RTTC #238 How Long Should Cross Training Be for Slow RunDisney Runners?

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali breaks down how cross training fits into a slow runDisney runner's training plan and why it's different from strength training. 

She explains the 5 phases of a running journey and the 6 pillars of balanced training, then answers a listener question about the ideal length and frequency of cross training sessions. 

Dr. Ali also shares practical ways to fit cross training into a busy schedule, even when time is tight. 

It's a real-life look at building cardiovascular fitness without adding injury risk from extra running miles.

Learn more about Stronger. Faster. Finisher. !

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Get personalized support, smarter training, and strategies designed specifically for slow, back-of-the-pack runners who want to build a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, have time for character photos and energy to enjoy the Disney Parks. Learn more about the Stronger. Faster. Finisher. Program today and be the first to know when doors open!

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  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about how long should cross-training be for slow Run Disney runners. This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for slow, back-of-the-pack Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Ali, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong, have a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, and have time to stop for character photos. Keep listening if your goal is to PR in fun, cross the finish line without feeling broken, and have energy to enjoy the Disney parks. I've been getting so many DM questions on Instagram, run Disney DPT, if you're not following me or if you have a question. Thank you so, so, so much. This is a good time to be asking questions because it's the beginning of Wine and Dine and Marathon Weekend training. At the time of recording this in July of 2026, Wine and Dine Half Marathon and Two Course Challenge training started mid-June. And then Marathon Goofy and Dopey training started at the end of June or beginning of June, if you're doing both. So I'm so glad that you are asking these questions now and not waiting a couple of weeks or months to ask them later. Because it's it's best to get all of this handled at the beginning of a trade training season, training phase, right? We have five phases to a successful running journey. If you are new here, that is part of my training and coaching philosophy. We have five phases to a successful running journey. Phases include training, where you are actively training for a race, taper, where you have hit peak long run and now are tapering down, winding down before your race. We have race phase, which is the week of your race. And then we have rest and recovery phase, which is two, maybe three weeks after your race. And then we have the build phase. And you can, and the build phase is where you take your time. You are not actively training for a race. You don't have a race in the very near future. Like right now, at the time of recording this, I'm in my build phase because I have a 10K at the end of September. That official training for that 10K starts like August 3rd. So right now, leading up to that, I'm in my build phase. I am building strength. I am building speed with the main goal of getting a proof of time for a half marathon. So I'm training, I'm going to be training for a 10K. Right now, I'm building up my speed, my pace, strength is included in that as part of my goal. So I'm in my build phase. Now you can enter any of these phases and it doesn't have to be in the, you don't have to go through all of them, right? A good example is when you're actively in the Run Disney season, like starting June 8th, as an example, if you're training for um Marathon Weekend and Wine and Dine. If you're actually training for a whole Run Disney season, this is how you would end up skipping some phases. So for a full Run Disney season, wine and dine two course challenge, uh Marathon Weekend Dopey, Princess Fairy Tale Challenge, and then Springtime Surprise Challenge as well. Let's just give that as an example. You aren't going to be in the build phase again until at least next May, May 2027. So from June until May 2027, you're either going to be in training phase, taper phase, race phase, or rest and recovery phase. And from marathon weekend, you may go directly into taper for princess, depending, actually, no, excuse me, you would not. You would go directly into taper if Disneyland was still happening. Excuse me. I was I was remembering last year's, I had a runner in Stronger Faster Finisher where she was just constantly taper race recovery, taper race recovery for a couple of months because of the Disneyland races and the Disney World races. Right now, Disneyland is on hiatus until further notice due to construction in Anaheim. And we don't know when those are coming back. But if you are doing a full run Disney season with all four race weekends, you aren't going to hit the build phase again because you're going to just keep toggling between training, taper, race, rest, and recovery. Training, taper, race, rest and recovery and go through that. And that's that's okay. That can be okay as long as your goals support that, right? Anyway, those are the five phases of the running journey for anybody who is new here. It's part of my personal training, how I do things. It's also part of my coaching philosophy. Now, in all of the phases, we also have the six pillars, the six categories, the major categories that I see runners need to have a balance of, right? And I think of it as a formula, as a math equation where you have your the things that you build with. Now it is a little confusing. I'm not talking build phase. Okay. I should come up with a different term for this. But for now, things that build you up on one side and things that support your body on the other side. So things that build you up are things like strength training, cross training, running, speed workouts, long runs, things like that. They build your endurance, they build your strength, they build your speed. The things that support you are on the other side. Those things are like stretching and mobility, ice and heat and foam rolling and massage gun and massage, the type of shoes you wear, whether they're cushy or have a high arch or are supportive, maybe orthotics that you're using. It includes what you're fueling with, what you're hydrating with, what you're eating on a regular basis. So your nutrition, your fueling, things like that. What did I miss? Your rest, rest days, that supports your body because in order to actually build your body, you need to give it rest. So it has the time to regenerate those cells, right? Like physiologically speaking. So we have this balance. And within the build side of that, I mentioned cross-training. And I had a runner ask me last week, maybe two weeks ago, how long should the cross-training be before strength? Now, I want to make note that I think of cross-training and strength training as completely separate things. They are not one in the same. I do not use them interchangeably for the reason that cross-training is another cardiovascular activity that you're doing to build your fitness, your heart and your lungs capability, your heart and your lung fitness to mimic what your heart and your lungs need to do when you're running, but cross-training is not running. Okay. So whereas strength training is building up your muscle strength, think pick things up, put things down, squats, lifting weights, using exercise machines like the lat pull down, the leg press, the ham curl, the knee extension, the leg extension, the calf raise. Think of what like bodybuilders are using, different pieces of equipment, dumbbells, barbells. That's strength training. The goal of strength training is to build the power and strength in your muscles so that those muscles can support and propel you in your running goals. Cross training also supports your running goals, but that's for heart and lung function. And strength is skeletal muscle function. You know, the muscles, when when somebody says make a muscle and they they do like a bicep, make their bicep big or they flex their muscles. That's a better term for it. When they flex their muscles, that's what you're doing for the strength training. Cross training is another cardio event, cardiovascular event. Cardiovascular system is your circulation, your heart, and your lungs to give your body oxygen. We need to make sure that your body can efficiently give and utilize oxygen because that's that's how you know how fit you are, right? One way to tell how fit you are is to see how long it takes for your heart rate to go from a high number, a high heart rate, the number of beats that your heart is beating per minute. That's your heart rate, how quickly it goes back down to resting heart rate. The quicker it gets back down to your resting heart rate, that means you recovered quickly. People who recover quickly are fit. Okay. So if you've never worked out before, it may take you 10 minutes. I don't know, I'm throwing out numbers here. 10 minutes to recover from one 30-second sprint. As you get more fit, it will take you eight minutes to recover from that 30-second sprint, and then six minutes to recover from that 30-second sprint, and then four minutes to recover from that 30-second sprint, and then two minutes to recover from that 30-second sprint. And then once that recovery comes down and down and down in the amount of time that it takes, then you're going to get, you're going to be pushing yourself faster and faster. So your recovery time may stay the same, but your pace or your speed that gets you to that top number goes up. And so that's one way, not the only way, but that's one way to measure cardiovascular fitness. And that's what we want to do with cross-training. Because one way that you can get improved cardiovascular fitness is you could run five days a week. You could. That is an option. I believe that is not the best option. For the reason that in the running world that I'm in, I see so many people, whether they're elite or new runners, get injured all of the time, or they're constantly in pain. They are constantly feeling like, my God, I can't believe like my legs are still sore from such and such a run from my long run on Sunday and it's Thursday. Well, are you still sore from that long run on Sunday? Or are you sore from the long run on Sunday, the speed workout on Monday, the easy five miles on Tuesday, the speed workout on Wednesday, and now you just woke up Thursday and you're still sore, right? Or maybe you have a sharp shooting pain with muscle problems, maybe tendinitis or something. I'm just throwing out injuries that I hear people talk about. One way to make it so that you aren't sore for days and you stop having recurrent injuries or recurrent aches and pains is to run less, run fewer days in the week, run less on your long runs, run less on your speed workouts, and run fewer days. But if you also have a goal of improving your cardiovascular fitness, what do you do? You do cross training. You do cross-training. And so that is another activity. Maybe it's using the elliptical, maybe it's doing a spin class, like a Peloton spin class, maybe it's riding your bike outside, maybe it's ice skating, maybe it's playing basketball, maybe it's playing soccer and running up and down the field. Now, granted, that is running, but the mechanics of what you're doing during that with the stop, go, the side to side, the different things, it is a little different. Um, you could go and jump on a trampoline, you could go swimming, you could walk in the water, you could do paste walking on land or on the treadmill, you could do incline walking, walking up a hill. You could do a number of different things. The goal of it is to make yourself breathe heavy like you're running. Maybe not the same amount of breathing heavy as your long run, because your long run, maybe you're not breathing super heavy because you are following the easy pace, the run with purpose, staying out of the gray zone, but you aren't breathing quite as heavy as when you do sprints, when you do your 30, 20, 10, when you do your progression run. Not quite like that, maybe somewhere in between. You want to challenge your heart and your lungs. So maybe you're getting your heart rate up into 60 to 70% of your max heart rate. Like 60% is a good, good area. 60 to 70% is a good range because it's challenging you, but it's not impossible. And you don't have to stop and catch your breath, right? And these cross-training workouts, getting to the point of this episode, should be 45 minutes long. Beyond that, you know, you could go up to 60 minutes, but I find that 45 minutes is a sweet spot because you can get a solid workout in without taking up too much of your time. You still have time to do your stretching and your foam rolling afterward. You still have time to go and do 30 to 45 minutes of strength training afterward. Now, if you don't have that time, now I am a child-free married woman, a child-free by choice. I do not have littles, I do not have any human children. My child is a four-legged fur family. Levi is a soft-coated Wheaton terrier dog, and most of the day he goes from room to room sleeping in the comfiest spot he can find in that room. Better if Royal is in that room, but he will go lay in bed. His favorite place to lay is in bed. We also have this super comfy, soft, plushy couch that he just goes and just nuzzles right into. So I have the luxury of having a lot more time than other people. I'm not one of those people who think we all have the same 24 hours in a day. We don't. That is an unrealistic expectation for somebody to put on anybody. So do what you can with the time you have. Now, you may have the time. You may just need to fiddle around and move a few things around to see if you actually do have that time. But whenever thinking about a workout, just double the amount of time that's listed on there to give yourself some wiggle room. Like if you need a 45-minute workout, if you have a 45-minute workout, excuse me, plan that that is going to be an hour and a half from the changing, the putting the shoes on, the getting to the gym or just going out to your own. Maybe you have a Peloton at home. And then that's the stretching and the eating and the showering and the foam rolling afterward. Just plan out like, oh, I have an hour and a half. So you always have that in mind of I need double the time. So if you only have an hour, we'll cut that cross-training down to 30 minutes. Easy. Maybe you don't have to do that every week. And maybe if you do have to do it every week, it's not forever. Maybe it's for a temporary season of your life, the last couple of weeks of summer break before the last child starts kindergarten and then everybody's in full day school and you're a stay-at-home parent and so on and so forth. I don't know. I'm these are just examples. But cross-training, I recommend the ideal scenario is 45 minutes because you can get a solid workout in without it owning your schedule. But if it has to be 30 minutes because that's what you have, 30 minutes is better than zero minutes. 15 minutes is better than zero minutes. Can you do 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon? That's 30 minutes right there. That counts. That counts. We don't always want to split up long runs that way. But for things like cross-training, strength workouts, that's a that's a great way to fit it in. It's hard to do that for speed workouts because usually for the speed workout, there's like a ramp up time. And I have found that when I split up speed workouts, it ends up taking even more time because I have the warm-up. I have to get my legs ready for it. I have to, you have to get your heart primed for it. You have to do that warm-up. You have to get your blood vessels primed for a speed workout. Otherwise, you're just gonna feel like you have vice grips on your calf muscles. As an example, that's the most common place somebody's going to feel it where um they just didn't warm up enough. But cross-training, because you're not maxing out your speed, you're not maxing out your effort, you could split it up if you want to. Ideal situation is 45 minutes in one solid workout for cross-training. Cross training can be ice skating, it can be paced walking, it can be incline walking, it can be a Peloton spin class, it can be riding a bike indoors, it can be riding a bike outdoors, it can be playing another sport with your kids. It can be uh swimming, it can be walking in water, it can be running in water, it can be bouncing on the trampoline. Think of what is going to make my heart and my lungs work hard, but I'm not lifting something heavy. That's the easiest way to put it. What is an activity I could do where I'm not lifting something heavy? Like my muscles don't have to sustain over time or in one go a heavy object, but I'm breathing heavy. I had a client who asked me, can pole dancing be cross-training? And I said, honestly, I don't know. I don't know anything about pole dancing, but is it getting your heart and your lungs to work hard? Like, are you breathing heavy? Is your heart beating fast? And it's not like making your muscles more tired first. And so if it's bringing up your heart rate and your breathing rate, making your heart and your lungs work hard, but it's not taxing on your skeletal muscles, like your quads feel fine, your biceps feel fine, your hamstrings feel fine, your calves feel fine, right? Then yes, I would count that as cross-training. Absolutely. Something that gets your heart and your lungs up without taxing your muscles. That's cross-training. Ideal situation is 45 minutes, but if you have to split it up, that's a great one to split up. Do what you can with what you have, with the time you have, the resources you have to get it done. I believe that two cross-training days a week with three running days most weeks. So then you have two rest days. If you're doing a challenge, maybe one of those rest days every other week or every once in a while gets knocked off because you have multiple days in a row that you're training for mimicking what a race day is like. That's fine. Cross training, do what you can with what you have. You will be better with your overall running ability without having to run more. Save your joints, save your time, save the laundry, right? I don't know about you, my cross-training. I don't work up as big of a sweat as I do on some of the other running days. So I don't necessarily have to wear the exact running gear with the moisture wicking and so on and so forth. I can wear, I can wear a cotton t shirt and be okay. I'm also not a big sweater. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Thank you so much for the question. As always, ask me questions, run Disney DPT over on Instagram. I will likely make it a podcast episode because if you have that question, somebody else does too.