Couch to 50k DURATION: MONTH 5

Summary

In this conversation, the speakers discuss the progress and strategies involved in the Couch to 50K program, focusing on month five of training. They share personal experiences with injuries, the importance of frequency in running, and the upcoming challenges of increasing mileage. The discussion also touches on fueling strategies during long runs and the excitement of exploring new trails as the weather improves.

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Takeaways

The Couch to 50K program emphasizes gradual progression in running.

Injuries can occur but managing them is crucial for continued training.

Frequency of runs can be more beneficial than long runs alone.

Building endurance requires a mix of shorter, frequent runs and longer runs.

Practicing fueling strategies during training is essential for race day.

Expect some fatigue and soreness as mileage increases.

Incorporating hiking can help build time on feet.

Exploring new trails can enhance the running experience.

Maintaining a positive mindset about training can improve motivation.

The upcoming month will present new challenges in training.

Sound bites

"How to finish your first ultra marathon."

"I had a little bit of an injury come up."

"Practice your fueling during the race."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Couch to 50K<

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Cool. What's up Matt?
How we doing? Doing good man, how are you?
Good, good. Yeah, We've done a lot of
running, yeah, which has been great.
And want to talk today about Month 5.
This is Couch to 50K How to finish your first ultra
marathon. We're moving right through this

(00:27):
program and gearing up for another big month of running,
similar to the last, but just bigger, better, more.
So that's cool. I'm excited about it.
And yeah, the the last month went pretty well.
Had a little bit of a, an injurycome up, but it was more like a

(00:49):
soreness, tightness thing. And yeah, I tried to take a
couple days off and hoped it would just go away, which it
didn't. But I was like, why, you know, I
don't have time to not run. So just started running again
and it didn't get any worse. So kind of like, you know.
Keep going. Yeah, still there now, but it's
it just it's getting better and better.

(01:10):
I think I'm just I'm slowing down the healing process by not
taking full rest, but it's definitely not getting worse.
So, you know, it's like keep. Just go.
Just one more little thing. It was something that worried me
for a bit. You know, I'm like, if I, if I
don't, I don't want to take a month off.

(01:32):
I don't have time for that really, right?
And then that'd be like startingall over, right?
But I also didn't want to just keep training.
And yeah, it's hard to get like super injured to the point that,
you know, it was, it was the timing of it.
There was enough time still thatI could have tried to to treat
it completely right. But yeah, so here we are.

(01:55):
Still a little bit of pain, but but it's nothing, nothing crazy.
I think it's kind of like an oblique thing.
Didn't really get it checked out.
I talked to a couple PTS, but nothing, Nothing official, no
diagnosis. Who cares, right?
Yeah, let's go for that. You changed your shoes.
I did change some shoes, yeah. And I, I heard it before that

(02:16):
with some older shoes, road running shoes.
I went down and did the the Carlsbad 5K on the road ran a
little too hard. That was that was like I was
feeling it before that actually,right.
But I think that was where I kind of turned it into an
injury, you know, some hard roadrunning which I hadn't really
done any you. Went to the world's fastest 5K.

(02:38):
Right. As a middle-aged dad, yes.
Trying to, like, match your highschool time, Yeah.
Yeah, pretty much. That's pretty much how it went.
So yeah, not, not a shocker thatI injured myself a little bit,
but yeah, it was it was fun though.
It's a cool last race. It's very.
Fun, very cool. I saw Roseman Rosemond.

(03:03):
Is that right? We needed to look it up.
I always want to call him Robinson for some reason.
Yeah. But yeah, he, I saw him down
there. He.
Was at the high school track last night too.
Nice. Yeah, OK, yeah, super cool guy.
We should get his name right because he he has been in here.
He made a little video for us. Totally.
He tagged us on on Instagram at when he was at the high school.

(03:24):
Nice tagged. Us.
Yeah, very cool, pretty cool. Yeah.
And he he won it. He he won the one yeah, that was
that was my race. Yeah, I wasn't ready for that
either I was like I thought Masters was a fifty thing, but
apparently it's 40. So yeah, bracing the Masters
division now there. You go.
Yeah, man, he crushed it. That dude, that dude's.
Fast. He is fast.
Yeah, very fast. But yeah, let's talk about month

(03:48):
5. It is April for me, but month
five of the program, what are wecalling it?
Yeah, we're going into our duration month.
Off the top of my head, I can't recall what we called what last
month's focus was, but we're kind of getting to the part now
where we're going to start to get into longer runs.

(04:09):
We we really highlighted there, you know focused on frequency at
the beginning especially to not really injure ourselves.
And you know, you probably were able to run a lot further over
the last three months by keepingit down in mileage and
increasing the number versus just going out and doing, you

(04:29):
know, 10 or 15 mile run. Totally worked too.
And before we get into it, I, I,I was pleasantly surprised that,
that, that it worked, you know what I mean?
Because I, I didn't know, right?And then when I did go out and
do 1 longer run towards the end of the month last month, it
actually felt pretty good. You know, it was like a good

(04:51):
eight mile or, you know, no hills or anything, but still
like, that was a lot farther than I had gone.
And so that I mean that that that worked really well, man.
The frequency and stacking it up, I definitely built the
endurance and strength without having to go out and run a long
run, you know, a couple times a week or something.
So yeah, I'm convinced I'm a believer.

(05:12):
Yeah, man, I, I, like I said before, I like it.
It has worked for me all the wayall the way up into the, you
know, much further distances where I really don't run super
far. Like, I'm not a, I'm not like a
really high mileage guy in termsof relative to other, other

(05:32):
people in the like 200 plus milespace.
They're doing 160 mile weeks, you know, right now getting
ready for Coca Dona and, and so I there's obviously different
schools of thought, but the running shorter running more
frequently has worked great for me.

(05:53):
So glad to hear. Glad to hear it.
I was surprised. I really was surprised, but.
Well, it doesn't feel like you're doing anything.
Yeah, when you're doing it right, Right, 'cause you're
always cutting a run short. Like you feel like, oh, I could
go a little further. I could go a little further, but
it just adds up. Eventually you let yourself go a
little further and all of those frequent runs really like, come

(06:17):
into play. Yeah, had a few of those moments
too, where I went out on the runand I just felt great, you know,
and like the whole point is to train.
I'm just going to go run a few more.
And I was like, I got to run tomorrow.
I want tomorrow to feel good too, you know.
And and so I tried to stay really true to it and and honest
with it and then and it it really did work.
Nice, that's great to hear. Probably helps to fit it into a

(06:40):
busy schedule too, when you're not having to go out for
multiple hours, you know, on on each run.
It is nice when you can do that.Like that's rewarding and
enjoyable, but it's, it's easy to squeeze in, you know, like 40
minutes of running. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, that was good, although I think those days are coming to
an end now. Yeah.

(07:01):
Now we're now we're ramping up right now.
Now you're going to, you're going to continue with the
frequency, but you got to make the runs get a little longer,
you know, now that you know you can, and now it's like almost
going back to the beginning. It's just your base is way
better. So you know, the frequency is

(07:22):
still extremely important. You just want to incrementally
increase all of those runs to really build the duration up.
So we're not going to like drop off in the number of runs and
we're not going to like increasehuge mileage per run.
Like you're still not needing togo out and do 25 mile runs, but

(07:46):
the high frequency runs with, you know, a couple more miles on
is going to add up. And that's going to probably
make you feel like you did at the start where it's back to
like grinding and not feeling like you want to go further.
You know how you were just saying like, oh, I felt great
and I was out there now got a couple miles to each of those

(08:08):
runs and still do, you know, thefive or Six Mile runs per week
and you know, you're back into like a build phase building up.
So expectation of a little more pain, fatigue, soreness.
I like to think about that before I get there.
You know, it helps me a lot because if I wake up and I'm

(08:30):
just shot it, it demotivates me.But if I am inspecting it and I
know it's coming, I'm like, I'm going to feel this in the
morning. But it doesn't matter.
Just. Go.
I think this is a good month anda good time to slow down again
and slow down even more. And like I would recommend
hiking to, you know, to get thatthat time on feet.

(08:55):
And like one of the things we want to do this month is
practice your fueling during therace, like what you're going to
be, you know, eating and drinking during the race.
And a lot of times that's tough to do in the shorter runs.
And so, you know, if you're, if you're slowing down and adding a
little bit of mileage to your runs, you're going to be out
there a lot longer. It's going to give you the

(09:17):
opportunity to, to play around with your fuelling strategies.
And you know, like, again, you're back to a building phase
where you're, you know, it's going to be hard and slowing
down, it's going to help you go a little, a little bit further.
No more world's fastest 5K runs.Yeah, that was a mistake.

(09:40):
That's what my wife wanted to dofor her birthday though, so
that's my. You got to.
Do it. You got to go.
Well, you got yourself into shape that it wasn't like
completely debilitating. Oh.
Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah, I just, I mean, I felt
pretty fast down there, you know, It was a lot of fun.
But before we go too far, run methrough specifically what what
we should be doing this month. Let's just block it out just so

(10:03):
we have it in their mind and. I think you should be at 30 to
40 miles per week. OK.
I'm trying to run 6 times per week, kind of as like your goal,
30 to 40 miles six times per week.
Couple of those should be doubleS so maybe you're running four

(10:23):
days and two of the days out of the four have two runs.
OK. So again, still continue with
the frequency you still want to be changing your more like kind
of shaping your week with a hillworkout like some hill workouts

(10:44):
in a tempo run, something a little bit faster, a little bit
shorter. And then yeah.
And like I said, the hikes, the adding a couple hikes in double,
if you're going to do double S, you know, maybe one of your
days, the double S has a long, along hike involved with it.
That's even more time on your feet.
So you'll start, you're going towe're going to want to start to

(11:06):
build up the time on the feet now, like we're getting close to
where you're going to be out there for, you know, six hours.
So in training, if you can hit like, you know, four to six
hours on that double day that that would be good for you.
You're you're going to have to practice your fueling if you're
out there, even over two runs for six hours.

(11:28):
So you know, a four hour very easy or you know, easy by
effort, not necessarily easy by terrain, if that makes sense.
So like a four hour easy hike run is going to is is going to
do a lot for you, but you know, still maybe a three mile speed

(11:53):
workout in there in that week aswell.
Yeah, nice. That's a lot of running.
I got to say that's probably I may have run that that big of a
week like once. So there there will be a
challenge there. I think it'll be important to
remember what you said a little earlier, which is just just to
slow down and and the frequency I I'm as I said, I'm a believer.

(12:19):
So I do feel like it's, it's noteven though I've probably done a
30 mile week one time in my life, I feel pretty confident I
can go do three of them in a row, right, Just because it's
there now. I've practiced that, that kind
of frequency muscle. Yeah, I think if you went out
and ran 20 miles, you would havea difficult time getting in 30

(12:43):
that week 'cause you would wreckyourself right now and you might
get out for another 5 or something.
You're you're going to have a few tired days in there.
You're probably not going to feel the greatest.
It's going to feel it's going tofor me anyways, longer runs,
they ZAP my kind of my desire topush hard on longer runs.

(13:10):
So it's like what I do it, I getit out of my system and I don't,
I'm not like as in, in need of that, like suffer fast that I
don't really have that motivation.
So I, I like to build up that motivation towards the race.
So when like the race comes, it's like I've been holding back
a little bit of, of that diggingdeep.

(13:33):
I don't know where it's going with that, but.
Yeah, no. I like it.
It's. It's that all sounds really
good. I, I feel good about it.
I think we've already run through it pretty well for the
month. Looking forward to talking also
about next month, the biggest month, Month 6.

(13:53):
So we'll stay tuned for that episode, right?
That's where I get real scared, I think.
Yeah, you think you're running alot now.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So the next couple of months, man, it's, it's going to be a
lot of running, but I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah, good to see. Good to see that you are, you
know, reaping the benefits of the high frequency.

(14:18):
Yeah, man. I think it's all worked really
well. Our weathers turned around up
here too, which is pretty cool. It feels like spring now.
Yeah. So mostly the snow is pretty
much all gone. Yeah, the trails are awesome.
Yeah, the trails are great. And there's so many out there,
you know, and go to go do a little bit of the course here
and there. And, but just in general, we
have such good trails and there's so many that I haven't

(14:39):
run, I've biked a lot more than I've run up here.
But it's a, that's a totally different experience.
That's what I've noticed at least, You know, going out and
running a trail that you've mountain biked it, You may as
well have never been there before just because of the
speed, right? Like you, you take in so much
more. When the Maple Hills trails were
first built, like they're so windy and there's so many

(15:00):
connections, I had it all dialedin running.
And then I took the mountain bike over there and I was like
blowing past turns and like hills that I used as like
landmarks were not, you know, like the same level of a
landmark anymore. I'm on a bike.
So it's just everything moved faster and I remember getting

(15:22):
lost over there a few times like.
It's surprisingly easy to do because it seems like it's not
that big. I know, but it winds through
like every little Canyon in there and all the little
connector trails and yeah. Yeah, good stuff.
So I'll definitely be doing someexploring and yeah, good stuff,
man. Cool.
Thank you. Cheers, cheers.
On to the next. Couch to 50K is an elevated

(15:49):
SoCal project.