If you sit in on a conversation with a group of runners, it will not take long before the discussion of personal records comes up.  Naturally, that discussion is followed by some personal thoughts that are often based in comparison. One of those thoughts tends to be:  how fast could I get that fast?

On this episode we discuss personal records, PR’s, PB’s and goals overall.  Running, with all of its timed results and certified courses, looks like an easily objectifiable sport.  This makes comparisons popular and makes the difference between 2:00:01 and 1:59:59 far larger than non-runners can fathom.  

First, new runners are surrounded by personal records.  Every new race is a best, and every long training run is the longest.  This makes the sport very enticing at the beginning. Eventually, all runners must face the dreaded plateau. 

Veteran runners may have reached a seemingly insurmountable wall blocking them from ever...

This episode tackles the fairly complicated topic of caring about your goals.  It would seem that caring about your results would be important, but we also discuss the darker side of caring too much, that you prevent yourself from ever reaching the goal. 

We start with the idea of creating a goal.  We cover not just the importance of having a goal, but of understanding why that goal exists.  Angie explain the concept of the five whys and how there is a core value underlying all of you major life choices. 

I try to suggest that my deeper why behind racing a marathon is to gain back a sense of control over my body following a bout of seizures back in 2017.  Angie completely calls me out on the fact that there is no such thing as control. 

We swing back on topic with step two:  figuring out your plan to reach the goal.  This is when the caring must come into play.  The plan will not be easy. Striving for any major goal...

This episode was spurred on by a few events.  With the start of the school year, it is also the start of official cross country practice and the kids bring out new ideas in me.  

I have been thinking about the new runners and how adding just about anything to their routine will improve them as a runner.  I thought about the returners, and how there comes a point where coaches move past general health and into a racing program.  

My question was, while new runners can succeed by improving their health, what is justified for the veterans.  What is justified for my own running? When is training not actually healthy?

We start by covering the basics of health.  We discuss exercise(both cardio and strength), nutrition and sleep.  

We continue with a discussion of race preparation.  How eating changes in positive and negative ways. How the quantity and intensity of training increases.  How fatigue builds up and we can ignore it by focusing...

 This episode sticks to a good mental approach to running and life at large.  The theme of the show is the abundance mindset. 

Overall, the abundance mindset proclaims that there is enough to go around, there is always more, and the universe will give you what you need and are asking for.  

The opposite of abundance is the scarcity mindset.  This approach suggests that there are limited resources so I need to get mine because there may not be enough to go around.  It says that that I cannot share because whatever someone else has takes away from what I can have.  

In this episode we connect the abundance mindset to running.  Some of the major points we discuss about scarcity include:

• Not having enough time
• Playing to win vs playing not to lose 
• Attempting to preserve what you have rather than reaching for more
• Missing the big picture for the minutia within the hard work
• Working too hard at the wrong things or too many things
• Negatives
...

In celebration of our 100th episode, we decided to try out an interview.  One of the inspirations for this podcast and the entire Real Life Runner company is to be role models for our children.  We thought we would see how that is going.  

In this episode, we talk about why we run and how running effects those around us, but we also get the perspective from our two daughters as our first guests on the podcast.  

We learn that both of us are better people when we run.  How the girls still miss us when we head out, but that it has become such a normal thing that they can handle it.  We ask them about how having running parents impacts our family. We also ask whether they think they will become runners, and why?

This was an interesting episode to record with varying attention spans and only one microphone, but it shows a few important lessons.  Those around you really are watching what you do. Your actions matter to friends, coworkers,...

Travelling home always makes me think about how we tend to create neat and clean descriptions for the people in our lives.  The more rarely we encounter them, the more likely we are to group them with other similar people. Our brain likes categories for organizing large amounts of information because it simplifies the picture by blurring the details.  

Categories are dangerous because they blur the nuance and try to make people, objects, and action binary.  We discuss at length the idea that once you create positive and negative categories, it is just a small step to have morally good and bad categories, and that has serious repercussions.  

When I head home, my parents tend to still see me in the category of their kid who needs help and guidance.  I often fall back into patterns from long ago, where I did not have to make decisions, because they were being taken care of for me.  

Very soon, Angie and the whole family will be heading to her 20th...

Resources:

• Our Coaching Programs and Training Plans
• Our Favorite Products to Make Healthy Living Easier 
• We have SHIRTS! Show your Real Life Runner Pride!

Hope you enjoy it!! Let us know if you have any questions that you would like answered on our show!    

Thanks for Listening!!

Want to support the show?  Check out our options here!

If you have a topic you would like us to talk about, please send us an email at [email protected]  or [email protected] 

Come find us on Facebook and Instagram and say hi!  

Instagram page for the show @realliferunners

Kevin @kevinbrown.rlr 

Angie @angiebrown.rlr

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Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one!

Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or Google Podcasts

Resources:

• Our Coaching Programs and Training Plans
• Our Favorite Products to Make Healthy Living Easier 
• We have SHIRTS! Show your Real Life Runner Pride!

Hope you enjoy it!! Let us know if you have any questions that you would like answered on our show!    

Thanks for Listening!!

Want to support the show?  Check out our options here!

If you have a topic you would like us to talk about, please send us an email at [email protected]  or [email protected] 

Come find us on Facebook and Instagram and say hi!  

Instagram page for the show @realliferunners

Kevin @kevinbrown.rlr 

Angie @angiebrown.rlr

Click here to request to be added to our private Facebook tribe!

Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one!

Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or Google Podcasts

Running is a fairly easy sport to judge because there are so many numbers involved.  If you check out social media you can very often find a mini-bio filled with numbers of races run and a set of personal bests.  On this episode we discuss the idea of whether it matters if your coach’s numbers are better than yours. 

In order for a coach/athlete relationship to work, there needs to be buy-in on both sides.  The coach needs to trust the runner to provide appropriate feedback and the athlete must trust the coach to provide running knowledge.  This knowledge can come from a book, experience, or both.  

We dive into Kevin’s background of coaches and his beginnings as a coach.  We cover insecurities with the starting of coaching and his evolution as a coach.  We also talk about Angie and the close relationship with her coach while having the physiological knowledge of a doctor of physical therapy.  

While we hit some tangents, the...

Running can be a challenge and it can get especially hard when we are adding in workouts at higher intensities.  Naturally, when we find a workout that we are good at, we are going to want to repeat that workout. That’s where we can get into a little trouble. 

Over time your body will become very efficient at accomplishing your favorite workout, and you will stop taking in significant benefits.  It will not be pointless, and certainly not negative, but you will not be progressing very much.  

When you want to see improvement, you must put your body into a state of stress.  You must move outside of your comfort zone. You must first recognize what your comfort zone is, and then try something else.  

On this episode, we talk about how Angie and I have very different comfort zones, and what we both need to work on that makes us feel uncomfortable. 

Here are some quick options:

• Find a race distance you do not normally run
• Find a pace you...