%20(1).jpg)
Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
Beyond the Finish Line
Running isn't a punishment - it's an opportunity to discover what you're truly capable of. In this revealing conversation, host Anthony Amen (a self-proclaimed running hater) sits down with veteran running coach Jason Fitzgerald to explore the transformative power of running for both body and mind.
Jason, who founded Strength Running and has coached for 15 years, shares his own journey from running-averse kid to dedicated coach. "When I first started running, I was not very good at it and I also hated it too," he admits, providing hope for anyone who currently dreads lacing up their running shoes.
The discussion dives deep into practical training approaches for both beginners and experienced runners. Jason explains the crucial difference between aerobic and anaerobic running, how training varies between distances, and why every runner should incorporate strength training regardless of their goals. His recommendation to "sandwich" runs between dynamic warm-ups and post-run strength exercises offers an actionable blueprint for injury prevention.
What truly sets this episode apart is the exploration of running's psychological benefits. While a weightlifting set might require intense focus for seconds, running demands mental fortitude for hours. "Mental toughness is the ability to solve problems constructively without panicking," Jason explains, noting that this resilience transfers to all areas of life. The conversation reveals how running teaches us to push beyond self-imposed limitations – whether that's running more miles than you thought possible or finally breaking through plateaus in other fitness pursuits.
Whether you're a dedicated runner looking to improve or someone who has always avoided running, this episode provides valuable insights that might just change your perspective. As Jason concludes, "Running is not necessarily as hard as you might think it is. If you give it a little time and approach it strategically, you can become a much better runner than you think you can be."
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
This is Health and Fitness Redefined, brought to you by Redefined Fitness. Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony Amen, and today we got another great episode for all of you. Today, Super excited to talk about my least favorite topic, that is, running. So for those that do or do not know me, if I am running it means I'm being chased from zombies. Please run away with me. That's the only time you'll ever catch me running in my tracks. I'm just playing. I heard he's from Boston, so I had to give him some slack. Anyway, without further ado, welcome to today's show, jason. Jason, it's a pleasure to have you on today.
Speaker 2:Wow, anthonyony, thank you for the lukewarm welcome, absolutely, I got you I know we were talking offline before we started. You're from long island, I'm from boston.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about a topic you don't love, so this is going to be good it's funny because, like my whole staff, I just always send them reasons about why they shouldn't run. That's like everything in our private group. Me, I'm like this is another reason why you don't run this, another reason why and maybe it's just because I absolutely suck at it, so that's why I don't like doing so. Maybe actually I should conquer my own fears of running and hire you as a coach to help me get better, because I am the world's worst runner in the world.
Speaker 2:Well, Anthony, when I first started running, I was not very good at it and I also hated it too. In fact, before I started running, I remember track and field week in school and I was like the 110 pound kid throwing the shot put because you couldn't catch me in any single running event. I hated it. I couldn't be caught dead running. And look at me now.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example Prior to me. I always mentioned, like prior to my accident and me getting involved in working out whatsoever. I was 15 years old. I had the same problem as you. I was really tall and thin, no muscle, and I ran a 15-17 mile.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's not the most competitive mile, but lots of room for improvement.
Speaker 1:Pretty much all the improvement. I could have walked and probably done better, even though I was trying to run, I don't know. Tell me a little bit about how you got involved in being a running coach.
Speaker 2:I've been a running coach now for 15 years. I've been a runner myself for about 27 years. I was the kid who ran cross-country indoor and outdoor track all four years of high school. I went to Connecticut College and competed there for all three seasons over those four years of high school. I went to Connecticut College and competed there for all three seasons over those four years, and I just kept training after college and I just knew that I loved this sport. I wanted to keep competing, I wanted to test myself in some of those longer distances and I also knew that I wanted to work somewhere in the running space, and a long time ago. I wanted to work somewhere in the running space, and a long time ago that either meant I got to go be a pro runner or I need to go be either a college coach or perhaps a coach of high-level pro athletes, and I have done neither of those things. I was never a pro runner or even close to being a pro runner, but I found out a way to be involved in the running community In 2010,.
Speaker 2:I started strengthrunningcom, started coaching 2016, I started the Strength Running Podcast, and it's just a sport that sort of captured my imagination from when I was a kid. I think one of the things that I love about it is that, unlike team sports like basketball. So my first love was basketball. Unfortunately, I stopped growing after middle school and everyone else kept growing a little bit. We never shared the same problem, anthony, of me being a tall, skinny guy. I was always the short, skinny guy, but I had to abandon my first love of basketball.
Speaker 2:But I fell in love with just improving, getting better, and I found out that, unlike team sports, running is something where, much like weightlifting, you get a lot of value and a lot of progress and great feelings of just that personal improvement from your own work. And I just found the more work that I put in, the more value I got out of the sport, the better I became. I didn't have to rely necessarily on teammates. You know we didn't lose a game because coach didn't put me in. It was because I didn't run as hard as I could, and so I really loved that aspect of running. That's what made me fall in love with the sport. I always knew I wanted to work with runners in some capacity and I'm just really grateful that I figured out a way to do it.
Speaker 1:So what is strength running?
Speaker 2:Good question. Strength running is a coaching and media business, I guess is the most simple way to describe it. Coaching and media business, I guess, is the most simple way to describe it. So, yes, we have training programs and coaching services for runners who want to get better. That's our whole kind of North Star. We exist to help runners improve, to elevate their performances and help them with any goal they might have Not necessarily running faster, but maybe staying healthier and preventing more injuries or being more consistent, or just training more or potentially running a longer race than you might've ever run before.
Speaker 2:So strength running is definitely the coaching side of things, but we also have the strength running podcast and the strength running YouTube channel, which also make it a media business as well, and so we we work with a variety of different brands on those properties and really just love bringing runners you know the kind of actionable advice I sort of wish I had, you know, when I was a young runner and just searching for training advice, searching for, you know, examples and models of other successful runners who have been, you know, really good at achieving their potential and sort of bringing that knowledge to you know, your everyday adult runner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and let's talk about that advice specifically. And I'm going to get there a really quirky way. So, when I hear strength running, this is where my brain goes, and maybe it's because I'm just in this industry too long, and maybe it's because I'm just in this industry too long. I think anaerobic sprints because it's more muscular, based and quick, without oxygen, whereas, like your, long distance runs are your aerobic. So this is the point I said my brain goes. So I think that's the place I want to start, which is what is the difference?
Speaker 2:for those that probably don't know the difference between an anaerobic run and an aerobic run, Well, can I first say, Anthony, I love the fact that I named my business Strength Running because it's like a Rorschach test. Everyone kind of sees whatever they want to see in the name. It's like, oh, you're a weightlifting coach that also is a runner. Well, no, not quite. Or, oh, this is the anaerobic side of things. Well, not quite. To be honest, I purchased strengthrunningcom as a domain name in 2007, simply because I thought it sounded cool, but in hindsight it's worked out to be a wonderful brand name. It really just means let's be strong runners in every capacity. Yes, let's have a strong aerobic system. Let's have strong muscles, let's be, you know, strong psychologically and have a certain amount of mental toughness. So that strength is something that I think can be applied to almost any area of our training.
Speaker 2:But for the differences between aerobic and anaerobic running, it's basically the difference between running with oxygen and without oxygen, and that marker that divides aerobic and anaerobic running is your lactate threshold. If you're beyond your lactate threshold, you are running without oxygen. You are on borrowed time. It's unsustainable, you're going to have to slow down. And if you are right at that lactate threshold, sort of that boundary in between aerobic and anaerobic, if you're well-trained, it's about an hour's worth of running. It's about your one-hour race pace. But as soon as you go any faster than that lactate threshold you're very limited and that's usually the race pace for a 10K, a 5K or any shorter event where you are going to be running anaerobically. But for longer events, like, say, the half marathon or the marathon, or definitely some ultra marathons, it's an aerobic race. So, yes, you probably want to be somewhere in zone two or zone three where it is aerobic, it is sustainable for hours and hours and hours and something that you can maintain for a very long period of time.
Speaker 1:You mentioned threshold, which is great. I'm glad you did, because I'm going to give a perfect example maybe to someone like you a 5k you can fall out anaerobic threshold, but to me that feels like it's three hours and I'm thinking like 50 feet is my anaerobic threshold, but to me that feels like it's three hours and I'm thinking like 50 feet is my anaerobic threshold, where I'm all out, pumping as quick as I can and then I run out of breath. I'm like that's the end of Anthony. So I need to pace myself, even on like a 5k scale, just to get going and get moving.
Speaker 1:So yeah, just point being, it's totally varies, which is what you said. Right, some people can maintain zone four a lot higher. Some people cannot, and it that really is just heart rate zones for those that don't understand what we're talking about, like what are your percentage of your max? So I do love that difference. And I think the biggest question is for more practical examples is how would you train for running shorter distance compared to how you were trained for running longer distance?
Speaker 2:volume. You would focus more on long runs. Let's say you're training for an ultra marathon, even your strength training might look a little bit different. You might be a little bit more focused on strength and stability instead of, perhaps, strength and power. So if you're maybe you're training for a 5k, you might be lifting some pretty heavy weights, you might be doing some more plyometrics, some explosive exercises in the gym, because you really want to be fast, you want to be someone who can put a lot of force into the ground, produce a lot of power I mean, that's essentially what very fast running is. So the workouts are going to be more in line with that goal. Even the strength training is going to be more in line with that goal.
Speaker 2:Whereas if you're training for a marathon or even a longer race, yeah, the most important thing is is probably your weekly mileage or monthly mileage. It's your overall, overall volume. So how much are you running? How often are you running? What is your, what is your long run distance at? And and then, of course, even in an ultra, you do want to do some kind of speed work because you know we always want to be pushing up on our ceiling. You know our ceiling of speed, our maximum abilities, because if you think about any race as being a certain percentage of your ceiling, well, it's going to benefit you to have a really high ceiling. So you know, basically what is your mile time, what is your 5K time? You know, the best 100 mile ultramarathoner might be one of the better 5K runners in the field, so that's always helpful to understand. Is running is running? You know fitness is fitness when it comes to the sport of running. So if you're really good in the mile or the 5K, you're going to be really good in an ultramarathon. You just kind of have to do the endurance training to get yourself properly prepared for that distance.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I'd say too about the differences in training is that some of the training is not as appropriate for, say, beginners.
Speaker 2:So you know, if you're someone who's been running for less than a year, it's probably not a good idea to go train for a hundred mile ultra marathon, because that requires just a tremendous base of aerobic fitness and endurance.
Speaker 2:But also the flip side to that is it requires a lot of durability. You know you're going to be on your feet for potentially 20, 25, 30 hours and the injury risk with something like that is pretty substantial. So that's why it's beneficial just to get those years of experience, so that you know you're not kind of, you know you don't want to take the SAT before you've graduated from elementary school, right Like let's, let's get good at the 5k before we get good at the marathon, before we get good at an ultra marathon. So some of the differences in training tend to be differences in difficulty, and so I really like newer runners to focus on the shorter distances, develop some capability, develop some speed first, and then, once you've developed that speed which really helps with your running economy so over a very long distance that really comes in handy Then you're a little bit more ready to start tackling those longer distances.
Speaker 1:Great answer and, I think, the biggest question for somebody. Let's say you're a beginner, you're getting into it. What type of specific exercises should I be doing to help, like, avoid injury? Right? So I think a lot of people take running for granted, in the sense that you don't need to learn a new skill to go running. Most people can just start running. They just start moving their body quicker than they consider they're running.
Speaker 1:But I think that leads to a lot of injuries because we don't learn how to properly run as we're kids. A lot of people don't focus on technique. I don't remember a single time going back to childhood where a coach watched me run and analyze my gait pattern and went oh, that's why you suck, like your hips extremely, like externally rotate, you can't even bring your feet straight, you're rolling out over your toes and you're supinating. So here's some corrective exercises and proper footwear to put on to help make sure that you don't get hurt. And that's all true. So how could somebody who doesn't really fully understand this field really look for ways to avoid getting injured and help teach them how to run properly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's another really good question. So one of the benefits of when you are a relatively new runner, focusing on what we'll call the middle distances, let's say 10,000 meters and shorter is that the training that you do for those distances does help improve your form better than, say, training for a marathon, because you're going to be doing more speed work, you're going to be running strides, which are short accelerations that you do after a run, and you know the structure of the workouts is such that you're just going to be focusing on things that tend to improve your running economy more than the things you would do as a marathoner. So you know, there's there's another kind of like point in the column of the middle distances for just helping you develop some of these skills earlier in your running career. But from an injury prevention perspective I would say you know, I think every runner should sandwich their run in between a dynamic warmup and then a post-run series of core or strength exercises. Now, twice a week. Yes, let's get in the gym, let's lift some heavy weight, let's actually lift weights. That's really important for runners. We've got to be strong. You know, I don't even really consider strength training to be cross training. It's more part of the training that you need to accomplish your potential if you're interested in improving and progressing and getting better. But that's twice a week. The other days that you're that you're running, you know, of course let's warm up dynamically, let's do some flexibility movements, let's do some light strength work, really metabolically prime your body for the run that you're about to go on. And then, when you're done with your run, you know we've still got to do some other things. You know, very helpful not to consider yourself a runner, consider yourself an athlete that specializes in running. So, yes, most of your exercise is going to be running, but that's your sport specific exercise. You're still going to do a whole bunch of other stuff. That's part of the dynamic warm up. You're also going to do some core and strength work after your run.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of agnostic on which exercises are best. You know, like most body weight, strength exercises are going to be helpful. Everything from you know squats, single leg deadlifts, side planks, front planks, bridges, you know any kind of lateral leg raises, anything that really works the hips and the glutes is going to be fantastic. And a lot of these post-run core and strength workouts. They shouldn't be very long. We're talking 10, 15, 20 minutes.
Speaker 2:It's really partly a cool down but also just a little bit of work to help keep you healthy. And if you have ever been to a physical therapist and you're trying to rehab a knee injury or plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendinopathy or one of the other common running injuries that are out there, you'll probably notice that a lot of the exercises that I like to prescribe are very similar to what you're gonna do in a PT's office. You know, when you go to a physical therapist office you're doing rehabilitation, but when we do it when we're healthy which is still a good idea it's prehab, it's prehabilitation. It's sort of doing the work that you would do when you're trying to get healthy, when you're already healthy, in an effort to keep yourself that way. So you know how do you keep yourself healthy? I think you know.
Speaker 2:Probably the number two thing is what we've just been talking about is all the strength training. You know let's do a lot of body weight stuff, but twice a week we get in the gym, but the most important thing to do is just to make sure that your training is well structured. Let's not increase our mileage too substantially from week to week. Let's do workouts that are not only appropriate for our ability level but also appropriate for what we're training for and appropriate for where we are in the season. You know, if you're training for a 5k, if you're one week out, your workout is going to look a lot different than if you're 12 weeks out. So there should be some kind of periodization or, in other words, your, your training evolves over time so that it's ultimately focused on whatever goal it is that you have. Maybe that's running a fast race, maybe it's not, maybe it's some other goal that you have, but your training should always be oriented toward that goal.
Speaker 2:So, from an injury prevention perspective, as soon as we get our training right number one and then we add some strength training in, I think that's like 80% of the problem right there, and then the other 20%, or maybe 15%, is the recovery side of things.
Speaker 2:Are we getting enough sleep, are we taking care of ourselves and eating well and staying hydrated? All those things are obviously important. One of the things about running that makes it quite difficult is the fact that it's relentless. Even if you're really into weight lifting, you might only lift three days a week, but with running you might run five, six, seven days a week. It is relentless to a certain extent, and so the recovery side of things is almost a daily adventure in trying to get yourself to feel really good, to recover from the workout you just did, so that you are ready for the next workout to come, because it is coming, it's inevitable. You're on this, just this endless train of recovery runs and workouts and long runs, and it can be fairly challenging. So that's why a proper structure and progression of training, adding in some strength training and then making sure your recovery is on point, those are probably the top three in my book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you definitely hit a lot of different things and just from experience, one of my favorite things to do with clients when I was training and I have my trainers do now is I throw someone on a treadmill and I have my trainers do now is I know someone and I try to know. And I love the new technology on phones where you can video tube someone in slow motion and then you can literally see, as they're running in like a jog or sprint, how someone's landing to address a specific type of injury and the thing I probably see the most is lack of dorsiflexion, so they're an ability to kind of lifting your toes straight up. So the landing very heavy. These are the people that when you're at a gym you hear this and they found very, very heavy when they're running. That causes shin splints. And then a lot of people say, oh, the front of my shin says shin hurts. So first I'll make a definition of what shin splints are. And then a lot of people say, oh, the front of my shin says what does your shin hurt? So first I'm going to give a definition of what shin splints are. It's microfractures in the shin itself, so inside the bone. So that's why it's super fucking painful and a really cool test to figure out if you've ever had shin splints or if someone had shin splints.
Speaker 1:Take your thumb from your knee. Take your thumb from your knee, go straight down the front of your leg all the way down to your ankle and every time you feel bumps in that shin, that's your bone regrowing back thicker, stronger and it doesn't grow straight anymore, it grows like a rock. So you can feel old injuries by doing that. So someone like me who had chronic shin splints as a kid because I didn't know how to dorsiflex, it's just like a rigid rock as you're running down my shin. So what's a good way to train for that? There's tons of dorsiflexion movements. You could do that muscle for those that want to look it up with anterior tibialis. So that is lifting your toes straight up. There's little machines they make for it where you can sit back into a wall and like rock your toes up. There's little machines they make for it where you can sit back into a wall and like rock your toes up, or you can do heel walks and that's a really good way to help drift. And then that and then just hip movements.
Speaker 1:My wife and I run completely different. I run very hips, externally rotated duck feet is what the layman term for it is. So I'm running way out and awkward striding, and she runs the exact opposite. She runs pigeon, pigeon and basically it looks like she's walking a tightrope. When she runs it's just back and forth both. So she has super tight internal rotators, as opposed to me having the exact opposite.
Speaker 1:So just understanding how you run and really looking at your gait pattern by looking at yourself doing it in slow motion can help teach you how to work under active muscles and relief and get the tension out of overactive muscles and help train you to run smoother and pretty much avoid injuries. I think is a big side of it. And then this thing goes to weightlifting. So why? Why wouldn't it apply for running?
Speaker 1:Another cool tidbit and something I would like you to talk about further is this is me going to nerd out a little bit muscle fibers and the different types of muscle fibers. So we have type one and type two. Type one muscles are like I get an opposite fast, slow, twitch. Sorry, type one is slow twitch and type two is fast twitch. And then there's different types inside of type two and the theory behind it is. You can't have a hundred percent of both. You have a certain percentage of muscle fibers, so you can super train yourself to one way or super train yourself to the other way, which is why the saying goes you could be really good with strength or you could be really good with long distance running. So how do you address that in the running world and how do you like, counteract that with the person that's training program?
Speaker 2:The interesting thing is, I don't counteract it at all, I I actually think, even though we do have a different muscle fiber typology, there's, you know, like you said, uh, type one, type two, there's two a and two b. It doesn't really make a difference really, because if a runner comes to me and they're, uh, you know, a fast Twitch, sprinter type, heavy weightlifting kind of runner, but they want to run marathons, um, well then they just have to do the marathon training and they're going to convert some of those type two fibers to type one fibers. They're going to get a lot more efficient with using the type one fibers. And so you know, like we are very adaptable, and so I wouldn't let any anyone who tells you, oh, you're a type one athlete or you're a type two athlete, not to pursue whatever it is that you want to pursue, whether it's, you know, you know, most people, like you said, they're a mix, they're not a predominantly type one runner versus a type two runner. Uh, elliot Kipchagay, the the world record, or the fastest marathoner in the world, he's a type one guy. And, and probably the best way to know which type of fiber that you have is where you've had success as an athlete in the past, right. So if you are an incredible soccer player, you're probably more of a type two kind of an athlete. If you are an amazing Ironman, ultra distance triathlete, probably more of a type one type of athlete, triathlete probably more of a type one type of athlete.
Speaker 2:What I'll say is a lot of runners adult runners who come to the sport regardless of what type of muscle fibers they have, they still kind of only focus on the type one stuff. They love going the long runs. They don't lift heavy, they don't do any sprint work and so their ability to run fast, their any kind of stress on the type two fibers. You know that fast twitch responsiveness really just starts to decline over time because it's simply never trained. And so you know what I would say for every, every runner is that, even if you're training for an ultra marathon, you've got to do some lifting, you've got to do some speed work where you're actually running very, very fast, because we need that healthy balance.
Speaker 2:You need some of that type two ability to produce force and actually run with some power, because that's your running economy, that's your vo two max, that's your, your speed ceiling, like we mentioned before. And so, yeah, even if you're a marathoner, hey, that's great. You got to run a lot of miles, you got to do a good long run. You're probably going to run aerobic workouts, but you're also going to run strides. You should also be getting in the gym to lift weights and sometimes some of your workouts are probably going to have some short fast reps in it, because you do need that good running economy and you do need that good running economy and you do need your vo2 max to theoretically be as high as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to mention now my favorite part about running. You know this. Is that not sarcastic too? I, uh, I did a couple of spartan races and even though it's not like your stereotypical run a marathon, it's still like one was a half marathon length. It was 13.1 miles up a mountain in Jersey, multiple times up a mountain, with obstacles in between.
Speaker 1:And one thing you realize is what you mentioned earlier in the show, and I really want you to talk about this from a running standpoint is it trains your mental resilience more efficiently than other aspects, especially weightlifting as an example. So for a good, good way to look at it is if I'm doing like a one rep max, right, how much time does it take to get that rep? Does it take to get that rep 10 seconds, 15 seconds, and I can focus 100% and get myself there. Now apply that to running and distances, especially. How long does it take to run a marathon or, like you even said, an ultra marathon? 20 hours, and most people like mile four. They start thinking about why the hell did I sign up for this? I still have 20 hours left of running, oh my god.
Speaker 1:And you really have to break that mental barrier over and over and over and over again, because it just you can't believe how much more you have to do, especially because there we're straight running on a marathon side. There's no distractions, of obstacles in between, it's just you and your body. That's it. Good luck, go run. So it's something I think a lot of people can learn a positive from and really, if they have other aspects in their life that they don't feel like they have specific mental resilience, go for a super long distance run or go do something that takes an extreme amount of time, like a spartan race, and you realize, and we'll look back and say, hey, if I did that, then I can do this other stupid thing I'm worried about in my life. Give me some like tidbits of things you do to help with yourself and other people to push past those mental barriers that we set ourselves up with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with you 100%, and I will add the cruel thing about running is that you don't actually have to run a long time. You could race a mile on the track, hit the halfway point and realize you're in full panic mode because you feel like you're in a pot of boiling water. You feel like your legs are on fire and you're only halfway in. Now you may only have two to five minutes left of running, but the cool thing about running is that it allows that time to be stretched almost to an eternity, so you don't have to go run a marathon to experience eternity. You could run a 5K, you could run a mile race If you're pushing yourself in an appropriate intensity. Every single race is going to be an exercise in mental toughness, and I'm a big believer in the fact that you cannot have mental toughness by sitting down in a chair and doing some mindset exercises and thinking your way to being a mentally tough kind of a person. You actually have to go out in the field and experience it. You have to put yourself in the situation where you are required to demonstrate mental toughness, and so you can do this in a lot of ways. You know like you can run a lot and you can do all that with with no headphones. No, no podcasts will make an exception for the health and fitness redefined podcast. But a lot of the time you just need to be alone with your thoughts for a very long period of time, and if you can do that an hour a day, that's a great baseline of mental toughness. Now we're going to do a long run. Now it's not an hour, Now it's two hours. Can you do that just by yourself, alone with your thoughts, for two hours? You have to experience a less stable physiology for two hours and be okay with that. That's a level of almost patience, self-control, being okay with things, not feeling amazing. That's part of mental toughness. But we also have to do hard workouts. We have to get on the track or go to a hill workout or some sort of tempo run where we're challenging our bodies not from a duration perspective but from an intensity perspective. And this is another way of kind of testing your mental toughness abilities, because what you want to do is get to a point where you know, let's say, you're at the track and you're running six times 800 meters or two laps around the track Well, the first two might be very manageable. And then, on the third one, you realize that, oh my God, I am experiencing tremendous fatigue. I'm anaerobic, my legs are starting to get really tired and you're only halfway done and you basically need to figure out how to survive this workout, not just physically but also psychologically, and I think it's just required to do all these things. You need the relentless grind of running to build a certain aspect of mental toughness. You need to be alone with your thoughts for an hour or two or more to build a certain aspect of mental toughness. But you also need to experience that intensity Because ultimately, at the end of the day, I think mental toughness is the ability to solve problems constructively without panicking, and this is, of course, in an athletic perspective.
Speaker 2:So, if you're experiencing some kind of problem in your running maybe you went out too fast, Maybe you don't feel good, Maybe the weather is less than ideal on race day no matter what it is you need to sort of roll with the punches, creatively solve that problem, while maintaining a positive attitude and just moving forward and doing the best you can with what you've been given. Yes, you can control what you can control, but a lot of things are outside of your control, and I have seen runners absolutely just lose their shit because something bad happened that they had no control over, and I've seen other runners completely just smoothly go over that obstacle and then go on to have an amazing race. And so a big part of this is your psychology. I don't think you can learn it in a classroom or in even a sports psychologist's office. You sort of have to take some of those ideas and lessons whether that's imagery, whether that's exercises and using mantras or whatever it is and go apply it out in the real world in all those situations that we talked about, so that your mental toughness is holistic, it's well-rounded. Yeah, you can go for a long run, but you can also go do a workout and you can deal with a race when things don't go exactly according to plan and you can still be successful. So I do think running is probably one of the best sports at developing mental toughness.
Speaker 2:You know if you can run high mileage with hard workouts and you know you're you're, you're just running races and able to push yourself to the well, I mean, that's another thing is running a race is such an exercise in experiencing discomfort and, honestly, the more you can experience, the more you can gladly pile more discomfort onto yourself, the better racer you're going to be. And you don't get there overnight. I mean, the first race that I ran it was like a full on psychological panic mode. I've got to stop to walk. I don't know what's going on. Right now I feel like I'm going to die Right. And you know, after a couple of years you realize running's not going to kill me, I'm not going to die.
Speaker 2:You stop putting races on this pedestal of like, oh, everything is going to go right, and and and you know I'm going to expect so much of myself and and this is going to be easy, or I got this, and you just, you have all these sort of ideas about racing and I think the more experience you get, the more you're just like racing is just a logical extension of training. If I've done the work, I'm going to be prepared. I know it's going to hurt. Even if it's a marathon, it's going to be over even before you know it. Marathon, it's going to be over even before you know it. And I've just need need to exercise that patience that I've built so so well during training and get to the finish line and experience that. So if you can get to that place, you've you've built a tremendous amount of mental toughness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I keep thinking back when you were telling, explaining everything to that spartan race that I did. I want to add some more context to the story and I actually interviewed joe decina, the ceo of spartan. I think episode three of this show or four, somewhere really early I was just on his back actually really that's awesome.
Speaker 1:And what they don't tell you or maybe I just didn't read was that beast, that they have the 13.1 mile one. You're supposed to bring your own water. I came from tough mutters and I always knew, hey, water stations and we'll be fine. So my wife and I showed up totally unprepared. I just dehydrated to the bone halfway through because there's no water stations on a beast and I blacked out mile eight. I couldn't tell you, and even like the day after the race, what happened between mile eight and mile 12. I just saw my elite sign, I saw mile 12 sign, that's all I know.
Speaker 1:I think my brain woke back up. It's like my papa, bio-pop are close. So it's just so crazy. And I wanted to give up prior to that myelite so many times and I was like, nope, keep going, keep going, keep going. And to agree to your point, you teach yourself that over and over and over again out there, how many times did you tell yourself one more step, one more step, one more step, step. Just 500 million times because your body's cramping, every muscle hurts. You're just when you get that dehydrated. Every step hurts. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:So so understanding the we, we call this in in track and field. We call this track math. When you're running a track race and you start doing all the math in your head of okay, I've got 1100 meters to go, that's going to take me four minutes and 10 seconds. I'll start my kick 90 seconds from the finish line, so I only have two minutes and 40 seconds of suffering and you end up figuring out time and meters to a very precise level. And it's all because you're trying to put context around your own suffering.
Speaker 1:So I totally get that yeah, it's, it's so true and even relate that mental toughness is the general level, like here's an example from this week, five days ago for myself, where I, back in 2020, tore my right chest in two spots while benching. I went into a completely unwarmed up by exhausted mitrapsis. I wasn't thinking, a brain was 500 million of the places, tried doing two 45, ended up ripping it in two spots. So I had that mental block for years Like don't go above two 45. Don't even hit two 45, stop at two 35 and that's it.
Speaker 1:And then I had such a stressful day Monday and I was just like I need to burn energy and I started benching and I was like what the fuck do I care about a number? Why are you putting so much thought into a number? It's just a number. Like fuck it, let's just do it. So I got a spot, obviously to play it safe. Knocked out three reps, no problem. So I was like all right, I got 245. Let's go up again. So it's 255. Knocked out two reps. I was like 265? So I like 265. So I got 265 on the bar.
Speaker 1:I went to go down to do a rep and I thought the kid that was spotting me grabbed the bar so I like I held it at the bottom. I was like let go of the bar, let go of the bar. And then I pushed it up and I did another rep of it and he goes, bro, I wasn't touching the bar, you did a pause rep. I was like 275. So I threw 275 in the bar and then got that and that's where I stopped. But like you're telling me that in four days time spent from last time I did chess, I bumped a 40 pound increase on bench press impossible. So that just means I held myself back for who knows how long from going heavier because I got stuck in my own way. So it just shows that sometimes when our brains think we're done, we're only halfway through and we still have double of that output, whether it's running, whether it's lifting, pretty much anything in life to give, to go beyond, to push ourselves to beyond specific limits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this happens in the running world too, and probably the number one scenario where I see this happen among runners that I'm working with is they don't think they can run more than a certain amount per week and a lot of times it's 30 miles a week, 35, 40 miles per week, because anything more than 30 to 40 miles per week and you're starting to get into some decent mileage numbers. You might see some collegiate runners running 50 or 60 miles a week and that's intimidating to a lot of runners and the number of runners that I have kind of easily gotten to some of those higher mileage numbers and they're like oh, I actually feel fine, this is very manageable. I was holding myself back for years because of this preconceived notion that I couldn't do it. I was going to get hurt and then all of a sudden, because you know, this athlete's capacity is so greatly increased, they're running better workouts, they're running faster races and, you know, their entire running career has been transformed.
Speaker 2:The trajectory has just been completely changed and I just love seeing that, because you're right, a lot of the times that we are holding ourselves back, it's just us holding ourselves back, you know, and that's where I think you know, having a coach having that kind of maybe neutral third set of eyes around you just to just kind of look at things. You know, hey, anthony, maybe you can go beyond 245 with the bench, maybe you can run more than 40 miles a week, you know, there's, there's a lot of ways in which an expert or someone like that can really help you break through some of those preconceived notions that you have, and on the other side of that is just a whole different athlete that you could be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree. Coaches are the best thing you can pay for in all aspects of life, and even the most professional athletes have coaches. I train with my trainers, as an example, I pay them, but I still train with them because I can always learn. Just because their staff doesn't mean I can't learn from them, so I couldn't agree with you more. I think we're going to start wrapping this show up, jason, but I'm going to ask you one fun question, because I know you know the answer. I'm sure a lot of people don't know the answer, and it's totally fun. Why is it called the marathon? It's such an odd mileage, so why is it?
Speaker 2:called the marathon.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're testing my like historical uh running trivia knowledge oh yeah so it's my fun fact to bring with me every time I show up at a race.
Speaker 2:This is a good fun fact. So the original marathon, the first marathon ever run, was, I believe, in ancient Greece or Rome or Italy, and there was a runner who ran to the city of Marathon to tell the city people that they had won the battle. And he got there, he delivered the news. He immediately collapsed and died on the spot, which is the kind of the lore of the marathon and and that's why it's called the marathon. Uh, but that wasn't actually 26.2 miles, it was a different distance and it's since been standardized to 26.2.
Speaker 1:and it's since been standardized to 26.2.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you pretty much, nailed it Pretty much. I don't know if it was.
Speaker 1:Greece. It was a war with the Persians.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Some of the finer details escaped me. Yeah, he showed up, gave the news, died, so they always think that was the extent of human running, yeah, and then we decided to invent ultra marathons.
Speaker 2:Like are we crazy sadistic, totally crazy.
Speaker 1:Uh, but yes, the actual final two questions. I'm going to ask you, super, to summarize episode in one or two sentences, but it'll be take home message my take-home message is that running is not necessarily harder as hard as you might think it is.
Speaker 2:If you give it a little bit of time and you approach it with a strategic perspective, you can become a much better runner than you think you can be.
Speaker 1:I love that. And where can people find you, get a hold of you and learn more about strength running?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. And where can people find you, get ahold of you and learn more about strength running? Yeah, so if you're a runner, you want to take your running to the next level. Strength runningcom is my home base, but if you're into podcasts, you can always check out the strength running podcast. My podcast tries to treat you like a pro runner, so I surround you with you know the same support team a pro might have the physical therapist, the strength coaches, of course, running coaches, sports psychologists and you know a whole bunch of thought leaders around the sport who can help you Accomplish your goals. So check out the podcast. You can check out strength running's youtube channel if you prefer video, but those are the three best places to learn a little bit more about strength running and me.
Speaker 1:I love it. Jason, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you guys for listening to this week's episode of Health and Fitness Redefined. If you enjoyed this show, share it with a friend. It's the only way this show grows. And don't forget, guys, fitness is medicine. Thank you guys for listening to this week's episode of Health and Fitness Redefined. Please don't forget to subscribe and share this show with a friend, with a loved one, for those that need to hear it. And, ultimately, don't forget, fitness is medicine. I'll see you next time.
