300: The RLR Method - AUDIO ONLY
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[00:00:00] This is the real life runners podcast. Episode number 300. The real life runners method.
The three steps you need to achieve any running goal.
[00:00:31] Angie: it's episode 300. Woo. Holy moly.
[00:00:35] Kevin: I have different words, but this is family
[00:00:37] Angie: friendly. It's family friendly. Can you believe we've been doing this for five and a half years now? No. , it's so nutty. No, definitely not. This is really, really cool. So we're here to celebrate with you guys today. It is our 300th episode and we've been officially doing this podcast for five and a half years, which just seems so crazy.
and we sure have learned a lot along the way. And if you have been with us since [00:01:00] episode one, thank you for still being here. I know a lot of you actually found the podcast and then went back all the way to episode one and started listening at the beginning to now. And that is a long journey and process.
So any of you that have listened to all 300 episodes, can we please just give you a major shout out and if you send me a message on Instagram at real life runners, I would love to send you a little gift. So send, go over to Instagram at real life runners and let me know if you have listened to all 300 episodes of the podcast.
Because if you have, I wanna send you something because that's just amazing. Oh gee, listeners.
[00:01:38] Kevin: Yeah. I can't go back and listen to the first few episodes. I sound very much like a robot. Yeah, . It's it's just not ideal. Yeah.
[00:01:44] Angie: I think that those of you that have listened to our recent podcast and then try, you know, go back to the beginning and listen to us, then you can definitely hear a difference in our voices, in our confidence level, and just like our interaction with each other,
[00:01:57] Kevin: just reallys.
Stiff for the first few episodes. [00:02:00] You're good. I mean, like it's good information out here. It's so good, but it's just, it's really stiff
[00:02:04] Angie: delivery.
so. Over the last five and a half years doing this podcast. we also have our coaching program. Now. We've coached runners all over the world, which is so amazing, and we've been been able to help hundreds and hundreds of runners to improve their running and improve their life in the process.
we've learned a lot along the way. And one of the things that you will learn about us is that when we learn new things, when we grow in our perspective, when we grow as coaches, we like to change things up if we need to, because I really believe that.
When we learn new things, we have to adjust. And sometimes when we learn new things, they confirm what we already know. And sometimes we're presented with new information that makes us need to adjust things a little bit. And we are open to that. You know, we are not the kind of people that are set in our ways.
Like our way is the best way. This is the only way to go. That's not what we do around here. We like to learn new things, redo [00:03:00] things, listen to new things all the time. So we are constantly looking to refine and improve our method in the way that we coach people. And so our method, the real life runners method really has evolved throughout the years.
And as we teach, the more people that we teach and the more people that we coach, we kind of learn what hits well, what's not hitting well with people. Like what are people kind of getting stuck on? Where, where are they not understanding things?
How can we clarify things? How can we make it better?
We like helping runners become physically and mentally stronger in all areas of their life. We train people very holistically. We like to look at your entire life.
The whole goal of real life runners is to teach you how to put running into your real life and how to integrate the two in a way that's going to make you feel good, that's going to allow you to progress the way you want to progress, and also to not sacrifice the rest of your life along the way, because we believe that the two should work together.
[00:03:54] Kevin: Right. And I mean, it's always trying to come up with what's the best way to explain it to everybody so that everybody can really incorporate that and [00:04:00] bring that in as part of their life.
You know, you said something, a couple minutes ago about every time new information comes up mm-hmm. , we have to sort of adjust the plan. You don't have to. You have to. Right. You have to recognize that there's new information and then decide whether that it's important enough to adjust what you're doing or whether it's like just new and trendy.
Mm-hmm. and is going to fade out just about as quickly as it came in. And sometimes there's things that I come up with that, that I hear about and I'm like, oh, this is something significant. And Angie and I will have a little discussion over it about whether that's something that we should bring in. And it's like, no, that's kind of.
Trendy. This is not, you know, foundationally, structurally going to overhaul everything that we
[00:04:41] Angie: do. Right. So the basic premise and the, the foundation of what we do has always been the same. Yes. we've updated things a little bit along the way and it's really just kind of trying to figure out how to structure things in a way that makes the most sense so that we can help as many people as possible.
Excellent. because, and I do like what you say there, because it isn't about changing things right away. It's [00:05:00] about choosing. The information and evaluating it consciously and giving it weight, but also deciding, okay, is this actually going to affect the way that we do things around here? Yes.
[00:05:12] Kevin: Every single one of our athletes is now just a non-stop.
Double threshold
[00:05:15] Angie: workouts, double threshold workout, followed by, an ice bath,
[00:05:18] Kevin: followed by an ice bath. And we're all, and infrared. We're all completely keto and infrared saunas. Well, inside of an. Like heat, sauna, it's all of them. It's all of the things . but, but no, it's, it's not, because some of 'em are trendy and like some of them have some good anecdotal evidence.
Some of them have some actual scientific evidence. Mm-hmm. . But none of those things are really at the foundation of what we're going for here. Right. Because the core of what we want is not, how do I grasp for those last few straws of like my absolute a hundred percent potential, but it's how do I go from where I'm at to up to like my 90th percentile?
Mm-hmm. , like how do I get at at least 90% out of what I'm doing, 95% out of me, rather than grasping [00:06:00] at those last few bits that may or may not actually give potential.
[00:06:04] Angie: Yeah. We wanna make sure that we have those big foundational pieces in place before you start looking at those tiny little 1% or half percent gains like that you might get from these cold plunges or infrared or all these other things.
The carbon shoes. Carbon shoes. That's a whole nother, area of controversy right now for a lot of different reasons.
[00:06:23] Kevin: But they, they just came out with a study that showed that elite runners generally get like a good boost off of it. Yep. But recreational runners, when they were trying to measure their efficiency, some of 'em were getting a negative 11% change in efficiency.
Yep. So essentially they were landing on the shoes and they were springing them
[00:06:40] Angie: backwards. Yeah. And it's also causing a lot of issues with like plantar fascitis and like other Okay. There's all the injury issues. Yeah. There's a lot of injury issues for recreational runners that, that run in those, but that is not the point of today Anyway, ,
[00:06:51] Kevin: I just wanna cover, cover myself in carbon plates.
[00:06:54] Angie: I be carbon man.
So we're gonna go through our three-step real life runners method with you guys [00:07:00] today so that you can see exactly, you know, how you can improve your running wherever you are right now. Because if you go through this process, this three-step method, it's going to help you to figure out where you are, where you wanna go, and how to get there.
And that's ultimately our goal. Our goal is to help more people become physically and mentally stronger runners. And that's what the Real Life Runners Method is all about.
So step one is awareness. All right? One of the things that we have found throughout the years with a lot of different runners that have listened to our podcasts or come through our programs, Is that a lot of people jump into a plan without knowing where they really are right now.
So when that happens, that can lead to over-training because maybe they're jumping into a plan that they're not quite ready for. Or on the other hand, it could lead to under training because maybe the plan that they chose from that free app that they downloaded. isn't actually the plan that's right for them.
Maybe they're actually above where [00:08:00] that plan has them starting, so it they end up under training and not reaching the level or the potential that they really could if they had a better plan. And that ultimately leads to people not making the progress that they want. So whether or not you're over training or under training, you're probably not making the progress that you want, and that can be a really frustrating place to be.
[00:08:20] Kevin: Yeah. I mean, this really kind of goes into the whole issue. Like you, you pick a goal before you figure out whether you're capable of getting to that goal over whatever timeframe. It's like, well, I'd like to run a half marathon. Here's my half marathon plan. It says 12 weeks, so I guess I can run a half marathon in 12 weeks.
Mm-hmm. without ever addressing your current starting point. Right. And then it kind of gets into the whole idea of, is the plan right for me? Mm-hmm. , so many of the, the free plans out there come in three levels. They're, they come in inter easy, medium hard, or beginner, novice, moderate and advanced. Mm-hmm.
and people fall in between those categories. So it's like, all right, well I can handle the, the moderate. [00:09:00] Like the, the workouts in there, but I can only run four days a week and how do I make this thing work for me? Or I can hand, I can't handle beyond those workouts, but I, I would like to run six days a week and that's not what the plan says.
Right. So knowing where you're at and what, what you're currently capable of mm-hmm. really helps kind of guide everything else that you're going with. If you're not sure of your starting point, you're kind of stuck.
[00:09:21] Angie: Yeah,
absolutely. And I think that it makes it, it's very important for us to get an accurate assessment of where you are right now.
That is not the same as where you were three years ago. It's not even the same as where you were three months ago because, Life happens, right? Things change. Maybe you arch, are you training the same exactly the same way as you were three months ago, or three years ago or last year when you ran that PR in the half marathon?
Like is that actually where you are right now? Because I think that we think, oh, well it wasn't that long ago. Yep. You know, I'm probably capable of that same level of training. I'm probably capable of that same [00:10:00] weekly mileage. But if you haven't been doing that weekly mileage for the last three months, maybe you're not quite capable of it right now.
Maybe you, you can quickly get back to it. Yeah. Right. But if you're not currently capable of that right now, you could be setting yourself up for injury and for failure because you're trying to jump in too soon. And that brings me to. A very important rule. That is one of the reasons that so many runners get injured, and that is the rule of twos, t o o s.
It's too much, too soon, too often, and when you don't know where you are right now, when you don't have an accurate picture of where you are right now. . It's very common for people to fall into that trap of too much too soon, too often, which often leads to burnout and injury because you're just doing more than what you're currently capable of.
[00:10:55] Kevin: Yeah, no,
you just grind yourself into the ground. You point out a very interesting thing. You might not be there now, [00:11:00] but if it's a training place that you spent a good deal of time at, maybe last year you were super consistent month upon month upon month, and you spent a whole lot of time at like a similar running volume, but you've been off for several months, you can't just jump back and be there.
Mm-hmm. , but you can probably climb a whole lot faster than the ever popular 10% thumb, thumb rule, right. Of j of climbing back, you can probably quickly get back to there. Mm-hmm. , but you can't get back to there today. You're not currently there, but you can probably, move back to that position a lot long, a lot faster.
Mm-hmm. , because you spent so much time there. That's the thing is like, , all of the fitness that you've gained over years of, of training has not gone away. Right? Like it's still there, but it needs to slowly be brought back to the front. It needs to, you can't just go back and pretend that you are the same person that you were five years ago.
Right. I tried this for a while. I called it my, I called it thirties. I pretended that I was in my twenties. I was like, you know, [00:12:00] I'm essentially the same person that I was 10 years ago, so why don't I just train? Mm-hmm. similarly. And it didn't, it didn't work because of what I like refer to as children. so it, it just, it did not go as smoothly because there were a whole lot of different stresses that existed inside of life.
[00:12:17] Angie: Exactly. So, One of the things that you can do to get a really clear idea of where you are right now is to actually write it down. To write down what is your current weekly mileage? What is your current strength training routine? How many days per week are you running? Like there's a, just actually just write all that stuff down, like over the past four weeks, what has your average weekly mileage been?
What has your long run been like? Get a clear picture of where you are right now and if you want a a very easy and quick one page download, we've actually created something called the running Snapshot to help guide you in this process. So you could just go over to real life runners.com/snapshot. You guys can [00:13:00] download that for free.
It's a one page P D f. Download
it.
[00:13:02] Kevin: It's brilliant. You should go there and you should put us on pause and download that now.
[00:13:06] Angie: It's
amazing. Yeah, the links are in our, show notes as well, so you can just go grab that download. and fill it out. You know, print it out and fill it out. And if you don't feel like printing it, then just, you know, use the questions and write it down on another piece of paper and get a clear idea of where you are right now.
And I like to think of this in a couple ways. Like, number one, if you are going on a road trip and you pull up Google Maps,
what is the first thing that Google Maps does? It finds the blue dot, right? The first thing before you're able to choose a destination, before you're allowed to pick any roots, you have to find the blue dot first. You have to know exactly where you are. And so that is the same thing that we're talking about here with, you know, step one of awareness, knowing exactly where you are.
and then we're gonna go on with this metaphor as we go, go through the episode. But you need to find that blue dot [00:14:00] first. And the more accurate that blue.is, the more likely it's going to be for you to get to the destination that you wanna get to because you're gonna be able to have a more accurate route.
Like if you're, you know, if you open up Google Maps and it just puts you in the city that you were in and you were trying to get from one spot in your city to another spot in your city, it's gonna be very difficult to actually know turn by turn, how to get there. Whereas if you open up that Google Maps and that blue dot places you right at your house at your exact address, then you're gonna have a much more accurate idea of how to get to where you want to.
[00:14:40] Kevin: Yes, I've been having some GP p s issues with my watch, so mm-hmm. Sometimes I'll go off on a training run and, you know, you have a popular Garmin Wait, waiting for g p s? Yes. I don't have time to wait for GP p s, it's, it's early in the morning, I have to go run so I can get back and shower and get to work on time.
so I'll just take off running. Yeah. And sometimes it won't start my g p s mm-hmm. [00:15:00] until I'm like five or six miles into the run. So that's a long time. For a while it was picking it up within like the first mile, mile and a half, but the other day it was just a particularly. Crazy one. It did not pick up my run until I was six miles in.
That's, and so if I look up the map of it, it's like you just ran down this street in your neighborhood that is the entire like map view of it because it, it wasn't accurate. Yeah. But then along the way it tries to guess what my miles splits are, but it doesn't even know where I am. So my miles splits are all over the place because it doesn't have any idea where I am.
Mm-hmm. , this is literally training without knowing your starting spot is you'll be in the ballpark. Like you're not gonna be totally wrong, it's just not gonna be ideal. Mm-hmm. , because you don't have enough details involved. You're not starting with awareness of where you actually
are.
[00:15:50] Angie: Yeah. I also like to think of this as like with cooking.
Oh good. It's a cooking metaphor. It's you guys, you know, I love my cooking metaphors, right? So like, I hope it's about cake, especially. [00:16:00] Today's the, today's not about cake. Dang it. I mean, I guess I could make it about cake, but I was thinking of this as like coming home from work on a Monday afternoon or a Monday evening and needing to make dinner.
If you don't know exactly what you're making, what's the first thing that you need to figure out? , and that is what ingredients do you have on hand?
[00:16:19] Kevin: What
protein is is fresh and which one's still frozen in exactly
in the bottom drawer,
[00:16:24] Angie: right? Like knowing what your skill level is in the kitchen,
what can you. create for dinner tonight. Uhhuh with what you have on hand. So you have to know what your skill level is and what ingredients do you have on hand. So what are you currently working with, right?
Because if you want to make, you know, chicken piccata, but you don't have capers and lemons, that's gonna be a failed
dish,
[00:16:46] Kevin: right? So then you should make a cake,
[00:16:47] Angie: right? You should
definitely just make a cake.
[00:16:50] Kevin: Well, cuz maybe you've , you've got those ingredients on hand. I'm just saying know what you have to work with.
[00:16:55] Angie: Know What you have to work with.
[00:16:56] Kevin: And if in doubt, you should probably just bake
a cake.
[00:16:58] Angie: You should probably bake a cake, but [00:17:00] make sure you have all the ingredients on hand.
[00:17:01] Kevin: God, I hope
we get cake tonight. , we're on Spring break. Maybe we'll have our daughter make a cake for us. Perfect. Would be great.
[00:17:07] Angie: Perfect.
All right, so step one, awareness. Step two is intention. All right, so there are so many runners that are not quite clear about why they're training in the, in the first place, or why they're running in the first pa place. The. Actual purpose of their training. They're training without a clear goal, or they're always race training, right?
They're always just, you know, hopping from one race to another without that overarching picture, without that big picture purpose for their training, for their running. And this can often lead to a lot of disappointment because they think they're not making progress because they A, probably didn't know where they started.
Yep. Accurately, and B, don't really know where they're going. And they're just running, they're just kind of doing things on a daily basis. So they're like, well, I'm not really making progress, or I'm not really [00:18:00] seeing progress. But a lot of that is because you didn't really know where you started and you don't really know where you're going.
And so when you train without a purpose, it can also lead to lack of motivation and inconsistency, right? Because you're, you're not really clear on why you're doing what you're doing. Like maybe you got into running for like in order to get in shape or in order to lose weight, or because your doctor told you you better start exercising and you're like, okay, well I can just start running, right?
I've got shoes, I can just head out the door. I can start running. But what is that clear purpose? Like if your doctor told you, oh, my doctor told me I needed exercise. But why? Like, are you trying to decrease your blood pressure? Are you trying to lose weight on the scale? If so, how much are you trying to lose?
Like, are you also adjusting your eating habits? Like there's so many other things that go into. . So it's very important for us to have a clear goal and a clear idea of why we're doing this in the first place.
[00:18:58] Kevin: Well, otherwise
you're not really sure if you're [00:19:00] getting closer to the goal. Mm-hmm. , did you achieve the goal already?
Right? Like that's, that's a huge question is you need to know what's getting you out the door. Otherwise, eventually it's not gonna get you out the door. Mm-hmm. , like on those days where you're struggling, you're like, I'm really not sure. I feel like going for a run. If you don't know why you're going for a run, the answer is you're not.
Yeah. Like the answer is you're not going to end up lacing them up. And sometimes like, , this is the thing. Is it, I think there's some nuance to this. Mm-hmm. because, and there's always nuance. we've talked about this in, in our own program of know the purpose of each run and sometimes the purpose of the run is cuz I need to go get my run in today.
Yep. Like it doesn't have to be this like massive overwhelming change of the world thing. Sometimes it's like, well it's Monday and I'm gonna go get a run in like my Mondays. I'm not just driven to get out the door and go for it. Mm-hmm. , I went long on Sunday. I've got strength coming on Tuesday, Monday just needs to happen.
Yeah. And it's not like, [00:20:00] Woohoo, this is gonna be amazing thing. I just, I need to get out and go because that's part of my plan. The bigger picture is I get it out and I run on Mondays cuz it helps maintain my week over week consistency. Mm-hmm. , but the individual, what am I getting out of my run on Monday?
Fits into a bigger picture of overall consistency. Mm-hmm. , I'm not necessarily super driven and, and going for it on
Mondays.
[00:20:22] Angie: Yeah. And I think that that applies to me as well. Like there are definitely days where I don't really feel like getting out the door and going for a run. And if you have a race on the calendar, I think people use races on the calendar as ways to motivate themselves to actually do the runs that they don't wanna do.
Sure. Because they say, okay, well I have to do it because I have this race that I'm training for and if I don't do this then I'm not gonna be prepared for that race. And that's true, like that is one way that you can motivate yourself. Races are, you know, a good motivation for some people, but I don't think they're necessary.
I don't [00:21:00] think you have to be training for a race. I think that if you understand the overall purpose behind your running, behind your training, That's even more powerful. Like for me it's because I'm a runner. It's because I am a healthy person and this is just what I do. And so it's become more of an identity.
It's become a part of who I am. It's just something that I do. On Mondays, I run on Tuesdays, I do speed work. Wednesdays are strength training. Thursdays are running. Fridays are my rest day, like Saturdays are my long run days. So I have like the days of my week already planned out and can I miss one here and there?
Sure, I can. I don't like to, but if I do, it happens like I missed a strength training day, like a week or so ago. because the day just. It was more full than I expected it to be. Yes. And I, and I didn't have, like, I couldn't find time to put that strength workout in. So I, I skipped it that week and then I made it, made it up, and I kind of adjusted the, the rest of the next week to kind of make sure that I was [00:22:00] still rotating through the correct muscle groups that I need to hit, you know, on a, on a weekly basis.
[00:22:05] Kevin: That's so nice to have all that knowledge inside of your head,
[00:22:09] Angie: and also in a plan, like you have it in a plan now, because Yes, I've put all that knowledge from my head into your training plan. Thank you Doctor . You're welcome. So, but anyway, getting back to my point is I trained because I wanna be a strong and healthy person.
The end like that is it. That's the reason that I get out the door every day. On the days that I don't feel like it, I know that that run is helping me to be a stronger, like both physically and mentally stronger human being. It's going to help me. To stay stronger and healthier right now, and later on in my life as I get older, I'm gonna be able to stay strong because I know that this is just.
The person that I am, this is just what I do because it's a part of who I
am.
[00:22:53] Kevin: Yeah, it's part of your overall healthy thing. Yeah. Like, I mean, to go back to, you know, early bits and pieces of like your origin running story, [00:23:00] you wanted to be able to like play and interact with the kids. Mm-hmm. and the other day the teenager jumped on your back and you squatted.
Yeah, like, did like, part of your story was like you were struggling to get up because you would hurt your back and like you want to be able to play and pick up the kids when they were still like little and tiny and crawling sides. Right. But the teenager jumped on you piggyback style and then you squatted her.
Mm-hmm. , like that's for several reps, right. like this is, but to say that like you get out and you maintain your, your consistency and you're running and your strength training because you have this race on the calendar, you don't have to have a race on the calendar. Yeah. You wanna be able to do things like make everybody in the family laugh because you're literally squatting our kid.
[00:23:43] Angie: Right. . It's true. And I wanna be able to go on vacation and go hiking and like Yeah. You know, go paddle boarding on the weekends and like do fun active things with our kids both now and as they get older and even. , even as they get older, it's happening way [00:24:00] too quickly right then. And it's just you and I and the girls are off, like doing their own things and living their own life.
Like, I still want us to be very active and to, for us to be able to go out and kind of do whatever we wanna do on the weekends, right? Like, that's just the life that I want to live. And so for me, that is my bigger lighthouse. That is my bigger goal. I, or I should say, when you set a big goal like that, right?
Or for some people it maybe that big goal is a marathon. Maybe right now you're able to run a 5K and that's your max distance is a 5k. Like I was talking to somebody on Instagram today and she was excited because she ran 3.1 miles straight through for the first time. Nice. And I'm like, that's fantastic.
I love that. Right? Like, what an awesome accomplishment. Acknowledge yourself for that. Maybe, I don't know if you know she's interested in this at all, but like maybe that's where you are right now. and you have this dream of being able to run a half marathon or a marathon, but right now, the [00:25:00] person that you are today could not do that thing.
But it's this goal, this big goal out in the distance. And I like to think of our goals as lighthouses, as directions for our training. Even though you're not able to accomplish that thing right now, or within the next, you know, three months or six months, maybe that big goal that you have is one or two years or even five years out.
Who knows, right? Like depending on the size of that goal, it's still there and it's still gives us a direction that we want to go. It gives us a direction for us to guide our training so that we. You know, stack things up to get us closer to that point.
[00:25:42] Kevin: Yes. That you can stack up. The bricks might not be the most enormous bricks that you're stacking, but they're strong, stable bricks.
Yeah. If you just start, try and just keep stacking bricks whatever size and shape, and maybe this one didn't bake quite long enough so it's not really the stablest of bricks and you keep stacking things on top of it, things are gonna [00:26:00] crack. That's an injury waiting to happen. Like I know that you have this vision of you being like the little old lady at a track meet in your nineties rocking your like U S A singlet running the hundred and 200.
Like I know you've got that vision. There was just at the Jackpot a hundred Ultra Marathon couple weeks ago, there were two guys in their eighties that both of them broke the world record for a hundred miles. Between the age of 80 and 85. Mm-hmm. , like both of them. Wow. Broke the world record. The one guy broke it and then hung out at the finish line for his competitor to come in so they can cred, congratulate each other.
Wow. Like, it's, it's crazy what these goals are, but it goes to the, the next point of training cycles is you don't want to just keep throwing things on there and being like, I can, I have to keep building and building and building. You have to have periodic pullback mm-hmm. to make sure that it's not just the next race, the next race.
And I have to keep building because otherwise I'll [00:27:00] never reach that goal. The pullback, the periodic pause in training, the, the cycle of recovery allows you to build stronger bricks
continuously.
[00:27:10] Angie: Right. And that's really the point of training cycles because each cycle that you do has a different focus.
And then when added together, they can add up to larger gains along the way, which is why. Race hop in and just continuously race training. Trying to pr at every single race that you run is not a sustainable long-term type of training. Like a, a, a sustainable way of training, I guess. Yes. That I'm trying to say.
[00:27:37] Kevin: You
can, you can try to pr at all of your races, but you can't stack those races so close together.
[00:27:42] Angie: Okay. I
think is maybe that's what it is. Like. Yeah. But like, so that's exactly what I'm saying though, is like if you have a three month training cycle, like for, to go from one. For three months. Yep. Straight to another three month race cycle.
Straight to another three month race cycle without doing any sort of base building or strength building or any of the, allowing [00:28:00] yourself a recovery cycle
[00:28:01] Kevin: if you're, if
your only cycle of training is one race cycle to the next race cycle, to the next race cycle without ever pulling back and saying like, all right, we're gonna cut the mileage for a little bit.
Mm-hmm. , or we're gonna like stabilize mileage and boost the strength training. Right. We're just gonna like tweak a little things. Maybe we're gonna train for a totally different race distance, like your marathon training for a couple of years and being like, you know what, why don't I try and focus on some 5K training for a little bit.
Like it's going to completely change your training and that's gonna make it much more sustainable year upon year.
[00:28:32] Angie: Exactly. . All right, so to go back to our Google Maps metaphor and your road trip metaphor, you have to know what is the purpose of your trip before you decide where you wanna go, right? Like first you have to figure out where you are.
That blue dot, blue dot awareness, right? And then you have to figure out, okay, why am I going on a trip in the first place? Like, is this a business trip? Is it going, is it for pleasure? Is it for vacation? Is it a [00:29:00] couple's trip? is it the whole family? What's going on?
And then you pick a destination, where do you wanna go? Right? And that's really all in this step two of intention. Understanding why you're going and understanding where it is that you wanna go. And to go back to our cooking metaphor, what is the final product you want to create, right? Like, first you have to figure out what ingredients you have on hand and understand your cooking skill level.
And then step two, figure out what is that final product I wanna create? What does that dinner actually
look like?
[00:29:31] Kevin: Yes. Is it lemon piata or is it a chocolate cake? . Is it what? Oh, lemon.
[00:29:35] Angie: Oh, lemon Paca. Chicken. Chicken. I thought you said avocado.
[00:29:39] Kevin: Is it avocados? Or avocados? Some. You can put those into chocolate cake.
You know,
[00:29:44] Angie: you
actually can ac Actually avocados make a delicious chocolate pudding.
[00:29:47] Kevin: Chocolate
pudding. Yes. That's what
they make. It's,
[00:29:49] Angie: I'm sure there's chocolate cake recipes with avocados, though. There probably are. It's probably, it's an expensive chocolate cake
though.
[00:29:54] Kevin: Really expensive chocolate cake.
But I bet it's dense and delicious .
[00:29:58] Angie: So, yeah. Okay, [00:30:00] so that's all part of step two is like figuring. The purpose of your training and understanding where it is you wanna go when you have a clear idea of where you are, and also have a clear idea of where you want to go. And I would argue like the idea of where you want to go doesn't have to be super specific right at the beginning, right?
I think you can kind of know. A general idea of where you wanna go, like, depending on how far out that goal
is.
[00:30:25] Kevin: I mean, it depends on how, how long that trip is. Yeah. Right. So I moved from California to Florida. Yes. I did not have an address I was aiming for in Florida. Right. Because I did not have an apartment, but I knew that I was aiming to Miami.
Mm-hmm. , like, at that point, having the city was specific enough. Right. For me, like if I have a race on the calendar, then I'm like, all right, I have a half marathon and you know, based off of where I am, I actually can get to being well trained for half marathon in 12 weeks. Then it's important that I've got the details mm-hmm.
from our mapped out for that day.
[00:30:57] Angie: Right.
But specifically, which half marathon are you going [00:31:00] for? Yes. Right. Is it a hill half marathon is a flat half marathon? What the, what the weather's gonna be like. Like all of those things matter inside of. that Specific training cycle.
[00:31:09] Kevin: Yes. And
some of those details matter further out than others.
Yes. You know, temperature, do you wanna start like dealing, like getting your body adjusted to heat mm-hmm. and you're living in someplace where it's actually cold and the race is going to be in February, or the race is in February in a hot environment. Mm-hmm. , but you're living in snow. Yeah. Like you've gotta take that into account and figure out how you're going to train in just for that.
But if the plan is like, all right, I kind of wanna do a marathon somewhere in the next like three years. Mm-hmm. You're you. That's probably specific enough, right? Because you've given yourself that timeline. Mm-hmm. , that you can have sort of some blurriness around the big picture. Mm-hmm. of all right. It's gonna be a long distance, but it's also gonna be somewhere out in the future.
I'm going to have to increase the amount of running I'm doing. I'm gonna have to increase my strength, I'm gonna have to devote more time during the week to running. Mm-hmm. , like how do I rework my schedule so that I have more [00:32:00] days during the week that I can run? Cuz right now I'm on three days and that might not be the best to head into a full
marathon.
[00:32:05] Angie: Right. So like with your road trip from California to Florida, it was important for you to first just know that you were going to Florida. Yes. Right. And then you figure out, okay, I'm also going to Miami. Right. So I'm now, I'm at the bottom of Florida, right? Yes. Like I'm not going to Jacksonville.
[00:32:18] Kevin: Yeah.
That's a long drive. ,
[00:32:19] Angie: there's a lot of Florida.
That's,
[00:32:21] Kevin: Florida is a really big state when you enter the panhandle and you drive all the way to Miami.
[00:32:25] Angie: Yeah. When you go
panhandle straight down. but then once you got closer to Miami, then you needed more details about specific, a specific address that you were going to.
Yes. So the closer you got to the destination, the more. more specific you needed to be.
[00:32:39] Kevin: Yeah. I
mean, when I started, I'm in California, the answer was drive south until you got to 10 . Like it was just drive south for a while. Right. Because like the, the Miami aspect of it was not important for the first, like two days of it because it was, I mean, or for the, like the six days that it took to cross Texas , like that is a huge state.
It's not okay. How big that [00:33:00] state is
[00:33:00] Angie: because you're literally going from like tip to tip, right?
[00:33:02] Kevin: I, I
came in at El Paso, which is like all the way the western, the widest. . It was. It was long drive. Yeah. I love you very much.
[00:33:09] Angie: Yes, thank you, . And it was worth it. Yes, it was . All right, so now that you have an idea of where you are, you're aware of where you are, and you've set an intention for your training and you know where you want to go, step three is action.
Okay. So awareness, intention, and action. Step three is that you actually have to start taking the steps to get to where you want to go and, and start taking those steps in the right order, and also taking steps in. Different areas of your training for you to have the best results. Okay. So running,
[00:33:45] Kevin: that's a lot going on there.
That's, but I love that last one. I wanna make sure that we get into that one steps in different areas of your training. Cuz there's more than just one thing in all likelihood. Mm-hmm. , that needs to change depending on what your goal
is.
[00:33:56] Angie: Because running is about more than just running. Yes. [00:34:00] Right? So there are other areas of your lifestyle and of your training that you also need to address if you want the best results.
Because what happens here, a lot of times what we see is that people decide, okay, I know where I am, I know where I wanna go. I've got this goal. Now I'm gonna open up my free app on my phone and I'm gonna find a half marathon training plan, or I'm gonna find a marathon training plan and that's gonna be the one I know exactly how many weeks I have until this race.
And that's the plan I'm gonna follow. And so when you just choose that, Generic plan from your app or go to the internet and download a, a plan from coach Google and just follow that. The problem that a lot of runners end up facing is that they don't know how to adjust when that plan doesn't exactly fit their life.
Mm-hmm. , or maybe they are able to do a couple weeks of the plan, but then something comes up and they don't know how to adjust along the way. So when that happens, there's all sorts of [00:35:00] issues that can arise from that. a lot of it is over-training, A lot of injury happens.
[00:35:05] Kevin: A lot of it's over-training.
[00:35:07] Angie: Like a lot of frustration happens with that
[00:35:08] Kevin: because you can, you can have the, like I know where I am. Yeah. And I know where I'd like to go. I have more than enough time to get there. I, I would like to run a marathon. I've found a good 16 week marathon plan and this is great, and I have 24 weeks, so that means I don't really even have to do anything for the next eight weeks.
Yep. Which does not really work out well. Like your awareness of where you are needs to also match nicely to the start of the action. Like if you're like, I am here, here's a great plan to get me to where I want to go, sometimes there's a, a bridge between where you are and, and the start of, of these plans that you can find.
Mm-hmm. , and don't get me wrong, like there's some quality plans that you can find. But it's the, like the fixing it to you. Mm-hmm. . It's because the starting line of the plan is designed to, fix To fit runner a. And that's probably not you. you might [00:36:00] be similar to runner A, but you're not. Exactly. You are you and you're the best at you, so you have to find a plan that is best for
you.
[00:36:07] Angie: Right. Well, and that's why a personalized plan is the most effective and most enjoyable way for you to achieve your goals. Because even if you find one of these generic plans in the apps or that you can find on the internet, again, how can you customize that plan to fit you and to fit your life? If that plan has you running six days a week, but you can only devote four or five days a week to your training, you're not following that plan.
Mm-hmm. as written. And so people are like, oh, well, it's good enough. but then they, they wonder, they feel confused why they don't reach their goals, and it's like, well, you didn't actually follow the plan exactly as it was written. That plan is written as a whole, and this is one of the things that we talk to our clients about too.
You can't pick and choose. From our plan what you want to do, like that plan is written as a comprehensive plan and all of our plans. The running [00:37:00] days built in, the strength days, built in the speed days built in, all of it. Because all of those pieces are necessary to get you from where you are now, the most ideal and safest way to get you to where you want to be.
So if, if you only choose the running days and you don't do the strength training on your plan, then you're not actually following the plan. So you can't be upset if you don't get the results because you didn't actually follow the plan in the first
place.
[00:37:24] Kevin: Right. And so there, there's something to be said about Grace within the plan of like, you know, I didn't get it perfect.
Yes, but I I was 80% there. Mm-hmm. . But if the 20% that you're missing every week, are the two strength sessions or the two speed sessions. I bet. I know the problem I, I got almost everything in, but I definitely skipped the long run every single weekend. Yeah. Good luck getting to the finish line. That's not it of your marathon's.
Not if you skip the long run every weekend. Right. Nate? Did you skip the long run every weekend because it doesn't fit your life. You've got multiple kids and there's like a soccer tournament every single weekend, and so you just don't have the [00:38:00] time to devote to a weekend long run. . Okay, so you have options here.
Either skip your kid's soccer game or don't try to train for a marathon right time right now. But you have to figure out which is the higher priority. Mm-hmm. , if you wanna be at your kid's soccer game, that's wonderful. Be there. If you wanna race the marathon as best as you possibly can, you gotta talk to the kid and say, I'm going to periodically miss some of these games.
Neither one of them is, is the preferred choice. Like we're not telling you one of them is better than the other. You have to decide which one's better, and it might not be the time for you to run a marathon. Angie's not trained for a marathon. There are good reasons why you have not trained for a marathon.
Right. And not all of them are because 26 miles sounds
insane,
[00:38:41] Angie: right? There's lots of different reasons for it. And it's, it's, it's because of my lifestyle. It's the lifestyle choices that I wanna make right now and where my values and priorities are right now. Right now, my priorities are my kids and our business.
Mm-hmm. . And there's so much of me that needs to go into that, that I don't [00:39:00] think that there's enough of me left over for high levels of, of marathon training. What I know would need to go into that. Like, I know what would need to go into that, and it's just not something that I'm interested in doing right now.
Like, that's not how I want to spend my energy
right now.
[00:39:16] Kevin: Right. Because you know how tiring the, the long run that's gonna get stretched out for a marathon mm-hmm. is going to be like, the way that you handle physically, like a long, slow run on the weekend and the way that I handle it are slightly different than each other.
[00:39:29] Angie: Right. Like I,
but you also are so much more experienced than I am in those very long distance types of runs. Exactly. So yeah, like the amount of 20 milers that you've done in your lifetime, you probably can't even account.
[00:39:41] Kevin: Right. So if I, if I say, well, I'm gonna have to get in a 20 miler over the weekend, that's not as one, it's not mentally stressing me to know that I've got a 20 miler coming up on the weekend.
Right. And it's not going to be, and, and it's just, it's just how it. , it's not going to be as big of a time commitment for me to go out and run [00:40:00] 20 miles as it is for you to go out and run 20 miles. Right. Like that's another aspect coming in. Mm-hmm. , the pace that I'm going at means that I can get a 20 miler in and we still have our day mm-hmm.
that we can do things that need to get done during
that day.
[00:40:12] Angie: Right. Whereas mine would take several more hours than yours would. Yeah. Which means that, and, and I would also need more recovery because my body is not as accustomed to it as yours is. Like you can recover from a 20 miler much quicker than I'm sure I would be able to.
Recovered from a 20 miler right
now.
[00:40:29] Kevin: Right. So I mean, this is the thing is even if both of us were training for the same race distance and we have the same coaching philosophy mm-hmm. that we run the company together, we've got the same training theory behind this thing. But our plans wouldn't match each other.
[00:40:42] Angie: No, not at
all.
[00:40:43] Kevin: Like they would be very, very far from each other. Mm-hmm. . And it's not just that the workouts would be at different paces, right. There would be different workouts, there would be a different setup for this
thing
[00:40:50] Angie: it would be different volume. Definitely different because like you just like higher volume and your body knows higher volume.
I would not have a higher volume plan. No. I don't like [00:41:00] it and I don't want it and, and I don't
probably don't need it.
[00:41:03] Kevin: But that's the thing is there's ways to get the finish line without throwing tons of volume at just for the sake of throwing volume at you. Exactly. Like, and so many plants you find, you're like, well run a marathon, make sure that you get up to whatever the weekly number.
is that that plan was created off of that might not be necessary for you. Right. It would very likely not be necessary for you.
[00:41:22] Angie: Yeah,
and I think that that's really important that you guys can hear that from us. That like even the two of us that are running coaches that are runners that E we would not train for the same race in the same way.
Like we have different body types, we have different. Interests. We like different things about running. Yeah. Right. Like even, even within running, like you guys already know, if you've been listening to us for a while, I like strength training more than Kevin does, but even when we just talk about running, I like speed work more than Kevin does.
So my speed, my, like my marathon training plan would probably include more speed work than Kevin's because Kevin loves like the [00:42:00] longer, slower distances, like more of the tempo type of stu things. My plan would still have those things as well because you still have to include certain things in your plan to set yourself up for success, but you don't, it doesn't have to be exactly the same.
Right. There's, there's lots of ways to set
yourself up for success.
[00:42:17] Kevin: Yeah. Like in the, in the 80 20 concept of most of your running should be easy and some of it should be pushed at a higher intensity. Within that 20, there's some wiggle room artistry involved in the coaching and part of that is making sure that the athlete enjoys the training experience.
Mm-hmm. . . And so within that 20, it's like, well, am I gonna push it all the way up to like the highest level? Am I gonna be like more of like a level seven outta 10 or am I pushing it to an eight outta 10? Am I gonna put more at five outta 10? It has to do with what the, that particular athlete needs, and it has to do with what that particular athlete's going to enjoy.
Mm-hmm. . Because if you're not enjoying it, the middle weeks of marathon training is gonna be brutal. Exactly.
It's not gonna go well.
[00:42:58] Angie: Exactly. And so those are [00:43:00] the things that those free apps don't take into account. They have maybe a couple different marathon training plans. They've got their intermediate, beginner, and advanced Right.
And. That's what you pick. But it doesn't take into account your lifestyle. It doesn't take into account what you like. It doesn't take into account what your experience. Well, I mean the experience begi, it gives you three levels of experience. Right. Whereas
[00:43:22] Kevin: where just takes
that into account. I mean, this was one of the, the guiding principles when we first started putting this thing together Yeah.
Was how I trained for my first marathon. Mm-hmm. all the way back when I was still in college. Mm-hmm. is, I got, you know, I got the training book. I looked at the schedules in the back. It was, it was novice, moderate, and advanced. And I'm like, well, I'm just coming off of being like a division one, E one athlete.
So I've been running like 80 to a hundred miles a week. Mm-hmm. regularly. at a pretty quick pace. Right? But that's not where I am mentally right now. So am I, am I advanced? Like I could handle that volume. Mm-hmm. , but do I want to, is that gonna [00:44:00] be enjoyable for me? Is it gonna put me right back into the same issues that I was having?
Yeah. So it was weird because I found myself literally trapped between moderate and advance. Mm-hmm. . And I think a lot of people find themselves trapped between novice and moderate. Yeah. I think there's a lot of tweeners that are like, well, which plan do I do? And so they end up literally picking and choosing parts of one plan and parts of another, which puts you right back in the issue of you're not following a plan.
You're trying to patchwork multiple plans together. Right. And none of them are cohesive.
[00:44:29] Angie: And
can it work? Maybe like, we're not saying that like this is totally wrong. It can work for some people, but usually it doesn't work for most people that are trying to do that. And that's why, you know, a lot of people find themselves very frustrated because they end up injured because they're.
not able to exactly do the plan as it's written or they jump into a plan that's over their head if, and they end up over training or they're confused why they didn't hit their goal because they're trying to piece work a plan mm-hmm. together and [00:45:00] trying to figure out how that all works. And without having the level of experience of like a running coach that understands how, like what is the purpose of all of these pieces and how do these pieces fit together in the best way possible for you to get the results that you want.
the other aspect that, that we started to mention as well, Is, what are you doing outside of running to help support you as a runner? And this is really why we have now five pillars of training that we need to address with every single runner. So in our main framework, we're talking about awareness, intention, and action.
And then inside of action there are five areas that we need to look at in order for us to continue to move, forward and to improve toward our goals. And those are mindset, like how you actually think about yourself and about your training, the mental strategies that you use to become a mentally stronger runner.
There's all of the running stuff, which includes, you know, your distance runs, your speed [00:46:00] work, your pacing, your running form, your breathing, all you had to actually. Create a training plan. All of that's inside of running. There's your strength and mobility, okay? Because as a runner, you need to be able to be strong and you need to have your body move in the way that you need it to move, because when you don't have the strength and you don't have the mobility, you often end up injured.
You often end up with muscle imbalances that cause injury. number four is recovery, and number five is nutrition. Okay? So again, those five pillars that you need to address are mindset, running, strength and mobility, recovery and nutrition. And if you put all five of those things together, Then you can create a more comprehensive idea of what it means for you to train, right?
Like when we talk about just going out and running, that's different than if you're actually training for something. And it doesn't mean that you have to train for a race. You could be training to get stronger. You could be training for life, you could be training because you want to be that strong and healthy mom [00:47:00] that's able to pick up her 13 year old kid and give them a piggyback ride randomly, you know, around the house.
Like there's lots of things that you could train for. And we're actually gonna be doing a an episode about that next week. So you don't have to train for a race. There's a lot of things that you can train for, but you still need to train yourself in a comprehensive way, in a very holistic way, so that you aren't leaving anything out of the puzzle.
[00:47:24] Kevin: Yeah. And then once you start making sure that you have all these pieces, You know, there is some aspect of trying to, to try different things and see how it works. Mm-hmm. like, and that's, that's just what comes into creating your own training plan, is you need to try and figure out, okay, I have all of these things.
I've got, you know, all of the pillars figured out. And this is, this is the running aspect combined with the strength and mobility aspect, filling in all of my, all my recovery throughout the week. Also, does it work best for me? And this was. You know how I started marathon training is I [00:48:00] needed something of a between plan.
Mm-hmm. and I needed to figure out, okay, I wanna make sure that I get enough long runs, but I wanna make sure that I'm getting more recovery than that plan was doing. Cuz I knew what was going on in my life Also. Like I knew how I was not going to be able to hit all the details of the advanced plan because of the timing commitments I had still as a, as a college student.
[00:48:21] Angie: Yeah. But you
probably weren't thinking about that as like as recovery back in the college days. No. Like you weren't even thinking. See, and this is another proof of how we have evolved throughout the years also, right? Like when we first started. Training like Kevin was winning, you know, half marathons, marathons, and then he had a series of seizures and it, it was because like we believe that he wasn't valuing recovery enough.
He was training, he was burning the candle on both ends and he was just burning himself into the ground, right? And so that's why we made recovery one of our major pillars because it is that important. Because your body, when you train, [00:49:00] you break your body down and during periods of recovery, your body builds up stronger than it was before.
So you have to have the recovery that that goes hand in hand with the training. All of the hard work is worthless if you don't give yourself time to recover because your body won't actually make the gains that you want it to make if you are short-cutting your recovery
all the time.
[00:49:22] Kevin: I mean, that's the small time scale of.
Essentially like race training continuously, right? Going from one race plan to the next to the next. If you never have like a, a recovery plan, and that doesn't mean that your recovery cycle has to be 12 weeks long. Mm-hmm. , but you need some time where you can pull back physically and mentally before you get into the next like big training cycle.
Same thing happens. I can't go out and grind a long run on a Sunday and then be like, all right, great speed on Monday. Mm-hmm. and then faster speed on Tuesday, which used to actually be my college training plan. We would go for long runs on Sunday and then Monday always just got a little fast, like the group team run just [00:50:00] always got a little bit quick on Monday and it's a, it seems to be a college thing across the country.
Like it's just seems to be, what happens on Monday is everybody pushes Monday to roughly a tempo run and then you have a track workout on Tuesday. Mm-hmm. . So you just went long tempo track. Ooh. And by the time you hit Wednesday, you're spent, and then you have another track workout on Thursday. You might have a race on
Saturday.
[00:50:20] Angie: When do you have a off days? Winter licking? No, but like seriously, in college, did you ever have
off days?
[00:50:26] Kevin: Yes. The NCAA requires that you can't go more than 10 straight days. So we had Saturdays as an off day. That was dubbed captain's practice. It was. The coach was not allowed to be present at practice,
[00:50:41] Angie: but you were expected to be there.
[00:50:42] Kevin: The, the captains and seniors told everybody where they would be meeting, and then we went off and, and covered distance at that point. Mm-hmm. , as long as there was no coach. As long as there's no communications with the coach and they're kind of strict on this, like they, they will kind of follow in. And a [00:51:00] lot of colleges figure this out.
The, the girls team had Wednesdays off. Mm-hmm. , which was interesting how that worked, worked out. Yeah. But sometimes we would race on the weekend and then get together on Saturday, on Sundays, and so then we would get like a random. Thursday off. Mm-hmm. , because you can't go more than 10 straight days of
practice.
[00:51:17] Angie: See, that's interesting. And there's so much coming out now about the college athletics, especially with women, and how detrimental like some of the, the culture in college athletics is for long-term health. And that's one of the big reasons also that we designed our program the way that we did, is because we care about your long-term health, it's not just about trying to win your next race, right?
Like in college athletics, there's a different mindset versus. We recreational runners that are out here doing this for our health because we want to be stronger because we wanna challenge ourselves because we wanna be healthy, because we wanna live longer lives. Right. We're doing it for a different reason [00:52:00] than people that are competing and trying to, you know, win collegiate championships or make it to the Olympics.
Those are two different goals and they should, like, we have to train differently than, than those kinds of runners.
[00:52:11] Kevin: Right. It's, it's up to argument of what's, what's the preferred method. Like there are some people that are definitely arguing that the emphasis on winning mm-hmm. in college athletics is creating unhealthy.
That's creating unhealthy athletes. Mm-hmm. who finish college and don't wanna do that sport ever again.
[00:52:27] Angie: And their bodies
are, bodies are broken. Yeah. Like there's, so we're not gonna get into all of that right now because that, that's a whole conversation for another day.
[00:52:35] Kevin: Yeah. But what we are saying is that we training for overall life and health.
Yeah. And, and longevity. All of those are the big things. Like we want all of you to be able to be running, and training at the level that you want for as long as you want. Yep. As long as you don't beat Angie in the a hundred meters when she's 90. Cuz that's, that's the key.
[00:52:54] Angie: She's, she
will trip you unless you're in a, in a different age group.
And then that's fine. . so the other thing that we want you to [00:53:00] think about too is that if you have one of these plans, right, like life is inevitably going to get in the. way At some point in time, if you have kids, if you live in the world, right, like there, if you live in the world, there's likely going to be a chance that something is not going to go exactly to plan.
So how can you adjust if you are following a strict plan? That you get, you know, you download from an app. How do you adjust that plan? Like we just said, if you don't know the purpose of that run, or if you don't know kind of the, the theory behind that training plan, how do you know which runs you can not do?
Which ones you can, you know, get rid of, which ones you can move around? How do you move it? Like what if I miss a whole week of training? Like how do you adjust when life gets in the way and. When you have a personalized plan, when you know the purpose of your plan, when you know the purpose of your runs, you can adjust in the way that makes the most sense for you and for your [00:54:00] goals and understand that it's not going to be perfect.
We're not saying that you, you have to perfectly follow your plan, and if you miss a workout, that means you don't, you're not doing it right. That's not what we're saying here. Okay? We know that it's not going to be perfect, but are you still moving in the right direction? Are you able to adjust it in a way that's still going to have you moving towards that lighthouse out in the distance towards that goal that you have set for yourself?
Because a lot of times, you know, people aren't really sure what to do and then they feel very overwhelmed. They feel very confused, and they end up just like, you know, doing. something that, might not make sense and that ends up getting them hurt.
[00:54:41] Kevin: Right.
Well, because people often default towards either they're so strict with the plan Yeah.
That it, this is what it says on the plan. I have to follow the plan, and then they, they forget about the things that are not necessarily written exactly on there. Right. Like, making sure you get enough hours of sleep, making sure that you're actually still smiling from time to time. Yep. Like, [00:55:00] oh, no, no, I, I have to get in.
It says 45 minutes. I've gotta do 45 minutes. Mm-hmm. , it's like, okay, but that 45 minutes is gonna be literally the last straw that's going to crack you. Yeah. Like, you don't have to get in those 45 minutes, but they go too far that direction. Or they're like, I can't fit in any of this plan this week. So I guess I'll just do like 30 minutes easy, maybe a couple of times.
Mm-hmm. . And that might not be the direction that you're going in either. It depends on where you're starting. , maybe that adjustment is best for you, right? Maybe the adjustment is an easy day, an easy day with some strides, maybe hill strides. It depends on what the race you're aiming for. It depends on your personal background.
Mm-hmm. having somebody that knows both of those and what all the different workouts is for, I mean, that's, that's the benefit of having a, a running coach. That's the benefit of knowing the, the point of the different runs. You know, we said this at the beginning, you don't have to be gungho on, like I said, my Monday run, my Monday run is part of what keeps me consistent week over week over week.
There's not a very, very specific [00:56:00] reason that I head out for a run on Monday, other than the long-term cardio benefits of consistency. I know that it improves my overall fitness. So that's, that's part of the thing is it's not. Perfect and accepting that, that the. Quote unquote, perfect plan will not always lead to the perfect result. I think is also a part of this thing also,
[00:56:21] Angie: right? So if we're going back to our road trip analogy, this is, you know, the action, step three of action is what route do you want to take?
Do you wanna take the fastest route? Do you wanna take the most fuel efficient route? Do you want to avoid toll roads along the way, even though that might extend the length of your trip? Those are all the options that you have to take in order to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
There's going to be multiple ways to get there, right? There's multiple ways to. Achieve any goal. It's gonna be, which one is going to be the most effective, and which one's going to be the most enjoyable for you. Which [00:57:00] one's going to allow you to live the life that you want to live as you chase those goals, as you challenge yourself, as you do these things that are going to help you grow and you know, become the runner that you wanna be.
Because if you're not enjoying the journey, if you're not enjoying the process along the way, why are you chasing that thing in? , like after all, like why are you chasing that thing if you're not enjoying the process?
[00:57:26] Kevin: Yeah. Don't, don't have a goal that you're so locked into that it ends up that the pursuit of that goal is miserable.
Mm-hmm. , because if the pursuit is miserable, I bet achieving the thing is not gonna suddenly change at all. Yeah. Suddenly achieving the goal that every step along the way was miserable, is probably not gonna be this massive life-changing, fulfilling experience. Exactly. You're probably gonna look back and be like, why did I do all of that training?
Yeah. If you didn't enjoy the training, Here's the thing, not all training, you're gonna finish and be like, man, what an amazing day. Some it's really hard. Sometimes [00:58:00] it's tough to get out the door. Sometimes the weather's not cooperating. Sometimes you're stuck on a treadmill. There are issues that come up and every day is not sunshine and rainbows, but overall you gotta be enjoying the experience.
[00:58:12] Angie: Absolutely.
just to kind of sum it up, our real life Ru Runners three step method is awareness, intention, and action.
Okay. Those are the three steps. And you know, it's funny that like after I kind of. Decided this, that this was going to be our new framework. I, can apply this to so many areas of my life. Like it's not just running that you can apply this framework to, you can literally apply this framework to, I, I want, I don't wanna say every aspect of your life because it's every aspect of your life, but it is a lot, right?
Like it's all of them. It's, it really is like, you have to know where you are. You have to know where you wanna go and why you're even doing that thing. And then you gotta start taking the action steps to get there. and that's really what we have broken down inside of our coaching program for you [00:59:00] guys inside of the Real Life Runners Academy.
if you are interested in our coaching programs, we would love to help you achieve your goals so
you can check out our group coaching and our one-on-one coaching programs [email protected] If you like what you hear on this podcast, then chances are you would be a good fit for our coaching program. And we love helping runners to achieve their goals and to become physically and mentally stronger and to learn how to train in a personalized way that's right for you.
We teach you how to customize and how to personalize your plan so that you can do it now and you can do it for the rest of your life. And then if you have questions, you have coaches, to answer those and to guide you along the way.
[00:59:42] Kevin: Excellent. And there's cake.
[00:59:44] Angie: And there's cake, chocolate, avocado cake, apparently is what we're making today. . All right, you guys. So as always, thank you for joining us today on the podcast, and thank you for, to everyone that's left us a review or shared this podcast with a friend, to help us reach more people.
We really appreciate it. [01:00:00] Head over to real life runners.com to grab that snapshot and to check out our coaching programs. And as always, we appreciate you. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 300. Now get out there and run your life.
