The Nick Bare Podcast - 102: How To Run Longer, Faster and Build Endurance

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

In this episode, I cover my personal journey of building endurance since 2018 and offer insights into running longer and faster. We'll discuss the adaptations and efficiencies gained through consistent practice. Covering topics such as the importance of aerobic base building, lactate threshold training, and critical velocity work. I also share my experiences with physical challenges, training methodologies, heart rate and VO2 max training, and training structure. The aim is to provide practical advice for anyone looking to improve their endurance and running performance. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Building Endurance 01:28 Early Running Experiences and Challenges 04:29 The Journey from High School to Military Running 04:58 Discovering the Marathon and Running Strategies 10:33 Setting and Achieving Running Goals 17:00 The Marathon: A Test of Endurance and Efficiency 30:31 Understanding Lactate and Body Efficiency 31:23 Understanding Glucose Utilization During Exercise 32:59 The Impact of High-Intensity Training on Lactate Levels 33:55 Personal Experience with Lactate Threshold Testing 38:18 Adaptations from Endurance Training 41:02 The Importance of Aerobic Conditioning 44:25 Structuring Your Marathon Build 52:02 Training Methods and Personal Preferences 54:54 The Role of VO2 Max and Heart Rate in Training 01:03:44 Balancing Training Volume and Avoiding Injuries 01:06:08 Final Thoughts on Endurance Training Engineered for endurance. Proven by performance. Try G.1.M Sport today https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/products/g-1-m-sport Follow: IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Welcome back to the podcast. Let's talk all about building endurance, how to run longer, run faster, and build endurance. I've been running consistently now since 2018. So coming up on seven years of consistent running. Now, I've been running longer than that. When I really started to run, and started taking it somewhat seriously was when I was in high school. And I signed up for cross-country. I believe it was my junior year of high school. And I signed up for cross-country because I knew that I was going to the military after college. And I was going to college on an Army ROTC scholarship. So I also knew that being in the Army ROTC scholarship, ROTC program at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, I would be required to run.

I mean, we had to do the Army PT test, which part of that test was a two-mile run. And you had to run that at a certain pace and speed to achieve a certain score on your Army PT test. So that's when I really started running. It was high school cross-country. And I remember being so difficult, uncomfortable, and challenging when I first got started, but then experiencing these adaptations over time. And I'll never forget this one run early on high school. There's certain physical accomplishments you achieve in your life that you never forget.

And it might not be the greatest or the largest. physical accomplishment, but they are memorable. They are nostalgic. It might be a first. And I remember this one run. See, I grew up in central Pennsylvania in this small town called Paul Myra. And it was right next to Hershey. Hershey, Pennsylvania is where Hershey Chocolate was founded, developed at one point made and manufactured.

But the whole town is built around the chocolate company. and Pomeira was a small town. And you could get from one side of town to the other, and it was probably only four miles, four, maybe five miles. And there was this one day where me and my friend decided that we were going to run from our house in Pomerah, my house in Pomerah, to my brother's baseball game in Hershey.

and it was at that time one of the largest physical challenges that I would have embraced and endured and it felt almost impossible but this was after months of running consistently and we ran from our house, my house in Pomira to my brother's baseball game in Hershey

and that might have been six, seven miles, miles away. We watched the game and then we ran back home. And I finished this run feeling so accomplished but so amazed by the progress that I personally experienced just from months of running and how comfortable that run was. And the only reason I was able to do that was because of these adaptations that I experienced mentally and physically by being consistent with running. You see, that's what running is. Running is learning how to become more efficient.

And maybe not even learning how to become more efficient, but your body just naturally becomes more efficient. It adapts over time. And then after starting to run in cross-country, like I said, I graduated high school. I went to college on an Army ROTC scholarship. We ran in the Army RRRRDC program. When I graduated college, I went right into active duty military service. As an infantry officer, I ran there.

And then when I transitioned out of the military, I signed up for my first marathon in 2018. And this is where I got the actual running bug. And this is where I first started learning and understanding how to actually get better at running. But one of the best ways to get better at running, one of the best ways to be able to run longer, run faster, build endurance. It's just like if we simplify it, it's to run more. increase your frequency, increase your volume, and keep doing that for a long period of time. Just start running and then just keep running. Like I said, running is all about, or building endurance, should I say.

A lot of the endurance methods I'm going to be talking about in this episode is all about running. but it's applicable to other types of training like cycling and swimming, fitness overall, endurance is built. Your running performance is built through efficiencies. And if I look at my running early on when I first got started compared to today, and if I filmed myself then, which I did, and I filmed myself now, which I did, which I do, if you look at those two clips, the one from 2018 compared to now completely different. My running form years ago looked very, very different than it does today.

And that's just a natural process of evolution and adaptation where our bodies are these amazing works of art and they are very, very smart. where our bodies, our minds want to naturally become more efficient at what they are doing. And the more you do something, our bodies will find ways to become more efficient. So if I look at my running form in 2018 and then I look at my running form now in 2024, the end of 2024, it looks very different. I am much more efficient now than I was back then. just in the way that my arms moved in the ways that I breathe, in my gate,

in the way that my hips open up and my feet leave and strike the ground and my tempo and cadence, like every part of my running form looks completely different now than it did back then, and that wasn't something that I necessarily consciously tried to improve or work on. Like, I didn't go to all these different running coaches who taught me form and technique. I've worked with coaches in the past who have given me cues, but it wasn't something I've spent a lot of time on. Like, when I go run, and when I've spent time running, I just go run. and my body has naturally become more efficient over time.

That's why I say to kick it off, like how do we build endurance? How do you get better at running? How do you get better at building this engine? Just start and just keep doing it. Now, there are more nuances. There are more techniques. There's more strategy and tactics that we'll talk about in this episode. But I really wanted to kick it off with that.

Like we need to recognize and respect our bodies for how amazing they are. Where if we go do something and we do it often, do it frequently, and we keep doing that thing, our bodies will adapt. They will become more efficient. Our biomechanics within our form will naturally get better. I promise you. that will happen you will experience that i personally experienced that if you would have looked at me in 2018 and said and told that guy told me one day you will run a marathon in two hours 39 minutes

that guy nick bear in 2018 would say there's no way in hell i'm ever running a marathon in two hours in 39 minutes. I've told this story many times before, but my first marathon was three hours and 57 minutes. My second marathon a year later was four hours and 15 minutes. I got worse by 18 minutes. And then I really started taking it serious. And I ran more.

I increased my frequency. I increased my volume. My body adapted. My biomechanics improved. My fitness was built. And I ran 324, 256, 24, 248, 239, and I just kept running. I maintained that consistency. I played with volume, I played with intensity.

I got faster. I built endurance over time. Now, as we approach a new year and going into, to a new year, a lot of people were probably going to set a lot of goals, some of those being fitness goals. And when it comes to endurance, when it comes to running, I think we need to set realistic expectations. You can make a lot of progress in a couple months. You can make a lot of progress in a year when it comes to fitness as a whole, but specifically endurance. You can build endurance pretty quickly.

You can make massive progress in a short amount of time. I believe you can build endurance faster than you can actually build muscle. Muscle takes a long time to build. When you first start training, you have these newbie gains. That's applicable to cardiovascular conditioning, endurance training, and building muscle, resistance training. If you go from being untrained and then you, you start training, you experience these things called newbie gains where you build muscle

pretty quickly, you get stronger, fairly fast, your endurance improves significantly because you're going from untrained to trained. But to go from untrained to trained and then trained to more trained, or should I say, more fit, elite. That progress after going from untrained to trained and then beyond is incremental. The progress is slower. It's not as significant as fast. So I'm trying to get across right here that as we approach a new year, set big goals.

Set large, ambitious, hard, challenging goals, especially as we're talking about building endurance. let's also have the realistic expectation that endurance training, building endurance, getting faster, getting more fit, this is a long game that we have to play. And I learned this a hard way early on. But when I first started running an endurance training, I thought that I was going to run my first sub three hour marathon way faster earlier on than I actually ended up. running my first sub three hour marathon. And we can keep making progress for years and years and years. You can look at some of these elite endurance athletes.

And they are much older than other athletes and other types of sports or domains of fitness. Because with endurance, you can keep building it. And it gets stronger and it gets stronger. and it gets stronger, and our body keeps adapting to become more efficient and more fit. So set big goals each year, set big goals. But know that with each additional year that comes, when it comes to endurance and it comes to running, we can get fitter, and we get fitter, and we get fitter. So you might not achieve this lifelong endurance goal that,

that you want to achieve this year, you might not set it next year or even maybe the year after that, but eventually if you're consistent with your endurance training and you're running, you can get it. Like right now, my big endurance goal is a two hour and 30 minute marathon. I wanna shave nine minutes off my marathon PR.

And it's a big goal. It's an ambitious goal. I'm gonna first try to accomplish it at Grandma's Marathon in June of 2025. And I'm going to put in the work. And I'm going to work with Jeff Cunningham. And we're going to prep. And I'm going to hit every workout.

And I'm going to be dialed in. And I'm going to do everything I can to achieve a two-hour and 30-minute marathon. And I have no doubt that I can do it. But if it doesn't happen, if I don't accomplish it at Grandma's Marathon and 2025, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to keep training for a two hour and 30-minute marathon because I know when it comes to building endurance, our bodies can adapt. They can become more efficient and they will if we are fueling properly, if we're training properly, if we're recovering properly, if we are showing up physically, mentally and emotionally

ready to train and race. But if the stars don't align and I don't accomplish that goal, I'm going to keep working towards it. I'm just going to keep running. And eventually I'll get it. I promise you, eventually I will run a two-hour and 30-minute marathon. But being realistic, that you can only build fitness in so much time. And when that time runs out, if you didn't build the fitness that you wanted to within that time,

that's okay. Let's just extend that time a little bit more and keep building fitness. So set big goals. Just start training. Just start running. And just keep running. Just keep moving. The body will adapt.

The mind will adapt. It will become more efficient. And that's what building endurance. is all about efficiency. We can't talk about building endurance without talking about efficiency. Now, why longer and faster? Why further and faster? The marathon is my favorite distance to train and race for.

I love the marathon. I was just talking to Josh and Sarah here at BPN right before coming in and do this podcast. And we were talking about just like the highs and lows that you experience in life. And as you get older and you have a family, you start a family, you have kids. What we were saying we personally have experience is that the high sometimes aren't as high, the lows aren't as low. You become more emotionally stable. whether that's a good thing or bad thing throughout a day,

throughout the weeks, throughout the months, throughout the years. And there's certain things that you can do that create these highs. There's certain things that you can do that create these lows.

Sometimes they are chosen, sometimes they aren't chosen. But the marathon for me is one of those highs that cannot be recreated or replicated anywhere else. Like when I line up the starting line for a marathon, and it's early in the day,

there's so much excitement, you're coming off of a week and a half of taper, knowing you just put in 12, 14, 16, maybe 20 weeks of work into a build leading up to this one moment for the next few hours, you are going to lay down this performance that you've just prepared months for to test and showcase the fitness that you built

over those last couple weeks. That excitement that I experience as I tow the line of a marathon is unmatched to anything else. Some people can relate. Some people can. Some people might get that from other parts of their life. Some people might get that from like an ultramarathon. I don't get that same feeling from an ultramarathon from the ultramarathons that I've done.

But I get it from the marathon. I am so dialed in. I am so focused. And I can just feel it right now. My palms are like sweating. I'm rocking. back and forth. I don't hear anything.

I don't see anything other than right in front of me. And all I'm thinking about is the next 26.2 miles. My effort, my fueling, my pace. There's so much they can go right. There's so much they can go wrong. But if you prepare and you truly prepare and you have that confidence, you know you can do it. you know you can you can achieve the time that you want to if you just stick to the plan

and you race smart i love the marathon because it is this beautiful marriage of distance and speed and threshold you're you're trying to find that line that red line where you can truly push your body as hard as it possibly can go for 26.2 miles, not 26, not 26.4, 26.2. And it's this beautiful equation that you're trying to maximize where as soon as you cross 26.2, there's nothing left in the tank. It's threshold. With a marathon race itself and the prep,

I love the threshold work. I love the training. I love the racing. I love the volume. I love the speed work. The marathon distance requires time, consistency, strategy, structure, strength, speed, durability, endurance.

You got to be patient with it too. Can't be built overnight. Can't be built with endurance. days can't even be built necessarily with weeks or months to run like a really strong marathon to experience your full potential in the marathon distance race takes years years and years and years of consistent work like I know that my marathon potential has not yet been established it hasn't been discovered that's what's so exciting about it Like, what am I going to experience in the next couple of years when it comes to the marathon distance?

How fast can I run? I'm sure there's people out there. They're going to tell me how fast I can run, but no one knows. I don't even know. I'll know in the next couple years how fast I can actually run 26.2 miles. The marathon is also a race that you can't. You can't muscle your way through and you can't mentally will your way through. I recently was talking about having ability and will.

And you need both to maximize your potential. Ability is a skill that you have. It's physical. God blessed me with the ability to have two strong legs where I can, walk and I can run. But I have to have the will to dedicate the time to run and walk and improve. When it comes to the marathon, you can't just will your way through it. You have to build the ability.

And that ability comes with training. I tried willing my way through my first sub three-hour marathon. So it was the Austin Marathon, 2020, February. I wasn't in sub three-hour shape, and I knew it. But I told myself, Nick, mentally, you can run six minutes, 45 seconds per mile for 26.2 miles, regardless if you're in physical shape or not just mentally muscle your way through. And I was convinced that that's what I was going to do in February of 2020, the Austin Marathon. So I went out really hard, really fast. And after the first six miles of that race,

I realized there's no way I'm holding 645 minute per miles for another 20 miles. I ended up running that marathon in three hours, 24 minutes. 24 minutes over three hours. Huge swing, huge miss. I had the will, but I didn't have the ability. You need the ability and you need the will for the marathon distance. And marathons are hard. It's a hard race.

If you're going to race it, not just run it. You can go just run 26. miles and cross the finish line, but racing it is different. Racing it is threshold. It is finding where that red lines at. And why I love using the term red line, I think about it in terms of a car. You know, race car, if you watch a race car driver on a track, they're trying to push that vehicle to its upper limits. without it breaking down or imploding. And they do this by monitoring the RPMs on the dashboard,

and they will get those RPMs to as close to red line as possible. And the risk of going past the red line is that you're pushing that vehicle too hard, too fast, and that what could happen, the consequence is that, When you're in the red line or you're past the red line for too long, things start breaking. The vehicle balks. It breaks. It stutters. It stops.

It's the same thing with running at threshold. You want to push your body to a redline to where you can maximize performance. And you're just riding that red line. But once you push over redline, you run out of fuel. you're pushing too hard, your heart rate is elevated. There's all this lactate that is accumulating in your blood that you can't clear. When all of this starts happening, all the negative consequences start showcasing themselves. You balk, you stutter, you stop.

The marathon and running a marathon, racing a marathon, just like racing a car, is finding that red line, holding it as close to red line as possible without pushing over and imploding. You have the opportunity to test and find out what your true potential is, but also what happens when you pushed you hard. I've done both. I've raced marathons where I've held that red line just perfectly. whereas I approached 26.2, I could feel things start to break and get there, but I was able to cross the finish line before they did. And then I have raced marathons where I pushed over into red line and I balked and I broke before I got to 26.2.

and those last couple miles were just a soup sandwich of trying to get it done. That's why I love the marathon. You can truly keep making progress. You can find what true potential, what true physical potential looks like, and it's hard. It's a hard race. That's why I love it. And the energy, the highs you get, just towing the line. man, just thinking about it, I'm so excited about grandmas in June

and the prep that I'm about to endure starting January 1st and knowing the work that's about to go in and the workouts I'm going to have to hit to run two hours and 30 minutes gets me excited because there's something on the line. What's on the line? Crossing that finish line, two hours. 31 minutes, 60 seconds to play with. That's what's on the line. That's what makes it so fun. Before we go any further with this episode, I want to talk to you guys about G1M Sport. Now, G1M Sport

is our best selling product at BPN right now. And I had learned the hard way when I first started endurance training that once you train fueled, you will never train fast at again. I used to think that training facet was the most optimal and efficient way to train. And I was wrong. Once you train fueled, you can provide your body with the nutrition and the nutrients. It requires, it needs to maximize athletic endurance performance. And that's why we created G1M Sport. G1M Sport is 20 grams of carbohydrates per serving in the form of cluster dextrin,

which is very fast, gastric emptying, meaning it's very easy on the stomach. It digest very quickly. You don't get gas, bloating, or stomach discomfort, and it's 350 milligrams of sodium per serving as well. So you get the fuel and you get the hydration to maximize your endurance potential. If you're interested, there is a link in the description

or on the screen if you're watching the video. you can go try, gee when I'm a sport, and truly experience the benefits of training fueled. Now, back to the episode. So I'm going to talk about how we run longer, how we run faster, how we build endurance. But I think there's some things that we need to discuss prior to getting there just to establish a baseline level understanding of what is happening in the body as we run more, and we build these efficiencies. I mean, I've been talking about running and endurance

is all about efficiencies, but what efficiencies exactly are we building? So let's talk about lactate. Lactate is the byproduct of glucose utilization by muscle cells. So as we're training and we're training at greater intensities, what happens is that higher amounts of lactate are produced because our body, as we're working at more intense levels, is using more fuel. And that fuel being glucose in the body. glucose is what our body wants to use to fuel intensity, fuel activity, and as we use more glucose, as intensity increases, a byproduct of using that glucose is lactate. This is just a natural process that happens in the body.

So say, for example, you go on an easy run Monday morning. You're doing this easy run, zone two, conversational pace. Your body will start to utilize glucose, and it'll utilize glucose either from glucose that is just circulating your blood or your body also stores glucose in the form of glycogen in your muscles and in your liver. so our body can break down stored glucose, can break down glycogen, use it as a fuel source to allow us to keep training at some sort of level of intensity. So you're on your early morning, Monday run, conversational pace, zone two, your body starts to

break down some muscle glycogen, for example, to utilize the glucose as a fuel source. but it's producing such little lactate in that process that our body is very efficient at clearing that lactate from the blood. So we don't become overly fatigued or tired. And we can hold that pace, that effort for an extended period of time. Because lactate is accumulating, but it's clearing. Now what happens when we start training

higher intensities? Say you start running faster. When you start running faster, higher intensities, greater efforts, what happens is that our bodies require more glucose. So more glycogen is being broken down from the muscles. Our body's using more glucose. And because it's using more glucose, we're producing more lactate.

And as more lactate starts to accumulate in your blood, if your body can't naturally remove that lactate faster than it starts accumulating, that's when we start feeling and experiencing this fatigue where we have to slow down. We have to stop. A few years ago, I did lactate threshold testing at Run Lab here in Austin. And it was a very interesting experience where I would get on a treadmill and they'd monitor my heart rate and we would run segments.

And each segment was a little bit faster. So I'd hop on the treadmill for an extended period of time at a certain pace. and I would get off and they'd measure, they'd poke my finger, and they test my blood to see what my blood lactate levels were at. And I'd rest for a little bit, get back on the treadmill, again, monitoring my heart rate, we'd run at a faster pace, same amount of time, get off, they'd pick my finger, they would test my blood lactate. And we did this for multiple rounds. In each round, would get faster and faster and faster and faster on the treadmill. And they wanted to find out,

I can't remember the number exactly of where it was at, they wanted to find when my blood lactate crossed a certain threshold, a certain number, to help me find out at what pace can I run where there is blood lactate that is accumulating in my blood, but it is being cleared fast enough at an efficient rate where I can then hold that pace for extended periods of time. So really what we want to find is how efficient is our body at not just accumulating

blood lactate, but clearing the lactate from the blood? Because if we can efficiently clear that lactate from the blood, that means that we can run longer, we can run faster and be very efficient at clearing that lactate. The lactate and the accumulation in the blood is what's going to force us to slow down. It's going to force us to stop. It's going to force us to bunk. It's what doesn't allow us to run a certain pace for miles and miles and miles and miles. Now, during higher intensity exercise, more type 2 muscle fibers are recruited,

and those muscle fibers demand a lot of glucose for energy. And the more trained in athlete is, the less blood lactate accumulates because that trained athlete is more efficient at clearing lactate from the blood. Now, this is super interesting. Aerobic training, zone two, conversational pace, improves lactate clearance capacity

by increasing the number of mitochondria to clear lactate. So one of the ways that we become more efficient at clearing lactate, our lactate clearance capacity, is not just threshold training, but zone two training, base building, aerobic conditioning. Lactate is what's going to hold us back

from being able to, it's one of the things, that's going to hold us back from being able to run longer and run faster. So that's why I say endurance is a game of efficiency, but it's also a game, if you will, of patience and longevity. We have to train our bodies to become more efficient, not just from a biomechanics standpoint in movement, but also we have to train our bodies and allow for adaptation for an improvement in lactate clearance capacity. And this just comes from time. Time on feet, time running, more time in zone two, more aerobic conditioning. aerobic conditioning is the foundation of all of our training for many reasons. This is one of them.

Now, what happens to our bodies when we start to train for endurance? There's a bunch of different adaptations. We have adaptations to our cardiovascular system. We have adaptations to our respiratory system. We have adaptations to our metabolic system. We have adaptations to our muscular system. and there is mitochondrial biogenesis that happens. So briefly, to go over, what's happening when we consistently train endurance conditioning

over extended periods of time? I mean, this is why fitness as a whole is so powerful. The combination of strength training and cardiovascular conditioning not only makes us look and feel better. But from a longevity standpoint, some of these things I'm about to talk about, you're going to say, well, like, of course I'm going to train and I'm going to train the rest of my life because this is how I live a longer, healthier, happier, more fulfilled life. There's quantity of years and quality of years. So adaptations that happen to our cardiovascular system. cardiac output increases.

This is the amount of blood that is pumped out of the heart per minute. And what we find is that elite endurance athletes can pump significant amounts of blood out of the heart per minute compared to untrained individuals. What also happens to our muscle tissue of the heart is that it becomes larger and stronger. These are one of the adaptations of endurance training, and that a stronger heart rate, or sorry, a stronger heart has a larger stroke volume. So because we have a larger, a larger, stronger heart, it can pump more blood out of the heart with each stroke. This contributes to lower heart rate, resting and durable. training. One of the things that I always experience in a marathon build and a marathon prep is that when I reach peak conditioning, my resting heart rate is the lowest it's going to be throughout

that entire prep. When I am my most trained, when I am my most fit. The lowest I've ever seen my resting heart rate was 37 beats per minute. Right now, it sits at about 40 years. beats per minute. That's resting. And that is because of all my cardiovascular conditioning training, my heart is large, my heart is strong, and it has a large

stroke volume, which contributes to that lower heart rate, resting and during training. Adaptations that happen to our respiratory system, our lung capacity increases, we have stronger respiratory muscles, and we become more efficient with oxygen transport within the body. Now, adaptations that happen metabolically to our metabolic system, trained individuals can

store muscle glycogen and replenish muscle glycogen faster. We can also break down muscle glycogen into glucose more efficiently, more efficiently, more effectively. There are a bunch of adaptations that happen to the muscular system, the development and improvement of muscle fibers specifically type 1. These are your slow twitch muscle fibers. So you have slow twitch, which are type 1, and fast twitch, which are type 2. Slow twitch or type 1 is what's going to be trained, improved, and you're going to experience

the adaptations with something that is. slower, more repetitive, more consistent, like aerobic running, easy running, easy cycling, walking, swimming. When there is something that is more intense that has these greater burst of energy, like a bench press, for example, or a sprint, those are your fast-witch muscle fibers being type 2. So we experience a lot of development and improvement with endurance training in type 1 muscle fibers. And then one of the greatest adaptations that we experience from endurance training is mitochondrial

biogenesis. Now, as many of us know, the mitochondria or the powerhouse of the cell, and endurance training specifically can increase the volume of mitochondria. which has the potential to generate more ATP, more potential energy for our bodies. And endurance training also improves the quality of the mitochondria. So from, like I said, a cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, muscular, even cellular level, endurance training is creating these absolutely amazing critical and essential adaptations that aren't just applicable to fitness, but life overall, quality and

quantity. Now, when we talk about a build, a marathon build, an endurance build, this is the process of going into a prep to accomplish or achieve a specific goal. And when we do a marathon build, I mean, you have like your off season, you have your in season. When you're in season for a prep or for a race, we refer to it as the build. And as your event approaches, as your race approaches, training gets more events. event specific, and it ends with a taper. And during a taper, we reduce volume, but we maintain intensity to stay fresh and powerful. And we call it a build because it starts slow and it starts low.

And a build for an endurance goal might be 12, 14, 16, 18, maybe 20 weeks long. And it gets very specific. and the reason that I like to keep a build very focused and defined is because if we stay in a build for too long and volume and intensity is too great, it's too high, this is actually where we start experiencing overuse injuries, we get hurt, we get burnt out mentally, physically fatigued. So the reason I put boxes around a build is because it is reserved to accomplish a certain goal. Workouts are specific, structure is specific.

And when you're outside of the build, say you're in your off-season, and you're in maintenance mode, like when I am in maintenance mode, which I'm currently in right now, it is a lot of majority. zone two, aerobic,

easy conversational miles. I'm just maintaining my level of fitness before I go into a build, which I'm going to start here in a few weeks. And that build will be very specific. It will have workouts included.

We will slowly increase volume. We will slowly increase intensity. That's why we talk about a build. We're building or building fitness. throughout this predefined time and space. And as we peak, we want to peak perfectly a few weeks before the race or intensity is at its highest

or volume is at its highest. We are the most fit. We can possibly be. Then we taper. We shed off some of that fatigue. And then you show up race day as fit and as fresh and as ready as possible to throw down for that endurance event that you're about to race in this case, I'm talking about the marathon.

Because to be honest, a lot of my mindset around endurance training right now is focused on Grandma's marathon in June. So when I think of endurance training, I think of running. When I think of running, I think of the marathon. That's the focus as of right now. And if a build is done correctly, what happens is that we show up race day in peak performance and conditioning. The best shape we possibly can be in. And when you go and throw down and you follow the plan and you race smart, you know that you gave it everything you could, not just over those 26.2 miles.

Not just over the duration of that race, but throughout the entire build leading up to. The build for me is what makes endurance training so attractive and sexy. Yes, I did just describe the marathon build as sexy. Because I think that's what it is. It is like a, I've used this analogy before, but it's like when you watch a symphony in an orchestra, you have a conductor who might be the coach.

You have all the different instruments, and all these different instruments are part of the build. You have your aerobic base building, you have your tempo work, your critical velocity work. You have your nutrition. you have your fueling, you have your sleep, you have your recovery, you have your mindset, your mental readiness, all these things go into a build. And with a lot of these just classical symphonies and orchestras,

the song starts out slow and it builds and it builds and it builds and it reaches the climax and then towards the end, it slows down a little bit, calms, And that's the song. Just like a race. Just like a fitness prep. There's this building of all of these things happening. Adaptations are being built. Fitness is creeping in.

We are getting faster and faster and faster. Our potential is like rising to the top. And just before we go to release that potential, we taper. Things calm down. they slow down fitness is there and now you have this ball of potential in your hand that you get to go release because this energy was built over the course of 12 to 20 weeks the build of a marathon prep is what makes it so exciting it's not just race day but it's knowing that you put in the work to actually show up to race day

to earn the respected time that you were about to receive because you did all the things right. You built it. You weren't just given that time. You earned that time because you put in the work. You built and endured the process. Now, with all that being said, well, let's talk about how you get started and how to structure your training.

The concepts are few, the methods are many. So my favorite quotes, the concepts are few, the methods are many. The concepts of building endurance, building fitness, the concepts are few, but there's many different ways to get there. There's many different methods. there's a bunch of different coaches out there who do things differently. They have different methods that work different ways for different people. And I don't think that there is one way that is the right way.

And there's not even necessarily one way that is better than the other. But we have to find methods that work for us. We have to find methods that we personally enjoy. we've defined and use methods that are sustainable and have longevity for how we want to train and the goals that we want to accomplish. Some people are very data-driven, like science nerds. And I like data, I respect data, I appreciate data, but I don't like to over-datify a lot of my training. I'll look at it and I'll reflect upon it and I'll use it. But I don't solely rely on data to build out my training and assess how I feel.

There is objective data. There is subjective data. Objective data is numbers. It is results. It is very clear. It's black and white. Subjective is a feeling. It is an emotion.

There's a little bit of gray to it. Like when I wake up in the morning, if my watch says that I shouldn't run today based off my sleep, but I personally feel really solid and good. I want to go run. I'm going to go run, even if the data tells me I shouldn't. So the reason I share that is to say that don't get so caught up in the science, data, and the numbers. Just get out there and train.

Listen to your body. truly listen to your body if you feel you should take an off day take an off day if you feel that you should move some things around where it's supposed to be a speed workout but you're feeling pretty taxed from the previous couple days or a week maybe replace that speed workout with another easy day and then hit your speed workout the next day or two days later just apply common sense to your training, listen to your body. Don't get so caught up in the numbers. Now, one number that is useful to know or at least understand is our V-O-2 max. When it comes to endurance training and conditioning, you probably hear everyone talking about V-O-2 max.

Everyone wants a higher V-O-2 max. And you can do a V-O-2-Max test where you go into a lab and you put is mask on and they make you run at either run or cycle at fast paces and it gets faster over time. And what the VO2 max test identifies is the maximum amount of oxygen that you can utilize during an intense or maximal exercise. And the more oxygen a person can use during high level exercise, the more energy a person can produce. So your V-O-2 max will improve over time. It can improve over time as you become more efficient and you build fitness.

For the higher your V-O-2 max, the more oxygen you can use. And the fitter you will become and you will be for your endurance training. So a lot of people will look at V-O-2 max. People will look at heart rate training. I personally use heart rate training more than VO-2 max. and there are corresponding improvements in data simultaneously to V-O-2 max and heart rate when it comes to endurance training. But for me, it's a lot easier to measure heart rate in real time as opposed to V-O-2-Max.

V-O-2 max is one of those tests you can go do, and then you can establish some percentages based off of your V-O-2 max to set your ranges of training, like your zones of training, but you can also do the same thing when it comes to heart rate. So that's what I do. I use heart rate,

and I monitor my heart rate in real time to establish my zones and find out what I need to be aiming towards in some of these workouts. So what I do, and if you have a smart watch, whether you have like a Garmin or Coros, there are heart rate monitors built into these watches.

They are not the most accurate. So what I would recommend doing is one, I would recommend using heart rate training over V-O-2 max percentages, just my personal preference. And then I would get an external heart rate monitor that either goes around your bicep or your chest,

and that will sync via Bluetooth to your watch so you can monitor your heart rate in real time as your training. This is super beneficial for your easy aerobic zone two runs where what I do is like I try to keep my heart rate between or I should say below below 145 beats per minute for my easy runs. I like using the Mathetone method to establish my max aerobic heart rate. So the math 180 formula is if you take 180 minus your age, that number you get is your max aerobic heart rate.

Now, it's not your max heart rate, max aerobic heart rate. Again, I want to reiterate that this is just one of the methods to establish your zone for aerobic running, easy base building running. 180 minus your age. That's your max aerobic heart rate. So what I do when I go run is I make sure that when I'm running and the goal is just an easy run, which 80% of your running should be your easy run. runs, is just building volume, and you're experiencing all these physical adaptations that are happening during those easy runs, is I'm making sure by monitoring my watch, which is connected to my external heart rate monitor, that my heart rate is staying below my max aerobic heart rate.

That's just me playing it safe, making sure that I'm staying in the right zone that I want to be for majority of my running. And then when I go into some of my other structured training, I will obviously be shooting for or aiming towards higher heart rates. So with all of that being said, about 80% of our running should be done in that aerobic base building zone. And that's also going to be about 60 to 75% of our V-O-2 max. and then when we layer on or refine some speed work into our programming, especially when it comes to a endurance training build, we have lactate threshold and we have critical velocity.

A lot of my lactate threshold work will be done during these tempo runs that I do, which, again, an example of a tempo run for me might be like a two-mile warm-up. and I do three-mile tempo, one-mile easy, three-mile tempo, one-mile easy, two-mile tempo, one-mile cool-down. So I'm doing these segments of faster paces, which are lactate threshold. I'm trying to improve efficiency of building lactate into my blood and then accumulating that lactate and my body becoming more efficient at clearing that lactate. And that's like I said, lactate threshold about 80% of our VO2 max. And lactate threshold is the exercise intensity or blood lactate concentration at which we can

sustain a high-intensity effort for a specific period of time. And during this lactate threshold training, our muscles get more metabolically stressed when there is a higher lactate accumulation. So we want to find during this lactate threshold, which again, about 80% of our VAT2 max, where blood lactate concentration is increasing, but it's being able to be cleared efficiently, but it's that upper range of clearance. It's like right before red line. And then we'll layer on another style or method into our training.

And that's critical velocity. And this is where I spend time on the track. So every other week when I'm in a marathon prep, I will rotate between tempo in critical velocity. Again, tempo or lactate threshold is about 80% of, of VO2 max, critical velocity on the track, shorter distances, faster paces, larger percentage of VO2 max, about 90% of VO2 max. So we have aerobic base building, we have lactate threshold or tempo, and then we have

critical velocity. And in that order, it goes from aerobic base building, you're running your slowest, Lactate threshold, you're running faster. Critical velocity, you're running your fastest. Aerobic base building, highest mileage, lactate threshold, shorter distances, multiple segments, critical velocity, the shortest distances. But again, higher paces that you can only hold for a certain period of time.

So a critical velocity workout, for example, might be a too much. mile warmup, 10 times 800 meter repeats with 60 seconds of rest in between and then a two mile cool down. But those 800 meter repeats are done at a very fast pace being a high percentage of our VO2 max. And when it comes to training volume, some of the things that we want to keep in mind as we go into a build for a race or a competition or you're just getting started with your running, we want to slowly increase training volume.

And a good rule of thumb is no more than a 10% increase in training volume from week to week. Because what happens if you increase training volume or running mileage in this case, too fast, too quick. You put yourself at risk of injury, overuse injury, any type of injury. But that's typically experienced from increasing volume too quickly. And I experienced every single injury possible early on when I first started running. When I first started running, I increased my mileage too fast, my training volume too quickly. I had glute issues, hip issues, knee issues.

I had shin splints, ankle problems, like every running, every overuse running injury you can expect or experience early on. I had them all. And now I actually never get injured for a few. few reasons. One, I've just built fitness. Another, my body's adapted. It's become more efficient. My biomechanics for my body personally have evolved and adapted to my form to reduce risk of injury. And I slowly increased volume over time to where now my body can handle 60 to 75 miles per week very well without getting injured. Now, when I go into a build or I go into a prep and intensity increases alongside

a volume, I'll get some small wear and tear overuse injuries here and there, but nothing like I used to, nothing significant. So those are the things that I wanted to talk about when it comes to running longer. running faster and building endurance. There are adaptations they'll be experienced. There are efficiencies that we experience. There's a lot happening in the body. But the last thing I want to leave you guys with

is to remember this is this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. This is the perfect place to use that analogy or that metaphor. Look at this as the long game. You can keep building endurance for a huge part of your life. And you can keep layering on endurance to become more efficient,

faster, more durable, run longer distances. Every year you can keep making progress as long as you are consistent, you train smart, you fuel properly, and you recover well. And even if you don't hit your dream goal in this next 12 months, we'll just keep training. Just keep running. And you'll get it.

You'll eventually chase it down and accomplish it. And it might come with just more time, more patient, more work, more adaptations. But like Jeff Cunningham has said, and I've quick, Quoted frequently, the last thing I'll leave you guys with is it's better to be consistently good than occasionally great. That is endurance. That is running. That is the marathon. So we'll see you guys in the next episode.