Episode 50: Too Much, Too Little: Finding Your Training Sweet Spot

I'm off hiking around Mont Blanc while you're listening to this, but I couldn't leave y'all hanging...so today we're talking about the two extremes I see all the time as a coach: doing too much and doing too little. Sometimes in the same athlete, in the same training block. We're human, life happens, and both extremes usually come from the same place...not trusting the plan, or not trusting yourself.

In this episode:

• Why training guidelines (yes, even the Koop book) are guidelines, not gospel
• The sneaky ways we overdo it...feeling good and adding more, chasing elite workouts, following a friend's plan
• What athletes won't always tell their coach, or themselves
• The skip-and-shame spiral, and why double stacking runs is never the answer
• Building a plan for your real life, not your aspirational one

The plan done mostly right, most of the time...that's what gets you to the start line ready.

Links & Resources for This Episode

• Follow me on Instagram
• Visit my website: www.sunrisetrailscoaching.com
• Want to work together? Learn about 1:1 Coaching
• Free guide: What’s In My Pack? Download here

Transcript

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Hey y'all, welcome back to Dirt Knap Diaries. I'm your host, Brittany Olson, Trailrunner, Women's Trailrunning Coach, Hypewoman, and Professional Overpacker of the Midrun Snacks. This show is for the everyday trailrunner, the ones training on real life legs and real life time. You've got work, relationships, laundry, pets, a group text that never shuts up, and maybe a big goal sitting quietly in the back of your head that you're not totally sure you're allowed to want. You're not out here chasing podium spots, you're chasing finish lines, sunrises, and maybe a little sanity. This podcast is about trail running, but it's also about navigating life. The hard seasons, the joyful ones, and the ones where everything feels like too much. So let's get to it. Alright, y'all. Recording episode number two of the day. Um, all kinds of energy. Uh so yeah, I leave for Mount Blanc very soon. Um when you hear this, I will be on uh hiking around Mount Blanc. So that's super, super exciting. Um, so yeah, so it'll be a nice break. Um I had talked a little bit a couple episodes ago just about how I've realized how mentally um just tired and everything I am from Coca-Dona, even though it's been not quite eight weeks yet. Um, but we're getting close to that. And it is normal to feel that way. So the actual next episode I'll be recording is about that, just so you know. Um it'll come out the following week for y'all. But um, yeah, so outside of that though, I mean there's not gonna be much update because I've updated you in the prior episode, and I'm in Mount Blanc, so you're getting these while I'm doing other things. But uh wanted to keep on it because, you know, you guys look forward to these, right? That's what I like to tell myself. So anyway, this episode, we're gonna talk about um training and how some people over-train, some people undertrain, um, what athletes won't always tell me as a coach or even tell themselves, uh, you know, skipping and and scaling back, just just different um adherence to the design of the program, uh, some stuff like that, just so you can see um what the heck's up when people are training. So uh a lot of time when I when I hear about like I listen to some running podcasts, not a whole bunch. Every once in a while I'll see one that I'm like, oh, I could learn from this, so I I intentionally listen. Um, but I do a lot of reading and a lot of training content will talk about um one extreme or the other. Um, and I see both as a coach, um, as a friend to other trail runners. Um, and sometimes it can be in the same person, same athlete, in the same training block. Uh and what the real goal of for training, I guess maybe I should have started that, is really like adherence. And that doesn't mean perfection. That doesn't mean uh not grinding. Uh that doesn't that mean showing up to the plan. So, and again, those plans get it, that's why people hire me is to make the decisions for them and running um and feeling comfortable that they're getting the right training, but also being to just that plan as they're showing up for that plan and then oh my gosh, something comes up. So, um, but I do like it is crazy sometimes to see that sometimes one uh person or athlete can do the extremes of both. Um, sometimes one is is doing the extreme um at other times, uh, and then the other extreme in another block. It just really depends. And and this makes sense because we're human and we have different things going on. Sometimes we have life and work are going okay, so like we have we can focus more on training, so we feel like we can really do more, even though we shouldn't be. Sometimes life and work and everything get super, super stressful, super busy. Um, our energy is low, and then we start pulling back um a little bit too much, and we have these goals that are still sitting there, and we're either not adjusting our goals or uh we're just beating ourselves up because we're not doing what we think we should be doing. Um, so let's first start then with like we'll talk, well, I'm just gonna call it side day. I don't there's no to order to this, but this is how I was thinking about it when I was writing this up, is um doing too much. So, um, and I think part of me jumped to this one first because that's what I I t I typically see over-training more than under-training. Um, and by over-training, I mean just doing too much, either uh too quickly, doing too much for your goal. Um, instead of doing, you know, more easy runs, you're trying to do more hard efforts because you think the harder, the faster I'm gonna get, which as I've discussed in the past, is not the case because we need recovery time. Um, but when we think about this, and I have um seen and had coaches who will push people too much. And this is not an episode to just those those coaches, by the way. This is just what I I'm gonna explain why I bring up coaching here because of how we're certified. So, not all, but a lot of ultra-running coaches, uh, we are certified through um USCA. And they have different, you know, or a variety of like guidelines, like here's, you know, a training block for this. They'll give an example like here. This person has this much experience, here's what they're racing for, this person has this much experience, experience, this is what they're racing. This person has this experience, they're coming back from this injury, blah, like, so they give some different examples, but obviously it's not all-encompassing. Um, and there's lots of just different guidelines on there. Um, and none of these are necessarily wrong, but a lot of times when uh we as new coaches, especially, or new coaches who do not evolve as they learn from their athletes and learn from themselves and learn from more reading and continue ed, they don't realize like those are guidelines and not necessarily um set in stone. So um there's also a book uh that I recommend too. It's called The Essentials of Um Ultra Running. I think I don't even know that's the full title, but um Jason Coop wrote it with some help from others. And um that book is is uh very long. It looks like a textbook, but it's got a lot of good information. But this, I'm including that book in the USCA certification because there are some um runners who do are not coached who use that book for their guidance. So this, it's not the exact same information, but a lot of the guidelines are very similar. So when you're doing this, whether you're a coach or you're an athlete who's programming yourself, if you are using these tools, you know, there is uh at some points where it talks about um when say we'll say VO2 max intervals. And there's a certain thing it'll have like here's what your time at intensity should be to get the physiological adaptation that you want. And the VO2 max is to raise your VO2 max ceiling, those workouts are. So um, if you can look, some of it's like, okay, like 12 minutes at intensity for this. So as you start out, it's like a lot of people will be like, okay, 12 by one minute is going to get me there, and my athletes get 12 by one minute. It's not something saying I don't assign it to my athletes. Um, and that is to push up that to get that physiological adaptation, right? They're like, you need those 12 minutes at intensity to do that. Here's the deal: that is a guideline. Why is that a guideline? Why do I not start everybody, or why should not everybody start at those 12 by one minute intervals? Because of background, experience, maybe prior injuries, just a different different um things that could have that that are this person. That's each person is unique. So if I have an athlete who has um never run before or has never run intervals, or has it like I just built their base, um, a lot of times they will not get those 12 by one minutes when we start out. And depending on what it is, they could get a 10 by 30 seconds, they could be get a 6 by 30 seconds. It just depends on that person. So why am I bringing up this specific one? Well, because all of the little workouts that we have throughout there, all of the long runs, all of these things, um, I can't tell you all of them, so I'm going to give examples throughout. But the VO2 Max one, it's just easy for me to think about because it is the first like block when you're in training after if you, if you, if you've um you either build base before you already have a base, but this is the first actual like block block, we'll say, of like the three, the three blocks. Uh so what I'm saying is, is when you are looking at this either as an athlete yourself or as a coach, you need to look at yourself or the athlete as a unique individual person. You cannot have somebody that has zero background in workouts and then just jump them into a 12 by one minute um VO2 max workout. That is a hard workout, your lungs are working, and then the next week the goal would be to progress that too. So then if you're progressing that to say like a six by two minute, but you've already overdone it with those 12 by one minutes with that athlete or with yourself, that's gonna lead to overtraining, burnout, injury, things that will not help you hit your goal and potentially take you out of running. So I can't give you the exact workout here of what you need to do for yourself or your athlete. But what I can tell you do is you need to look at the guidelines and take them as such, and then look at the athlete and be like, you know what, this person does not have that as much experience. Um, and and they will stop physiological adaptations if I drop the intervals a little bit and get them to where they need to be in their own time frame. So as you're looking at things, again, whether a coach or athlete, remember you have some guidelines. Yes, there is different science things, which is great to learn about. And what you're gonna learn about is people who have less experience, their body will respond quicker to these harder workouts. Somebody who has more experience, it does not adapt quickly or as quickly, and sometimes you just see minimal progress doesn't feel like there's much at all. Uh, and that might mean um, hey, you have minimal progress and like you're still gonna hit your goal, or you need to make some adjustments with that. Um, so that could be doing some longer intervals, that could be doing two uh hard workouts a week uh for the VO2 max piece. But again, that I'm not gonna say, hey, go do two if you have this much experience because it really depends on how your body feels, how it adapts, and what happens. What I'm trying to get here is newer runners will have more physiological adaptations than runners who have more experience here and have been consistently running for quite some time. The same goes, and I've I've talked about this in another episode where I said you can't just do what an elite does. Elites have to work harder to get a very small change compared to what us everyday athletes need to. So you may see an elite athlete is doing some kind of like workout, and like they do get a bump in their in their performance. However, if we try to follow their workouts, we are are gonna be pushing our bodies too hard, which can lead again to what I said burnout injury um and take us out for quite some time. And we don't want that. So it's not saying no elite has anything, doesn't have anything to give us, that's not the case at all. But you have to watch what you're taking from them um to use with your athletes or use with yourself. So if you see an athlete who is doing who is an elite and is doing are doing certain things and you're like, let me try that out. And then when you look at your history, you're like, I have not anything close to this. More than likely you're pushing yourself too hard. Maybe in the beginning you might get a positive boost to that, but over time following that, it's gonna be really hard on your body, on your mind. Um, and sometimes even the very first workout you would try, if you're not following a plan that is for you, uh, you might just be really, really disappointed because you actually can't do that workout like you wanted to. So that is that when I said doing too much, that is doing too much. Um other things, so that's part of what I see there, right? Is just like seeing other what other people are doing and trying to follow it, or not realizing like with your background and experience, you might not be at that, we'll say that 12 by one minute example. So you might need to start at something less. Um, other things I see too is like you feel good, so you do more. Um, and I don't mean like you're feeling good out there and you're like, meh, I went 10 extra, I got 10 extra minutes in because here here's the trailhead, and like I was like, ah, I can do 10 extra minutes. I'm normally not gonna say much about that. Now, if you're doing 30 minutes extra almost every single run, especially every single long run, I'm gonna say something. But um, when I'm talking about students, you you're feeling good, so you do more. Uh, whether you decide to run for longer than planned, um, whether it is you decide, hey, I'm gonna push up my effort level, which is still doing more, than actually staying in that easy effort level, um, you do. You just you just keep doing more and pushing more. Um, and that normally means you're overdoing it. There are a reason we do a lot of easy runs, and there's a reason we do a hard workout, there's a reason we have a long run, and there are a reason you have the prescribed, those prescribed effort levels in there, right? It's for your training, it's designed for you, it's to keep you moving forward towards that race or whatever goal you've set for yourself. Um, so you've got to, as a coach, you've got to talk to these athletes, especially if they're doing and guys, if you are wondering, I do watch my athletes and see what they do. I don't look at every single one every day, but you can see different things and different varieties of this throughout. So, but you've got to really be honest with yourself, um, honest with your coach if you have one. The coach also needs to be honest back. I talked about coach athlete relationship a couple weeks ago. Um, but like, let's you gotta think about it. Like, have you been this athlete too who has done too much and and and what what did that lead to? Right? And I encourage people to think about that, not because I want you to live in the past, because as endurance athletes, we tend to be like, I'm just gonna push a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And if we have experience with injury, experience with burnout, experience with like not hitting our goals, um, it does help to be reflective when it's like, man, I feel so good, let me go do more. And there are many times where I can even like, I feel so good, can I go a little bit longer? And I'm like, no, no, you can't. Like, no, because there's a reason we're doing it this way. You feel so good because you're doing the right things for you. That's why you feel so good. You're doing the right effort, you're doing the right intervals, you're doing the right intensity, you're doing, you're doing all these things right. That is why you feel so good. When you keep pushing, you start to get that uh diminishing returns, is what we call that, right? You can talk about diminishing turns returns in many ways, but that's the balance that coaches and athletes who coach themselves have to figure out, especially with ultras. Where am I at that's gonna keep me like moving forward and keep me going towards my goals? And where is that point with that tipping point where I'm starting to get diminishing returns? Where I'm doing all these things, but all of a sudden I'm getting slower or I'm feeling more sore. Um my long runs, like before I'm done, I'm starting to feel real bad. Those types of things. So diminishing returns. Remember that term. Um, some other some people will train with a friend um and follow their plan instead. I have not seen this with my athlete, any of the athletes I've coached. I've had them ask, like, hey, why does this person who's doing the same race have this thing? But like I've never had them like go and do that. But I have seen people who are not coached especially and who run with friends who just follow their plan instead. They're like, oh, I'm doing this long run, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. And that's not always necessarily that does not always necessarily lead to injury or overtraining. But if you do have a friend who is more advanced than you, especially, um, or is actually training for a different race than you are, uh, even if you're not training for a race and they're not, but they just have more experience, so their volume is higher, their intensity uh is at a different space, um, that can uh lead to you doing too much for yourself. So, and again, it doesn't have to be about your race goal or even having a race on the calendar. This is just about training in general when you can do too much. So there is nothing wrong with training with a friend, but you need to do what's right for you. And sometimes that's letting that friend go on ahead of you because they're at the same effort level, but they run faster. Sometimes it's doing less volume, so just joining your friend for part of the run, um, whatever that needs to look like, but you need to do your training based on you, not based on somebody else. And I I I see I do see this a lot with some people. This is not just my athletes, this is with friends, where it's like we feel, you know, somebody asks us to run, and you're like kind of like, and I love to run solo and with people, but you really are craving that solo run, but you're like, man, like, no, that's my friend. I want to be there with them. And then our effort level changes. Whether that friend is faster and slower at an easy effort level or not, things change and it can really mess with that training block. So this could actually be over or under training, depending on if you're faster or slower than this person or these people. So it's just something to keep in mind. You want to follow the plan that is for you for your goals, um, for your life, for whatever it is that you want running to be for you. Um, sometimes it's simple as there's nice weather, there's a free afternoon, I'm just gonna do a little extra. I have an extra day off, I'm just gonna add a run in here. I have seen that happen as a coach where I didn't have a run on there, and I'm like, whoa, where did this run come from? Um, those are all ways that we rationalize as humans. Yes, we love to rationalize it, don't we? We rationalize why we did more. Maybe doing that once was okay, but when it is consistent, you are gonna see some diminishing returns. You are gonna see some things happen that you do not want to happen again, whether it's injury, whether it's just like getting slower, whether you have a lot of fatigue throughout your day and not just with running, many things can happen from this. So that little extra, just nix it. Just don't do it. Like, don't listen to what your uh endurance brain is telling you to do. Like, do what you had set out and you had planned to do for you. And when you think about that plan that you made for yourself, and this can probably go for both over and under training, um, you might have to adjust. So even if you bought a free plan, uh bought a free plan, you can't buy a free plan, got a free plan online, or even bought a plan online that's templated, um, you can learn how to make adjustments with those. But like even as a coach, like I do, and sometimes I I schedule my athletes two weeks in advance, uh, knowing adjustments would may happen just because of feedback, talking to the athlete, missed runs, whatever that happens to be. But one of the things that I struggled with over the past couple weeks is I had to plan out my athletes a few weeks in advance because of my trip, and I will not be able to just sit there and and do plans weekly as I normally do. Um, so for me that was difficult though, because you know, they're gonna be running next week, and their next week plans are based on how they did this past week. So like I can that that one I feel very confident in. And then I'm still confident in like the next two weeks as long as they did follow the plan um the prior week. But right, as we know as everyday athletes, sometimes that changes, and that's okay, but like I am not just necessarily there to be able to adjust on the fly, like I can when I'm like live, and then also like if I see this next week, like they something happened or they got sick, I would adjust the next week and I can't do that. Why am I telling you this? Because if you have bought a templated plan, um, bought a template, uh bought, well, you could buy, or I get a free plan, or you have a coach who just maybe schedules you in month, month, a month ahead of time. Um, for me, that doesn't work as well because we need to be honest with ourselves with how we're feeling. Um, we need to be honest with our coach on how what's going on. Uh, for example, there could be something in there that like the plan, it's not that there's too much volume or intensity, it's really right on on, like in terms of physical, like the running part of it, everything's on point. But then again, work was really shitty. There were some late nights. You had an a call and the you were on call in the middle of the night and you got woke up, um, you got sick, a kid gets sick and it throws things off, um, a dog gets sick, they had to go to the emergency event. Things can happen where even if the plan is not physically like in terms of running too much, um, the other stuff added to that can make that plan feel like too much. And that's where adjustments need to happen, but then we don't adjust. That's the overtraining piece where the adjustments do not happen. We're like, no, this is the plan I have. I need to follow it, it's just such and such. And we're not taking into account everything else going into our lives. Um, and that's what we need to remember. It is very easy to beat ourselves up when we miss a run. I do it from time to time too. I actually still need to run today. I'm probably gonna get on the Peloton because I'm planning for this vacation. But like I even do it from time to time. I'm like, dang it, like I overslept, or dang it, I said I was gonna get up and do go do this, and like I woke up and ugh, it just didn't happen, right? And there is some guilt with that. But that doesn't mean you need to double up or stack or double stack your runs on the same day or anything like that. It means you need to be real about what's going on in your life, and maybe you need to adjust a couple of days or the next week. Um, but that why did I bring again, why did I bring up how it was a little bit difficult for me to schedule my athletes like three weeks in advance? Because that's not how I coach normally. I have an idea in my brain of what I want it to look like, but then every week, even if I've done two weeks in advance, because I do need to do that just because of time sometimes, I am still looking back at the conversations we've had, at the runs that were completed um the prior week, even the couple of prior weeks, text messages I've got, emails I've got, vacations they have planned, like all the things too. Um, because you do want to watch because a lot of times people will try to do too much because they try to sh make sure they shove everything in, and they aren't always taking into account that we're whole ass humans with whole ass lives, and we need to know and be honest with ourselves about that. So, and I think one of the just the quiet I'll call it the quiet danger, um, it doesn't feel like a mistake when you're doing it. So, like when you feel good, when you're training uh um along with a friend, um, you know, you're just doing a little bit extra. In that moment, it feels okay. Like your body's not hurting, you know. Maybe you push a little bit harder on an easy run, and then you had 15 minutes um to 20 minutes on like a midweek run, and then you were out there a little bit longer for a long run. But you feel good in the moment. Um, and then all of a sudden, you're not feeling so good. Maybe it's the following week, maybe it's in a couple weeks, right? Because you kept this pattern up, and then you start feeling like at work, you're like, man, I can't focus as much. I feel really tired. Or you go to do an easy run and you're like, ugh, that was like my oh, that was that was that was a slug. What the heck happened? You go to lift weights and the weights feel bad. Um, you are just like trying to clean, you're like, I need to go take a nap. Those things will show up later. You not are not necessarily gonna be like out there running a little bit extra in a week, and all of a sudden you're like, oh my god, my knee hurts, it's gonna fall off. That's not always what happens with that, just so you know, sometimes it is something that it is gradual. Like you can get injured, and I think a lot of times when we think about injury, we think about like that acute feeling of it, like you fall and something hurts, or like you twist a knee, you you you tear an ACL, right? Those things we don't think about always how when we overtrain, there's impacts to our body, and you might have a little bitty, tiny little uh like what I'll call it micro injury, micro tear, you might have something going on, and then as you keep pushing, things become worse and worse instead of stepping back. So, I mean, so that overtraining can can can cost you, right? Like, yes, physically it can cost you, but it can mentally cost. And emotionally it cost you too. Sometimes it gets that mental and emotional way, like if you do injure yourself physically and then you can't run for a while. That's really tough. But other times at a mental and emotional piece is just whenever you're like, man, like I'm doing the training, like I've I was feeling good and I did this and this and this, and now I'm getting slower. So like you're feeling emotionally worse. You're beating yourself up because you are overtraining. And then it's very hard to get yourself out of that space. And then a lot of times when you get to that point, a lot of people instead of thinking, hey, let me step back just a little bit, um, they uh think I need to push more. I need to push more and more because I need to get faster, I need to get stronger, I need to be able to run up this hill like this. And what you're actually doing, you're already in diminishing returns. Remember, I said I'd say diminishing returns a few times. It's been a few times. So um, so that's like that side A of like doing too much of it. Um, and a lot of times, like this is what I mentioned too. So I mentioned that what I what I want to note about Uesca and that um uh training essentials for ultra runners, that um a lot of times it's very hard to figure out how to modify that program, is what I really want to want to hone in on to. Like you're looking at it, you're like, well, I followed this, and like here was an example of a runner, and that runner was kind of like me, and so this is how I did it, and this is how I did my blocks, and this is what it is. And a lot of times it is very difficult to figure out how to adjust that. Um, so coaches like can be very good at that. Uh, and sometimes as an athlete, it's very hard to take that step back. But remember when you're looking at these these books and this research, a lot of this, it's a good that's why it's so good to know the science behind these things, behind VO2 Max, behind lactate threshold. Why are we doing these certain lifts? Why are single-leg lifts great for runners? They're great for everybody, by the way. Um, knowing those things can help you modify your own program or help your coach modify the program because we understand how our body is responding to things. So I hope that helps. So, why won't an athlete always like maybe even mention things or or talk about things too? And I mentioned this before. Some of them are like they don't want to disappoint the coach and they think they should be, and I get this to they would think they think they should be a certain speed or they think they should be doing a certain thing. And they they they stay quiet. They just stay quiet about it. Um, and then all of a sudden it's like something's going on here. Like, I can tell in my if I especially if I have athletes who talk to me quite often it's kind of quiet. I'm like, something's going on. But if I have athletes are like, I don't want to say they're quiet, but they don't talk to me as much, sometimes it's very hard to spot because of just the how the communication works there. Um, but like what happens when they're quiet? What happens when they have fear? What happens when there's a little bit of shame? What happens when they're worried about disappointing their coach or themselves or others? They they're not honest about what they're actually doing out there. So for example, um, you could be having a little bit of a niggle in your calf, right? And you're looking at your program, your coach made or you made, and everything, like nothing looks super hard, nothing looks bad. And instead of like being honest about what's going on with your yourself, your your calf, um, and then being honest with your coach if you have one, you just keep pushing through that. And that leads to overtraining, and then that leads to you actually being more seriously injured. Instead, if you had taken a step back being like, hey, like, man, my calf's got something going on. Let me be honest with myself, let me talk to my coach, you know, let me see what's up. Let's look at the volume of what my running is, let's look at the intensity. Let's also look, am I consistently strength training? Because a lot of times I'm like, hey, are you doing strength training and mobility? And they're like, meh, kind of, right? Like that's and you know, it's like, okay, like, let's talk about that. Also, when you're honest with yourself or your coach, you can be like, and this is this is said from a place of privilege. Let me let me, you know, say that first, is okay, I need to go see my physical therapist. I've got a good one, Megan Slavin. If you all are here, she also does online visits, she's amazing. But like, this is what you know you do instead of instead of seeing a um pain of some kind, or not even a pain, but like a soreness, feeling something in your muscles, instead of being like ashamed of it, instead of being disappointed, instead of worrying about disappointing others, think about like what it is. Do I need to take a rest day and I've just been like, I just need to, you know, chill out? Do I need to focus more on strength because I've been skipping it or really? I haven't had quality lifts lately. Do I need to actually do my mobility because I've been jumping from it right into strength because I haven't had time to do my mobility? Do I need to see my physical therapist or a trusted physician that you have trusted, whoever it is? Um, what is that? I can't tell you what you need from this podcast, but that's why like you can't just keep those things to yourself. Um, and again, as a coach, I can't always tell somebody, hey, just take a day off and go run the next day. I may just be like, hey, let's like, if they're I've gotten texts when they're in the middle of the run, they're like, this feels some kind of way. I'm like, I don't like that. Shut it down. Like, just shut the run down. Like, just be done. I don't know if you're injured. I don't know if it's anything serious. I don't know if it's just like you slept funny and that just feels weird. But, you know, like I don't want that injury to happen. And then it would like sometimes we reconvene the next day and we chat about it, you know, and everything's actually fine. It was just a weird because we have weird things. We do hard things, our bodies are gonna have some level of soreness. Um, but then at the same time, whenever if I'm talking to him and I and I hear someone, it's like that doesn't sound right, I am going to recommend they go see somebody. Can I force them to go see somebody? No. But that is why you do need to be honest with yourself and your coach because it can lead to an injury because you are overdoing it. And that doesn't mean, again, that you're overdoing it because your running volume is too high or anything like that. It's because you have to know what everything that's going on in your life, what work you're skipping um in terms of like strength training mobility. There's just so many factors. Um, so I kind of already mentioned what I'm looking for whenever um I might sense overtraining. Part of it is just like looking at the actual app that I use Final Surge, and I can see that they're um they're some of their runs are going long, like multiple ones are going longer than what they should. Um, I can also see sometimes if one run is an easy run and it was an hour-long run and it's the same, like it's a it's some it's similar to wherever they've been running, and it's much faster. And it's like, mmm, that looks a little different. Um and I'm also looking for that feedback. I am a very feedback-driven coach. I think many coaches um should be, by the way. But like I am like trying to, you know, figure out what's going on with them because runs, you could look at a run and it looks really good. They look very consistent, it looks strong, it doesn't look like they're overdoing it, looks like they nailed their hard workout for the week. But they have something going on with it, like they're feeling some kind of way. And you have to have that relationship with your athlete to be able to like know what's up and see if you can figure out what's going on. You also have to make them feel comfortable enough for them to come to you and tell you when things are happening. Um, and a lot of people, like, I just always say, you know, when I start asking questions because some people, uh some people are like, man, like I feel like my athlete's not comfortable with me, or like they're they won't, they're not quite telling me everything. By the way, sometimes that's not on you as a coach or a person, sometimes that's just something that is. Um, but it is making sure they know there's not judgment. You don't want to make them feel like they're being called to the principal's office. I have anxiety, I feel that way often. So when I say something to an athlete or ask a question, I'm like, you're not being called to the principal's office. I am curious. This is cut this is a question without judgment. I just need to know so I can program you so we can meet your goals um in a way that's right for you. So I'm a very big on like prefa prefacing or caveating things as I ask questions. And it's not because like I want to baby any of my athletes or baby even my friends who I talk to about things. It's more about making sure that they trust me, and then I'm not asking these things to um make them feel caught, make them feel bad, you know, make them realize like I am the expert at this, so you should listen to me. It is genuinely out of like curiosity and knowing what's up so I can actually program my athletes in the right way that's needed. Um, so be honest with yourself, be honest with your coach, just be honest. That's it. Um, and don't be running outside your effort levels and running longer than you need to. Um, so it but again, like you either have those conversations with your coach or with yourself, um, or if you have accountability buddy, but make sure because when you start doing too much and you start going down that path, it is very hard um to scale back um when you need to. It's very hard to adjust, it's very hard not to beat yourself up. It's very hard to feel mentally and emotionally good about what you're doing. So, all right, that's side A of doing too much. We got a different side too, yes. The skipping and the scaling back too much, um, the not being consistent. And I see this too, right? And I say that too, not out of judgment. Like sometimes people will set a goal race, whether, and it doesn't always have to be a time, it's just like I want to run, you know, 100 kilometers, I run a hundred miles miles. And like it's not, it may not be realistic. Um, and it's not that they can't ever do that distance or can't ever have that goal, but you have to be real about that because if you find yourself being inconsistent by skipping runs or skipping the workout, I had an athlete at one point who was just like every time I looked, I'm like, they're skipping that same exact, they're skipping the VO2 max workout. And I I called them out. It was like three weeks in a row. I was like, all right, like, hey, you've skipped it three weeks. Do you not like doing the workout? Is it on a bad day? Do we need to move it to a different day where it can be consistent? You know, like I ask a lot of probing questions to see what the heck's up, right? Are you intimidated by the workout? Um, is it the day of the week? Um, what is it? Like, let's talk about it. Does your knee actually kind of hurt when you do that interval, when you try to do the interval? Because that's something that's needed to be known to. Um, so when we think about that though, when you think about the skipping, the scaling back, um, and all of that, whether you're coaching yourself or you have a coach, like let's just be real about life is busy. We're everyday athletes, you know, it just gets that way. This is real, not an excuse. It just is what it is. You could have kids, you could have pets, you could have a job, you could have two jobs, um, you could be a caretaker or care caretaker, caregiver, caregiver, caretaker's a uh cemetery person, right? Um, caregiver, I don't know. Anyway, um, so but you can have there there's so many things, right? Um, and you could just have a really big social calendar that fills up, that fills you up, like emotionally and mentally, like it makes you happy, and you're not willing to adjust that for that goal. That's this is not set out of a judgment. It's just gonna be as a coach or as a person who um is coaching themselves, they just need to be real about that. Like, you know what? I'm not giving this up, which means more than likely, if you don't make a change to your life during a bigger training block, um, you it's gonna be you're probably I don't say you're not gonna hit your goal. That isn't that's not right. You may not be being just realistic about it. You know, like if you uh are a person who has ran, you know, a lot of half marathons and you decide to jump into your first 50k, things are gonna change a little bit in your in your schedule, in your calendar, whether it's like less socializing, whether it's pulling back from doing a few things, but things are gonna look different. So if you know yourself, you're like, I'm not gonna change these aspects of my life just so I can run a 50K, then you probably need to adjust what the heck you're doing because what's gonna happen is you're gonna be skipping runs. You are not gonna be doing the things that you need to do to hit that goal. And that's okay. Again, this is not set of judgment, that's okay. You just need to be honest with yourself of like, hey, I like to run a hundred miler, and then you start looking, you're like, this is what it's gonna take, and I have to give this, this, and this up. To me, it's not worth pushing yourself to do a hundred miler if you're not willing to make certain trade-offs to get to that point. Because then um, you're forcing running, and then you're still doing all this stuff and they don't mesh well together. Like that can actually lead to burnout, and if you are skipping it inconsistent like that, period. Doesn't matter if it's for that reason, you get to that race line, you get into that race, and you may push through to a finish and you can get injured. Or you don't even push through the finish, you don't even get to the finish, but you get injured along the way. So never a good thing. Um, but I also see like unrealistic time expectations for their goal, which is uh what I alluded to earlier. Um, the athlete wants to run a hundred miles um but only has three days a week to train. I'm not saying that's impossible, but I do not like coaching to three days a week of running for somebody who is doing a hundred miler. Um that makes me very nervous of getting their volume up to where it needs to be. Um, that is just one example, y'all. But like, if they if you are, if you as a person are have bought a plan or are making your own plan or you are a coach and you are seeing these things and you are looking at the goal and it's like even with the Timothy plan, it's like, hey, you should be running five days a week, and you're like, nope, no way, I can't do that. It's gonna be three. You need to look hard at yourself and be like, you know what, then maybe this distance isn't for me right now. But maybe later, when I have more time to dedicate it to it. And that's okay to push that back a little bit. I'm a person and I know people like, chase your dreams, do this, do that. Yeah, chase your dreams, but also do it realistically. Know what your life is, know what you want in your life, um, and build what with the things around it. That's all it is. Um, there's also not just those unrealistic time expectations, unrealistic just goals in general, but it's the shame spiral when someone misses a week or misses a few days, and then they just stop. Um, they have a problem getting back into it because they are ashamed. Yes, there are some, like if you you're struggling with routine and stuff, that's kind of a different thing, like you're just not getting to the routine. But some people do feel shame when they miss a couple runs or miss, and all of a sudden it's like, well, I just can't do this, so I'm just not gonna do it. And that is, it sounds crazy, but it is a thing that happens. So then, or maybe they like get ashamed and they they put their head down for like a couple days and like, no, like I can get back into it. And then what they decide to do is they're like, well, I know coach said like don't double stack runs. Double stacking is when say you had an hour-long run one day and then you had a rest day, and the next run was an hour. That means you took that hour from that prior day and stacked it on top of that hour that's coming up, and you did two hours of running instead of one. Don't do that, by the way. Um, but um, that is how that can happen. So the same spot can be you just completely stop, or you you you do you kind of pout for a couple days and then you come back to you and you decide to start stacking up runs, and that can lead to injury. And you're like, Brittany, can't you stop people from doing that? I can tell them that, but no, if they go out and do that, they just do that. There's no there's no like stopping it if they decide that that's what they need to do in their brains. Um, so the and also, like I said, I look at my athletes' runs. I do not go into final surge every day and look at every single run. There is no time for that. That's why I rely on a lot of feedback, and I but again, I look at them all at least by the week to see what's up. Um, but you have to be able to take the step, or to miss that run, and then just keep following the plan. You can't just double stack and and do that again. Injury, burnout, all the things. Um, so there's that part of it. Then there's also like when you think about how people start rolling something, start thinking more about their skipped runs, or maybe they don't think about it all and they just kind of keep rolling, but it just compounds. It's not just like the miss run, it's miss multiple runs, it's the mental toll it takes behind the scenes of missing those runs. Um, a lot of people like if they miss a run and they miss two runs and they miss three runs, and then again, they'll either like add time um to what they're doing, add intensity, they'll do something, and then that compounds. So it's not just the miss runs that compound, and that compounds by the if you're just missing runs and not not like doing anything, and like your coach isn't adjusting, you're not adjusting your plan, you're just trying to progress each week, that's a bad, bad move. But it's also like that mental piece behind it of like what are you doing then? What are you thinking? Are you beating yourself up and being like, well, I'm just a piece of shit, so and I can't do this, but I'm just gonna like miss these runs, and I'll just kind of you know do whatever. That's not a good mindset to have, too. And you need to be uh upfront with yourself about that and with your coach about like what's going on behind the scenes. So, um, and like when you think about it too, like when you're chronically underexecuting anywhere, what would that look like? So I'm not seeing a lot of people chronically underexecute at work who are doing this, but if you do that, what happens to your job? Like, is somebody else picking up the slack for you? Like, are you just gonna get fired? Um, are you gonna get on a performance improvement plan? You know, um, you can even use this like if you're chronically, and we're gonna say under executing in a relationship that you have, uh, whether you have a partner or your best friend, like is that a thing that keeps happening? And what happens with that? What happens to you when that happens? What happens? Like, do you lose that friendship? Um, does that relationship look really bad? Like, do you find yourself being resentful? Like, that's real life stuff, so under executing that people sometimes notice quicker than when they're executing and running. But the same thing can happen where things start moving backwards. Um, you're not feeling so good, you're not really communicating like with your coach or with yourself in a good way. So that's like the side B of skipping and and scaling back there, right? And that one, it feels like it's a little bit shorter because there's not people well people tend to overdo it more, but there's a lot more details with that one. With underdoing it, it's like, well, like, yes, I'm under training, and if I keep pushing like at a race, if I decide to do the race still, I'm gonna get hurt. Or um, if I'm not adjusting my schedule, like to do like to to to adjust backwards, basically, is what it is, um, then you're gonna get hurt. And some people, like I said, they just give up. And I don't want people to give up if they love running. If you're out there and you realize I fucking hate running, then I definitely want you to give it up. Sorry. And I don't I'm not saying run once and give it up, but if you ran for a while and finally you're out there like, I just don't like this. That's okay. Go find something else to do. And it's perfectly, perfectly fine. But with the whole under-training aspect, you still have to do those adjustments, um, like you would if you're if you're over training. Um, you have to either if you miss a whole week of training, what does that next week look like? Do I try to repeat the last week? Well, it depends on where you're at in your experience, in your background, in your training block. Sometimes I will look and I see, you know, like half the week was done right, and then the following week, everything was skipped. So then that next week, I have to look back and be like, okay, where is this person actually at? Like physically, mentally, emotionally. Many times that involves a text message from me where I'm like, hey, tell me what's up. Like, what's going on in your life? What's going on with running? Like, let's talk about this. Do we need to adjust the days that you are running because those days are not working for you? What do you need to do for you? So it's very similar conversations, honestly, with yourself and uh and or with your coach, but it's figuring out what is needed for you as an individual because you are a unique individual. So also know too. I mean, these are just I don't know if you call them little tips, but little little things to just realize. Um, the real fix isn't willpower. Our willpower diminishes, um, especially throughout our days. It's why I encourage a lot of people to run in the morning, because as our day goes on, we make a lot of decisions. We don't even realize some of the decisions we're making, but our brain is always on and thinking. And as we make more decisions, that willpower is going to go down. So if we want to run after work um or in the evening, for a lot of people that's very hard because that willpower has gone. Now, I'm gonna caveat that there are people who love running at night. They are night people, they are not owls, so getting up early is not gonna happen. That's okay. So, what I mean is though, that real fix isn't willpower, it is building a plan that someone can actually follow. So, whether you're making your own or a coach is making it, it needs to be made for that individual person to know like what is best for them. Um, designing for your real life and not your aspirational life. This is a big one. Um, this is a big one for humans in general, but also um, just so you know, people who um have depression um also tend to be very aspirational and focus on that future place um and where they want to be instead of focusing on what's really like going on in their real life and then designing a plan around that. So you really need to know like you what what your real life is and just knowing this is when I'm actually going to run, this is what I actually have time for. Um, this is what's really gonna happen for me. Because trying to build based on that aspiration and only that aspiration is not it's not gonna work. I mean, you're gonna be pushing yourself too hard, you're gonna get discouraged, you might get discouraged and then under train, right? There's just a different different thing that can happen with different people. That doesn't mean you can't have aspirations. That means you can't think, I want to run this 100-mile race, I want to do this 50k, I want to do my first half marathon, um, I want to PR my 5K. That doesn't mean you can't have those things in your brain of as you're building your plan, but your plan has to be designed for your real life and your goals and and what you're thinking about doing can also be part of that. Those aspirations can be too. Um, and also being like asking yourself, like, what does a good uh program design look like when life is genuinely unpredictable? Uh, there are some weeks. Um, I'm a routine person, man. I love routine. Um, I was single for like seven years, man. I had a routine, and um, but that is kind of what is like there are just things that change in life. Or, man, there are sometimes you're just in a routine, like, work starting at this time, it's inning at this time. Uh, my kid has soccer practice twice a week. Uh, I gotta take to my dog. My dog has this appointment like once every six months. You know, you have certain things that are routine, and sometimes things go according to plan. And that is great. That is best case though, right? We need a program design that really like, and not that it focuses on the worst case scenario, but it focuses on a human life that fluctuates, right? The whole ass human, the whole ass life, all of that. You need a program design like that. So, like, as a coach, and my coach does the same thing, by the way, Liz, she's amazing. Um, but they're done weekly. Our plans are done weekly, occasionally they're done two weeks, and like for me with this long trip, they're done a little more in advance. Again, and it was very hard for me because I'm like, I don't have the feedback from this week to be able to do this week. Um, but the pro the how how I design is based on the unpredictability. When I am going, since I'm going out of all Office, my email to my uh athletes were like, Okay, like I'm gonna be gone. Let's talk about how to adjust things for yourself if you get sick. Um, if you miss a run, but you're not sick, you just miss it. If you miss three plus runs, like how can we adjust that? Like, what needs to happen, right? So it's being able to have a program design that allows for the adjustments because life is unpredictable at times, right? It's being gracious to yourself when things come up. It's also not just making an excuse for the sake of having an excuse and missing a run. So again, it's it's definitely like it's not all about discipline, it's just about being real with yourself, not aspirational all the time. And then like just having a program that does really like help you with those unpredictable situations. I get it, y'all. You've some of you have templated plans from online, and there is no judgment to that. My encouragement here is when you have those templates though, make it real for you. Um, and like as a coach, make sure you're making it real for this person, make sure you're willing to make adjustments. Um, I have heard um some bigger coaching companies, um, CTS is what I'm gonna name allow, because that's what I've heard. They charge quite a bit of money for what they do. I have had a lot of people complain about what they do because they do not adjust plans um as needed sometimes. It's like you need to follow this plan so you can do this. Now, I understand this, especially for elites, like you do need to, and not they don't deserve any flexibility, but they do have to hit certain things. We everyday athletes, we need coaches who will um be able to have that grace, have that fluidity. Um, being able to be like, yes, life is unpredictable. Your program is going to be based on you, your background, your experience, and also the fact that life sometimes just shits on us. And sometimes it gives us sunshines and rainbows. So knowing that, knowing you have that, knowing that information for yourself or knowing that your coach can actually help you with that too. Just a great thing. So, here's the thing though about training programs. They only work if you actually do them. Not perfectly, not every single day without fail, but consistently, honestly, within what was actually designed for you. And the thing that I've learned as a coach is that both extremes come from a very similar place. Doing too much and bailing too often are both about not trusting either the plan, trusting yourself, um, trusting that you can actually do what you set out to do. Um, one says this isn't enough, the other says this is too hard, this is too much. And sometimes the same athlete can do both. In the same month, even it just happens. Human. Remember, we're human. I have to remind myself I'm human. The sweet spot isn't some magical like discipline you either have or you don't. It's building a plan that fits your actual life, not your best case scenario. And then showing up to what fits your actual life. Most of it and most of the time. That's what gets you to the start line ready. Not the extra miles on a sunny, beautiful Tuesday, not the perfect week you never had, um, just the plan done mostly right most of the time. Alright, thank you so much for being here and spending time with me. Um, if you love this episode, please download it. Um, follow the show, leave a rating or review on however you listen to these podcasts, share it with a friend. It really helps this uh podcast and this message reach more people just like you. Now, go move your body, drink some water, stretch your calves, and if you're listening while running, loosen your shoulders. You're welcome. Good effort, positive attitude.