May 8, 2025 • 39 mins
You need two things to improve your running: strength and stress. If you've been feeling stuck in your performance or sidelined by recurring injuries, this one's for you. We share why simply adding more miles or intensity isn't the answer—and how focusing on quality over quantity can unlock a whole new level of progress.
We explore the essential role of strength training in building a more resilient, efficient runner—especially as we age. And just as important, we talk about managing the right kind of stress—both physical and mental—so your body can adapt, recover, and thrive.
🎉 PLUS: Enrollment is now open for our FREE five-day challenge—Running Reignited—starting May 12!
This challenge is tailor-made for runners over 40 who want to run strong, stay injury-free, and feel more confident with every step. You’ll get daily, actionable steps to help you build muscle, improve efficiency, and make strength and recovery work for you—not against you.
👉 Ready to reignite your running?
Join us for this powerful five-day reset and start training smarter, not harder.
Sign up now at https://www.realliferunners.com/challenge — it's completely free!
Let’s get you feeling stronger, more energized, and more in control of your running journey!
02:07 The Complexity of Running Advice
02:54 The Myth of the One Thing
05:03 Strength and Stress: The Core Elements
08:36 Understanding Strength Beyond Lifting Weights
12:05 The Importance of Resilience and Adaptation
19:58 The Importance of Metabolism for Runners
20:48 Strength Training for Runners
21:14 Balancing Running and Strength Training
22:50 The Role of Stress in Running
24:30 Avoiding Overtraining and Burnout
27:11 The Importance of Recovery
28:43 Individualized Training Plans
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angie (00:00):
I am often asked what I would tell someone that was
(00:03):
struggling with their running.
If I had about 10 minutes andwas sitting down to coffee with
them, what would I say?
Where would I start?
Where would I direct them?
How would I help?
And so today we're gonna talkabout that answer, and Kevin's
gonna tell you his answer aswell, because there's a little
bit of overlap and there mightbe a little bit of difference
there too.
(00:23):
So stay tuned.
(00:47):
What's up runners?
Welcome to the show today.
Before we jump in, I have toremind you that enrollment is
open for our free challenge.
Right now, running reignited isour free five day challenge.
We are running it May 12ththrough the 16th of 2025.
So if you are catching thisepisode.
When it is released, go over toreal life runners.com/challenge
(01:11):
and get yourself signed up.
It's a free five day challenge,and over the course of these
five days, we are going to behelping you with so many things
and you're running.
This is not your typical runningchallenge.
I am not gonna tell you go outand run a mile today, go out and
run two miles today.
I am not gonna give you paces oranything like that.
I'm gonna actually get into theroot of what is going on with
(01:33):
you and your body, especiallyafter 40.
Why your body feels different,what is changing and how you are
running and your training, andeven your sense of self, who you
think you, you are, and youridentity needs to start to shift
after 40 no surface level thingsaround here.
I want you to actually dig inand change your running from the
(01:55):
inside out.
So head over to real liferunners.com/challenge and get
yourself signed up for that freechallenge.
Today.
Alright, Kev, are we ready?
Yeah.
Let's do this thing.
Let's do this thing.
Alright, so this is one of thoseconversations where, I get this
question from, and I've heard itfrom multiple people, but also,
especially when I'm talking topeople about business and
(02:18):
they're trying to get clear ondo you do, how do you help
people?
and they often say to me, if youhad 10 minutes and you were
having coffee with a client,someone that was struggling with
running, what would you tellthem?
Where would you start?
And.
I have my answers.
And so Kevin and I startedtalking about things off the
microphone and we said, let'sbring this conversation right
onto the microphone.
Kevin (02:38):
it got real heated.
Angie (02:39):
It got real heated.
because you didn't wanna answerme at first.
Kevin (02:42):
It's'cause they, I disagree with the premise.
Angie (02:44):
I know because it's never that simple.
Like it's, and this is one ofthe conversations that Kevin and
I have all the time.
Is this idea of, it comes downto this one thing.
There's a lot of people outthere, especially in the world
of social media, especially inmarketing, that want you to
believe there's one thing.
Is
Kevin (03:01):
it zone two?
Is it zone
Angie (03:03):
two training?
there's one thing that you canfix and that will revitalize
your running and it will lead toall sorts of amazing things.
Kevin (03:11):
that's the only thing holding you back from a PR at
every single race distance.
There's one thing.
Zone two.
Yeah, zone two.
Sorry, there's two things thenit's a zone.
Angie (03:20):
I even had this comment on Instagram the other day.
I posted a reel and someone madea comment that they've slowed
down their runs and they've beendoing a lot of easy runs and
they keep getting slower andwhat gives what?
What's happening here?
And the answer is.
that's not the full picture.
That's just one piece of thepuzzle.
That's just one ingredient inthe recipe.
(03:40):
And we have to look at the fullrecipe, the full picture for us
to really see what's going on.
And that's one of the reasonsthat you really hated answering
this question.
I'm like, come on, it's me.
Let's just.
Let's just chat.
Kevin (03:52):
if you just focus on the slow running.
Yeah.
That's like my trying to makespaghetti sauce versus you
trying to make spaghetti sauce.
Like I've seen you put somethings in.
So I'm like, oh.
So I put the jar of tomatoes inthere and then I mashed them up
the
Angie (04:04):
jar of tomatoes.
Kevin (04:05):
Can of tomato, they, the whole tomatoes and it mash those
guys up.
But then you have all the, theother things that go in that
actually makes it taste good.
Whereas mine is like a mashed upwhole tomatoes simmering on the
stove.
it's all those other things.
Angie (04:18):
No.
You know that onions and garlicgoing in there too.
There's
Kevin (04:21):
Yeah, I know.
But you have you don't havemeasurements of any of this?
No.
There's so much of a.
Feel of all the differentthings, and that's why it's very
tricky to be like, oh, this isclearly the thing that has to go
in there because maybe it isthat it needs a little bit of
garlic in there, but you justtaste it and you're like, oh,
you need to add this and this.
I'm like, how did you know that?
Angie (04:38):
It's the Italian in me.
Kevin (04:39):
I know, but that's like being like, okay, if.
If you were gonna sit down withsomebody and tell'em how to make
a spaghetti sauce, right?
Like you wouldn't tell them, oh,it needs a little bit of salt.
But my sauce usually needs alittle bit of salt.
But your first ingredient, you'dbe like, you need to put
tomatoes into it.
that's
Angie (04:54):
not the first ingredient though.
Okay, fine.
But yes, that is one of the mainingredients.
Kevin (05:00):
God, I'm so Irish.
Oh my gosh,
Angie (05:02):
you're so cute.
Ultimately it does, in my mind,comes down to two things at the
core of all of this.
And I think that these twoelements really do determine
whether you adapt and improve orbreak down and burnout.
And I would love to, as we.
Get into this discussion, youcan decide if you also like
(05:22):
these two ingredients or if,yeah, we'll you've got other
stuff going on here, otherstuff.
And, because it's not thatsimple, right?
And, but these to me, are thefoundation and these are going
to be the foundation.
Of what we are gonna be divinginto in our challenge next week
as well because, and that's whyit's a five day challenge,
because I can't give you all theinformation that you need to
(05:44):
know in an hour, in even acouple hours.
I can't even give you the, allthe information you need to know
over the course of the fivedays.
That would be impossible becauseKevin said, and this was his
argument when.
I brought this up to him, isthat it depends on the person.
It depends on what they'realready doing.
And do you wanna talk a littlebit about how you were talking
about, where the holes are intheir situation?
Kevin (06:06):
Yeah.
So you said if someone came andthey wanted help with their
running and I had 10 minuteswith them and I'd be like, I'd,
I'd try and figure out what'sgoing on with their plane.
You're like, Nate, you have 10minutes.
I'm like, sure.
So I could sit down with aperson and talk to them about
what it looks like they've doneover the last two weeks and over
that.
Those two weeks is gonna giveyou a decent idea of what it is
(06:26):
that they basically are doingwith their training.
And you can spot holes.
Yeah.
are you not really running verymuch at all?
'cause it's hard to get.
much faster.
Prs, if you're very volumelimited, it's hard to run real
fast.
If you never run fast, it'smaybe you don't have enough
strength to increase certainthings.
Maybe your stress levels arethrough the roof.
(06:47):
There's all sorts of differentareas inside of running.
You running easy, runningmedium, running hard.
Are you going uphill?
Are you doing There's so muchvariety inside of running.
There's so many things thatcould be missing.
So if you talk to somebody aboutwhat they've done over the
course of oh, what'd you do inthe last two days?
That's probably not enough toget a picture.
But if you look at two weeks,I'd be like, oh, you, it looks
like you're probably missingthis.
(07:08):
But that's gonna differ.
Like you put five people in thechair across from me, I might
get five different answers.
So that was my issue with yourquestion is.
It really depends.
And also what's their goal andhow long do they have to get to
it.
Angie (07:21):
Yeah.
And so like the woman and wifethat I am, I continued to press
him on this and make him come upwith something.
So
Kevin (07:30):
then I fell into the fetal position and cried.
Angie (07:34):
No.
So then you just agreed with me.
Essentially
Kevin (07:37):
it seemed like the safest play.
Angie (07:39):
we're gonna talk about if you actually agree with me or
not, because I really don't careif you do, because I know I'm
right.
so let's first dive into whystrength is the foundation.
So I told you there's twothings.
My two things are strength andstress.
And this is really what we'regonna be diving into in this
episode today.
And there, of course, is nuanceto it, and every person is an
(08:03):
individual and different peopleneed different things.
All of that is true.
It's also true that strength isthe foundation for any progress
that you want to make.
In your running or truly in therest of your life too, because
if you are weak and you justbuckle at the sign of stress or
(08:23):
of challenge, it's gonna be hardfor you to progress in any area
of your life, including, careeror family or all sorts of
different things.
there's a certain level ofstrength that we need to have
both physically and mentally.
And so I want.
Us to start thinking of strengthbeyond just lifting heavy
weights.
Yes, that is important and we'vetalked on this podcast many
(08:44):
times about how it is veryimportant for runners to lift
weights, especially liftingheavy weights.
But today I want you to alsounderstand that strength is the
capacity to handle load.
And that includes physical load,that includes a mental load
that's metabolic your body, yourmind, your brain, is able to
(09:05):
handle a certain amount of load,and that's really the stress
that we're talking about.
And so do you have the strengthto handle.
Load or to handle the stress.
And that's really why I think itcomes down to those two things
as the main thing and a lot ofwhat Kevin was talking about as
far as like volume and speedwork and all the other things
(09:26):
that, moderate intensitytraining.
That is all part of the stress.
That is part of the stress thatwe place on the body.
It's the good stress, right?
Because a lot of times we thinkabout stress as a bad thing, but
there is good types of stress aswell.
We need stress in order to adaptand in order for our bodies to
improve, we need that.
But we can't have stress withoutstrength.
(09:47):
And that is why strength is thefoundation.
It's what keeps you stable,efficient, and injury
resistance.
And that's what one of thethings that we really have to
understand as runners.
Kevin (09:57):
Okay.
So when you say strength andthen you give it all of that
background, I hear resiliency inthere also.
Yes.
Like the way that you, that'spart of it
Angie (10:05):
for sure.
The way
Kevin (10:06):
you're defining strength feels a whole lot like
resilient.
You have to be able to handlewhatever load is coming at you.
You say strength and like youjust said, I often go to an
actual lifting of weights.
Like you have to be physicallystrong enough to handle this
thing, which is true to a point,but you also have to be able to
handle the.
Mental load of whatever you'reundergoing also.
(10:28):
Okay.
So I don't disagree with that.
Angie (10:32):
Do you agree though?
Like why did you phrase it as Idon't disagree,
Kevin (10:36):
because I thought it would be more humorous.
That's what I bring to thepodcast.
I thought this is how thisworks.
Angie (10:41):
That's how this works.
Okay.
As runners, what do we need tounderstand when it comes to
strength?
And again, this is a podcastthat's usually about 40, 45
minutes long, so we can't getinto every single detail today.
And again, I'm gonna invite youto come join us in the challenge
because we will be going deeperinto this and also giving you
action items to help you assessyour strength and start to
(11:03):
understand the importance ofstrength for runners and what
type of strength you'll need.
But as an overview of that.
We as runners need to build.
Muscle strength, right?
We need to lift heavy weights.
We also need to really thinkabout single leg strength
because running, if you thinkabout what running actually is,
it is jumping from one leg tothe other over and over again,
(11:26):
and that's a lot of stress onthe body.
And your body has to be able toadapt and has to be strong
enough to handle that, and thatstrength is.
A combination of both.
Just the strength to handle thebody weight, and it's actually,
when you're running, you'reactually placing about two to
three times your body weightthrough that leg as you're
running.
So it's not just body weight,it's two to three times that.
(11:48):
Plus I think it's two and a halfto three times that.
plus you have to have thestabilization, especially those
little muscles that are able tomaintain your balance and not.
and not have your joints kind ofcrash in on themselves during
that whole running movement?
Kevin (12:05):
Yeah, and so as someone who got into running through the
running side and less of, I'm aphysical therapist, so I, my
first point of order is alwaysto throw more strength at the
thing, which is a wonderfulperspective.
On almost any sort of injurythat comes up, you can point to
a muscle weakness that iscausing the injury.
Angie (12:23):
Yeah.
Unless there's some sort oftraumatic event.
Yes.
But outside of an acutetraumatic event,
Kevin (12:28):
most running injuries are related to some sort of overuse,
I would argue.
Yes.
But I got into running throughwould just go run.
And if you run and you graduallyincrease, your body will
naturally adapt to increasedlevels of stress and it should
naturally build up the strength.
That's not exactly how thatworks.
Correct.
Like you have to actuallyoverload the body through heavy
(12:51):
weight lifting in order toactually build enough physical
muscle that you can actuallythen handle the running load.
If you go, there are alwaysexceptions to this because I'm
looking at you go and look atcrazy Olympic runners world
class runners that have superwonky form.
They've literally just built upenough compensation movement in
(13:12):
their body that certain musclesare super, super weak and other
ones are just.
Taking the load for it andthey're absurdly strong,
Angie (13:18):
I would argue that's going to catch up to them at
some point in time, because formost of them it does.
Kevin (13:22):
the ones with multiple medals, it seems like it hasn't
caught up to them yet.
Angie (13:26):
go look at those people with multiple medals and ask
them how many times they've beeninjured.
Yeah.
Just because they have medalsdoesn't mean that they have been
absent from injury.
Kevin (13:34):
No, but I think if you look at people pushing it to a
world class level Almost all ofthem are going through an injury
cycle on a regular basis.
Because they're pushing so closeto the edge,
Angie (13:42):
correct.
The, and that's not, mostrunners aren't doing that.
But yes, as an eliteprofessional runner, where this
is literally.
Your financial future rides onyour performance of these races.
Yeah.
like your mortgage payment mightride on the race, results,
you're gonna be trying to getevery single ounce out of
(14:03):
yourself.
And when you're riding that veryfine line and pushing the
envelope day after day.
There's going to be times whereyou go over the edge, but most
runners aren't necessarilytraining that way, and I don't
think that most runners shouldbe training that way.
I think that's a good thing thatwe're not training that way.
But one of the things that Iwanted to say when you were
saying about, how.
You are taught to just build upthe load in a progressive way
(14:28):
and in a way with a long enoughtimeline that you're giving the
body time to adapt and getstronger.
The problem with that is that ifyou have dysfunctional running
form, you're just.
what's the word I'm looking for?
Kevin (14:41):
Reinforcing.
Angie (14:42):
Reinforcing it, essentially.
Yes.
'cause it, you're just goingthrough that same form over and
over again.
And yes, those structures do getbetter at tolerating it, but
there's always.
A breaking point for any tissuein the body.
There's going to be a breakingpoint.
It's just a matter of do youreach that or not?
And that's why a lot of runners,they, sorry, but a lot of
(15:02):
runners have a hard time whenthey start to train for like
half marathons and marathons isthey were fine before, right?
With five Ks, 10 Ks, even halfmarathons.
And all of a sudden they'redoing longer runs and now their
body's finally found thebreaking point.
Kevin (15:15):
Yeah.
They could handle slightly wonkyform when their longer run was
an hour.
But you stretch the long run tothree hours and it's wait.
We're not good with thisanymore.
It's like what?
And
Angie (15:24):
the level of fatigue that you're then putting on the body
as well.
Kevin (15:27):
yeah.
Then that goes to the stress,right?
Is you had enough strength tohandle a certain stress load,
but not necessarily the strengthto handle double, triple the
stress load.
Because going out there fordrastically longer runs,
switching from being.
like a road runner to a trailrunner.
You got a completely differentstress load and you're like, oh,
but I'm doing similar distances.
But if you're doing on unevensurfaces now you're putting
(15:49):
different stresses throughdifferent planes on the body.
That's gonna cause somechallenges also.
Angie (15:53):
and that also ties into connective tissue resilience.
you brought up the wordresilience earlier, and it's not
just our muscles that we'relooking at, it's our tendon.
It's tendons and ligaments andcartilage and all of these other
connective tissues in the body,especially for us as runners
Over 40.
The health of our tendons arevery important.
And the tendons are where themuscle is connected to the bone.
(16:16):
And tendons are not wellvascularized, meaning they don't
have good blood flow.
I was
Kevin (16:21):
just gonna say that I had the vocab word.
I was ready for it.
You
Angie (16:24):
ready for it?
Yeah.
Good.
Is it because I just taught youabout peace and love yesterday?
Kevin (16:29):
No, I just know like vascular, I was, they're
nonvascular is what I was gonnasay.
Angie (16:35):
Kevin and I were talking about peace and love.
I don't know if you guys arefamiliar with the new
recommendations for injuries,because our youngest daughter
just sprained her ankleyesterday.
She went to one of thosetrampoline parks and was jumping
and landed funky on her ankle,and so she sprained her ankle
and Kevin mentioned somethingabout rice and I said, oh, do
you know that's not therecommendation anymore?
(16:56):
Because everybody knows when yousprain your ankle, when there's
some sort of acute injury.
We've all been taught rice.
I'm totally going off on atangent right now, but it's okay
because if you haven't heardthis, it's important for you to
know.
Kevin (17:07):
So it's critically important.
Yeah, so
Angie (17:09):
it's not critical, but rice is no longer the
recommendation.
So rice used to stand for rest,ice compression and elevation.
That is what all of us weretaught to do when we sprained an
ankle.
But now the recommendations arechanging because they have seen.
Shown that like rest,especially, a lot of people
think, oh, you have to restright away.
(17:31):
Not necessarily the best, thebest.
Option.
'cause especially because peoplestretch it out too long and just
rest and don't do act activitiesand that can actually hurt the
healing process in the long run.
ICE can blunt the inflammatoryresponse, which actually helps
the body heal itself.
compression and elevation arestill.
Recommended, but now the acronymis Peace and Love, which is so
(17:52):
long and to me is a littleoverdone.
it stands for, I'm gonna have tolook it up to remember what it
all stands for, but I rememberthat P is protect, E is elevate.
let's see.
A is avoid anti-inflammatories.
C is compression, E iseducation.
Let's see if I might actuallyhit it.
l is load, so you wanna load thetissues appropriately, and
(18:15):
gently increase the load asyou're able to take it.
let's see.
What is OV is vascularization,which made me think about this
in the first place.
E is exercise, so you have tomodify your exercise until the
body is healed.
oh, do you remember the o?
Kevin (18:30):
No.
you, I think you had to lookthis one up yesterday.
Yeah.
But you get to, what was it?
The.
What was L?
Load.
Load, yeah.
Which is the exact opposite ofwhat rice was.
'cause rice started with R forrest and now it's L for load.
And here's the thing and how I'mgonna try and bring this back
into the actual podcast topic isthere's a certain level of
(18:54):
stress that you can handle.
There's a stress that you canhandle, physical stress that you
can put on the body when you'rerunning based off of the
strength that you actually have.
But it's also based off of, ifyou're injured, you can handle a
certain load.
If you're not injured, you canhandle another load.
Depending on your currentstrength levels, you can handle
various loads.
That is a matter of how muchstress you can put onto the
(19:16):
body.
Angie (19:16):
Okay.
I remember the O.
The O is optimism.
The O is optimism.
Yeah.
Kevin (19:24):
They're literally fighting for Theron, the three
E's, because they had to have anE for education and over for
optimism, Sure, Google it andthen high five your friend, like
these are not super criticalthings.
Angie (19:36):
Optimism.
Kevin (19:37):
No, not critical.
Angie (19:38):
anyway, so going back to strength is the foundation.
I'm
Kevin (19:42):
so glad you remembered O for optimism.
I
Angie (19:44):
know you are and now you're like beside yourself.
We're here.
We're gonna high five
Kevin (19:47):
at the end of this podcast.
Angie (19:48):
Strength is your foundation because it is going
to make your tissue stronger.
It's going to make your bodymore resilient.
The other thing that you wannakeep in mind is that muscle
mass.
If you in have increased leanmuscle mass in the body, that
also helps to improve yourmetabolism.
And as a runner.
Your metabolism matters, andthis is regardless of whether or
not you want to lose weight,because metabolism is your
(20:12):
body's ability to convertenergy.
It's your body, it's your energysystem in the body.
And so muscle mass is going tomake your body more efficient
and metabolism and energy,metabolism and converting energy
for you to be, for, the energyto be usable.
during running or during liftingor during whatever activity
you're trying to do or just whenyou're trying to sit down and do
(20:33):
your work?
all of these things depend onyour metabolism and your body,
is your body's ability toconvert energy, especially if
you are dealing with some ofthis unwanted weight gain.
You're gonna wanna make surethat you focus on building
strength.
Okay?
Kevin (20:48):
So someone comes to you with their running and they'd
like to get better as a runner,and you tell them, go strength
train.
But they're
Angie (20:54):
not running.
What do you mean they're notrunning?
Kevin (20:55):
they're like, I would like to get, I would like to be
a better runner.
And you say, okay, time to hitthe gym.
We're gonna lift these weights.
There's no running involved inthat.
Angie (21:02):
So are you telling me that they are not currently
running and wanna become arunner?
Yes.
Okay.
Kevin (21:08):
Yes.
Is the first thing.
Still put them into the gym.
Angie (21:12):
that is a very interesting question
Kevin (21:14):
because when kids show up and they wanna run cross country
in the fall I don't spend threeweeks making sure that I've
appropriately built theappropriate strength through all
of the muscles in their legs.
True.
And their glutes and all thevarious things.
And then be like, all right, nowlet's try for an easy 20
minutes.
At some point they have to beable to actually just go run.
That's true.
And an easy short run is not ahuge load on the body.
(21:36):
So is there a point where you'relike, okay, the stress is low
enough that we don't have toinitiate strength training and
only when we're trying to thenevolve and continue building
that stress that we have to makesure the strength.
comes along with it.
Angie (21:47):
Yeah, I see where you're going with this and I would
agree, and again, this is whythere is nuance to all of it.
So yes, if there was a brand newperson that wasn't running at
all and came to me and said, howdo I start, I would say, buy a
good pair of running shoes.
And then I would tell them to gorun because I wouldn't want them
running in, their.
(22:08):
Random cross trainers.
'cause then things would hurtand that could lead to them not
wanting to do this anymore.
Kevin (22:14):
Yeah, fair enough.
Angie (22:15):
So there are different starting points, but I guess the
conversation that I wasreferring to is if I was talking
to someone that was alreadyrunning and they were having
problems, they were having pain,they weren't making progress,
they were fatigued all the time.
I would, one of the first thingsthat I would go to would be
strength training.
Kevin (22:35):
Okay.
So I'm.
I agree with that.
Yeah.
Because I feel like that is veryoften a missing ingredient.
if someone already has like aquality strength training plan,
then you gotta find somethingelse that's missing.
But you are correct that mostoften there's a quality,
appropriate strength trainingplan.
Angie (22:50):
But then you bring us to the second thing that is
necessary, which is stress.
Because all stress is needed forgrowth.
And if you want to be a runner,you have to run.
And so you have to put.
That level of stress on the bodybecause running is a physical
stress on the body, andoftentimes that's one of the
reasons that strength becomes anobvious thing that they need
people need to work on is whenan injury pops up.
(23:12):
That's obviously me as aphysical therapist.
When people come to me, it'susually.
Reactive.
And so they already have pain orproblems, and I know the first
thing that we need to do is findtheir areas of weakness and
start to strengthen those areasin order to help get that pain
under control.
So pain often is a result ofoverload on tissues, almost
(23:35):
always a result.
Especially like Kevin said,running injuries are often
repetitive use injuries, notnecessarily related to trauma
and.
All repetitive use.
I should, oh, I always amcareful by when I use the world,
all or every, but repetitiveuse.
Injuries are from overload.
When you're putting too muchstress on the body and that
tissue, that part of the body isnot able to handle that stress,
(23:59):
that's what leads to tissuebreakdown and then injury.
Kevin (24:02):
Okay.
So you still need stress inorder to actually improve at
whatever it is that you're doingthough.
Correct.
So it's just a matter of findingthat actual appropriate level of
stress.
That is enough that you're ableto advance not so little, that
you're advancing ridiculouslyslowly, or that you're actually
going backwards.
'cause if you don't.
Kind of progress, the stress,you're just gonna plateau.
(24:24):
And if you plateau for longenough and you don't change the
stress, you're going to gobackwards.
Angie (24:28):
And that's really where it comes in.
That whole Goldilocks principleof stress is you don't want too
much.
'cause if you're doing too much,that's going to lead to injury
and burnout and.
Even more disruption of yourhormones and your nervous system
and all sorts of things.
You don't want too littlebecause then, like you said, if
you're not giving your bodyenough stress, then you're not
going to progress.
(24:48):
You're not going to make, theprogress that you want or you
are going to eventually decline.
because you can't just stay thesame.
But if you have just the rightamount of stress, that's going
to lead to adaptation andprogress and confidence and that
feeling of this is really fun.
Like I'm actually.
Seen progress in my running, butthen the question becomes, what
is just right?
(25:09):
And that's where things get veryindividualized and very nuanced,
which was bringing us back toyour coffee conversation,
Kevin (25:17):
right?
that's where my head went.
Yeah.
Is you have to figure out whatstress they're missing.
Because.
Or are they trying to hit everysingle stress?
Because that's the thing isthere's running at high end,
there's running at moderate,there's low intensity, there's
strength training.
There's all these differentthings.
Is someone trying to check outall the boxes and based off of
(25:37):
whatever goal they have comingup, they're.
They're doing just a little bitof everything, but not enough of
anything.
Yeah.
there's, there's an overallvolume that's missing.
this tends to go back to like mycooking analogy, sometimes I get
a little nervous when I startputting different herbs and
seasonings into it that there'sgonna be too much of that.
So I just put a little bit of awhole bunch of different things,
(25:58):
and it doesn't always turn outto.
Actually have enough flavor toit.
Then you come in, you're justlike, try some garlic with that.
Angie (26:03):
Always garlic
Kevin (26:04):
or some salt, maybe it should actually have some flavor
to it.
Angie (26:07):
Those are two of the things that we often go to
first.
Kind of like polarized training,right?
Like when we're going in andlooking at someone's, Kevin's
over here making I just gave youa soft toss, like to you the
easy ball there.
Polarized training basicallymeans that we need to do the
majority of our training.
At an easy effort level, and weneed to do some that feels
(26:31):
harder because, and we, thosetwo things should not be equal.
We should be doing much moreeasy than hard.
And I think that most runnersget that backwards.
Most runners think that most oftheir trainings should feel
hard, and if they know that theyshould do some easy runs, it's
probably the smaller percentage.
And this is what leads tooverstressing the body,
overloading the body.
(26:52):
Which will lead to injury andburnout and lack of progress.
Kevin (26:55):
It also leads to the hard days not being hard enough.
Yeah.
Too, like that's the other thingis if you're doing most of your
days hard, I guarantee none ofthem are actually pushing
yourself to a hard level becauseyou're just too tired all the
time.
you're not hitting theappropriate stresses.
you've gone to the bad stressplace.
You need good stresses on thebody.
And when you're newer torunning, easy running can be a
(27:16):
substantial stress is, or ifyou've been running for a while.
Easy running.
When you start increasing thevolume is now that's a good
stress on the body, but youcan't do all of the stresses at
the same time.
That's just too much.
Yeah.
Like you just need to find whatarea am I gonna lean into, and
then make sure that you're ableto recover from that area.
Before you lean on the nextstress.
(27:37):
It can't be lean on this stressand now lean on that stress and
now lean on the next stress.
There needs to be some recoverytime.
Yeah.
I think a lot of people arelike.
if I push my like higher endspeed on one day and then I push
in on strength training the nextday and then I push on
stretching my longer run thenext day.
These are all different stressesand it's yeah, but you've gone
big stress three days in a rowand stress is still stress.
(27:59):
that, I think that's wheresometimes what all looks like
good stresses becomes overalljust too much,
Angie (28:05):
right?
Because they are individuallygood stresses that we do need,
but we can't have all of them atthe same time.
And I think this is where a lotof runners get into trouble,
especially newer runners thatare trying to increase their
volume and their speed at thesame time.
Or people that start to.
Listen to running podcasts,which is great.
(28:26):
we're glad that you're here.
but then you hear us talkingabout speed work.
You hear us talking aboutstrength training.
You hear us talking aboutmileage and volume, all these
different ingredients, and youtry to increase all of them at
the same time, and that does notwork.
Please don't do that toyourself.
This is one of the reasons thatcoaching and an appropriate
(28:46):
training plan is so importantand actually working with people
that.
Know what they're talking about,because there's a lot of people
out there, or like some of thesegeneric plans that you can just
get in these apps that will justthrow all of the things at you,
because all of those things areimportant, but you can't do them
all at the same time.
If you want the best results,
Kevin (29:07):
some people might be able to handle this if you don't have
a lot of other stresses, maybeyou can handle all of this.
Maybe you are just very stressresilient and it's gonna work
for you.
This is the benefit of workingwith a coach is Yeah.
Even if you have a plan thatshould theoretically work, what
if you're not adapting quicklyto it?
What if other things come up?
Coaches are there to help buildin some patience.
(29:28):
Yeah.
To be like, all right, maybe weneed to stretch your eight week
plan into 12.
Maybe you need to repeat thesecouple of weeks because you
haven't fully adapted to thesechanges or other things came up.
There's some excess stress andyou're not adapting to the
stress of running'cause you'reso busy trying to adapt to the
stress of life.
So you need to make sure thatall of these things are being
able to take being taken care ofbefore we continue to progress.
(29:52):
just having someone to talk toyou to be like.
Let's just be patient with this.
It is working.
We just need to have a littlebit of extra patience put into
it.
Yeah.
because I made my joke about ZOtwo training earlier.
It's great, but you don't see alot of amazingly fast adaptation
to it.
It takes time.
if you're trying to build upvolume, you can't rush the
(30:14):
buildup of volume.
It'd be great, As, it's Florida.
We've basically hit summer atthis point in time.
But you can't go from alright,this was like, this was my
winter and now I want to have mysummer bathing suit body in a
week, like my, my, jacked upbody that I like to build up
over the summer.
I can't hit the,
Angie (30:29):
let's not look at body, I don't like that.
But we could, but we can look atyour tan.
How about that?
Sure.
Let's use your tan.
Kevin (30:35):
Oh, that's a great one.
I know.
Because you can't build up thetan over the course of a week.
That's just a sunburn.
Angie (30:41):
Exactly.
Because
Kevin (30:42):
we've highlighted my Irishness earlier, like that is
just a burn waiting to happen.
And that happens sometimes whenI come through the winter and I
hit that first track meet of theseason.
I come back, I know that
Angie (30:52):
redneck many year after year, you know that the back of
your neck?
Kevin (30:56):
The back of the neck or that little triangle in the
front where the polo shirt comesdown?
Angie (31:00):
Yeah.
Kevin (31:00):
If you have to gradually increase this and having someone
else saying, Hey, it is working.
You might not be able to see theprogress because you're too
close to it, but you are makingthe progress.
Have some patience to it.
Angie (31:11):
Yeah.
It's like when our 15-year-oldcomes in is look at my tan
lines, and then over the courseof.
Weeks.
The tan lines keep getting moreand more prominent, right?
Yes, because the skin getsdarker.
Because the skin has time toadapt.
But like you said, if you justtry to sit outside and fry
yourself for eight hours, youare just going to be a Red
(31:32):
Lobster.
And we see so many of those.
Tourists down here that end upwith them.
And I just feel so bad for them.
Like I look at them and I'mlike, that looks so painful.
It is.
It just, it looks so painful.
And it's, we, you can't do that.
And it's the same with yourstrength and with your stress.
You need time to stress the bodyin a way that your body is able
(31:54):
to adapt and build strength,because stress is what builds
strength.
Stress is what buildsresilience.
Like you can't be resilient ifyou don't have stress.
You can't adapt.
You can't progress unless youhave stress.
Stress is a very good thing.
We all need that.
We just need the right kind ofstress and the right amount of
(32:16):
stress.
In order to give us the resultsthat we are looking for, and
that again, is why it isindividualized and why Kevin
wanted to sit down and have,figure out what that person was
doing because the goal might bedifferent.
That alone, what is your goal?
Like you wanna run, you wannaimprove your running, but what
(32:37):
does that mean to you?
What does improvement look liketo you?
Because someone that's trying toimprove a 5K time, their
training, their holes are goingto look a lot different than
someone that's trying to run amarathon.
They're still.
The same holes that we need tofill.
But some of those things are,some of the holes are deeper
than others.
Kevin (32:56):
it's the juggling metaphor.
Yeah.
There's a whole bunch of ballsthat you're trying to juggle,
but some of'em made outta glassand you have to pay a whole lot
more careful attention to thosedepending on what your goal is.
Different.
Different of the balls thatyou're trying to keep juggling
become a lot more important.
And some of'em you're like, oh,I kinda missed that one this
week.
it's okay if you drop that onefor a week.
It bounces off the floor.
(33:18):
Others are a little bit morecareful that you've gotta make
sure that you're keeping a focuson that one at all times.
Angie (33:23):
And so we need to make sure that we are stressing the
body enough and.
That we are giving the bodyenough time to recover from the
stress, and that's where a lotof people get into trouble also,
is that it's not just about theamount of stress and the type of
stress, it's also giving yourbody the amount of recovery that
it needs to adapt to the stress.
(33:43):
And if you realize that, okay,you know what?
I think I overdid it a littlebit here.
It's okay.
It's not like you're totallyscrewed.
You just have to add in a littlebit of extra recovery to give
your body a little bit more timeto adapt.
And that is more necessary forus after 40, especially women in
perimenopause and post menopausebecause we don't have the
(34:04):
support of estrogen in ourhormones backing us up like they
used to.
So our body becomes lessresilient to stress.
Our body takes longer torecover.
That doesn't mean that we can'tmake.
Progress.
That doesn't mean that we can'tget stronger, it just means we
need to start doing things a lotdifferently than we were doing
things before.
Kevin (34:22):
Yeah.
all that makes perfect sense.
It's just a matter of makingsure that you have enough
recovery, making sure that yougive yourself the grace that if
you are exhausted, that you cantake a day off.
That's gonna be completely fine.
It just, that can't then becomethe consistent pattern.
The consistent pattern can't be,oh, I feel tired today.
I should take a rest day.
And we often feel tired.
(34:42):
Sometimes you have to pushthrough a little bit of tired.
Yeah.
It's that general exhaustionfrom one day to the next.
Yeah.
That maybe that's a sign thatyour stress levels are too high
sometimes you just need an offday.
Angie (34:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
So we would invite you, numberone, sign up for the challenge,
real life runners.com/challenge.
But it will take a couple ofminutes just to think about what
we've been talking about today.
This idea of what if the answerisn't more, what if it's not
more effort, more mileage, morespeed, more, but just better
inputs, the amount of stress,the type of stress, like maybe
(35:17):
you just need to change whatyou're doing.
There's a lot of people thatalways think, okay, I'm missing
something.
I need to add more.
But you could just change upwhat you're already doing and
get different results.
Take a look at your strengthtraining.
Are you being consistent withyour strength training?
Are you focusing on all of themuscles that you need?
And if you're not sure, come tothe challenge.
(35:38):
I'll be talking more about that.
Are maybe you should trytracking your recovery.
are you feeling better?
Are you just getting more tired?
Kevin said, it's not about oneday like feeling tired on one
day.
We all have those days.
But track the trends.
Are you feeling.
Tired day after day, or are yourlevels of exhaustion even higher
than they normally are?
That could be a sign for you
Kevin (36:00):
or you getting sick once a month.
I played that cycle for, what,four or five months?
Yeah.
if you are regularly gettingsick every 2, 3, 4 weeks, that's
not just oh, I probably gotsick.
There's some colds going around.
That might be a sign of youoverextending yourself and your
body saying, no.
This is what apparently what wehave to do to get this guy to
relax and to recover and take abreak.
(36:21):
We're just gonna get you sick.
Angie (36:22):
Exactly.
So if you want more information,we are breaking this down in
simple daily steps.
Next week during our challenge,we're gonna be talking about how
to build strength, how to applythe right kind of stress, and
how to feel better in your body.
Starting now, there's gonna be.
Four main ingredients that I'mgonna be talking about next
week.
Four ingredients that allrunners need.
(36:43):
If they wanna make progressafter 40, you can't be missing
any of these four.
Okay.
These four ingredients areabsolutely essential.
Every runner that makesprogress.
Has to lock into these fourthings.
So we're gonna be breaking onething per day in that challenge,
giving you action items to goalong with it so that you can
start seeing a difference, likeyou will see and feel a
(37:05):
difference by the end of theweek.
I guarantee it.
Okay.
That is the, guarantee and thebold claim that I will make to
you is this challenge is unlikeanything you've ever done
before.
And you will feel differently bythe end of the week.
Maybe you're not gonna be, fiveminutes faster in your 5K by the
end of the week.
Of course.
I'm not gonna promise that.
That would be awesome.
(37:26):
It would be awesome.
But you will definitely feel adifference if you go through
this challenge.
So I invite you these challengesonly take about the action items
are about 15 minutes per day.
I'm gonna be going live everysingle day at 1:00 PM Eastern
Time so that we can go deeperand do some coaching around
this.
You can start to experience whatit's like to have a coach and to
(37:48):
understand these differentthings on a deeper level to get
your questions answered.
I love coaching.
I love connecting with peopleall around the world.
That's one of the reasons I dothese free challenges.
So come make the time foryourself.
And if you can't, if youabsolutely can't be there live,
live is absolutely the bestoption, but if you can't be
there live, make time for thereplay.
(38:09):
Go in, we're gonna be puttingthe replay on a replay page, so
you always have access to that.
We'll be emailing out thereplays every single day, and
then we'll also be putting themhere on the podcast.
So make time to listen to thereplays because like I said,
this challenge can completelytransform your running if you
allow it to.
If you don't just listen to thechallenge.
The information is great.
(38:30):
you listen to the podcast everyweek, right?
You know that we give goodinformation, but it's about
implementing and putting it intoaction.
And that's really what thechallenge is about, is to get
you into action.
So come to the challenge, inviteyour friends.
Everyone is invited.
The more the merrier.
I would love for this to be overa thousand people.
That is my goal is to get over athousand people into this
(38:50):
challenge.
Help us out.
Help us out.
Share it out.
Kevin (38:53):
Excellent real.
Share it
Angie (38:55):
to the world.
Kevin (38:55):
Real life runners.com/challenge.
Angie (39:00):
Yep, nailed it.
Or five day runningchallenge.com.
You could also do that.
I know I got fancy and boughtall sorts of URLs.
Excellent.
Five
Kevin (39:07):
five day running challenge.com.
Angie (39:09):
Five day running challenge.com.
Alright, share your, share itwith your friends, do all the
things.
As always you guys, thank you somuch for joining us.
This has been The Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
409.
Now, get out there and run yourlife.
I am often asked what I would tell someone that was
(00:03):
struggling with their running.
If I had about 10 minutes andwas sitting down to coffee with
them, what would I say?
Where would I start?
Where would I direct them?
How would I help?
And so today we're gonna talkabout that answer, and Kevin's
gonna tell you his answer aswell, because there's a little
bit of overlap and there mightbe a little bit of difference
there too.
(00:23):
So stay tuned.
(00:47):
What's up runners?
Welcome to the show today.
Before we jump in, I have toremind you that enrollment is
open for our free challenge.
Right now, running reignited isour free five day challenge.
We are running it May 12ththrough the 16th of 2025.
So if you are catching thisepisode.
When it is released, go over toreal life runners.com/challenge
(01:11):
and get yourself signed up.
It's a free five day challenge,and over the course of these
five days, we are going to behelping you with so many things
and you're running.
This is not your typical runningchallenge.
I am not gonna tell you go outand run a mile today, go out and
run two miles today.
I am not gonna give you paces oranything like that.
I'm gonna actually get into theroot of what is going on with
(01:33):
you and your body, especiallyafter 40.
Why your body feels different,what is changing and how you are
running and your training, andeven your sense of self, who you
think you, you are, and youridentity needs to start to shift
after 40 no surface level thingsaround here.
I want you to actually dig inand change your running from the
(01:55):
inside out.
So head over to real liferunners.com/challenge and get
yourself signed up for that freechallenge.
Today.
Alright, Kev, are we ready?
Yeah.
Let's do this thing.
Let's do this thing.
Alright, so this is one of thoseconversations where, I get this
question from, and I've heard itfrom multiple people, but also,
especially when I'm talking topeople about business and
(02:18):
they're trying to get clear ondo you do, how do you help
people?
and they often say to me, if youhad 10 minutes and you were
having coffee with a client,someone that was struggling with
running, what would you tellthem?
Where would you start?
And.
I have my answers.
And so Kevin and I startedtalking about things off the
microphone and we said, let'sbring this conversation right
onto the microphone.
Kevin (02:38):
it got real heated.
Angie (02:39):
It got real heated.
because you didn't wanna answerme at first.
Kevin (02:42):
It's'cause they, I disagree with the premise.
Angie (02:44):
I know because it's never that simple.
Like it's, and this is one ofthe conversations that Kevin and
I have all the time.
Is this idea of, it comes downto this one thing.
There's a lot of people outthere, especially in the world
of social media, especially inmarketing, that want you to
believe there's one thing.
Is
Kevin (03:01):
it zone two?
Is it zone
Angie (03:03):
two training?
there's one thing that you canfix and that will revitalize
your running and it will lead toall sorts of amazing things.
Kevin (03:11):
that's the only thing holding you back from a PR at
every single race distance.
There's one thing.
Zone two.
Yeah, zone two.
Sorry, there's two things thenit's a zone.
Angie (03:20):
I even had this comment on Instagram the other day.
I posted a reel and someone madea comment that they've slowed
down their runs and they've beendoing a lot of easy runs and
they keep getting slower andwhat gives what?
What's happening here?
And the answer is.
that's not the full picture.
That's just one piece of thepuzzle.
That's just one ingredient inthe recipe.
(03:40):
And we have to look at the fullrecipe, the full picture for us
to really see what's going on.
And that's one of the reasonsthat you really hated answering
this question.
I'm like, come on, it's me.
Let's just.
Let's just chat.
Kevin (03:52):
if you just focus on the slow running.
Yeah.
That's like my trying to makespaghetti sauce versus you
trying to make spaghetti sauce.
Like I've seen you put somethings in.
So I'm like, oh.
So I put the jar of tomatoes inthere and then I mashed them up
the
Angie (04:04):
jar of tomatoes.
Kevin (04:05):
Can of tomato, they, the whole tomatoes and it mash those
guys up.
But then you have all the, theother things that go in that
actually makes it taste good.
Whereas mine is like a mashed upwhole tomatoes simmering on the
stove.
it's all those other things.
Angie (04:18):
No.
You know that onions and garlicgoing in there too.
There's
Kevin (04:21):
Yeah, I know.
But you have you don't havemeasurements of any of this?
No.
There's so much of a.
Feel of all the differentthings, and that's why it's very
tricky to be like, oh, this isclearly the thing that has to go
in there because maybe it isthat it needs a little bit of
garlic in there, but you justtaste it and you're like, oh,
you need to add this and this.
I'm like, how did you know that?
Angie (04:38):
It's the Italian in me.
Kevin (04:39):
I know, but that's like being like, okay, if.
If you were gonna sit down withsomebody and tell'em how to make
a spaghetti sauce, right?
Like you wouldn't tell them, oh,it needs a little bit of salt.
But my sauce usually needs alittle bit of salt.
But your first ingredient, you'dbe like, you need to put
tomatoes into it.
that's
Angie (04:54):
not the first ingredient though.
Okay, fine.
But yes, that is one of the mainingredients.
Kevin (05:00):
God, I'm so Irish.
Oh my gosh,
Angie (05:02):
you're so cute.
Ultimately it does, in my mind,comes down to two things at the
core of all of this.
And I think that these twoelements really do determine
whether you adapt and improve orbreak down and burnout.
And I would love to, as we.
Get into this discussion, youcan decide if you also like
(05:22):
these two ingredients or if,yeah, we'll you've got other
stuff going on here, otherstuff.
And, because it's not thatsimple, right?
And, but these to me, are thefoundation and these are going
to be the foundation.
Of what we are gonna be divinginto in our challenge next week
as well because, and that's whyit's a five day challenge,
because I can't give you all theinformation that you need to
(05:44):
know in an hour, in even acouple hours.
I can't even give you the, allthe information you need to know
over the course of the fivedays.
That would be impossible becauseKevin said, and this was his
argument when.
I brought this up to him, isthat it depends on the person.
It depends on what they'realready doing.
And do you wanna talk a littlebit about how you were talking
about, where the holes are intheir situation?
Kevin (06:06):
Yeah.
So you said if someone came andthey wanted help with their
running and I had 10 minuteswith them and I'd be like, I'd,
I'd try and figure out what'sgoing on with their plane.
You're like, Nate, you have 10minutes.
I'm like, sure.
So I could sit down with aperson and talk to them about
what it looks like they've doneover the last two weeks and over
that.
Those two weeks is gonna giveyou a decent idea of what it is
(06:26):
that they basically are doingwith their training.
And you can spot holes.
Yeah.
are you not really running verymuch at all?
'cause it's hard to get.
much faster.
Prs, if you're very volumelimited, it's hard to run real
fast.
If you never run fast, it'smaybe you don't have enough
strength to increase certainthings.
Maybe your stress levels arethrough the roof.
(06:47):
There's all sorts of differentareas inside of running.
You running easy, runningmedium, running hard.
Are you going uphill?
Are you doing There's so muchvariety inside of running.
There's so many things thatcould be missing.
So if you talk to somebody aboutwhat they've done over the
course of oh, what'd you do inthe last two days?
That's probably not enough toget a picture.
But if you look at two weeks,I'd be like, oh, you, it looks
like you're probably missingthis.
(07:08):
But that's gonna differ.
Like you put five people in thechair across from me, I might
get five different answers.
So that was my issue with yourquestion is.
It really depends.
And also what's their goal andhow long do they have to get to
it.
Angie (07:21):
Yeah.
And so like the woman and wifethat I am, I continued to press
him on this and make him come upwith something.
So
Kevin (07:30):
then I fell into the fetal position and cried.
Angie (07:34):
No.
So then you just agreed with me.
Essentially
Kevin (07:37):
it seemed like the safest play.
Angie (07:39):
we're gonna talk about if you actually agree with me or
not, because I really don't careif you do, because I know I'm
right.
so let's first dive into whystrength is the foundation.
So I told you there's twothings.
My two things are strength andstress.
And this is really what we'regonna be diving into in this
episode today.
And there, of course, is nuanceto it, and every person is an
(08:03):
individual and different peopleneed different things.
All of that is true.
It's also true that strength isthe foundation for any progress
that you want to make.
In your running or truly in therest of your life too, because
if you are weak and you justbuckle at the sign of stress or
(08:23):
of challenge, it's gonna be hardfor you to progress in any area
of your life, including, careeror family or all sorts of
different things.
there's a certain level ofstrength that we need to have
both physically and mentally.
And so I want.
Us to start thinking of strengthbeyond just lifting heavy
weights.
Yes, that is important and we'vetalked on this podcast many
(08:44):
times about how it is veryimportant for runners to lift
weights, especially liftingheavy weights.
But today I want you to alsounderstand that strength is the
capacity to handle load.
And that includes physical load,that includes a mental load
that's metabolic your body, yourmind, your brain, is able to
(09:05):
handle a certain amount of load,and that's really the stress
that we're talking about.
And so do you have the strengthto handle.
Load or to handle the stress.
And that's really why I think itcomes down to those two things
as the main thing and a lot ofwhat Kevin was talking about as
far as like volume and speedwork and all the other things
(09:26):
that, moderate intensitytraining.
That is all part of the stress.
That is part of the stress thatwe place on the body.
It's the good stress, right?
Because a lot of times we thinkabout stress as a bad thing, but
there is good types of stress aswell.
We need stress in order to adaptand in order for our bodies to
improve, we need that.
But we can't have stress withoutstrength.
(09:47):
And that is why strength is thefoundation.
It's what keeps you stable,efficient, and injury
resistance.
And that's what one of thethings that we really have to
understand as runners.
Kevin (09:57):
Okay.
So when you say strength andthen you give it all of that
background, I hear resiliency inthere also.
Yes.
Like the way that you, that'spart of it
Angie (10:05):
for sure.
The way
Kevin (10:06):
you're defining strength feels a whole lot like
resilient.
You have to be able to handlewhatever load is coming at you.
You say strength and like youjust said, I often go to an
actual lifting of weights.
Like you have to be physicallystrong enough to handle this
thing, which is true to a point,but you also have to be able to
handle the.
Mental load of whatever you'reundergoing also.
(10:28):
Okay.
So I don't disagree with that.
Angie (10:32):
Do you agree though?
Like why did you phrase it as Idon't disagree,
Kevin (10:36):
because I thought it would be more humorous.
That's what I bring to thepodcast.
I thought this is how thisworks.
Angie (10:41):
That's how this works.
Okay.
As runners, what do we need tounderstand when it comes to
strength?
And again, this is a podcastthat's usually about 40, 45
minutes long, so we can't getinto every single detail today.
And again, I'm gonna invite youto come join us in the challenge
because we will be going deeperinto this and also giving you
action items to help you assessyour strength and start to
(11:03):
understand the importance ofstrength for runners and what
type of strength you'll need.
But as an overview of that.
We as runners need to build.
Muscle strength, right?
We need to lift heavy weights.
We also need to really thinkabout single leg strength
because running, if you thinkabout what running actually is,
it is jumping from one leg tothe other over and over again,
(11:26):
and that's a lot of stress onthe body.
And your body has to be able toadapt and has to be strong
enough to handle that, and thatstrength is.
A combination of both.
Just the strength to handle thebody weight, and it's actually,
when you're running, you'reactually placing about two to
three times your body weightthrough that leg as you're
running.
So it's not just body weight,it's two to three times that.
(11:48):
Plus I think it's two and a halfto three times that.
plus you have to have thestabilization, especially those
little muscles that are able tomaintain your balance and not.
and not have your joints kind ofcrash in on themselves during
that whole running movement?
Kevin (12:05):
Yeah, and so as someone who got into running through the
running side and less of, I'm aphysical therapist, so I, my
first point of order is alwaysto throw more strength at the
thing, which is a wonderfulperspective.
On almost any sort of injurythat comes up, you can point to
a muscle weakness that iscausing the injury.
Angie (12:23):
Yeah.
Unless there's some sort oftraumatic event.
Yes.
But outside of an acutetraumatic event,
Kevin (12:28):
most running injuries are related to some sort of overuse,
I would argue.
Yes.
But I got into running throughwould just go run.
And if you run and you graduallyincrease, your body will
naturally adapt to increasedlevels of stress and it should
naturally build up the strength.
That's not exactly how thatworks.
Correct.
Like you have to actuallyoverload the body through heavy
(12:51):
weight lifting in order toactually build enough physical
muscle that you can actuallythen handle the running load.
If you go, there are alwaysexceptions to this because I'm
looking at you go and look atcrazy Olympic runners world
class runners that have superwonky form.
They've literally just built upenough compensation movement in
(13:12):
their body that certain musclesare super, super weak and other
ones are just.
Taking the load for it andthey're absurdly strong,
Angie (13:18):
I would argue that's going to catch up to them at
some point in time, because formost of them it does.
Kevin (13:22):
the ones with multiple medals, it seems like it hasn't
caught up to them yet.
Angie (13:26):
go look at those people with multiple medals and ask
them how many times they've beeninjured.
Yeah.
Just because they have medalsdoesn't mean that they have been
absent from injury.
Kevin (13:34):
No, but I think if you look at people pushing it to a
world class level Almost all ofthem are going through an injury
cycle on a regular basis.
Because they're pushing so closeto the edge,
Angie (13:42):
correct.
The, and that's not, mostrunners aren't doing that.
But yes, as an eliteprofessional runner, where this
is literally.
Your financial future rides onyour performance of these races.
Yeah.
like your mortgage payment mightride on the race, results,
you're gonna be trying to getevery single ounce out of
(14:03):
yourself.
And when you're riding that veryfine line and pushing the
envelope day after day.
There's going to be times whereyou go over the edge, but most
runners aren't necessarilytraining that way, and I don't
think that most runners shouldbe training that way.
I think that's a good thing thatwe're not training that way.
But one of the things that Iwanted to say when you were
saying about, how.
You are taught to just build upthe load in a progressive way
(14:28):
and in a way with a long enoughtimeline that you're giving the
body time to adapt and getstronger.
The problem with that is that ifyou have dysfunctional running
form, you're just.
what's the word I'm looking for?
Kevin (14:41):
Reinforcing.
Angie (14:42):
Reinforcing it, essentially.
Yes.
'cause it, you're just goingthrough that same form over and
over again.
And yes, those structures do getbetter at tolerating it, but
there's always.
A breaking point for any tissuein the body.
There's going to be a breakingpoint.
It's just a matter of do youreach that or not?
And that's why a lot of runners,they, sorry, but a lot of
(15:02):
runners have a hard time whenthey start to train for like
half marathons and marathons isthey were fine before, right?
With five Ks, 10 Ks, even halfmarathons.
And all of a sudden they'redoing longer runs and now their
body's finally found thebreaking point.
Kevin (15:15):
Yeah.
They could handle slightly wonkyform when their longer run was
an hour.
But you stretch the long run tothree hours and it's wait.
We're not good with thisanymore.
It's like what?
And
Angie (15:24):
the level of fatigue that you're then putting on the body
as well.
Kevin (15:27):
yeah.
Then that goes to the stress,right?
Is you had enough strength tohandle a certain stress load,
but not necessarily the strengthto handle double, triple the
stress load.
Because going out there fordrastically longer runs,
switching from being.
like a road runner to a trailrunner.
You got a completely differentstress load and you're like, oh,
but I'm doing similar distances.
But if you're doing on unevensurfaces now you're putting
(15:49):
different stresses throughdifferent planes on the body.
That's gonna cause somechallenges also.
Angie (15:53):
and that also ties into connective tissue resilience.
you brought up the wordresilience earlier, and it's not
just our muscles that we'relooking at, it's our tendon.
It's tendons and ligaments andcartilage and all of these other
connective tissues in the body,especially for us as runners
Over 40.
The health of our tendons arevery important.
And the tendons are where themuscle is connected to the bone.
(16:16):
And tendons are not wellvascularized, meaning they don't
have good blood flow.
I was
Kevin (16:21):
just gonna say that I had the vocab word.
I was ready for it.
You
Angie (16:24):
ready for it?
Yeah.
Good.
Is it because I just taught youabout peace and love yesterday?
Kevin (16:29):
No, I just know like vascular, I was, they're
nonvascular is what I was gonnasay.
Angie (16:35):
Kevin and I were talking about peace and love.
I don't know if you guys arefamiliar with the new
recommendations for injuries,because our youngest daughter
just sprained her ankleyesterday.
She went to one of thosetrampoline parks and was jumping
and landed funky on her ankle,and so she sprained her ankle
and Kevin mentioned somethingabout rice and I said, oh, do
you know that's not therecommendation anymore?
(16:56):
Because everybody knows when yousprain your ankle, when there's
some sort of acute injury.
We've all been taught rice.
I'm totally going off on atangent right now, but it's okay
because if you haven't heardthis, it's important for you to
know.
Kevin (17:07):
So it's critically important.
Yeah, so
Angie (17:09):
it's not critical, but rice is no longer the
recommendation.
So rice used to stand for rest,ice compression and elevation.
That is what all of us weretaught to do when we sprained an
ankle.
But now the recommendations arechanging because they have seen.
Shown that like rest,especially, a lot of people
think, oh, you have to restright away.
(17:31):
Not necessarily the best, thebest.
Option.
'cause especially because peoplestretch it out too long and just
rest and don't do act activitiesand that can actually hurt the
healing process in the long run.
ICE can blunt the inflammatoryresponse, which actually helps
the body heal itself.
compression and elevation arestill.
Recommended, but now the acronymis Peace and Love, which is so
(17:52):
long and to me is a littleoverdone.
it stands for, I'm gonna have tolook it up to remember what it
all stands for, but I rememberthat P is protect, E is elevate.
let's see.
A is avoid anti-inflammatories.
C is compression, E iseducation.
Let's see if I might actuallyhit it.
l is load, so you wanna load thetissues appropriately, and
(18:15):
gently increase the load asyou're able to take it.
let's see.
What is OV is vascularization,which made me think about this
in the first place.
E is exercise, so you have tomodify your exercise until the
body is healed.
oh, do you remember the o?
Kevin (18:30):
No.
you, I think you had to lookthis one up yesterday.
Yeah.
But you get to, what was it?
The.
What was L?
Load.
Load, yeah.
Which is the exact opposite ofwhat rice was.
'cause rice started with R forrest and now it's L for load.
And here's the thing and how I'mgonna try and bring this back
into the actual podcast topic isthere's a certain level of
(18:54):
stress that you can handle.
There's a stress that you canhandle, physical stress that you
can put on the body when you'rerunning based off of the
strength that you actually have.
But it's also based off of, ifyou're injured, you can handle a
certain load.
If you're not injured, you canhandle another load.
Depending on your currentstrength levels, you can handle
various loads.
That is a matter of how muchstress you can put onto the
(19:16):
body.
Angie (19:16):
Okay.
I remember the O.
The O is optimism.
The O is optimism.
Yeah.
Kevin (19:24):
They're literally fighting for Theron, the three
E's, because they had to have anE for education and over for
optimism, Sure, Google it andthen high five your friend, like
these are not super criticalthings.
Angie (19:36):
Optimism.
Kevin (19:37):
No, not critical.
Angie (19:38):
anyway, so going back to strength is the foundation.
I'm
Kevin (19:42):
so glad you remembered O for optimism.
I
Angie (19:44):
know you are and now you're like beside yourself.
We're here.
We're gonna high five
Kevin (19:47):
at the end of this podcast.
Angie (19:48):
Strength is your foundation because it is going
to make your tissue stronger.
It's going to make your bodymore resilient.
The other thing that you wannakeep in mind is that muscle
mass.
If you in have increased leanmuscle mass in the body, that
also helps to improve yourmetabolism.
And as a runner.
Your metabolism matters, andthis is regardless of whether or
not you want to lose weight,because metabolism is your
(20:12):
body's ability to convertenergy.
It's your body, it's your energysystem in the body.
And so muscle mass is going tomake your body more efficient
and metabolism and energy,metabolism and converting energy
for you to be, for, the energyto be usable.
during running or during liftingor during whatever activity
you're trying to do or just whenyou're trying to sit down and do
(20:33):
your work?
all of these things depend onyour metabolism and your body,
is your body's ability toconvert energy, especially if
you are dealing with some ofthis unwanted weight gain.
You're gonna wanna make surethat you focus on building
strength.
Okay?
Kevin (20:48):
So someone comes to you with their running and they'd
like to get better as a runner,and you tell them, go strength
train.
But they're
Angie (20:54):
not running.
What do you mean they're notrunning?
Kevin (20:55):
they're like, I would like to get, I would like to be
a better runner.
And you say, okay, time to hitthe gym.
We're gonna lift these weights.
There's no running involved inthat.
Angie (21:02):
So are you telling me that they are not currently
running and wanna become arunner?
Yes.
Okay.
Kevin (21:08):
Yes.
Is the first thing.
Still put them into the gym.
Angie (21:12):
that is a very interesting question
Kevin (21:14):
because when kids show up and they wanna run cross country
in the fall I don't spend threeweeks making sure that I've
appropriately built theappropriate strength through all
of the muscles in their legs.
True.
And their glutes and all thevarious things.
And then be like, all right, nowlet's try for an easy 20
minutes.
At some point they have to beable to actually just go run.
That's true.
And an easy short run is not ahuge load on the body.
(21:36):
So is there a point where you'relike, okay, the stress is low
enough that we don't have toinitiate strength training and
only when we're trying to thenevolve and continue building
that stress that we have to makesure the strength.
comes along with it.
Angie (21:47):
Yeah, I see where you're going with this and I would
agree, and again, this is whythere is nuance to all of it.
So yes, if there was a brand newperson that wasn't running at
all and came to me and said, howdo I start, I would say, buy a
good pair of running shoes.
And then I would tell them to gorun because I wouldn't want them
running in, their.
(22:08):
Random cross trainers.
'cause then things would hurtand that could lead to them not
wanting to do this anymore.
Kevin (22:14):
Yeah, fair enough.
Angie (22:15):
So there are different starting points, but I guess the
conversation that I wasreferring to is if I was talking
to someone that was alreadyrunning and they were having
problems, they were having pain,they weren't making progress,
they were fatigued all the time.
I would, one of the first thingsthat I would go to would be
strength training.
Kevin (22:35):
Okay.
So I'm.
I agree with that.
Yeah.
Because I feel like that is veryoften a missing ingredient.
if someone already has like aquality strength training plan,
then you gotta find somethingelse that's missing.
But you are correct that mostoften there's a quality,
appropriate strength trainingplan.
Angie (22:50):
But then you bring us to the second thing that is
necessary, which is stress.
Because all stress is needed forgrowth.
And if you want to be a runner,you have to run.
And so you have to put.
That level of stress on the bodybecause running is a physical
stress on the body, andoftentimes that's one of the
reasons that strength becomes anobvious thing that they need
people need to work on is whenan injury pops up.
(23:12):
That's obviously me as aphysical therapist.
When people come to me, it'susually.
Reactive.
And so they already have pain orproblems, and I know the first
thing that we need to do is findtheir areas of weakness and
start to strengthen those areasin order to help get that pain
under control.
So pain often is a result ofoverload on tissues, almost
(23:35):
always a result.
Especially like Kevin said,running injuries are often
repetitive use injuries, notnecessarily related to trauma
and.
All repetitive use.
I should, oh, I always amcareful by when I use the world,
all or every, but repetitiveuse.
Injuries are from overload.
When you're putting too muchstress on the body and that
tissue, that part of the body isnot able to handle that stress,
(23:59):
that's what leads to tissuebreakdown and then injury.
Kevin (24:02):
Okay.
So you still need stress inorder to actually improve at
whatever it is that you're doingthough.
Correct.
So it's just a matter of findingthat actual appropriate level of
stress.
That is enough that you're ableto advance not so little, that
you're advancing ridiculouslyslowly, or that you're actually
going backwards.
'cause if you don't.
Kind of progress, the stress,you're just gonna plateau.
(24:24):
And if you plateau for longenough and you don't change the
stress, you're going to gobackwards.
Angie (24:28):
And that's really where it comes in.
That whole Goldilocks principleof stress is you don't want too
much.
'cause if you're doing too much,that's going to lead to injury
and burnout and.
Even more disruption of yourhormones and your nervous system
and all sorts of things.
You don't want too littlebecause then, like you said, if
you're not giving your bodyenough stress, then you're not
going to progress.
(24:48):
You're not going to make, theprogress that you want or you
are going to eventually decline.
because you can't just stay thesame.
But if you have just the rightamount of stress, that's going
to lead to adaptation andprogress and confidence and that
feeling of this is really fun.
Like I'm actually.
Seen progress in my running, butthen the question becomes, what
is just right?
(25:09):
And that's where things get veryindividualized and very nuanced,
which was bringing us back toyour coffee conversation,
Kevin (25:17):
right?
that's where my head went.
Yeah.
Is you have to figure out whatstress they're missing.
Because.
Or are they trying to hit everysingle stress?
Because that's the thing isthere's running at high end,
there's running at moderate,there's low intensity, there's
strength training.
There's all these differentthings.
Is someone trying to check outall the boxes and based off of
(25:37):
whatever goal they have comingup, they're.
They're doing just a little bitof everything, but not enough of
anything.
Yeah.
there's, there's an overallvolume that's missing.
this tends to go back to like mycooking analogy, sometimes I get
a little nervous when I startputting different herbs and
seasonings into it that there'sgonna be too much of that.
So I just put a little bit of awhole bunch of different things,
(25:58):
and it doesn't always turn outto.
Actually have enough flavor toit.
Then you come in, you're justlike, try some garlic with that.
Angie (26:03):
Always garlic
Kevin (26:04):
or some salt, maybe it should actually have some flavor
to it.
Angie (26:07):
Those are two of the things that we often go to
first.
Kind of like polarized training,right?
Like when we're going in andlooking at someone's, Kevin's
over here making I just gave youa soft toss, like to you the
easy ball there.
Polarized training basicallymeans that we need to do the
majority of our training.
At an easy effort level, and weneed to do some that feels
(26:31):
harder because, and we, thosetwo things should not be equal.
We should be doing much moreeasy than hard.
And I think that most runnersget that backwards.
Most runners think that most oftheir trainings should feel
hard, and if they know that theyshould do some easy runs, it's
probably the smaller percentage.
And this is what leads tooverstressing the body,
overloading the body.
(26:52):
Which will lead to injury andburnout and lack of progress.
Kevin (26:55):
It also leads to the hard days not being hard enough.
Yeah.
Too, like that's the other thingis if you're doing most of your
days hard, I guarantee none ofthem are actually pushing
yourself to a hard level becauseyou're just too tired all the
time.
you're not hitting theappropriate stresses.
you've gone to the bad stressplace.
You need good stresses on thebody.
And when you're newer torunning, easy running can be a
(27:16):
substantial stress is, or ifyou've been running for a while.
Easy running.
When you start increasing thevolume is now that's a good
stress on the body, but youcan't do all of the stresses at
the same time.
That's just too much.
Yeah.
Like you just need to find whatarea am I gonna lean into, and
then make sure that you're ableto recover from that area.
Before you lean on the nextstress.
(27:37):
It can't be lean on this stressand now lean on that stress and
now lean on the next stress.
There needs to be some recoverytime.
Yeah.
I think a lot of people arelike.
if I push my like higher endspeed on one day and then I push
in on strength training the nextday and then I push on
stretching my longer run thenext day.
These are all different stressesand it's yeah, but you've gone
big stress three days in a rowand stress is still stress.
(27:59):
that, I think that's wheresometimes what all looks like
good stresses becomes overalljust too much,
Angie (28:05):
right?
Because they are individuallygood stresses that we do need,
but we can't have all of them atthe same time.
And I think this is where a lotof runners get into trouble,
especially newer runners thatare trying to increase their
volume and their speed at thesame time.
Or people that start to.
Listen to running podcasts,which is great.
(28:26):
we're glad that you're here.
but then you hear us talkingabout speed work.
You hear us talking aboutstrength training.
You hear us talking aboutmileage and volume, all these
different ingredients, and youtry to increase all of them at
the same time, and that does notwork.
Please don't do that toyourself.
This is one of the reasons thatcoaching and an appropriate
(28:46):
training plan is so importantand actually working with people
that.
Know what they're talking about,because there's a lot of people
out there, or like some of thesegeneric plans that you can just
get in these apps that will justthrow all of the things at you,
because all of those things areimportant, but you can't do them
all at the same time.
If you want the best results,
Kevin (29:07):
some people might be able to handle this if you don't have
a lot of other stresses, maybeyou can handle all of this.
Maybe you are just very stressresilient and it's gonna work
for you.
This is the benefit of workingwith a coach is Yeah.
Even if you have a plan thatshould theoretically work, what
if you're not adapting quicklyto it?
What if other things come up?
Coaches are there to help buildin some patience.
(29:28):
Yeah.
To be like, all right, maybe weneed to stretch your eight week
plan into 12.
Maybe you need to repeat thesecouple of weeks because you
haven't fully adapted to thesechanges or other things came up.
There's some excess stress andyou're not adapting to the
stress of running'cause you'reso busy trying to adapt to the
stress of life.
So you need to make sure thatall of these things are being
able to take being taken care ofbefore we continue to progress.
(29:52):
just having someone to talk toyou to be like.
Let's just be patient with this.
It is working.
We just need to have a littlebit of extra patience put into
it.
Yeah.
because I made my joke about ZOtwo training earlier.
It's great, but you don't see alot of amazingly fast adaptation
to it.
It takes time.
if you're trying to build upvolume, you can't rush the
(30:14):
buildup of volume.
It'd be great, As, it's Florida.
We've basically hit summer atthis point in time.
But you can't go from alright,this was like, this was my
winter and now I want to have mysummer bathing suit body in a
week, like my, my, jacked upbody that I like to build up
over the summer.
I can't hit the,
Angie (30:29):
let's not look at body, I don't like that.
But we could, but we can look atyour tan.
How about that?
Sure.
Let's use your tan.
Kevin (30:35):
Oh, that's a great one.
I know.
Because you can't build up thetan over the course of a week.
That's just a sunburn.
Angie (30:41):
Exactly.
Because
Kevin (30:42):
we've highlighted my Irishness earlier, like that is
just a burn waiting to happen.
And that happens sometimes whenI come through the winter and I
hit that first track meet of theseason.
I come back, I know that
Angie (30:52):
redneck many year after year, you know that the back of
your neck?
Kevin (30:56):
The back of the neck or that little triangle in the
front where the polo shirt comesdown?
Angie (31:00):
Yeah.
Kevin (31:00):
If you have to gradually increase this and having someone
else saying, Hey, it is working.
You might not be able to see theprogress because you're too
close to it, but you are makingthe progress.
Have some patience to it.
Angie (31:11):
Yeah.
It's like when our 15-year-oldcomes in is look at my tan
lines, and then over the courseof.
Weeks.
The tan lines keep getting moreand more prominent, right?
Yes, because the skin getsdarker.
Because the skin has time toadapt.
But like you said, if you justtry to sit outside and fry
yourself for eight hours, youare just going to be a Red
(31:32):
Lobster.
And we see so many of those.
Tourists down here that end upwith them.
And I just feel so bad for them.
Like I look at them and I'mlike, that looks so painful.
It is.
It just, it looks so painful.
And it's, we, you can't do that.
And it's the same with yourstrength and with your stress.
You need time to stress the bodyin a way that your body is able
(31:54):
to adapt and build strength,because stress is what builds
strength.
Stress is what buildsresilience.
Like you can't be resilient ifyou don't have stress.
You can't adapt.
You can't progress unless youhave stress.
Stress is a very good thing.
We all need that.
We just need the right kind ofstress and the right amount of
(32:16):
stress.
In order to give us the resultsthat we are looking for, and
that again, is why it isindividualized and why Kevin
wanted to sit down and have,figure out what that person was
doing because the goal might bedifferent.
That alone, what is your goal?
Like you wanna run, you wannaimprove your running, but what
(32:37):
does that mean to you?
What does improvement look liketo you?
Because someone that's trying toimprove a 5K time, their
training, their holes are goingto look a lot different than
someone that's trying to run amarathon.
They're still.
The same holes that we need tofill.
But some of those things are,some of the holes are deeper
than others.
Kevin (32:56):
it's the juggling metaphor.
Yeah.
There's a whole bunch of ballsthat you're trying to juggle,
but some of'em made outta glassand you have to pay a whole lot
more careful attention to thosedepending on what your goal is.
Different.
Different of the balls thatyou're trying to keep juggling
become a lot more important.
And some of'em you're like, oh,I kinda missed that one this
week.
it's okay if you drop that onefor a week.
It bounces off the floor.
(33:18):
Others are a little bit morecareful that you've gotta make
sure that you're keeping a focuson that one at all times.
Angie (33:23):
And so we need to make sure that we are stressing the
body enough and.
That we are giving the bodyenough time to recover from the
stress, and that's where a lotof people get into trouble also,
is that it's not just about theamount of stress and the type of
stress, it's also giving yourbody the amount of recovery that
it needs to adapt to the stress.
(33:43):
And if you realize that, okay,you know what?
I think I overdid it a littlebit here.
It's okay.
It's not like you're totallyscrewed.
You just have to add in a littlebit of extra recovery to give
your body a little bit more timeto adapt.
And that is more necessary forus after 40, especially women in
perimenopause and post menopausebecause we don't have the
(34:04):
support of estrogen in ourhormones backing us up like they
used to.
So our body becomes lessresilient to stress.
Our body takes longer torecover.
That doesn't mean that we can'tmake.
Progress.
That doesn't mean that we can'tget stronger, it just means we
need to start doing things a lotdifferently than we were doing
things before.
Kevin (34:22):
Yeah.
all that makes perfect sense.
It's just a matter of makingsure that you have enough
recovery, making sure that yougive yourself the grace that if
you are exhausted, that you cantake a day off.
That's gonna be completely fine.
It just, that can't then becomethe consistent pattern.
The consistent pattern can't be,oh, I feel tired today.
I should take a rest day.
And we often feel tired.
(34:42):
Sometimes you have to pushthrough a little bit of tired.
Yeah.
It's that general exhaustionfrom one day to the next.
Yeah.
That maybe that's a sign thatyour stress levels are too high
sometimes you just need an offday.
Angie (34:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
So we would invite you, numberone, sign up for the challenge,
real life runners.com/challenge.
But it will take a couple ofminutes just to think about what
we've been talking about today.
This idea of what if the answerisn't more, what if it's not
more effort, more mileage, morespeed, more, but just better
inputs, the amount of stress,the type of stress, like maybe
(35:17):
you just need to change whatyou're doing.
There's a lot of people thatalways think, okay, I'm missing
something.
I need to add more.
But you could just change upwhat you're already doing and
get different results.
Take a look at your strengthtraining.
Are you being consistent withyour strength training?
Are you focusing on all of themuscles that you need?
And if you're not sure, come tothe challenge.
(35:38):
I'll be talking more about that.
Are maybe you should trytracking your recovery.
are you feeling better?
Are you just getting more tired?
Kevin said, it's not about oneday like feeling tired on one
day.
We all have those days.
But track the trends.
Are you feeling.
Tired day after day, or are yourlevels of exhaustion even higher
than they normally are?
That could be a sign for you
Kevin (36:00):
or you getting sick once a month.
I played that cycle for, what,four or five months?
Yeah.
if you are regularly gettingsick every 2, 3, 4 weeks, that's
not just oh, I probably gotsick.
There's some colds going around.
That might be a sign of youoverextending yourself and your
body saying, no.
This is what apparently what wehave to do to get this guy to
relax and to recover and take abreak.
(36:21):
We're just gonna get you sick.
Angie (36:22):
Exactly.
So if you want more information,we are breaking this down in
simple daily steps.
Next week during our challenge,we're gonna be talking about how
to build strength, how to applythe right kind of stress, and
how to feel better in your body.
Starting now, there's gonna be.
Four main ingredients that I'mgonna be talking about next
week.
Four ingredients that allrunners need.
(36:43):
If they wanna make progressafter 40, you can't be missing
any of these four.
Okay.
These four ingredients areabsolutely essential.
Every runner that makesprogress.
Has to lock into these fourthings.
So we're gonna be breaking onething per day in that challenge,
giving you action items to goalong with it so that you can
start seeing a difference, likeyou will see and feel a
(37:05):
difference by the end of theweek.
I guarantee it.
Okay.
That is the, guarantee and thebold claim that I will make to
you is this challenge is unlikeanything you've ever done
before.
And you will feel differently bythe end of the week.
Maybe you're not gonna be, fiveminutes faster in your 5K by the
end of the week.
Of course.
I'm not gonna promise that.
That would be awesome.
(37:26):
It would be awesome.
But you will definitely feel adifference if you go through
this challenge.
So I invite you these challengesonly take about the action items
are about 15 minutes per day.
I'm gonna be going live everysingle day at 1:00 PM Eastern
Time so that we can go deeperand do some coaching around
this.
You can start to experience whatit's like to have a coach and to
(37:48):
understand these differentthings on a deeper level to get
your questions answered.
I love coaching.
I love connecting with peopleall around the world.
That's one of the reasons I dothese free challenges.
So come make the time foryourself.
And if you can't, if youabsolutely can't be there live,
live is absolutely the bestoption, but if you can't be
there live, make time for thereplay.
(38:09):
Go in, we're gonna be puttingthe replay on a replay page, so
you always have access to that.
We'll be emailing out thereplays every single day, and
then we'll also be putting themhere on the podcast.
So make time to listen to thereplays because like I said,
this challenge can completelytransform your running if you
allow it to.
If you don't just listen to thechallenge.
The information is great.
(38:30):
you listen to the podcast everyweek, right?
You know that we give goodinformation, but it's about
implementing and putting it intoaction.
And that's really what thechallenge is about, is to get
you into action.
So come to the challenge, inviteyour friends.
Everyone is invited.
The more the merrier.
I would love for this to be overa thousand people.
That is my goal is to get over athousand people into this
(38:50):
challenge.
Help us out.
Help us out.
Share it out.
Kevin (38:53):
Excellent real.
Share it
Angie (38:55):
to the world.
Kevin (38:55):
Real life runners.com/challenge.
Angie (39:00):
Yep, nailed it.
Or five day runningchallenge.com.
You could also do that.
I know I got fancy and boughtall sorts of URLs.
Excellent.
Five
Kevin (39:07):
five day running challenge.com.
Angie (39:09):
Five day running challenge.com.
Alright, share your, share itwith your friends, do all the
things.
As always you guys, thank you somuch for joining us.
This has been The Real LifeRunners podcast, episode number
409.
Now, get out there and run yourlife.
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