Ready, set, go! This is episode 406 with a client of mine named Brandon, who resolved some imbalances, improved his stride, resolved IT band syndrome, ran four personal bests, and set mileage PRs in training.
Welcome to the Strength Running Podcast. podcast. We surround you with the same experts as pro runners, so keep listening to hear running coaches, physical therapists, strength experts, dietitians, sports psychologists, and other thought leaders give you the best guidance possible to take your running to the next level.
I'm your host, Coach Jason Fitzgerald.
I'm a former cross -country and track athlete for Connecticut College.
I've been coaching runners since 2010, and I used to write for Trail Runner Magazine and Runner's World.
Today, I'm the head coach of Strength I'm a strength running host of this podcast, and I work with a small handful of startups in the running space.
You can learn more about me and strength running at strengthrunning .com.
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This episode features a case study of a client named Brandon, who completely transformed his running by focusing on a few key fundamentals.
Everything improved from his form to how much he was able to run during training.
He had injuries resolved.
He He improved a few minor imbalances, set four personal bests in four different race distances.
In this episode, we're going to hear his story and the principles you can use to get similar results.
Now, a big contributor was using our high -performance lifting weightlifting program, a periodized, progressive, running -specific program that I built with a USA weightlifting national coach and one that's so good, it's used by elite athletes like Andrea Pomeranski.
Learn more about it at strengthrunning .com slash HPL.
And now, without further delay, please enjoy this coaching call with my client, Brandon.
All right, Brandon, thank you for taking some time to talk some shop with me and agreeing to just open up about your running.
I think this is going to be fun.
Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
So the reason we're talking today is I recently sent out a survey to some of my clients, and And the entire reason you're here is because you have had just incredible progress with your running.
In that survey, you mentioned you've resolved some minor imbalances, you've improved your stride, helped resolve IT band syndrome, contributed to PRs in four major race distances, and you also set a few mileage PRs in training.
So Brandon, this is amazing.
So congratulations just on all that progress over the last couple of years.
Thanks. Thanks. Yeah.
It's been a 20, 24 was a fun year.
And yeah. I remember those years when like, it seems like everything's going right and you're just, you're running fast. You're feeling good.
It is one of the most intoxicating feelings that runners can have when it just feels like your upward trajectory knows no limits and you just keep getting better and better.
Now I did kind of start with the punchline here.
And so I kind kind of wanted to go back and, you know, talk about your running before all of this improvement.
So maybe we can start with some basics.
Like, how old are you?
How long have you been running?
Sure. Yeah, I'm 36.
I'll be 37 in November.
I was a high school cross country and track runner.
And then I kind of fell out of running when I got into college.
I was a punk. I don't know, I got injured my senior year and missed my senior year track season and kind of fell out of love with running at that time.
And then Kinect got back into running in my mid -20s and kind of have been running consistently since then.
Yeah. So let's talk about sort of before a lot of the progress and improvement that I mentioned before.
Before all of that, what were you struggling with?
with. What kind of issues do you have that you were hoping to resolve?
Did you have any goals that, that you might've been struggling to reach at that time?
Yeah. So coming back in my mid 20s, uh, I was maybe a little over, like over, what's the way to put it?
Um, I went, I went too hot too soon, uh, thinking I could run and keep up the mileage that I was doing in high school.
So So definitely had some burnout earlier, some injuries early on, you know, just adding too many miles too soon.
And I was finding that as I progressed, I was stagnant in a lot of my races and I just couldn't seem to get over the hump.
For me, like that was primarily, I saw it primarily in the half marathon distance.
distance, I was stuck at that one 32 to one 30, uh, range and I just couldn't break through.
Um, and so that's part of the reason why I wanted, I reached out to you initially just sort of build a plan, um, and kind of push through that 90 minute barrier.
Yeah. That's always a tough kind of line of performance for a lot of runners.
So I feel like the 90 minute half marathon is sometimes a really difficult hump to get over as a runner.
So walk us through some of your training at that time.
What did your training look like?
I know you said you were struggling to run the mileage that you had done earlier.
What kind of mileage were you running?
You know, were you doing a hard workout every week?
What did it look like in general?
Yeah, it's funny. So this was way back, way back.
I mean, we're getting old.
This was in, you know, like 2014 to 2018, roughly.
And I think about how much stuff has changed in that short period of time.
I mean, I was running in New Balance Zontes, fresh foams. They're basically like flats.
And I had a Casio watch. I think my mileage was, you know, probably topping out at 30 miles a week.
And, you know, like a lot of new -ish runners, not very variable.
I think I was running my easy runs too hard, not really mixing up different speeds, obviously no strides.
And I just was kind of growing by feel, you know.
So it wasn't very specific is kind of what I'm getting at.
Now, you're interesting because you're someone with that cross country and track background, at least from high school.
And you participated in college for at least a time as well.
So you were exposed to what we might call quote unquote good training.
How come you got away from that and didn't do the strides, didn't do workouts, ran easy runs too hard?
I think two things.
One, when you're in high school and you just show up each day and you have a coach tell you what to do, you just do it.
You're not really going through the motions in a way.
I wasn't really paying close attention to what kind of mileage I was doing on the day I was trying to get through and hang out with my buddies.
And then the second thing, as an adult, with a job, you realize that, you know, time is, you run out of time in some ways.
And so I was doing what I could to fit in, you know, fit these miles in and not really being as dedicated as I should have been.
Yeah, I feel like the transition to adult running is such a big transition that you've really got to make sure that you carve out at least enough time to do those fundamentals so that you can keep progressing because it's almost harder to get away with not doing that stuff as you get older, too.
It almost becomes more important, even though you have less time, which is just a frustrating place to be.
Yeah. You have, you have to be very intentional, um, with your structure.
And I, and I wasn't at that stage 25, I was still kind of a baby.
Yeah. Well, one of the things you did to, to get more intentional was you opted for the one, two punch of a custom training plan that I built for you and high performance lifting.
So like what made you decide at that time to pull pull the trigger, reach out, and sort of invest in your running to, to, to make a change.
Right. Um, so I'm kind of looking at my times and just to give people an idea.
Um, I ran a half marathon, like one of my first half marathons was in 2014.
Um, I, I worked abroad.
Rod. So my first race was in Abu Dhabi.
And I ran a 133 38 for my first half.
And then we moved to Vietnam, Hanoi, and I ran like a 139 130 134.
And that was from 2016 to 2017.
And then I did a a marathon in Kuala Lumpur and came back and ran a Cayman, the Cayman Islands marathon in 2017.
And then I did the 2018 Cayman half at 130.
Sorry, that's a lot of basically long winded way of saying I was just stuck.
And I couldn't, you know, from all those years, that was a span of what four years, I couldn't break through.
And I just was looking for a little bit of an edge to see where I could take it.
I kind of knew it was there.
But I just needed some tools.
I'm a little jealous that you got to run around the world and all these beautiful locations like that must have been amazing.
Yeah. Sorry, that wasn't meant to be a flex by any means.
But yeah, we had a good run.
My wife and I were teachers.
So, we taught abroad.
And then we moved back to the United States during the pandemic.
Oh, wow. That's beautiful.
So Brandon, high performance lifting is obviously a weightlifting program.
Had you been exposed to much strength training beforehand?
Like what was your background with lifting weights?
I did. We lifted in high school during the basketball season and never didn't lift at all during track or cross country pushups and sit ups where it was the extent of our strength training.
Me too, man. Me too.
um so I was familiar with proper form definitely some of them on some of the major movements not familiar with a lot of single leg things etc and before I worked with you I was still doing static stretching I would say we could talk about that too as a big game changer in my running yeah let's dive down that rabbit hole so you I assume stopped static stretching or at least changed how how you did it.
What was that evolution like?
Yeah. I don't know.
We're around the same age.
So static stretching was what we knew when we were learning to run.
And when I reached out to you, you sent me the free ITBS dynamic warmup.
And to this day, seven years later, I'm still doing that.
I just think, I feel, yeah, I just feel more prepared for a run than, you know, sitting and doing some toe touches or whatever.
Yeah. It's funny you say that because that was exactly my high school track experience too, was, you know, a couple sets of sit -ups and push -ups and then would do some static stretching and then you were off for the run.
And we do know a little bit better these days.
You know, we like to warm up a little bit more comprehensively.
Not only does it likely make you feel a lot better, but it's going to have some performance benefits too.
Yeah. And we would meet in the wrestling room.
It was a padded room in high school.
And we played this game with a racquetball.
So I guess it was kind of like a dynamic warmup.
But yeah, not a lot of dynamic stretching by any means in high school.
So when you started lifting, was it scary or intimidating to start?
Was it something that you had some reservations about, or were you pretty comfortable getting in the gym?
Yeah. I'd say like some runners I was, I kind of scoffed at lifting.
Um, I just didn't think it was necessary at first, you know, like felt good with my mileage and, and running was what I wanted to do.
So why would I need to lift?
Um, I wouldn't say it was scary.
It was a matter of creating a new habit that I hadn't previously built into my routine.
And so it took a while to sort of figure out how I'm going to be consistent with that.
And one nod to you and your program is, you know, two days a week is digestible.
And it's not something that is overly intimidating to somebody who's new to the weight room.
Yeah, that was a big goal of it is how do we make this accessible and also a program that's not going to interfere too much with your running?
Because look, if you're in the gym four days a week and you're doing longer workouts, maybe high volume sets and reps, at a certain point, it's just going to eat into your ability to train with your running at a high level.
So you want to find that, that really good balance of properly lifting at the right volume, sort of like speed work, right?
Like not enough. And it's, it's not going to do too much, but too much. And you're just going to run yourself into the ground.
So, so what did you, how do you feel after a couple months?
So you started lifting a couple months later of consistency, by the way, I love the fact that you didn't think it was necessary.
So like winning over and converting a non -believer is, is such a win in my book.
so I'm glad we could do that but you know how were you feeling after a couple months yeah so uh I was feeling great um and I was able to sort of you know duck under that 90 minute barrier which for me was a huge win um from so I was just close in 18 and then 19 I broke through, um, and at one 2956, but Brandon still counts stoked with that.
Um, and so that kind of got me hooked in a way, you know, obviously these things, uh, it's not a magic pill.
You're not going to get better overnight, but, um, I stuck with it and definitely felt stronger, uh, towards the end of races.
And that was kind of a big, a big aha moment for me.
Yeah. One of the big goals of lifting weights, specifically for endurance runners is not just to get stronger, but to get stronger in a very specific way.
So that at the end of a race, when you typically start falling apart, you know, your form starts to become a lot less economical, you have the strength to really hold it together to really focus on driving force into the ground and running fast while you're you're under high fatigue.
And of course, it's not just the lifting that's helping with that.
It's also, you know, the extra mileage, the long runs, the good endurance that you're gaining from the run training.
So that's amazing to hear.
Like, I mean, that's exactly what I want to hear from someone who starts lifting.
What about some of the other kind of more less performance -oriented oriented ways that you were feeling so you said your stride improved you said uh you resolved a couple minor imbalances like it seems like just physically you were feeling like more of a capable athlete yeah that's i'd say that's true and accurate um i think one of the things that led to so i had it band syndrome issues and you know and then we kind of i reached out and we worked worked on that and um I think part of that was because it was an overuse injury I think initially and then um there were some things my stride my cadence
was low and I had some imbalances and that was causing problems with my hip and then my it band so lifting um along with a proper you know training plan helped correct a lot of those and I I could just feel like my it was a more manageable way to handle this sort of issue.
And I increased my stride by about 10 steps per minute from like 160, low 160s to low 170s.
And just those things alone really went a long ways for me.
Yeah, it sounds like the cadence probably contributed a lot to you feeling better too, just because that is a much more efficient way to run, especially at your level.
You know, know, you're, you're a sub 90 minute half marathon, or you're probably running, you know, somewhere in the eight minute range for your easy runs, which probably means that your cadence should be over 170 steps a minute.
Like if it was in the one sixties, I might get start getting a little worried.
Um, so that's a big win in terms of economy, in terms of reducing your injury risk.
Uh, were you also able to, to train a little bit more?
So I know you were training about 30 miles a week beforehand.
Were you able to run more?
Yeah. So, um, my part, it took a while, you know, to kind of, uh, build up and to where I am now, like this past year.
Uh, and yeah, I was able to increase my mileage and not have those breakdowns, um, which were typical prior to lifting.
I would kind of, I don't know, like my, it was almost like my body had a mileage limit that it would like a car, like the wheels would fall off once Once I got to that point and I felt like going through these, you know, the high performance lifting that ceiling kind of increased to where I could push more and not feel like the wheels were coming off.
Oh, that, that just reminds me of my own training because I had a ceiling too, and I was doing some strength training, but I wasn't lifting the way that I now think runners should lift. And, uh, I think it would have been an absolute game changer.
uh how high were you able to get was it just like an ongoing process of trying to run more and more or were you a little bit more strategic than that yeah um so it was started initially like adding another run per week uh i think probably i was probably at four runs a week now i'm five to six and then um this past year i was able to bump up my mileage to the high 50s uh still not where i kind of want to be ultimately, but, uh, I'll take it.
So from, you know, 30 miles per week in that 2018 to 2020 range, I'm up at almost 60 now.
Um, not consistently that's during a, you know, specific build, but, uh, again, I, I don't think I would be here if I didn't change something.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you've pretty much almost doubled your, your mileage during peak training, which is obviously a huge win.
It also goes to show that mileage increases, and I know I often talk about the value of high mileage.
It should be done gradually over the course of years.
You're not going to go from 30 miles a week to 80 miles a week in a year.
You're going to have a lot of injury problems if you try to do that.
It is very long term endeavor.
And the strength training does help smooth that process of increasing the mileage, you'll likely just have fewer setbacks, because you're stronger, you're more resilient.
Were you surprised about anything in high performance lifting as you were going through the entire program?
Anything that kind of stood out to you?
Yeah, before I just wanted to add that you know we're runners jason we're not very patient people uh we're we look at the next race after crossing a marathon but uh yeah i was one one thing that surprised me i fell in love with the phase one uh that four week phase one just those the squatting and the deadlifts uh to me that's just so digestible and so easy to manage if you're doing it correctly directly, you know, without too many distractions or whatever you can get in and out in 30 to 40 minutes.
And I find that, um, I go back to that phase when I'm not in a specific block, when I'm just sort of in my off season.
And I just, I fell in love with that first phase.
I can't speak highly enough about that.
Oh, wow. That's great to hear.
Well, I can kind of tell you why.
So because high high performance lifting is periodized to meet the similar goals of a 16 -week training plan that you might follow for, say, a marathon or a half marathon, the first four weeks are sort of like base training.
It's more fundamental.
It's a little bit more focused on volume, getting comfortable with the exercises, building a strength foundation so that you can then go on and do heavier lifts and more explosive type movements.
And I have found that runners often just feel good when they strip away some of the intensity, some of the explosivity and really just focus on some of the more fundamental foundational types of training.
And from a strength perspective, this is exactly that.
So it's, yeah, it's just like, it's like a feel good, not too hard, you're building a great base.
It's like anytime you're in base training, and you're you're not running workouts but maybe you're running strides a couple days a week and you just feel really good because you're not fatigued from the hard workouts or in this case the hard strength workouts right and um i mean i'm sure you've read the book atomic habits by james clear uh that first phase is just easy to sort of build a a consistent schedule around right like you it's you're not going to to be in the gym for two hours at a time.
You're not going to be, you know, lifting to failure.
And it's just something that you can pop in after a hard workout and, you know, and feel good about finishing.
I will say the challenge still for me is always that lift after the long run.
That's been my kryptonite.
Sometimes that gets pushed to the next day.
But yeah, we can talk about that too just sort of how you build in your strength sessions and during your run schedule yeah there's always some optionality when it comes to that and and i'm like you i i struggle with doing a weightlifting workout after a long run i just tend to be more tired after a long run than i am after a workout and so in the same way i can lift on a workout day but i like to push the the weightlifting workout to the day after a long run when i just you know i have a little little more energy, I'm probably better fueled.
And I just have more, you know, mental energy to get in the gym.
I'm glad you said that.
I thought you were, I was going to get in trouble for saying that.
Yeah. Getting in trouble here, Brandon.
It's easy to convince yourself after what, a 14 to 18 to 20 mile run that you've done enough that day.
And it's true. You've done enough that day.
So getting to the gym later is a, was, is a battle.
Yeah, for sure. And I think I think the quote -unquote ideal lifting schedule that often gets thrown around is lifting on your hard days.
And that's because you want to keep your easy days easy.
But you can still follow that principle if you put one of the weightlifting workouts on a moderate day, maybe the day after a long run where you're just doing a normal easy run.
It's still maintaining either a day off or a very easy run day at some other point during the week, likely two days during the week are fairly easy.
So I'm totally okay with that.
There's definitely some flexibility with how you schedule your strength workouts, and all of that.
So I'm just glad you got it in because that's goal number one, right?
Like, let's just do the work.
And we can worry about fine tuning the scheduling of it a little bit later.
Yeah, just make it a habit.
And just Yeah, find time to do it.
I feel I will will say that if you can, I feel great lifting after, uh, like a track session.
Uh, it just feels right.
And then, uh, so if you can make it work where you stack your hard days like that, it's, it's pretty awesome.
I'm not too surprised to hear that because I think, you know, any sort of track workout is likely priming your body for a bit more effort, a bit more intensity, but it's not at the duration of a long run.
That's going to deplete you nearly as much. So, you know, as long as you're kind of fueling throughout and afterwards, you're probably in a good position to have a good weightlifting workout after a hard running workout.
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I hope to see you there.
Let's talk a little bit about results.
Now, you mentioned dipping under 90 minutes.
It sounds like you ran 89 .56 or 57.
So you got under there.
It doesn't matter. It was only a couple seconds.
You you did it, talk to me about some of the, um, some of the performances that you had after you had been consistent with lifting.
Yeah. So, um, after that little breakthrough, um, I would kind of go back and if I had a specific block, I would do the whole 16 week program, uh, start to finish.
And then, like I said, after a goal race, I would just sort of default sort of to that that phase one.
And I would just repeat that and increase weights if I needed to, et cetera.
And it was, it's just a nice way to handle that off season when you're building base miles, but also want to keep your strength.
So then, yeah, then I would have a goal race come up and I'd go back to the 16 week program.
But in the, you know, last year, I, in September, I ran a 121 55 half.
Oh wow. Which for me was, that was probably the race of my life at this point.
Um, and then in the marathon, so my first marathon was 2017.
I was around 345. Uh, and then this past December at CIM, I ran a two 58.
Um, and I was really stoked to get under or three.
That was another big goal for me.
Good Lord, Brandon, congratulations.
These were these are enormous improvements over like that five, four, four, four, five year period where you were stuck in the 130s.
Yeah, so close to about a 50 minute improvement in the marathon and about a 10 minute improvement in the half.
And then I know you're big on like, I was close to 2000 miles.
Um, I probably would have got gotten there.
I, the CIM was in December.
So after that, I took a few times, days, weeks off and I w I would have been close, I think to 2000 miles, which for me, uh, is a big number.
Yeah. Is that, is that a big increase over your next highest year?
I would say so. Um, I, I don't have very good historical data on that.
I S I can't remember remember when I started using Strava I wasn't taking the greatest notes prior to that but I would say it's a big improvement definitely in terms of just volume yeah I love it the the strength training really allows and enables some harder training so it's a great unlock especially for for the runner who's starting to get a little bit older you know like you're 37 you're not old by any stretch but you know there's a difference between being 22 and 37 you can have some more flexibility with not doing the little things with sacrificing a little bit more sleep you know you can be
a little more willy -nilly with your training when you're dealing with you know the recovery abilities of someone in their physical peak their prime but you know I think after age 30 you just have to be a little bit more aware of the fact that you've got to do these little little things like the strength training, like all the other little things that enabled some of these performances.
And you not only got under 90, but you did it twice in a row for a sub -three marathon. So I think that is just an enormous accomplishment based on where you were at previously.
Yeah, I loved. Have you ran CIM?
I have not run CIM, no. know, I loved it.
I thought it was a really, really cool event.
Um, and it's a fat, it's a fast field.
Uh, so my goal is obviously to run Boston.
I I've, I missed the cutoff, uh, last go around.
So hopefully this will be enough.
I have a goal marathon race in the fall and I hope to run Chicago as well.
So well, Chicago is a very fast course.
I would argue it's probably faster than CIM, it might be one of the faster courses that you can find.
So, you know, hopefully you'll be able to qualify by enough so you can actually register for Boston.
You know, and then speaking of CIM, you know, there it's a net downhill, but there's rolling hills.
And, uh, if you're not prepared, especially your hamstrings and quads, like you, those hills can chew you up, which is another nod to lifting.
Yeah. Yeah. You certainly, you certainly want to be strong.
You want to be able to handle the impact of those rolling hills.
And I wanted to go back to, so this, your, your program, I mean, it's more like I've learned more, um, obviously about lifting, how to schedule and, you know, structure that, but just a little, like you keep mentioning little things like the dynamic warmup, you know, the different routines, the, the, uh, Matic, uh, hip exercises, uh, Jay Johnson, the links that you have to him.
uh i've learned a lot from you and it's those little things are what give you know a 36 37 year old runner a little bit of an edge um if you're trying to perform consistently yeah that's a good one give you a little nod for that um to me it was a it was more than just lifting it was like you kind of put it all in front like you filtered out the internet and just put it all right there because there's so much noise right oh filtering out the internet is is maybe one of my my favorite times because there's so much noise and out there and it's hard you get lost in that too you know you can go in a million different
directions but it's nice to just have everything condensed and right there from a source that you trust and you were that source for me and and i I still like use that as my foundation.
I've branched out in other ways, you know, nutrition and, and different things like that.
But coming back to the high performance lift has always been a big part of my blocks.
Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that there are other things that you did that were really important to keeping you healthy and just kind of unlocking a little bit of extra performance for you.
You know, things like the dynamic warmups, all the other strength and core routines that I put into your training plan, because it wasn't just the high performance lifting workouts.
It was a lot of other bodyweight stuff.
You know, if you've ever gotten injured and been to a physical therapist, you know, it's a lot of that kind of bodyweight isolation type exercises that are really good at working on imbalances and helping you just feel better on a day to day basis.
But yeah, like when you start coupling that with the heavier lifting, then you're focusing more on power, you're focusing more on muscle fiber recruitment, and all these really interesting things that you don't get as much of when you're just, you know, you're doing bridges and planks and you know, some of the more basic bodyweight stuff.
Right? Yes. Brandon, I'd love to, I'd love to kind of distill your experience.
Like what are just a couple high level lessons that you could pull from your journey over the last, you know, eight years or so, that could be applied to most runners, you know, like, what might you say were the most important reasons for your improvement?
I mean, I think the overarching theme is consistency.
And a big part of being consistent is, you know, being healthy.
I think I was on this roller coaster of training, getting fit, getting injured, and downward spiral, then coming back, training, getting fit, getting injured.
Just to smooth out that progression over time, I think is the theme of what I would say the last eight years looks like.
And being patient with the results, you're not going to get better overnight.
But if you continue to show up and be consistent and stick to some of these things like increasing your strength through lifting um you'll find hopefully you'll find a breakthrough at some point and maybe not but i know it's hard to guarantee much of anything and you know we're not getting younger so um i've kind of given myself to 40 for me 40 years is where it's it's it's just going to be fun running at that point yeah well I'm 41 now and and it's still fun I love getting out there I don't feel any different than I did when I was 37 you know I might need a couple extra steps when I get out of bed
to shake off the tightness but other than that you know it's still feeling good when it comes to running one thing that I really like that you said Brandon was you talked about like increasing your strength but you've also talked about starting to do strides again you've You've also talked about increasing your mileage.
So you have really attacked this problem of performance from such a variety of angles, which is likely why you've experienced such incredible progress after years of basically stagnating and not getting any better because you're now running more.
So your endurance, your aerobic fitness has really expanded.
You've gotten back into strides.
You're more consistent with workouts.
out. So you're really getting more comfortable with additional speed work.
But you're also getting stronger too.
So you haven't ignored any, any major element of fitness.
And when I look at your progress and how you've improved so much, to me, of course, you know, the lifting played a part in that.
But it's really because you took this comprehensive approach. And you didn't ignore anything, you put emphasis on all of these things.
And your results speak for themselves.
selves. Yeah. Thanks.
Um, I take that as a compliment.
No, it absolutely is.
One thing I want to ask you too, is you mentioned you ran four distance PRs, but you've only mentioned the marathon and the half marathon. What, what were the other races?
Um, five K I, I won a five local five K race and now we're talking.
Yeah. It was like a 1750, which, you know, probably wouldn't win in a major city like denver but for me it was cool and then uh the 10k i was i don't have that in front of me but it was uh sub 40 i think like 39 awesome 38 change so yeah last like i said that's 24 was my breakthrough year where i felt fast on different levels 5k 10k half marathon marathon. And, uh, I'm hoping to sort of cash in on more of that this fall as, um, yeah.
Now is, is Chicago the race that you're running this fall?
No. Um, so I'm going to do, uh, probably the twin cities marathon in Minneapolis.
Um, and then I want to return to this half marathon. I took second.
Uh, and so I want to run that again in September and hopefully be, be competing for number one.
I love it. You, you, you won a 5k and now you're just like, kind of addicting, isn't it?
I mean, I was, I was maybe the sixth best runner, sixth or seventh best runner on my cross country team.
I would, I would be stoked if I got that fifth place to, you know, be on the scoring side of things, but yeah, I'm a late bloomer in a lot of ways.
And, uh, yeah, just, I want to see how far I can push it before, you know, it kind of tapers off.
Yeah. Well, are you, are you doing anything more additional or different this time around as you're preparing for these races coming up this fall?
Um, no, I think I'm just trying to stay consistent, you know just trying to not skip a session you know which happens I mean we're not we can't be tied all the time to our our specific blocks and training plans but I think you know every runner is going to run into consistency challenges and so just we can all be a little more consistent And so that's kind of what I'm focusing on.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably the number one thing.
Cause if you're not consistent, you can't do any of the, the things that we're talking about in this episode, right?
You can't increase your mileage.
You can't do strides regularly.
You can't lift. I mean, the consistency is really the table stakes.
It's, it's the pillar, the foundational thing that holds everything else together.
other uh what might you say to a runner who is apprehensive about lifting weights you know that maybe maybe they're sold but they're still a little nervous about either going to a gym or they've never lifted a heavier weight before what kind of advice would you give them yeah i'm glad you asked me that because i was thinking about that um before this before we talked um i would would say like okay so i'm thinking of all the excuses that uh somebody like that could have number one is like finding the time and number two is maybe when you're there you're not really sure what to do or you're never
you're not really sure about how much you should be lifting in terms of the right weights etc and i would say to them you know starting out with this program it kind of solves both of those issues number one you're not going to be spending like we already talked about lots of time in the gym so it's an easy way to carve in that session and still get gains and see success in a short amount of time so it's not time consuming number one and number two as far as like lift like what specific weights you should have for exercises um it's nice to break it down into how we do our runs which is rate of perceived
exertion and just kind of go off of that you don't have to always be lifting the right amount you don't focus on the number just focus on how it feels at that particular time and that's going to change throughout the process right depending on your mileage like you might have a high volume week and you're not able able to lift as much, but the RPE is still high or where it should be.
Vice versa, you could be running low volume week, rest week or whatever, and you feel fresh in the gym, you might lift a little more.
So understanding that you can do a lot in a little bit of time and you don't have to be perfect in terms of how much you're lifting and just go off of how you feel.
I'm glad you said that because I think a lot of runners who, you know, they worry about their weekly mileage and hitting the right splits and workouts, and they bring that same mentality to the weight room.
But the weight room isn't our sport.
It's just something we do to enhance our sport, which is running.
So you don't have to be perfect with your lifting.
You can go down and wait a little bit.
One of the things that I learned about lifting that was really instrumental in how I understood things was the movements themselves are almost just as important as the weight that you're lifting so if you need to cut the weight back for any reason or you just don't want to be super aggressive with adding weight in the gym then you don't have to you know like let's just get those movements down because they do improve your athleticism they do help you get stronger even if you're not like trying to lift more and more every single time in the gym because it it doesn't have to be that, that intense.
And we certainly don't have to put that kind of pressure on ourselves.
I'm laughing because I still struggle with overhead squats.
I think everyone does.
I wouldn't, I wouldn't take it too personally.
It doesn't look great.
And then also, we keep the weight low on those.
Yeah. And you've done a good job of documenting proper form.
That's what also another thing I would add to somebody who's not familiar with these exercises that you know you have a video for every movement and so i think that's multiple angles and uh the same soundtrack which is in brained and ingrained in my head yeah it's probably part of your personality now i should make it my ringtone that that would take it to another level i love it well brandon i i am just uh i i'm loving Loving everything I hear.
I really have enjoyed this conversation and hearing about, you know, not just like the outcome -related benefits that you've experienced, you know, PRs in the 5K, 10K, enormous PRs in the half marathon and marathon, but you're also training better.
You're feeling better.
You know, your running form has improved.
Your cadence is up.
uh and i just think we have you know transformed you into such a more capable runner and you you probably have more fun now like it's it's better to feel good it's better to be in better shape it feels better just to have a little bit more capacity and then it just makes running not so intimidating it doesn't take as much out of you and i feel like that's a great place to be right yeah definitely and and i think just being more mature about recognizing you know when fatigue starts setting in and just the things that you learn as you get older um yeah it's been it's been really fun it's fun to
be healthy and it's fun to be fit and um i i don't take either of those for granted well this was awesome brandon thank you so much for your time uh best of luck with your racing this fall do you have any questions for me any follow -ups after the the conversation you know i want to be a resource for you if i can yeah what's i mean what's next for you like what do you have what are you working on um what's in the what's down in the pipeline for for my running or for strength running either yeah that's a that's a really good question uh well for my running i have been actually training fairly well
for for this old 41 year old uh i had a 5k trail race that was unfortunately cancelled about two three weeks ago because of weather um it's been rescheduled for august so i i clearly need to re put something on the calendar this spring uh i may be running a little 5k just to uh pace someone in in a couple weeks but i'm really you know these days i it's sort of like you you keep going back to phase one of high performance lifting i love going back to sort of like base training strides short workouts workouts.
You know, I'm somewhat retired from chasing personal bests at this age, but I'm still doing a lot of the normal things on a day to day basis that runners will do.
And then in terms of the strength running, you know, what's new, what's what's coming down the pipeline.
The YouTube channel is getting a little bit of a makeover soon.
So we're going to be seeing better editing with videos we're probably going to see um you know longer videos that are a little bit more in -depth so i hope runners check out the strength running youtube channel uh and then you know always got my hand in a couple pots a couple secret projects that i'm not yet ready to announce but of course they're they're coming down the pipeline was that a did i see like an april fool's joke about some running shoe partnership or was that real i actually had the ceo of that company on the podcast. That was 100 % real.
I probably shouldn't have announced it on April Fool's day, but yeah, it's a, it's a smart running shoe that measures motion and how you're moving so that you can determine, you know, when your form really starts to deteriorate under high fatigue.
And it's hard to get that with the current technology.
And so the way that they're doing it and the team that they've built of like x nike and and i believe under armor executives who have worked in their wearables department is just very exciting to me so uh they are launching in a couple months with their first super trainer that's going to be a smart super trainer so it's really exciting but 100 true not an april fool's day joke yeah um that that was fascinating and And then we didn't get to talk about Grand Cayman.
I know you went there for a coaching summit.
Did you like it? Yeah, I loved it.
I mean, they put us up in a luxury hotel.
I got my VO2 max tested.
We spent a lot of time in the sauna and the cold plunge, eating great food, hanging out by the pool.
I could not say any negative things about Grand Cayman.
That was Palm Heights.
I don't think it was there when I lived there.
but yeah it's like a wellness resort that caters to athletes uh totally unconnected from my trip but uh olympic sprint coach stewart mcmillan was there with olympic level sprinters and so it was just kind of cool you'd be walking to the gym and all of a sudden you'd see olympians doing like weight workouts and and and sprint drills with one arguably one of the most accomplished sprint coaches in history so it was just a surreal experience they just skip around I just he's a big fan of skipping yeah believe it or not um yeah that and then okay I guess since you're since you asked like what would be
your next like what's the next level up for me what what are things that I am not focusing on that I should be yeah that's a really good question um you know I always go back to the fundamentals with these kinds of questions.
You can always do a little bit more.
You can train for different things.
I would say if it sounds like one of your big ambitions is registering for Boston.
And so if your goal is a faster marathon, one of the most effective ways to do that is to gradually increase your overall volume.
So maybe get into the 60s in terms of your weekly mileage get a little more comfortable in that low 60s to mid 60s you don't have to jump up the mileage super super high but you know if you could get into the 60s and then stay there for a little while you know just kind of repeatedly give yourself that kind of a stress uh i think it's going to do some good uh you could experiment with um a week or two where you do higher mileage but you don't do any hard workouts and so you're not getting the stress from intensity you're you're just driving up your volume to maybe 70 or 75 miles a week but you
only do that for a week or two maybe and then you come back down and so we could you know this might be similar to a canova special block where it's it's a very brief phase of training it has a very specific focus it doesn't last very long and then you kind of go back to regular training you can can do this, you know, a lot of ultra runners will do like a training camp long weekend where they're sort of running a long run for three days in a row, but no intensity.
They're just running trails and having fun, but it's, it's a very dedicated training stimulus.
That's something that you could explore.
Um, you know, I would also maybe like to see a faster 5k if your goal is to, you know, maybe get down to two 52 52.
So you can really ensure that that registration for Boston, you might want to try to get under 1730 try to run 1715.
You know, running more and running faster or the, you know, easy ways to become a better runner, right.
And I do think it's easier to run a middle distance race like a 5k faster than it is to go run a faster marathon. marathon. Yeah, I love I love the half.
I think that's my favorite distance.
It is one of mine, too.
It's a good one. Very accessible compared to the marathon. Well, thanks.
I mean, this was fun.
Yeah, this was super fun.
Again, I'm just so thrilled that that you are you have leveled up so much over the last couple of years.
Congratulations. You're in such a great spot.
And best of luck this fall.
Yeah, thanks. And I and I hope this was good feedback for you.
Like Like it's been a staple of my training the past, I don't know, seven, eight years.
So thank you for putting all that together and continuing to sort of push information out there for free for people.
Thanks, Brandon. I appreciate that.
All right, take care.
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