that take place every weekend around the globe. Each state has several marathons. Some states like California probably have close to 100 or more marathons every year. So what makes these world majors so special? They have been selected by Abbott world majors association because they meet special criteria. The biggest criteria is the size of the race. Local large marathons around here have a few thousand people where as a world major marathon would have tens of thousands of people. What is the benefit of doing such a large race? Well it depends on your goals and also how you like to race. Some athletes thrive with crowd support and lots of people to run with. Other people don’t get any benefit from crowd support and don’t enjoy running on busy courses. You have to factor these things into consideration when you register/think about doing a world major. Another factor is travel and money. Traveling for a race internationally or even flying to a race can be stressful and take more time/energy/planning. The cost also plays a huge factor. I was 23 years old when I ran Boston for the first time, and I remember we almost drained our savings account to make the trip out there the first time. If you have a lot of disposable income or you really make it a priority to save up, the majors can be great, but we also want to point out that attempting the run the majors is something that takes substantial amounts of money. 

1. What are the 7 world major marathons & what makes them ‘major’

   1. The world major marathons are Boston, Chicago, NYC, Berlin, Tokyo, London, Sydney. What makes them major is the size and just an organization what decided these races meet specific criteria. They are all incredibly difficult to get into and are constantly raising the bar for qualifying times. 

Jason - Talking point

Abbotworld majors > https://www.worldmarathonmajors.com/

1. Create Profile

2. Match results

3. Manage results and future goals in runner portal

4. Access digital global run club dashboard

Marathon Tours

Destination Marathons > https://sportstoursinternational.com/

Guaranteed entry: London, Berlin, Sydney

No Entry: Tokyo, NYC, Boston, Chicago

1. How does a major marathon compare to a local big race?

   1. Traveling to a major marathon is going to be very expensive. The cost of hotels/air BnB spikes during those weekends in major cities. You can do things for cheap but generally the people who do the majors also have major money. 

   2. Majors will have a ton more participants. This can be fun to have more people to run with, but think of it as 10x the size of a normal big marathon. It can sometimes be a cluster when trying to get to water stops and also just getting to the starting line.

   3. I find that majors can cause more nerves because there are more logistics for getting these and more downtime to get nervous waiting around

   4. Time zone changes and jetlag can also be a factor for athletes who go abroad. I have had athletes get sick 

2. What is the hype with the 7 or 6 star finishers?

   1. It is a medal you get for running all 6-7 marathons

   2. It is hard to get into the races

   3. It is expensive to run

   4. If you enjoy traveling and have extra cash

3. What are other options for marathons?

   1. Local marathons

   2. Faster courses: revel

   3. Small marathons: could win

Marathon Tours

Destination Marathons > https://sportstoursinternational.com/

Guaranteed entry: London, Berlin, Sydney

No Entry: Tokyo, NYC, Boston, Chicago

Treadmill running

As we head into the winter months, it can be hard to train outside in the sub zero temps but it can also be dangerous with the icy footing. Many people opt for the treadmill for a number of reasons. It can be a topic of mixed emotions for many runners. I know I personally felt shamed by runners in the past for utilizing the treadmill despite exclusively training on a treadmill for a few marathons in my earlier years as a runner with great success. 

Why is the treadmill so controversial?

Why do some people crush it on the treadmill?

Why does the treadmill feel so hard to some people?

Should you utilize the incline feature?

271. Did you peak with running already or is it a plateau?

Have you ever heard the quote “what would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?” that is a good one for todays podcast episode. A lot of people would love to look into a crystal ball and see what their full potential is if they gave running their all. Many people allow fear of failure to hold them back from giving 100% commitment/effort into The truth is that most people quit before they reach their full potential OR they stop putting in the same effort. It’s important to recognize that there is more to life than running so of course many people have other goals they want to pursue, but it’s important what language we use when we talk about our potential in the sport. I often hear people say they think they already reached their full potential within the sport after a few years. Did you really reach your full potential in the sport or are you stuck at a plateau?

How do you know if it’s a peak or a plateau

How long have you been training

Have you changed your training within the past 2-3 years

Have you focused on various events in running

Have you been coached

Peaking:

How can you continue to motivate yourself to be in endurance events if you already reached your peak?

What if you didn’t reach your true potential but you don’t want to continue to train at that high of a level?

Plateau

How can you breakthrough

How long would it take to breakthrough

What does it really take to achieve some of those big goals like OTQ or BQ

Do you actually have the desire to put in that much work?

Sacrifices in place 

Athletes give us their races vs us recommending races

Before getting into the running, I was actually a SMOKER who couldn’t even run down the block. I used to hold onto the belief that marathons and races in general were for people who were not like me. I genuinely didn’t know that it was physically possible for me to build up to be able to run long distances let alone a FULL MARATHON. Now I have 27 marathons under my belt and have helped thousands of people go from beginner runners to marathon finishers. In this episode we are going to talk about what it takes to build up to a marathon and how to do it safely so that you can continue to run for a lifetime and not just be a ‘one and done’. 

Marathoning maybe USED to be just for elite, but with the recent running BOOM we are starting to see that normal every day people with no experience can achieve amazing things and build up to a marathon.

1. If your goal was to run a marathon in the next 6-9 months and you had NEVER done a run before, where should you start?

   1. Start with walking 

   2. Run/Walk intervals every other day

   3. Start with 10-20 min and build up

   4. Cut back weeks every 2-3 weeks

   5. Find a half marathon half way through the training

   6. Join a a group or find someone/something to be apart of community is everything

   7. Don’t worry about workouts- go at a zone 2 pace

2. How do you know if you are running the correct pace?

   1. Zone 2 is going to be the safest place to be- grab a HR monitor and 60-70% of your max HR

   2. Another way to do this is think of a pace that you are not needing to take breaks from- should feel super easy. Breathing is light

   3. Your long run pace should be the same as your easy run pace

3. How to build the long run

   1. You have to have increase long runs to be able to finish a marathon

   2. Old rules state to not have a long run be more than 30% of your weekly mileage, but these rules may not apply if you are newer to the sport and just can’t run high mileage yet. - to balance out the fact that it is risky to have such a long run relative to weekly mileage (ie a 12 mile long run when you only run 20 miles a week) we will want to keep these long runs extremely slow.

4. Confidence is key

   1. Everyone is nervous about the marathon distance

   2. I’ve done 27 marathons and still freak out about long runs

   3. It’s good to find something to distract yourself and remain calm in the early miles

5. FUELING!

   1. This is no joke. You can get ‘away’ with faster on shorter runs but when you make the jump to doing 60-90 min runs, it’s going to hit different. Fueling is EVERYTHING

   2. Eat a carb rich breakfast

   3. Take 60 grams of carbs PER HOUR minimum. 

   4. Aim for 1000mg of sodium PER HOUR

   5. Train the way you plan to race

6. Don’t ruin your race by putting too much time goal pressure

   1. It’s fun to push yourself but it’s not fun to overshoot your capabilities and end of hitting the wall.

As we approach a new year, there are tons of athletes setting new years goals and resolutions for 2025. But in order to really achieve goals in the future, it is important to reflect back on what we have done in the past. Is there anything we want to change going forward? How can we become a better version of ourselves in the future? Many people set intentions to become better in the future but they fail to recognize the things that have held them back in the past. We often repeat the same patterns over and over again without realizing the issue at hand.

1. Stuck in a rut of the same old training over and over

   1. Comfort zone

      1. Over training?

      2. No workouts?

      3. Same goals every year

   2. Law of diminishing returns

   3. Juggling kids practices & working out

2. Too many goals in too many directions

   1. BQ

   2. PR

   3. Orange Theory

   4. Ironman

3. Lack of accountability for when things get challenging

   1. Anyone can stay on track for a few weeks or months- what happens when you get sick or are not feeling great?

4. Process drive goals vs outcome based goals

   1. You have to commit to the process

1. How do you fuel a marathon

Need to fuel every 20-30 min 

60 grams of carbs per hour

1000 mg of sodium per hour

This is not something that should be new, This should be practiced

1. How to handle upset stomach due to gels during the marathon

   1. Fueling during training

2. How much speed work should you do in the offseason: I won’t actually run a 5k until the spring

3. Type of training during the offseason from the marathon training

   1. Lots of ways to approach this

   2. Consistency is most important: not just runs but workouts/specifics

   3. Not overdoing it

   4. Depends on your long terms goals

1. How to get into the right mindset before a race

   1. Practice race mindset during workouts

   2. Do races in the build up

   3. Visualization

2. How do you incorporate heavy lifting

   1. Start light- make sure you have proper form

   2. Do it on hard days or day after hard running workouts

   3. Consistency is key

   4. You don’t build during peak marathon training

   5. Offseason

3. How do you know whether or not you need a trainer/coach

   1. No one really needs to have a coach just like no one needs to have a financial advisor or needs to have a house cleaner

   2. It is a benefit to you because it can save you time/stress

   3. It is a perk you can give yourself

   4. This is your hobby, why would you not invest in it?

   5. Better results, less chance of injury, part of a community