The Uneducated PT Podcast - Episode 96 – Rick Nally: Running Identity, Burnout, Strength Training & Elite Performance

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Episode 96 – Rick Nally: Running Identity, Burnout, Strength Training & Elite PerformanceIn this episode of The Uneducated PT Podcast, I sit down with Rick Nally—a seasoned running coach, sports scientist, S&C specialist, and former D1 collegiate runner out of Texas.Rick brings a rare blend of experience and insight to the table as we dive deep into what it really means to live and train as a runner. We cover a wide range of topics including:The evolving identity of a runner and how it shapes mindsetBurnout—what causes it and how to navigate through itThe role of community in running clubs and staying motivatedHow different strength training modalities can improve performanceThe truth about genetics and what separates elite runnersPre-run rituals, mental preparation, and the power of self-talkCross-training, recovery, and long-term athletic developmentWhether you're a competitive runner, coach, or just someone fascinated by the psychology and physiology of running, this episode is packed with real talk and practical takeaways.

I was tired of always being tired and even more frustrated that all the effort wasn't translating into real results. Do you remember saying that? Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. So, yeah, I suppose it was really just where I was at at that point in time. I started running quite late compared to most runners. I only really discovered running, and the sounds really stupid, but it just, it wasn't really in my world. so I legitimately didn't know that running was a competitive sport

that people did at a mass scale until I really got to college. Kind of end of my time in secondary school, I started running. By the time I got to college, I was fully hooked. I had joined a team. I was training.

At that point, you know, it ramped up throughout the course of my time in college, but I was training pretty much every day and that became multiple times per day. Then I went away to the States for a while and was running D1 over there. amazing experience, but very tough and ultimately didn't really work out super well for me. So by the end of 2019, I'd be back from the States.

I'd had an endless list of injuries and I was just not getting any quicker despite putting an endless amount of time and effort into this thing. So I was just kind of done at that point. And it was something that when it first started out, I loved it. Running was the first sport where it ever actually excelled, let alone not sucked. it's a kind of stereotype of runners that were not always the most athletic or coordinated individuals and I fell hard into that category. I played every sport under the sun in school.

I loved them, but I sucked at them. And I, even at the time could probably acknowledge, I'm just not very good at this. But I loved the kind of training element. Like my favorite bit was the bit everyone always complained about, which was the fitness when you had to go do,

you know, suicides for rugby and stuff like that. I was like, this is the best crack. Why is everyone complaining? Which makes it even funnier that it took me so long to figure out. Like, oh, maybe I just like to run. That's interesting. So that transition then from...

Yeah, go ahead. So kind of going from... I love this. I'm like, it is my entire life to slowly just like, oh, man, this is killing me. So end of 2019, and I basically... I used the term retired because it was kind of like retired from competitive running. I was not a professional athlete by any means. but the kind of level of commitment you need to have to achieve,

you know, what I was trying to do, which was continue to make Irish teams, to meddle at national level and things like that. It's essentially a full-time job. So I retired at that point. And it was kind of a big change for me because essentially the previous six years,

it had been my entire life, my entire identity. It was my hobby, my job, my past time, my passion. So kind of, taken all that away and trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself was a big

relief in some ways because I just suddenly had all this time and energy and if you've ever run high mileage if you're doing 80 plus miles a week and then you suddenly go to zero first you are the most exhausted you've ever been in your entire life because you just have gained enough energy and kind of conscious awareness of like have I been a zombie for six years straight and then you suddenly just start to feel like I can do anything. I have so much time, so much energy compared to where I was before. So kind of re-discovering what I liked about training. And then really, really the big part of that was changing my approach.

Where in the previous years, it had been, how fast can I run? And then more recently, and this is a bit I do really try to work with clients and just something I want to spread to more runners. There is more to life than taking five seconds off. five of key time. Do you think did your like going from being so committed to to essentially to to run and to get them five seconds off off your time or whatever it was then to completely stop and it was that like not difficult in terms of your identity because like you said it then obviously becomes your identity when you find something that you're good at after so many years of kind

going through sports where you were maybe average but then you find something that you're really good at and you really enjoy and then you're putting all this time and effort into it for so many years and then to stop that was that not difficult in terms of like identity change or anything like that for sure it was and even sorry excuse me i was lucky in that because i did a sports science degree and i had quite an active interest in sports psychology i was very aware of the concept of an athlete identity and I put a lot of effort into creating that separation

when we were going to big events in the States if it was less than a 10 hour of drive you just pile on a bus and drive where you go to the airport and like everyone slagged me for not looking like an athlete because I'd rock up in a pair of jeans

a T-shirt and shades and a hat even hindsight probably looking like something out of like a tween boy band it wasn't a great time for me but I wasn't I was trying very actively

to set up the idea of like I am in full athlete mode like three days before I even get to the event. And still having said that, I actually quit running three times. It was on my third attempt. I actually got out. I had a well one, a well known one among my club where I basically said I was done in around March and I dropped my running right down. I hadn't fully gone cold turkey, but I think in the space of a month I maybe ran three or four times. But I'd already already signed up for a training camp. The club I run with, we go every year out to the out place in Portugal along the Algarb.

You kind of go for two weeks and you just train twice a day. So I'd already signed up for that. And I kind of went along. I was like, I'm going to go and go a bit more chill. And I ended up running 85 miles a week and getting straight back into it. So yeah, like I think it was very tough. Even though the final time it looked kind of like a clean break and walk away, the reality was it took several attempts to kind of.

of square that circle of I don't want to do this in this way anymore. But so much of my friend group, so much of my identity, as you said, there's just a lot of factors that kept pulling me in and for me to finally make that change was significant and definitely took a while of kind of sitting with it and be like, who will I be without this? That took a while to get used to that idea of just like, I'm not Rick who runs anymore. Yeah, that because that makes me think of like even using examples of other kind of sports and stuff like like the boxer who says I'll just have one more fire I'll just have one more fire and then they'll retire then they come out of retirement and they're retired again until ultimately the sport retires them and it can be the

same even in football as well you see people retire and then come back and then realize that oh no but obviously it's different for you because it's it's I understand that you probably retired or you you stopped running because um I don't know maybe was all the pressure of performance. But you are back running now. So you've obviously found a love for it again in a different way. 100%. And that was a huge transition.

That's kind of the poster referred to as really about me finding that love again in a different form. Because I pretty much stopped cold turkey for a better part of three years, apart from a series of stupid bets with friends that I could still do things. So that was one of a friend,

And we had a few. There was, remember during COVID, there was the like, do five, give five one. Yeah, and I hadn't run

about four or five months. So I, I think I said I could do like a sub 17 minute five K fresh off the couch. My friend said, there's not a hope in hell. And he was 100% right.

I could not. And then another one of a guy is like, you can't go do a two-hour mountain run without training. And I went and did that. So a series of little things like that. I suppose kind of made sure I didn't completely fall off

because I was still obviously training away but just keeping in touch the running and doing some fun stuff with it in hindsight was probably good during that time just silly little challenges that had no pressure outside of I've talked a lot of shit here

I should probably try and back it up but it was actually then when I was living in Lisbon it just was a vehicle to meet new people I kind of moved out I didn't know anyone and running clubs were really starting to grow in popularity.

And this is, this is my only gripe about finishing up running is that when I was running, running was so uncool. Nobody cared. No one wanted to know what the times were.

And then as soon as I finish up, oh man, running is the coolest thing ever. If I could have come around you, but like, yeah, I run like a 30 minute 10K I would have been a god. And now it's like,

yeah, I can't do that anymore. Yeah, like I was about, and one of my questions was about like this uprising, in just the trendiness of running. How it's kind of really kind of combined with like fashion. It's fashionable to run.

You have like all the kids out wearing the best of gear and, you know, it's, it's very, very trendy. And I was going to ask you about that, what you thought about that. But I think it's kind of funny the fact that because it wasn't kill. It was always there, but it definitely wasn't, it definitely wasn't popular in mainstream. No, not at all. I mean, like when we were out for runs, you kind of get weird looks if you're going out in a big group.

Part of it was it was a group of short, very skinny men in tiny shorts. So that might have been part of it. But yeah, if you're going out now, it's seen such an update, which is amazing. Obviously, there is, you can complain about the kind of the commercialisation, the fashion elements of it in the way, you know, everyone who is, who has been a runner for a very long time, I understand the gripe, I share too, but anything that gets people up and moving has to be consider it as a good thing. So it's hard to pin down, you know,

what is the real cause of it. I think a lot of things we go through cycles of what's kind of cool within exercise. You go all the way back to the 80s and you have these kind of, you know, group classes. Everyone's wearing spandex and doing step-ups and things like that. In the early 2000s, it was more CrossFit. Now, post-COVID, possibly because of the lack of the option

of going to gyms and people wanting to get outside, I think it became an, you know, easily accessible way to do more running. Yeah. So do exercise as a whole. But just the fact it's continued on so well from there is really interesting to see because it is a great sport in terms of a really low barrier to entry. Obviously, there is now this holder side where you can spend tens of thousands to look a certain way. And even, I know if you've come across the concept of Strava jockeying.

No, tell me about that. This is a new one. I don't think it's big here, but basically there are places where people will pay someone to log into their Strava account, go for a run. I did hear about that. Sorry, I did hear about that. I didn't know the actual name for it, but yeah, I heard about that. That's insane. There's all, you know, I honestly am surprised by any of this anymore.

I've been in the fitness space long enough that just anything that you consider just too, outrageous in terms of things you will fake to potentially gain some status to a very minor group of people, there is someone who is willing to pay whatever it takes to make that happen. It's great. All in all, I think it's brilliant

because it's just getting people out and even the idea that like run clubs are just the new dating apps. How much of an upgrade is that? That's amazing. Instead of just swiping across, you actually have to go chat to people and get healthy and exercise together and odds are pretty good. Not

everyone. I'm sure there's some guys who like absolutely hate running but they see where the game is at now so they're moving over. But you're probably going to get someone with some shared interests. So the popularity of running, though I mis timed it horribly, I can't really blame running for that. And tell me a little bit about this kind of community in Lisbon, this run club in Lisbon that you have, you essentially were part of creating it, right? Yeah. Yeah. So when I went over, I said I kind of used it as a way to meet people. I basically just looked up run clubs and went to all of them because there were loads in Lisbon at the time, loads of just kind of little groups. So I was just like, I was used to running every single day. And obviously, I hadn't done that a long time. But I was kind of at a point where the idea of running wasn't really unappealing anymore. It's like, I could run a bit more. So it kind of started, I went to one group and that went well. But they only met once a week. So I was like, okay, I'll go another one as well. And that went really well. It's like, okay, there's a third one. Maybe I'll go to that. And I basically was in about four different run groups

meeting to all the people and there were one or two people who were also doing something similar they were kind of like among all the different groups but it just kind of struck me that no one was talking to anyone within these different groups they're all running and a lot of them would be in one group and run multiple times per week

but not know the other ones even existed or run with them so there was actually another Irish guy over there and he had been involved with it for a very long time guy called David Patton. Shout out David if he ever sees this. I don't know why he would. But he... Oh, you never know.

We have a big audience. Interval training. We do... It's true. It's very niche though. It's very niche for him. There's more a comment about David than you. But if he does see it, shout out to David.

He's done some amazing work over there. And he's just like put in a lot of work to bring the communities together. So like everything we all did. Everything I did was based off the work of a lot of other people beforehand. And I did, I'd say a lot of the stuff other people did was really coming from the initial groundwork he laid.

But basically, I went to him and I said, you know, there's all these groups. What if we kind of brought them together in a club format? Because at the time, I went to him and I joined his group and he was doing more kind of serious training among the group. So they were doing like interval sessions. He was doing long runs. And he was kind of doing the programming himself. So I had a chat with him and it kind of transpired that he didn't really enjoy the programming element.

He didn't want to organise anything. He just found that if he set intervals, people came and he could meet more people and talk to more people. So I kind of offered to take that off his hands. And like I love that element. And it just meant I could, you know, do better quality training as well. So from that, I got to have my in. I kind of started influence more of the groups. And then eventually through David, because he was the man with all the connections, we kind of sat everyone down and came up what was at the time, the LXRC.

And it's now kind of transformed into the Lisbon. running community, which has again grown so much over the last couple years. It's been very cool to see and like well past the point where I was involved with them. They've continued to have a great team that's just doing a lot of very cool stuff in terms of putting together, bringing together a lot of different people from very diverse backgrounds and just having them hang out and get to know each other and kind of create a really nice community that supports each other through, as we said, just running. There's nothing special. about the modality of running

except for it's a great way to bring people together in kind of circumstances that are about health and positively impacting your life. I'm sure if you started a pub crawl group

community in Lisbon it would do quite well as well but it probably wouldn't have that same kind of impact and momentum that bring them together for something as positively life changing as running. Yeah, yeah.

I do think that's such a perfect combination of, okay, you're doing something that's obviously great for your physical health but that community aspect can't be you know overlooked either of how like and i would imagine in a place like lisbon where like there are so many people probably coming from all over the world who are working remotely who were trying to look find new people trying to form friendships trying to meet people with similar values like it's such a just a great combination just a great cocktail of just getting people together who who will be similar

and being able to meet other people i think that's that that's that's that's that's that's a great combination of just a great people. I think that's that's unreal. But like that really sounds like that's the kind of, okay, you enjoy and running for the fun of it, the socializing aspect of it, the having purpose again, being able to help other people. But obviously before that, when you were running and when you were in Texas, I presume it was it was all about performance. And do you think like, like if you're thinking back and you're thinking about the psychological element of it and, you know, tying yourself work to a performance. or to win in a race or to a certain time. Do you think that's what made you kind of essentially need to take that break from a kind of from burning out from the sport? I think to a degree.

I wouldn't say it was the main element because honestly I loved that bit and for me it was partly that I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't actually get the progress from all my effort going in. So yes, it's hard to say because I never actually got to experience properly

me training at my best, being healthy and then not getting the results for it. I think that would lead to a lot of frustration. My biggest issue was I kept getting stonewalled by injuries and honestly in Texas pretty bad coaching. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Tell me a little bit about the injuries, what did that come from?

Because I know you've spoke about how, you know, through your own experience, understanding and learning the importance. of fueling yourself properly, strength training. And obviously we're going to go into that for the listeners in terms of kind of things that will help your performance and help with your running. But tell me a little bit about your experience in Texas as a D1 athlete. Like what was your experience like for maybe younger listeners who were, you know,

maybe do have a passion for running and might want to go down that route. And just to set a little bit of context, I started everyone when I got to college. And here in Ireland, I was really lucky. And like totally by chance, I stumbled across two amazing training groups, really. The main one would be Dunn Drum Sides, Dublin, DSD, who's headed up by Donald Henigan, his kind of elite endurance group. And, you know, I knew nothing about running. I basically went to the school's East Lentster's Sports Day, which is like the lowest level

of running in Ireland. It's the best crack ever. But it was a case of you had your school PE gear. you get on the bus, you're going to this thing. I did it. I did it kind of every year. And then in 50 or six year, I ended up chatting to a guy called Eddie McDonough,

who's like the founder of DSD, and he told me to come on down to a training session. And I rocked up to that first day training session on the track. And I have a really vivid memory from this that we all kind of went in a circle. And Donnell or Eddie, I can't remember who it was, one of them, but very casually said, like, oh yeah, and well done.

to the women's team for winning European club silvers. And just, like, handed out a bunch of silver medals. Everybody clapped. They shoved them in their bags. Like, yeah, I just got back to the track. And I was like, is that not a big deal? Does that not really, shouldn't this be more important to you guys? And it's not they didn't care.

They were just so used to it. So I fell into this club where the standard wasn't, you know, who will make seniors this year? Who's going to make the national finals? Like, are you going to meddle? this year, when are you going to make your first Irish team? Because that was just the norm of the group. So the standard was incredible and that was really fuelled by excellent coaching, someone who really cared about the group and just was really, he's had people who've been coming up since he was

11 all the way up now to being like national medalist at the age of 30 plus. So the standard that I was introduced to was just off the charts. And then at the end of that time, I finished my undergrad and what I always say is I basically just wasn't ready to face the real world yet so I decided to hide in a master's so I didn't know a huge amount about the NCAA I just knew that it was a place you go and obviously the quality of running is incredible it's in the states I knew some guys who were around my level had gotten scholarships over there so I just started firing off applications to kind of any program that I felt like I was around the right level and they had a master's degree I'd actually be interested in so eventually whittled it down and agreed to go to Texas and

the biggest realisation I probably had was that the NCAA is very very different from the Irish standard because in Ireland obviously it's fun it's recreation

it's club level you're going in you're there because you want to be there and the coaches are largely unpaid for the most part they're there

because they love it and they enjoy it in America it is a professional system more or less so you are an employee of the college and they are

paying you X amount and my God they are going to get every last scrap of their money out of you. So my experience over there was one of unfortunately just coaches who didn't really care about their athletes either in terms of the kind of struggled with the empathy side in terms of coaching, which doesn't necessarily make them bad coaches, just they didn't work with me. And then coaches who just didn't have enough experience or expertise to actually get good

performances from their athletes. So ultimately, I performed very poorly and then I struggled mentally and physically because the toll of the training was a lot and then I was getting injured a lot for a whole host of reasons and then I just ultimately ended up in this place where, you know, I'm sick, I'm tired, I'm injured

and I'm still out, I still have to show up to training. It doesn't matter. They don't really care if you're injured. If you're injured, you still have to get up at and being Texas. You had to get up to train at 5am because it was hot and then go. and then go into the team meeting everybody else gets in the bus to go run the trails and you go to the pool

or to the rec centre to go hop on the bike and you're still doing all this training but it's kind of becoming like what is the point in this every time I get back to running I get injured again a few weeks later what year was this because like I think

even the standard of coaching like across the board whether you're working with Genpop or you're working with athletes Like I think nowadays you would assume, especially in somewhere like Texas, where it's probably like the hub of the world for athletics. So you would imagine, right, best coaches, best coaches in the world, coaches that understand, you know, the well-being of the athlete, have, you know, physiotherapists, sports scientists, sports psychological psychology for helping athletes. you would imagine that you would have all them things

to support the athlete unfortunately not from my experience and from a lot of people I know who've gone over there are excellent programs but you've probably heard of all the excellent programs and this is things I wish I'd known going over

so just general advice I'd give to anyone advice I could give to my younger self would be if you're thinking about going to the states to run on a scholarship. And this kind of applies, you know, any scholarship program, doesn't forget about runners, anyone thinking about going to the NCAA. I would want to be very sure that they have a proven track record of Irish athletes, not even foreign athletes, Irish athletes going over and having good performances. Because I was one of the first Irish people to go over to this college. They had a big repertoire of internationals going over. But in hindsight,

that was actually because, in my mind, because they couldn't recruit Americans. So there's huge amounts of resources available. Like the setup was incredible. We had access to like physiotherapists, recovery rooms. Like I was going to, even though I was injured all the time, I was going to like the doctor

and I was going to use like alter Gs or like, lower gravity, lower gravity, treadmills and things like that. And just the resource available are great. But from my experience, the hiring policy for a lot of these is still just were you a good runner yourself? Cool. On you go.

And whether that has any ability, any transfer into your ability to coach, from my experience, like the best athletes tend to make awful coaches because they don't even know why they were good. And especially something like running where to be really good, you should have to be quite neurotic. It can

make you an even worse coach because just as an example, my second year, we had a different coach in my first year, my second year, because the coach got let go. And in fairness, that's also part of the problem. Coaches get turned over so quickly, it's not really a very appealing job. You don't get a lot of security. You work a lot of hours. You don't get paid much. So anyone who is a good coach is almost certainly going to make a lot more money going out of that space and just coaching for themselves or setting up some kind of a business. But the coach in my second

year was a very, very successful runner in college. He ran very, very well. But as I started talking, talking to him getting to know him a bit more. It's like, oh, you, you are a psycho in the best way possible, in the running way of like he only cared about being the leanest, fastest, meanest person out in the course. And he sacrificed everything to get that. But then his expectation was everybody should do it like me because it worked. And then because he was a good runner, not necessarily a good coach, he had one model for things to fit his model. And if you didn't fit his model, you were going to get. broken along the way and I didn't fit his model. Yeah. It's trying to fit the athletes into the box rather than create something around him. It reminds me of that there's a film called Whiplash and it's about did you watch it? Yeah, where he's trying

to basically teach this kid to be the best drummer in the world and it's like you do it my way or you just you know, you lose your mind on the way which essentially he did. He achieved everything he wanted but he sacrificed literally everything including his mental health along the way to achieve that. I don't think my guy was quite as intense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously that's the, yeah, but I think, I think, you know, there is kind of watered down levels of that in coaching. It's like, okay, like you said, it's like you're going to fit this model rather than us trying to work with what's going to get the best out of you. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

What would you, so let's say, okay, let's speaking on that, okay, and what do you think that because obviously for those who are listening that don't know you help people to improve their running you help

I think one of your quotes was training you to run without looking like a runner so being able to kind of focus on building muscle and strength because obviously a lot of a lot of people want to run

and enjoy running but they also want to get in shape and they feel if they run that they're going to you know, stay skinny and they, and they're not content with their, with their, with their, with their body and, and their, um, their body image as well. So I know you, you focus a lot on, you know, helping people to improve in terms of PBs, helping people to get stronger, helping people with their body composition, and all that stuff. What do you think that you've

learned about coaching and about your own abilities and how you approach athletes or how you approach clients from your time over in Texas? A lot. I learned a lot of, about, what not to do above all else, which I often think people underestimate in terms of valuable lessons because you can learn from someone great and have the perfect system, but you'll actually just understand the coaching process really well by really understanding the things that don't work for you. So I think an empathy-led approach is the biggest thing I've learned and it's something I talk about with my clients all the time, the idea that I think the world is hard enough on everyone.

Everyone has so much stress and pressure and everything like that. You don't need to put more negative pressure and stress on yourself. And I certainly am not going to. I think a coach should be there. It depends on your level of goals. And I will be very frank with someone in terms of if you have very lofty, high-reaching goals, you're going to need to put in a lot of work. And my job is to help keep you accountable with that.

But for the most part, we are not professional athletes. And this is where the kind of element of my own kind of approach to running in that I no longer I'm trying to run the fastest possible times that I can. I'm trying to run quickly and I'm trying to set some PVs and things like that. But the cost of me running the fastest possible time is everything. Yeah. And I'm just not willing to pay it anymore. And I think most people don't understand that that's the thing they're setting themselves up for

when they could probably have way more in terms of. of quality of life and enjoyment of the things they're doing if they broadened their focus a little bit. So what I like to say is like I make runners into well-rounded athletes. So instead of just going out hitting miles, doing everything you can to scrape a few seconds off that PB, what if we also did some other cross-training on the way? So you kind of learned how to work on a bike, on a row or some other things, do some swimming if you enjoy it, lift some weights because that's a really important skill as well. Build muscle if you would enjoy changing your physique and a lot of runners especially, you know, everything I say, I'm going to say with a caveat of like if you're an elite,

if you're trying to be the best or the best, none of this applies. It's a different situation. You are focusing in on achieving one tiny goal at the sacrifice of everything else. And what I believe is most people don't actually fit into that tiny little bracket. So for everyone else, how can we make you a healthier human and being the fast as runner possible as not you becoming a healthier human. And often trying to do that while also having a life

with lots of other responsibilities is limiting your progress because you are trying to train like an elite athlete who does nothing but train. And just as an example of this is something I talk about with a lot of my clients that even when I was running, I don't want to say I never had ambitions of going pro

because that makes it sound like I was just like now that I couldn't do it I'm bailing out I just found the idea of the pro athlete lifestyle very boring you'll see at the elite level you kind of have two options that tend to funnily enough always reoccur in runners you see the pro guys

tend to get really good at gaming and the pro females tend to release cookbooks and that's because they're sitting around all day with nothing to do between training that's very true I think it was a dare draw Darjo O'Rourke, I wrote a cookbook actually so you're right. Yeah, a lot of them do. And even a few of the lads as well, David Gillick, same thing.

So, like, these are your kind of main two options. You get into gaming, you start cooking. Because you're just trying to fill the hours, because, you know, you are training at elite level. And just, like, a typical day of me when I was out in the States is we get up at 5am, go to the team meeting, go to training, run approximately 10 to 14 miles in the morning, come home, have a physio session, maybe have a wait session, go back, have kind of breakfast. Because at this point you've done like four hours of training and it's only 9 a.m. So then you have breakfast and you kind of just got to wait around for a while until it's time to have lunch.

And then you kind of got to wait around for a while until it's time for your evening workout or whatever that is, cross-trading or more miles, usually at least another hour and a half of work. And then you've dinner. And you can't do a lot in between those things because A, you're wrecked and you're trying to conserve energy and then you're getting up at 5 a.m. So you're going to bed at like 9 o'clock. So you're training or you're lying down and that's your whole day. And again, if that is what you want to do, if that is your ambition and you love it and hopefully

someone's paying you for it, that's amazing. But if you have a partner, a job, a family, other interests and hobbies and you're trying to base your training around the way a pro trains, it's just not going to work because you don't have the time resources they have. You have to train a way where you can hopefully get some good results as well, but the way you should go about it as a non-elite can be reflective of the pros,

but it shouldn't try to exactly copy of them. Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's a conversation I don't think people have with themselves, especially if they don't have a coach or a good coach, it's like, okay, this is what you want to achieve, but what is it that you're willing to sacrifice? And I think we always think about what we want But we never think about like you know

What's the cost of that benefit or what's the cost of that achievement? I think it was a camera who said it originally it's been quoted on modern wisdom endlessly Aiming for a goal without desiring the process is just setting herself up for disappointment Yes, yes, yes I think it's James clear I think has something similar to that But yeah that that's from James clear I think there's a lot of that and it's not always the fault of that I that it can be easily thrown out as that person just doesn't actually want it

and they're being lazy. But I think a lot of the time people just don't understand what's actually involved in reaching that end point because we're sold everything as quick, easy solutions. Like everything on social media is like an eight-week program, this one special tip, this one amazing exercise. And the reality is anyone you see who has achieved anything, anything of significance, like, well, focus in on running,

but you can apply this to pretty much anything. you can be very confident they have dedicated huge amounts of time, energy resources into the pursuit of this. There was no one magic thing they did. They did a lot of things a thousand times over and then they refined it and did it a thousand times more and they just kept doing that. So I think a lot of people don't think about the process or don't really understand what is involved in achieving the goal. So that's probably the first thing. And it's something I redo with all my clients. The first thing we can ask is, where do you want to be six months from now?

So we can kind of establish what is, where do you want to be above all else? What's kind of important to you? And then we talk about what's realistic. And then we talk about how you actually go about getting there. And a lot of the time, after that third part of the conversation, we kind of revisit the whole goal. Because you have to go through those steps of you want to have six pack abs, but you don't want to stop going out for points at the weekend. I have a very upsetting bit of information for you. So it's understanding what is actually involved is probably the first step to getting what you want.

And then once you understand what's involved, you can start actually shifting what you want to align with what you're willing to do. That makes sense. Okay, so going on from realistic expectations when we're setting these goals. What would you say to runners who are listening to this who they don't want to be elite level at least like we spoke about but they definitely want to improve their running like we said running

is trendy now. People want to be the fastest in their run club. They want to get a better half marital time or whatever it is. What would you say to runners who are afraid to eat more to lift heavier or to put on muscle because they think it might slow them down? Because I know that's a psychological issue that some people

kind of fall into when when pursuing this goal of running faster for sure and there is a very real element that more weight will make you slower to a degree and i think that is it's important to acknowledge that because if i brush it aside i'm lying yeah you know there's a reason why elite athletes are tiny tiny little people elite runners are like tiny but it's not as important as you think until you're reaching the very very top level and until you're you're reaching the very very top level and until you are trying to be the best runner in the world, you just becoming a better athlete is almost certainly going to make you a better runner.

Because a lot of the time, the person who's really worried about putting on size and it's slowing them down is not big to begin with. It's kind of like the person who comes into the gym. I don't want to get too big. I don't want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it's like, I wouldn't worry about it.

I've been trying pretty damn hard for the last four or five years to get as big as possible. And I think I can say with confidence, I no longer look like a really skinny runner. I just look like a kind of skinny runner. So it's progress. But I understand the fear.

I think it comes from a real place. But again, it's a misunderstanding of how the process actually works. Because at this point, we have so much evidence that getting stronger will make you a better runner. It's undeniable at this point. Yes, there are examples of elite, level athletes who don't do resistance training.

But my question to that is like, do you think you're that good? Kipchoga famously, best marathon runner in the world, Ely Kipchoga famously doesn't do any strength work. And I get people saying that to me a lot. And I'm like, yes, do you think you're Kipchoway? He can get away with it. I would be pretty confident.

He could be even better with strength training. But let's be real. He doesn't need to. Yeah. Everyone else, I'm going to check as many boxes as I can to make me the best possible athlete. And even, it's got to go further more into your question, understanding, as we said, there's more to life than just running because I've done the bit where I've really put that focus in and I, part of my thing in the States was I also lost. I didn't have a lot of weight to lose,

but the coaches made sure I lost it. So I was the lightest I'd ever been. I was very lean. I was walking around probably like 8% body fat or under at all times. And I wasn't running well at all. I was running horrendously bad. I was actually running much better off about half the mileage and about four or five kilos heavier. Because just because the elites are looking ultra lean doesn't mean that's the best place for you to be to perform at your best either.

For the majority of people going into the gym isn't going to make you Arnold Schwarzenegger and you gaining a little bit of muscle isn't going to negatively impact your performance. So all that's really going to happen is you're going to go in, you're going to develop another facet that we know is important for running strength and you are going to almost certainly see benefits in your running

but also I will guarantee you will feel very differently about your body how you interact with it how you look after it because you are broadening your identity as someone who just sees himself as a runner and therefore I have to be skinny and small I only have to the only way I train is to run miles and a lot of the time I find the pushback from runners is just they're scared yeah And I don't mean that in a judgmental way. Like the gym is an intimidating place. If you're someone who is, you know, a lot of runners,

and again, I throw myself into this category. When I started running, it was largely because I was not an athlete. I was not well-coordinated. I would never been big into doing, you know, sport. The guy who was picked last for everything. I was probably a little bit fitter than everyone else, but God, I couldn't catch a kick-a-ball for the life of me. So a lot of these things are associated with other sports.

And then running, if it's the first time, you've kind of felt like you're involved in this community and the community is kind of as a large yeah we don't think the gym is good you don't want to ostracize yourself from that and the thing that the gym's associated with is all the stuff you didn't like before like you know rugby players go to the gym they're all strength athletes and if you were never capable of making the rugby team because it just wasn't something in your wheelhouse it's all part of that negative association so a big part of it is the gym is intimidating to me so therefore it's easier for me me to say that I just don't want to get big, it's bad for runners, then actually face that.

But you're limiting yourself as an athlete and as we both know as a human because I'm waiting, I'm seeing good progress towards it, but I cannot wait for the day where we just all admit that resistance training is a non-negotiable. It's going to be brushing your teeth in terms of, I don't care if you like it or not. It's just a part of how you stay healthy through all parts of your life. So forgetting the running bit for a minute, if you're not a pro athlete, most of your goals should be aligned with health.

And being stronger, going to the gym, building up some muscle mass and proving your bone density, developing the skill of strength training. And it is a skill. I think it's just one of the most invaluable things you can do, not just as a runner, but as a human who wants to. And I always talk about this because I think it's a big mental shift for me

that helped me move away, as you kind of talked about, that kind of disassociation of the athlete identity, I don't want to be the guy who's in his 40s, who's pick thin and his legs are messed up

from doing 40 plus miles a week and every time he, you know, catches a cold, it's a pretty big deal because he has zero body fat to fight it off. So I want to care about my longevity as well.

And that kind of shift helped me quite a bit. Yeah, that's such a good example as well. Okay, so let's flip it then on the other side. So you also, have you have that person who's obviously afraid to put on muscle and afraid to kind of eat more. And I think that also there's probably a lot of things tied into that and sort of disordered eating thoughts and body image issues and stuff like that. What about the person who, you know, loves running

and loves how running makes them feel, but also wants to, you know, not look like a runner, not look skinny, wants to get jacked, but doesn't want it to take away from the performance. do you have any advice for someone who wants to one keep running but not lose their gains as they as they run well actually funnly there's a great post about this recently if you're Killiam and Connor who you know

he had a post about this but I think just so spot on it was such a great reframe it's the exact same as the guy who doesn't want to go to the gym I keep saying guy the person who doesn't want to go to the gym and get huge the person who has gains and doesn't want to run because they're afraid they're going to shrink. It's not that simple. Again, we take that comparison from the elite level

and I think that the elite level athlete looks like this. So if I do that sport, I'm going to look like that immediately. Again, it goes both ways. If a big guy starts running, he's not going to lose all of his gains. If a big guy starts running and stops doing everything else, for sure. But it's actually more to do with the fact you just stop doing the other training. So getting the balance right between the two is difficult. And I fully acknowledge that it's hard to gain size alongside running.

I think it's very achievable to gain strength alongside running up to a certain degree. But it is definitely more of a challenge to put on muscle and do hypertrophy-style training because there's a bit of an overlap in terms of where the resources need to go. and they can't be directed to both simultaneously, very effectively. They can be done, but you're obviously limiting your capacity to achieve both. But again, in my mind, if you're not necessarily trying to be elite, I don't care if I'm not getting the maximum possible results. So it's about having the blend right.

It's about having an understanding of what's actually required to achieve each of them because they are working two independent systems within the body, even down to a hormonal level, running, activates a sense, separate system to muscle building. So the kind of style you're training, you need to make sure they are kind of working in congruence with each other. And then the biggest element I'd say is the recovery side of things because that's very difficult. That is something that has been trial and error for me. And usually that's, if I'm being honest, it's because I'm trying to do too much. I'm falling into the same trap. I put all of my clients against and, you know,

coaches are no different than each other. I want to be strong and I want to be jacked and I want to run fast. And if you try to do all of it at once at maximum effort, you just break. But learning to kind of get the balance right between those things and then just accept that my goal is not to be the ultimate version of any of them. It's to find the balance that works for me and my lifestyle and I enjoy it. And yes, I'm still making progress. Because obviously, it's not very fun to put in lots of time and not actually make any progress. But if you're getting the balance right, you can make progress. It might just be a little slower

than you wanted to be, but being real, who has ever said their rate of progress is fast enough for them. Everybody wants to get where they want to be immediately,

preferably yesterday. Yeah, I think with Killian's post, I think he said something like, like playing basketball doesn't automatically make you taller. And I thought that was very accurate. So we know then that, you know, you can run,

you can enjoy running, and you can still stay in shape, or you can get in shape. It will take longer than you think. And it's not going to be optimal. It's going to be practical. Now, for those listening, okay, let's have a hypothetical here where they do have time to train

and, you know, it can be more optimal than practical for their lifestyles. Do you have any kind of advice or insights into like a ratio of gym sessions to running sessions that, you know, would really help, let's say someone here, wants to improve their half marron or their 10k and like you know someone who says are i should i be spending more time out on the road running should i be spending more time you know in the gym

uh doing my sessions should it be 50 50 um should it be you know full body training sessions should i be doing a a bro split should what should i be doing with my running because i heard something about long runs and i heard something about interval sessions and you know now i you know without having a coach this is information overload for me so do you have any kind of simple layout formats for for the majority of people and i know you can't you can't give you know sweeping advice across the board everything's going to be individualized but do your best but give i i can't give you the magic for me but i'd really like the magic for this to give it to me anyway just to quickly with slight sidebar but just to kind of acknowledge what you're talking about that kind of person there

i also think it's really important to note although i talk about being suboptimal which is true. The level of performance you can achieve now, we've seen, we're seeing guys come out of the woodwork who are doing incredible things, guys running 2.30 marathons like Jake Durnum, and he is strong and he is jacked. Yeah. Nick Bear, sub 240, same. So the idea that, yes, they won't be elite, but what most people would consider like an absolute dream borderline for most people unattainable. Like if you're trying to go sub 220 to marathon, okay this combo it probably isn't going to work. Everything up to that point,

yeah man, you can do both and have it all and why not? So in terms of getting that training split, I don't have a magic formula because it is very difficult to get it balanced. But the biggest thing is probably first and foremost figure out which is most important to you right now because you don't want to try to drive everything all at once. You go through seasons.

And that's the same of any sports. So even if we consider this, you know, theoretically it kind of falls under the hybrid umbrella. There's no actual sport classification here. But if I'm trying to get better as an athlete at my chosen sport, I don't try to get better at everything all at once. So the first thing I'm going to figure out is like, how much time do I have to train?

Okay, how many hours and days can I set aside? Cool. Then I'm going to go into my kind of split of how much can I dedicate to each. So if I am currently, and say this is the way I did it in a kind of grander scheme of things was I put a lot more time into running. I just did it on a six year schedule. And then I put a lot more time into strength and size. I did that on a four year schedule.

And now I'm doing a bit smaller cycles of prioritising both. But say right now, my schedule is I'm doing three days a week of each. And I think that's usually, if you have time, you like training every day. Three and three is a great place to go to because you've got a nice blend. If you are more interested in running, four and two, four runs to gym. If you're more interested in gym, four gym to run. That's a really nice place to go to. and then it's just kind of like, where is your main focus?

So if I am more focus on the running, more of my intensity and volume is going to go there. The number of sessions might not change, but my running sessions are going to be harder. So the three days per week as well is a nice one I find because if ever I'm designing a running program, again, I'm terrible with names. I'm going to keep quoting a lot of people

of not telling you who they're from, but there's a coach who famously said, you want a long run, a high intensity workout, maybe once for twice a week, and an easy miles as much as you can tolerate to fill up the gaps. So in my general programs, I try to really emphasize those elements that are actually going to drive adaptation quickly. We hear a lot of stuff around Zone 2 training and going low and slow, and that is really important, but the higher your mileage is, the more important it is. If you're only doing two runs a week, you're only doing two runs a week, you can do a bit more intensity.

Yeah. You can just do too, because it's kind of like saying if you're going to the gym six days a week, not everything can be like a one rep max all out. But if you go to the gym once a week, you can go harder because you have more time to recover in between. So in terms of kind of the running program, I'd try to have one day a week. That's a long run. One day a week that has some kind of intensity, whether that's intervals, whether that's sprints, whether that's tempos, like just something that kind of gets you your heart rate up and ideally get you in towards your target race pace because that is the idea of intervals.

We can go into that in more detail if you like. And then another day, that is maybe something a bit shorter and easier. So as long as you have something that's intensity, something that's long and something that's maybe short with some sprints, those are kind of the three big boxes. You will see huge improvement because you're again developing yourself as an athlete. So there's something I try to do within my running as well, where a lot of the time you have people who are just, say, training for a marathon. And all they do are just easy miles, easy miles,

easy miles. So basically just doing a long run every day. And that isn't the worst way to train, but it's kind of like going to the gym and just doing bench press at the same weight for the same number of reps all the time. It'll get you some results. And over time, if you just slowly add more reps you will make progress but you do a lot better if you change it up a bit and create different stimulus to get more adaptation more different areas of fitness and running has although longer distance running on the surface just seems like go in a straight line for as fast as you can for as long as you can there is more nuance to it than that so you want to develop all of your different systems in the body you want to develop all of your skills as a runner.

So kind of checking those three boxes is where I'd really start for most runners. Long run, some kind of interval session, some kind of easy run with some sprints. So variety is good in that regard. I never asked you actually, what was your race? Like were you a, was it a 10 kilometre? Was it a 21 kilometre? Was it when you were training in Texas? I was a mid-distance guy, but I was probably somewhat in denial that I was probably more like a mid-long-distance guy.

Because I had just enough speed to get away with being kind of a 1500. That was my main race. But in hindsight, almost all my best racing was over cross-country 10K. So like that's where I made my Irish teams and things like that. So I wanted to, I think it's a pretty normal curse of runners. We all want to be faster than we are. all the 10K guys would like to run 5K all the 5K guys would like to run 15

all the 15s would like to be sprinters So the dream is just to be 100 meter runner where you just Like A you get to be Jacked, you get to be strong And your race is done in 10 seconds But that's where the kind of genetic curve Starts coming in real hard

And again, any runner is insulted by this I am lumping myself in this We had a joke we used to talk about in my run club where we basically had like the sport continuum breaking down over time and just as example the highest level of sport like can you hit an object

with another object so like baseball where you got like something's coming at you you have to use something else and get that level of coordination and it goes down like can I do that? No okay can I throw an object

so I don't even have to use any other implements no and you keep going down down this list until the level of coordination goes really really down to the bottom barrel and it's can you put one foot in front of the other yes I can do that final question can you do it quickly no I can't okay you're a distance runner that's very true um actually speaking on let's say a hundred meter sprinter and stuff like that do you think that it is like it's largely like obviously there's there's going to be this

element of of hard of hard work and dedication and you know committing your whole life towards that sport but like for for those listening and for you obviously seeing this up close in person in terms of different athletes like how how important is genetics when it comes to that level of sport or athleticism everything

yeah it's everything and this is something that I admit with a lot of like because I'm not that person I don't have those genetics but there's just something different you see in these elite level guys and sprinting is the perfect example

because if you you see a sprinter move, like a really high level sprinter. And even when they're young and they're not super developed yet, they just move differently to everyone else. They have this kind of fluidity and this coordination that seems to come very naturally to them. They are the guys, the kids in school who are just, they're first on everything because they are just fast. They're coordinated. And usually the worst bit, they're lovely people as well. You can't even hate them. but unfortunately the old idea

of and it's actually another post I'm directly quoting this or some stage this week hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard there's a gram of truth

in that but there's just too many stories of guys who just did nothing and worked into the top level and it's not to take away because obviously to be the very best

you have to work very hard to get there, but the average elite athlete was elite pretty much from the day they were born. They were better than everyone else the whole way through. We love the idea of the like grit and grind and overcoming because it's essentially a fairy tale. It doesn't really, it can happen, but it's such an outlier. That's why it's noteworthy. The reality is elite athletes are elite from day one.

and if they choose to act on those elite genetics, there is nothing you or I can do to overcome that. But an important caveat from this downward slide into depression of, we're all but mere mortals compared to the mighty athletes, I do think the idea that the elite 1% are just something you're born with, I think pretty much anyone can get into the kind of top 10% of any sport with time, effort and dedication. So if you don't have those elite genetics,

will this be your paid job? Probably not. Could you be the best person that you or anyone that you know knows at this sport? Could you be someone who's like noteworthy in terms of your circle, even your country? Quite possibly if you're willing to put in that time effort and dedication. So to anyone who has the ambition

and they're not sure if they're, that person, the only way you'll ever really know is by trying. You can't do, there's no test. You know, as much as I say, you can see it, you can see that person who's an elite sprinter. Yes, that's a certain degree of truth in it, but even still, they still have to put in the time, effort and work.

And there's a lot of people who looked amazing, who never actually fulfilled their potential. But as I say, most of the time, I'm not talking about elite athletes because I think we spend so much time talking about the elite level of sport, which is cool and inspirational, but for the most part, it's just not applicable to everyday people.

we need to talk about the concept of the everyday athlete and if you want to be a really good everyday athlete like better than everyone because not everything's about being better than everyone but sometimes that's a pretty big motivator like you said if you want to be the fastest person in your run club just working really hard at it you can still be the fastest person there

you're just probably not going to get paid for it yeah fair um i wanted to quote you on something else he said that i thought was really really interesting and it's probably something that people will people who who maybe aren't educated on their training when it comes to run and might be surprised with but could be really helpful information for them so trying to make your cross training more running specific is probably just making it way less enjoyable so can you explain that to the listeners and also you also spoke about running uh you did a 10k in 32 minutes from basically

swimming could you tell that story as well yeah for sure so they are actually quite well linked so it is a good story of basically before I went to the States I had a pretty major injury and that's a whole story of itself but I basically ran myself into the injury because of a race not going as I planned so I actually went over to the States injured initially so can't blame the coaches over there for that one that was on me but I was you know very singular focused at the time so I got very good at cross training and actually the summer for that one is is one of those moments where I look back as like, man, I can't believe if I actually did that.

I was in a boot because I had a grade 4B stress fracture. So a 4C is essentially a full break. Yeah. So I was, honestly, that probably would have been better because if you get a full break, you kind of have clear timelines

and things like that. If you're on a stress fracture, there's a certain degree if you just have to kind of wait and see how it responds. So I didn't run for the better part of about six months because I was just in a boot.

But that summer, I was working in a summer camp trying to get some money together while I was heading out with the States. I was in a boot. So I was living in a school. The school had a tiny little gym and I couldn't do anything really

that involved any form of weight bearing. So what I did that summer and this is a perfect example of how to make your running, your cross training awful is I flipped an exercise bike upside down, sat in a box and did arm crank for an hour every morning.

morning and an hour every evening for the three months I worked in that camp. Horrendous. It was pretty awful. It's pretty awful. I made up a lot of different training styles and games with myself to keep myself sane. I don't know if it helped me stay sane or slowly made me more bad. But I went to the States and then I, like, because of this, I was actually still in pretty good shape because although I'd kind of been doing the strength training that I could do after

a while for, I couldn't do any weight bearing for a while. I could do things like leg extensions and machines. I kind of target and isolated the quads so I maintained that and then I had to transition into kind of biking and swimming and biking kind of sucked I really liked swimming

and I found that it was really good aerobic exercise partially because I suck at swimming coming back to that coordination thing so I would flounder up and down the pool but regardless of my swimming technique because I didn't really care if I was an excellent swimmer

I just got quite aerobically fit so I was doing sessions in the pool there were like three or four K and again twice a day. So I was spending two to three hours in the pool every single day doing workouts. And I basically started recreating running training in the pool. I was going for long swims. I was doing interval swims. I was doing some sprints.

I was targeting the energy systems of the body. And then by the end of that, I basically, I think I can remember exactly how many runs. When the boot finally came off, I did some protocols of like a minute walk and a minute jog, which was wild as a concept to me having come from 80 miles a week where if you're not going out for like a six mile run it's not really a run it doesn't count

so going to minute on, minute off jog around the indoor track of the rec centre was weird but so I'd say I had maybe a dozen runs total all of my speed work all of my intervals were in the pool or on the bike

the runs were just to get my body used to impact and kind of the skill of running because there's a skill element to it and then I went out to the first race of the season. Sorry, I missed the first couple of races the season. The first race I ran was conference, and I came something like fifth on the team. So it wasn't an amazing result, but I hadn't run at all, and I was running fine.

I was able to keep up with the guys who've been running all season. And then we went to regionals, and I was fourth and I remember I was third or fourth in the team, and I ran a 10KPB in 3210 or something like that. And I'd run a little more since then, but 90% of my season was spent arm biking, swimming, and then eventually cycling. And this is the bit that comes back to the cross-training element because you can get really fit by just getting fit. And people kind of forget that idea, fitness is fitness. Yes, there's a skill to running. You have to work on that.

But if you're working hard and challenging yourself aerobically, getting your heart rate up, spending time, into the correct training zones, that will carry over to almost anything. And this is why the point I make of people trying to make their running, their cross-training really running specific, if the version of that sucks to do, and just a classic example is things like elliptical or, I know if you've ever heard of aqua-jogging. No. Aquadjogging. Anyone who knows what that is has just kind of had a little shudder go through their spine.

Aquadjogging is an abomination, and I will not hear otherwise, where you basically, it's a protocol designed for injured runners. You wear a little floating, like Batman style floaty belt. Yeah. In the pool. Oh, yes. Yeah.

You do a running motion up and down the pool. And it is tedious and boring and awful and you go nowhere. And it also add it in no way is a running motion because there's no impact. You're just cycling. But anyway, people will argue differently. But I've done some aqua jogging and stuff like that. and I kind of included that because at the time I was singular focus, I was sports

scientists, so I saw the research that said this might be better, and I know for a fact, I just didn't work as hard on those aqua-jogging sessions because it sucked. I hated it so much. Whereas if I went on an exercise bike and I could get my heart rate up and I could work my quads,

I was doing everything I needed to do and it was still going to have great carryover. So the idea that there are these things, and this, applies to a lot of the elements of the way I train people as a whole. The idea that there is one correct way to do things is usually just a way to set yourself up for failure or at the very least misery because someone else decided this is the best way to do it, but is that the best way

for you to do it? Most of the time, the way to get the best results are to enjoy it. And that applies to pretty much, as you know, as a PT, the best thing I can do for my clients is set them up to train in a way that they actually enjoy. Because then they're going to do it and they're going to want to do it and it's not going to be misery and it stops becoming this thing where it's like me versus the thing

and I do this, I become that person, I enjoy it and the results start coming. So if I'm injured, which is really hard as an athlete, is talking about that athlete identity again. If you're injured and you're trying to cross train,

you know, you're probably dealing with a lot of frustration and upset about the fact you can't just go run. Why would I go make it worse for myself by doing something that I also really hate. If you don't like cross-straining, that's okay.

Not everyone does, but don't go pick your least favorite kind of cross-training, because, God, this sucks enough already, my man, don't make it worse. Yeah, but it's just, it's also, even if it's, let's say we're not talking about the high-level athlete, but let's say even like just some,

you know, regular Joe training for their first half marining and, you know, they've after getting injured or they've got shin splints or, you know, their hip is starting to hurt from the impact of the concrete and stuff like that. Like knowing that, okay, I can jump on a cross trainer or I can jump on a spin bike or I can jump on a rower and, you know, I can get cardiovascularly fit and that will have carry over to me on the day. Like that's obviously, that's optimistic for them to know. Sure. It takes off so

much pressure. Yeah. It's something I try to really work out to my clients as well. It's like you could, there's always something you can be working on. And that's a really important lesson because so many people fall into that all or nothing mindset. And it's so typical of someone preparing for some kind of event, like say their first marathon, where you're excited to get going, you jump into it, hold hog. Maybe you should have started with a 10K, but you said, fuck it, I'm going to go straight into the marathon. You inevitably get injured because your body hasn't done anywhere near this kind of training before. And now all you see is this ticking clock where the marathon is X days away and I am not running.

and because you're only focused on this one facet of your fitness, all I'm trying to do is run the marathon, so all I'm going to do is run. Whereas during that whole time, you could be getting fitter and stronger, and then when you're able to run again, you have this excellent base. And realistically, if you're a beginner,

you're going to be further along than when you started. The more advanced you are, obviously, the more specific you need to get. But for the majority of people, if you are just moving, like if you ride a bike, you're going to get better at push-ups. So if you are someone who's training for any relatively moderate level of success in you're running, as long as you're not aiming for like a, as I said, like a sub three hour or two-thirty, you just getting some movement in is going to be a benefit to that.

And it's something a lot of my runners will do. We actually take away a little bit of mileage sometimes. We'll swap some of that out to some cross-training. We'll have discussion about what they actually enjoy doing. doing cross training because usually when I try to take away miles, everybody volunteers with the most awful thing they can do in replacement because it's a punishment, obviously. If I make you run less, you've been bold. No, it's a simple case of there's probably other stuff you could do here. And then the kind of big parts of the running that I've talked about before, your kind of

intervals, your long run, now you have more energy. You have, I don't want to say, like more injury bandwidth, but the total impact of your training is significant in running. The most of more time you spend on your feet, the more miles you put in the higher injury risk is. So if I am spending less time in that kind of riskier modality during the week, I can do more in those tougher sessions without that fear. So not only is it great when someone is actually injured, it's going to prevent you from getting injured in the first place. I also wanted to talk to you about spending too much time in the gym doing like drill exercises and stretches versus actually getting in there and, you know, lifting heavy weight through full

range of motion. Is that a mistake that you see runners make? Hugely. I think it comes back to, once again, the idea that runners can be intimidated by the gym. And there's this idea of you don't need to go to the gym. You can do this little band exercise instead and do this step up. I'm like, ooh, look at this fancy little exercise we have. Isn't this nice? And if that helps you to get into the gym and get started, for sure, sure, by all means. But I am very sick of seeing, especially runner influencers, especially large guys, possibly on a cycle of gear,

doing little clamshells and being like, this is how I grew my legs. It's like, my man, come on. So you can do it that way. But it's kind of like, as I said, the idea that you're only ever going to run easy miles, you are missing out on the real benefits. and all the research we have says that it's heavy weights that does the job you're looking for.

Even if you've no interest in gaining muscle and you don't actually care about getting stronger, but you just want to run faster, heavy weights are still the answer. And to the idea that it should be, it's kind of comes back to what you're saying earlier, the kind of running specific, like it should be running specific training. I already am doing so much running. If I needed more running specific training, that would be running. The point of doing accessory work like strength or cross-training is to get in something that you're running isn't giving you.

And that is where running is essentially lots, thousands and thousands of quarter rep body weight exercises. So what I don't need to do is go to the gym and do a circuit of a thousand quarter rep body weight exercises. Because I already got that covered. Now you're just doing a crappier version of it. What I don't get in running is heavy weight bearing and a large range of motion. and you know what does heavy weight bearing

a large range of motion really well? Barbell basic exercises. So, and I say barbell, it doesn't have to be barbell. Obviously, you can do any version that's going to help you get stronger. But it's funny because pretty much every complaint or a reason everyone gets thrown back, throws at me, it all circles back to the same thing.

And it's like, I don't like the gym, I don't want to spend as much time there. Cool, do like two barbell exercises and leave instead of 20 circuits. Yeah. I'm nervous of this. like, okay, cool, this is going to be quicker and easier and safer and you have way more control over how much weight you actually put on the bar. No matter what the reasoning is, it pretty much

always comes back to, yeah, this is the simple best answer. Get a bar, put some weight on it, learn to do those things well, and it's going to check all the boxes. You can do it more if you want to gain more strength and gain muscle. You can do it less and spend less time in the gym because it's way more efficient than what you were doing before. Yeah. And then let's say, okay that's that that's the runner who doesn't who's nervous about the gym and we need to get them in to just do some simple compound exercises in and out and let that complement their training what about someone who's a little bit more advanced they're not afraid of getting under a barbell they're not afraid of doing a couple of dead lifts you know they're running hard at the moment i know when

your your training highlights you do a lot of olympic lifts and stuff like that where the what role does olympic lifts um have in you know training to improve your running I love Olympic lifts. I don't think they're necessary at all. They're one of these things I see on social media a lot of runners talking about the benefits of Olympic lifting. And the benefits of Olympic lifting are kind of force, power and strength. But the bit that people fail to mention is that Olympic lifting is a sport. So that's kind of like saying, I want to learn to read sheet music.

I'm going to learn to play the piano. And it's like there's a lot quicker and easier way to do this. I do Olympic lifting because I enjoy it and I love going to the gym and it's a whole new skill to work on. But again, understanding the outcome versus the process, people see the Olympic lifting

and I've taught a good few people to Olympic lift. From my experience, it takes the better part of a year for Olympic lifting to get to a point where it is actually going to be a useful training tool for you to get the benefits you talk, people talk about. Because early on, it's so technical. You're going to just spend a lot of time

doing lighter weights, which bad form. Yeah. Because if you want to actually learn, that's what it takes. It's a really technical skill. It's a lot of fun. And if you were into the gym, for sure. But it does grind my gears when I see, you know, elite level athletes who are doing

the most god-awful cleans I've ever seen. And the excuse are like, oh yeah, but they're not, you know, They're not Olympic lifters. It doesn't have to be perfect. And while that's totally true, it's how many days a week are they actually doing this skill? Has no one actually taught them to do it right?

So if you want to learn that skill, because it's fun, it's interesting, and you're going to work on doing it as well as you can. Amazing. Olympic lifting is so much fun. You have to have your fundamentals in line first. If you can't do simple things like deadlifts, squats, shoulder press, that's where you need to start.

when those are very natural to you, you can start moving on to higher level things. But if you're just doing it because you feel like you need it to achieve a certain level of performance, you don't need to learn another sport to get better at your sport. Yeah, it makes sense.

There's much simpler options. I wanted to just ask a couple of questions, even on kind of self-talk and stuff like that. Did you have any pre-race rituals or kind of mental cues like that helped you go from like you know were you ever like

anxious, nervous before a race that kind of switched you into performance mode? I was a big believer in the pre-race rituals and performance. I was lucky, I think, that I came to running a lot later

because it gave me a lot of tools in this that I think a lot of runners miss out on. For instance, I know a lot of runners get really nervous before races and I think a lot of the time it's just, obviously, the reason for your nerves are very different. There's a lot of different

theories about this, but usually it comes from the kind of heightened senses that you get during that, the kind of what we call arousal, where your heart rate is up, your kind of racing thoughts, some people can interpret that very positively, some people can interpret it negatively. We know there's a thing called what we call the eyes off, the individual zone of optimal functioning, where somewhere in that range is best for you. So individual people, some people will love like banging music, people slap in their back, running around screaming and for some people they want to sit in a quiet room

neither of these is wrong it's what's going to help them get into the right headspace but obviously competing there's always going to be a kind of heightened something going on if you're on a race day of marathon there's music blaring there's thousands of people you're all corralled together the gun goes your heart is going to be going 90

so I was lucky that I did team sports first and it's kind of normal to be pumped and accept that feeling whereas running because it's that little bit more individual and you spend so much of your time just running in somewhat isolation, it's such a change that I think a lot of runners don't have any experience outside of race day itself where things are very chill, things are very quiet, and suddenly wham, and they don't have

the tools to interpret those signals as nothing's wrong. You're just excited to be here. This is what it's like when you're about to do something really challenging and hard. So first off, the biggest thing is just understanding that the signals from your body are not a bad thing. They are just your body preparing you to do the hard work and then getting different practices in place that will help you to get your best result. And that involves some people getting really hyped, really excited for some people. They want to take that nervous energy and dial it down a few. So for instance, I'll talk about my kind of approach to this. I was someone who liked to get kind of hyped up before a race, but not too soon before a race.

So in the buildup, there's actually probably some videos of me in Texas. I'd bring my hammock to meets and I'd find a place and I'd string up my hammock because if you're going to like an event, you're usually there for the entire day because obviously there's an entire team competing. You're not just there as a runner.

And like usually the 1500 was towards the end of the race and occasionally I'd be on the 4x4 team which was the very last session of the meet. So up until that point this kind of goes back to me kind of not being the athlete all the time I would be wearing my jeans

I'd be sipping on a Coke I'd have my earphones in I'd be chilling in my hammock and I am not a runner at all in this moment I am just chilling out because I was really just trying to conserve my energy

because when it was time to go I like to really ramp it up and kind of feel energized but if I do that too soon I'm just going to feel really depleted by the time the race came around so my tactic was just

kind of just I am chilling I am having a good time and then usually set a timer or something like that so I'm not checking my watch every 30 seconds and I know that it's time for me to click into race mode so having that distinction for you like when is your actual time to start getting hyped up

or to start calming down is important and then the other facet outside of just kind of mantras is actually routine routine is hugely important how do you prepare for the race because that's going to start showing your body that these kind of signals you experience, whether there's a high heart rate, whether it's, you know, you feel a bit sick and nervous, things like that, which are totally normal.

They're just part of the process. They're not things that you're not prepared for. Like I had, there was a girl in my club who used to get sick at the start line of every race. She was an amazing runner. She was like national caliber and like several Irish caps. But every race you go throw up. But there's literally just like, walk to the line, take a hard right to the nearest bin slash bush of cross country,

throw up and come back. And anyone else, that might have, you could really phase you, but I'm not saying take that approach. It probably wasn't perfect, but she did run pretty fast. But she had that kind of, just in her routine was like, I do my warm up, I do my strides, I put on my race number, I go to the line, I puke, I race. and for me I had that kind of I would lie in my hammock

I would chill out listen to music I'd set a timer that gives me time to go do my warm up and then I run for two miles I do X drills I put on my spikes

I do one set of strides and then I go to the start line and because of this there isn't that time for your body to start interpreting signals as like oh something's going wrong because everything is

just how I expect it to be. I've done this, I've kind of built a system where now I feel like I'm very in control. And it's something I say a lot, the idea of controlling the controllables. You can't control so many facets of your race, whether it's the conditions, whether it's delays in the start time, whether it's your other competition. But you can control how you go about dealing with all those things. You can make sure you have a really good plan in place at the start. So I've thought about what I'm eating on the day.

I know what I'm wearing. I know what I'm going to do for my warm-up. These are all things that I'll practice in well in advance of the race. They kind of become part of the training plan. So if I'm working with the client, we are going to know exactly what they're going to eat, what they're going to wear, what the warm-ups going to look like a good month plus before the race starts. And then when things start hitting the fan, as they always do, you feel like, well, I've done everything I can do. Now, this thing's a bit annoying, but maybe I'm going like, and I have a plan B,

If I know I have an extra 15 minutes, I'm going to go chill out, eat a granola bar, and I'll do one or two more warm-up drills. So you just create this kind of sense of control. And from experience with runners, we're all giant control freaks. So when you end up in a situation where the race isn't going to plan, if you haven't kind of given yourself some tools to deal with that, it can be very, very difficult. So the kind of idea of pre-race routine, mantras, self-talk, all they're doing is giving you a sense of control. They all fall under that category. Did you ever see?

I can't remember. I think it's a girl who's about to do long jump or something. And you can see she's doing self-talk even before she's about to go on. And she's just saying, I think she's saying like run, jump, whatever. And then she goes and she hits a world record or something. Did you ever have when you're like kind of in the part of over a, of a run or a race where like it's really, really hurting you. And it's like, do you have that kind of way,

maybe not even inner dialogue, but when you're like verbally speaking, when you're running to kind of help keep you going or to push you a little bit further. I know I remember when I ran my first marathon and I was like, oh my God, this is absolutely hell. I think I had like 5K left to go and I hadn't ran that far, yeah,

and I definitely wasn't prepared for it either. But I just kept on saying, just put one foot in front of the other, just put one foot in front of the other because I was just, I was in absolute agony, but like just saying that out loud actually really helped. Yeah, 100%. It's something I really tried to put a lot of time and effort towards developing.

And the thing that is really important to note is, I know exactly the high jump you're talking about, but she didn't do that on the spot. That is something she practiced for probably years. And it's not a simple case of just kind of like saying a few things to yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to understand what a lot of. motive. Yeah. Just like, just get on with the car. Just run it. Wow, that really worked

halfway through the marathon. You're building your kind of, again, it all comes back to that tool belt of what works for you and what works for me might not work for someone else. So, for instance, when I'm running, I think about kind of flowing, my big physical thing as I roll my shoulders that helps me to kind of relax and release any tension that's held up there because it can take away from your stride if you're tensed up and trying to punch your arms. So I think about rolling my shoulders back. I think about what I kind of call, because there's three types.

I kind of break down my, say, workouts. They feel like they are grindy. They feel like they are stridey or they feel like they are floaty. And a grindy session is one of those ones where you, no matter how hard you push, you just can't hit your paces. Whatever reason, you've gone out too hard. Maybe you're just like not feeling it that day.

You are grinding. and it doesn't matter how hard you grind, it is just not working. There's kind of stridey ones where a stride is a kind of running term where you do it, where you're not going, your maximum pace, you're kind of doing a semi-fast sprint. So a stridey session is normal, like you have to work hard, but you can hit your paces. So you're kind of like, you're having a good day. And then there are floaty days where you can't go slow enough to hit your paces. You are just flying past everything.

there's no real work or effort in it, you are just on it. So I use the word float. When I'm going along and I'm struggling, I try to tell myself, float. And that does a couple of things. It's a reinforcement of like I feel good, but it's also the kind of difference in your approach. Because when you're grinding, you're pushing really hard and going nowhere. When you're striding, you're kind of like,

you have to stay on it. You have to stay focused, but it's not happening easily. and when you're floating, it's just going. You're not thinking. It's kind of like your flow state essentially. So I try to tell myself I'm in that state, even if I'm not. And that has, because I've practiced it, because I've kind of convinced myself through a lot of repetition

that when I'm feeling floaty, I'm feeling really good, that word has a lot of power for me. So that's what kind of self-talk and mantras are all about. their positive associations in your mind and they can be positive or negative so if you're kind of experiencing a really good moment you can also use them to bring yourself back down it's like patient calm

I ran a marathon it wasn't necessarily their selected mantra but it became the mantra of the marathon because I was pacing some guys and they were trying to hit PBs and they kept every time we got to a fan zone they would absolutely bomb off because they were kind of getting excited

by the kind of noise and the drums and everything. So I just basically pulled them back a few times and explain like, I want you guys to be patient. You're feeling really good right now, but it's kilometre five.

I want you to take that excitement and put in the back pocket until kilometer 35. So the mantra for the race was just back pocket. Back pocket. Every time they start accelerating away from me, just back pocket.

I say that and suddenly that word took on a whole new meaning to them. like, oh, actually, yeah, I can chill out. So the way I recommend people going about this is just kind of during your training session. There's a lot of different words, look up some ones, but just what is yourself talk? First off, trying to become more aware of it. Is it positive?

Is it negative? If it's negative, that's okay. But is it in a negative way that's helpful? Because I will often be kind of drill sergeant with myself and be like, come on, Rick, you worked really hard for this. You can do better. versus, you know, you're worthless, this is terrible. They're not helpful. But within yourself talk, what are the moments of yourself talk

that you find really helpful and motivating and extracting from that? There's probably something in there that is a word you could start practicing using during your training when it gets hard. So that comes race day, you can just think this to yourself. And it really will impact your performance. It has, there's a lot of evidence to back this up. It sounds very woo-woo, but obviously, your mind has a really big role in how hard you can push.

So if you are using things that from a mental side of the game assure you you're doing good work, you can do more, it's going to help you to push on and achieve more.