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The Relaxed Running podcast is a behind the scenes conversation with the best athletes, coaches and professionals in the world of distance running. From training, hydration and nutrition to racing and recovering, we learn from the best in the world.
Relaxed conversations which are packed with actionable takeaways to help you take your running performance up a notch. Save yourself years of guess work and learn from the people who are doing it at the highest level.
Tyson Popplestone (00:00.526)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Training Hub Members Only podcast. Great to have you here. It's Tyson Popplestone here from Relax Running. This is, as I mentioned, the first of many episodes of the Training Hub podcast. It's gonna be a space where, at times, it's gonna be me sharing ideas, and at other times, we'll have bonus episode and interviews with prominent figures in the world of distance running to help you navigate your world of training.
Today I wanted to speak to you specifically about an idea which has been on my mind a little bit. I recently made a video about this on YouTube and it was really popular. It received 120 ,000 views in the first month that it was put up. It was our second most, or it is the second most popular podcast that's been done on Relax Running's YouTube channel. And I think a part of that reason is because what I speak about is very simple and it also applies to athletes regardless of what level you're at. So I wanted to elaborate.
Some of the ideas behind here because obviously for the sake of time on YouTube Had to speed through some of the thoughts, but with a little bit of extra time up our sleeve today I thought it might be a good idea just to delve into a little bit so Regardless of what distance you're training for assuming you're a distance runner We'll say between 1500 meters to the marathon and beyond even even up to the hundred case ultra marathon running I think this is a podcast which is going to be really relevant to you and hopefully seeing some good
Improvements in your own training. So hey without further ado, let me get into a few of the main thoughts I wanted to focus specifically on five things that I mentioned in the video and elaborate on why I think these are so important for you and your training as we go But as I said, let's get into it The first thing that we want to do is speak about mixing up the running pace now If you're new to the world of running, you don't have to be a genius to see that It doesn't take long
in the world of distance running to find a rhythm which you're comfortable at. Now, that's good news if you're just trying to maintain fitness and you're trying to build fitness or you're trying to build the distance that you can run. But over the course of months and years of not changing up this particular pace, it becomes a little bit of a downfall in terms of progression and in terms of tapping into what it is that you're actually capable of in terms of performance for your distance. You might have seen that, um,
Tyson Popplestone (02:22.35)
you know, the ultra marathon runner shuffle going down your street from time to time. The ultra marathon shuffle is simply the athlete who they can run forever and ever and ever at one slow pace. But when you say, hey, can you pick it up and start sprinting? The answer is no, they can't really do it. So what is the problem with that? And how do we actually mix up the pace that we need to run in order to see some breakthroughs in our running performance? Well, let's answer the first question. Why is it important?
that we mix up the pace. There's a few factors that can really, really benefit if we mix up pace. Obviously, like I said, you don't want to turn into the ultra marathon running shuffle. If you're trying to run PBs over 15, five, 10, half marathon, marathon, it's very important to do some work at faster than race pace. Now, that might sound a little bit like common knowledge, but it's amazing how often we can get ourselves into a routine of training which feels comfortable.
and it feels as though we're seeing progress. And then before you know it, five years have gone by and nothing's changed. So a big part of the training that I do with the athletes that I coach and a big part of my own training as I prepare for the Melbourne Marathon later in the year is to do some training intervals at least one night a week where I'm running much faster than race pace or if not much faster, even just a little bit faster than race pace. So this is beneficial to you and your physiology as a runner. So you're actually,
learning how to run more efficiently, hopefully with some technical guidance, it's even easier. But you're using your body in a different way to what you're doing if you're just shuffling through a run. So your body gets used to, or your body starts to get used to running beyond the pace. So psychologically, oh sorry, physiologically, you're actually going above and beyond what you need to. Psychologically, this is beautiful because if you get used to doing some consistent training at a faster pace than what you need to run,
When it comes to race day, the actual shock factor that comes with running at a relatively quick pace to hopefully reach your personal best times doesn't seem so scary. Now obviously it's incredibly important that we're training specifically for the event. So it's not only through running a little bit faster once a week that we're gonna see the breakthroughs. All I'm saying is that psychological breakthroughs that you have when one of your sessions is allocated towards running faster than what you're gonna be running in your other sessions is.
Tyson Popplestone (04:44.43)
really hard to argue. I remember one of my favorite things to do before track season back in the day, if I was racing a 5 ,000 meter run was to go out once a week. Mine was, I was doing it twice a week, but for the sake of this conversation, to go out once a week was usually Thursday, we're targeted more at the fast speed endurance style sessions. And I might do some 400 meter reps at around 1500 meter pace. So the first thing that you need to do is clarify, okay, what is it that you're actually training for? So,
For the sake of clarity, let's look at the event that I'm training for now, the Melbourne Marathon. If I'm going to be doing one session each week, which is beyond race pace or faster than race pace, what might that look like? Well, for me, that training session is going to be my Thursday session. So my Thursday session is the one session that's allocated to the faster than race pace running. Now for a marathon, obviously it's important that I don't just start going out there and doing 100 meter sprints because...
At the same time I need to develop my pace, I really need to build my aerobic tank. Obviously it's a core ingredient to running a marathon well. So what that looks like for me is usually in the sense of a progression run or a tempo run. It might be intervals, it might be hills. And here's how that session looks. So a classic one for me is I might go out and do a three or four kilometer warmup. Then I'll do some stretches, I'll do some strides at about 60%.
of my maximum pace just to get my body and my mind ready for the action that's coming its way. And then after I've done that, I might get into a monophartic session. So a monophartic session is, if you don't know, it's a bit of a mouthful. You do 90 seconds at about 5K pace, and then you do 90 seconds recovery. The recovery's still at about your half marathon or even marathon pace. You do that twice. Then you do the same for 60 seconds, but you do it four times.
and then you do the same but picking up the pace for 30 seconds, you do that four times, and then 15 seconds four times. What's the beauty of doing this session? Well, like I've said, you're running the reps at much faster than race pace. The recovery itself is pretty much around your marathon pace. So there's not recovery in the sense that you might expect it, you're not just stopping and standing still. Then...
Tyson Popplestone (06:59.854)
you're working on your aerobic fitness, your speed endurance as well. So over the course of this session, if I have a really good session, I might run about five and a half Ks, which is great. And it works up a sweat, you're really breathing heavily, and you get the added benefit of running way faster than you need to. Now after a few sessions of something like this, you'll start to notice that as your fitness improves here, I might go out for a Sunday long run or just one of my easier runs, and I'll start to notice that the pace that I'm cruising along at is much faster than what it might have been.
a couple of weeks ago before I'd started to inject some of these sessions into my training. So that's always been a huge benefit to me. Obviously, fitness is improving as a result, but you can't underestimate, as I've already mentioned, the mental benefits that come with training sessions like this. So the other runs that I mentioned I might do, it might be a 30 -minute run, but that 30 -minute run might be at half marathon pace. So the beauty with the marathon is obviously you've got quite a bit of flexibility.
But then you'll see, and some of the sweat elite videos, if you're not following them on YouTube, I highly recommend jumping over and checking them out. You'll see someone like Matt Fox, who I had on the podcast recently going out, and still, though he's training for a marathon, doing some 400 meter reps at 68 seconds, or you might say sort of goal 5K pace, or 3K pace. So that's for you to decide. If you need a little bit of clarity on the best way to structure an interval session,
please feel free to reach out. I'm more than happy to offer you guidance because obviously this varies a lot depending on what you're training for specifically. So if you're training for a 5K or 10K, you're not 100 % sure what a session structure might look like based on your fitness. Maybe you're newer to the sport. As I said, reach out to me. I'd be more than happy to do it. One of the mistakes that people make when they start to get a little bit of a breakthrough with sessions like this is they think, okay, well, if I'm doing one of these sessions a week,
then two or three of these sessions a week might be an even better option. Now, what do you think might be the problem with that? If you start doing two or three of these fast, hard sessions a week, what do you reckon one of the big aspects of sort of risk might be? The risk or the trade -off is obviously recovery is limited. So if you're doing three or even two really hard sessions like this in a week, then...
Tyson Popplestone (09:19.726)
Naturally that starts to bleed into your other training sessions and if they start to bleed into your other training sessions Then the quality of those other runs start to be tampered with a little bit more than that Obviously you could be taking even more fatigue into your easier runs than what you need to which as I said makes it difficult for recovery and that can start to lead to a plateau in performance and injury
So your goal here is not to start doing more and more and more of these sessions, but just to get used to doing one of these sessions a week really well. That leads me into the second factor that I spoke about on the video, and that was the importance of consistency. Now, obviously, it almost seems to go without saying. I say the word consistently, and everyone goes, okay, well, obviously, like there couldn't be a more obvious point, but having spent, I started running when I was 12, I'm 36 tomorrow.
So what's that? 24 years. Being involved in this sport for 24 years. One thing I've learned is that just because something's obvious and just because something is clear doesn't mean that we do it. We're a, I don't want to stereotype, but I mean stereotypes exist for a reason. There's a lot of OCD people in this sport who love the idea of just going out and trying to do the small 1 % as much as they possibly can. And as a result, they ignore what their body says because they're trying to stick to a training program.
One of the biggest risks of trying to stick to a training program and just do more, more, more, better, better, better is that you lose the ability to listen to your body. And if you lose the ability to listen to your body, naturally your ability to develop or maintain consistency is going to be diminished greatly. Now, one thing I often say is you cannot underestimate how much progress you can see in 12 months of consistent running. If you're new to the sport, you will be mind blown.
how much you improve over the next 12 months if you can stay consistent over the next 12 months. So that might be four sessions a week or three runs a week. The problem that a lot of us have, especially those of us who are new to the sport is we'll rock up and we'll say, okay, I'm gonna be super consistent. Oh, sorry, I'm gonna train super hard. And we train super hard. And then we wake up the next day and we're like, oh my goodness, I'm so sore. I've never been in this much pain. This is really uncomfortable.
Tyson Popplestone (11:33.518)
And you'll start getting into a bit of a habit if you're not careful of taking three or four days off to try and just bring a full tank of energy back into your training program. I really struggled through that last paragraph. I hope you got what I was trying to say. So what we want to do is develop consistency. Developing consistency, the best way that I've seen it done is through making sure your easy runs are very easy.
Making sure that you're asking yourself a question before you get out for a run. Hey, how am I feeling today? Am I fatigued? Am I tired? Is there tension in my body? Is there tightness? Do I feel uncomfortable? Am I sick? Am I healthy? Getting a little bit of a scan going through your body before you start your runs is a really beneficial practice to do. And the reason it's so beneficial is because it helps you tune into your body, which is far more accurate.
as to what you should be doing than what your training program is. My old coach Adam Diddick used to always say, understand that your training programs are written in pencil. Anything that you don't feel up to or you don't feel ready for on a particular day can be rubbed out and adjusted. Because it's so silly to train through injury, it's so silly to train through tiredness. Well, not in all instances, but there's a particular kind of fatigue that might be a sign of illness, sickness, or that you're recovering from an illness or sickness.
that really should be listened to because if you just start ignoring this, you are on a real fast track to plateau at best and injury at worst, which if you have a couple of those moments throughout a year, it's really gonna limit your capacity to improve your running performance. So consistency is the key. Start to expand your horizon on where it is that you're trying to get to. A lot of us might go, okay, I wanna run such and such a time in six months. That's great.
But don't forget that running has a reputation for rewarding those who maintain consistency. It doesn't matter who you look at on the world running scene. There's no one on the start line of an Olympic final in any event who've been doing it for six months. So I encourage you to take a step back, reduce the intensity. Don't pay so much attention to your training program that you can't listen to your body. You are a more trustworthy source of what you should be doing than your garment.
Tyson Popplestone (13:51.534)
then your training program, then your coach, though all of those factors can combine together to give you much more confidence in what it is that you should be doing. At the risk of echoing what I've just said, the third point is recovery. Recovery takes place on a number of factors. So the recovery number one might be sleep. Obviously sleep's a really popular topic at the moment. It's a golden ticket to improvement.
If you're struggling with sleep, there's a lot of things that you can do around screen time. There's a lot of apps that you can use if you can't escape screen time late in the night or at your opportunity like it is with my wife a lot of the time in my house for us just to kick back and hang out. Once the kids are in bed, it's sort of 7 .30 for us and one of our favorite things to do is just to chill in front of the telly or chill in front of a movie on the laptop. So there's certain apps that you can get that can eliminate the blue light from.
the screens if that's been a hampering factor with you getting some really good quality sleep. Beyond that, little things like massage. Now if you can't afford, because they're bloody expensive sometimes, if you can't afford to be getting a massage a week, get yourself a foam roller. You can get a foam roller for 10 bucks from Kmart or if you're in America, Walmart. And just roll through some of the major muscle groups. Maybe you start on your calves, you start on your quads. I've been doing a lot through my calves at the moment because as I'm getting back into my marathon training,
The intensity of some of my sessions has put a strain on my calves that I hadn't felt for quite some time. So I've been navigating my way through a few strains. So I've been doing some foam rolling and I've also been getting the olive oil out and just getting my thumbs stuck into my calves and my ITB bands. The value for money is incredible with those foam rollers. They can be pretty painful at times, but I'm always grateful when I get off there.
A stretching routine is also really beneficial. Nutrition, we're gonna speak about that in a little more detail with a particular focus on hydration for the last point. So I won't go into that too much now. Spend some time figuring out what you feel good doing after a session. I used to go down to the petrol station, the gas station, get a couple of bags of ice and put it in my bathtub when I get home. Now during the winter I'm lucky enough to live close to the water so I can just go across there after a run. It gets down to about 11 degrees Celsius.
Tyson Popplestone (16:06.798)
12 degrees Celsius, which I always get out feeling as though there's been some benefit there. What do you feel good doing? Start implementing this into your session or into your weekly training routine a little more consistently. Maybe after one of your easy runs, you get into the habit of going, okay, I'm gonna go for a 30 minute easy run. But then once that easy run is done, I'm gonna get on the foam roller for 15 minutes. Do what you can with what you've got. I know it can be difficult at times because you've got commitments to work or you've got commitments to family.
there's not enough time to train like a professional. You don't have to train like a professional. You can just start taking simple steps and putting 10 minutes or 15 minutes or even as you're sitting in front of the TV at night to do some stretches or some foam rolling there, double up, use your time wisely if you need to to get on top of that recovery because one of the things that's really gonna limit your capacity to hit the intensity that's required in some of the faster sessions is if your body's constantly tight or fatigued or you're not just getting the recovery and rest that you need. So,
Spend some good time looking at your training schedule. Be honest with yourself about where some of the big improvements might come. Start doing that. Perhaps the other side of the same coin for our fourth point is doing a little bit of strength work. Now, a lot of us think, oh no, but I'm trying to be a distance runner. I don't want to put on huge muscle because I'm trying to run fast. Have a look at the top athletes all around the world in the marathon. All of these guys are doing some form of strength work. Some of them have some really good quality
max lifts over, especially leg exercises like your dead lifts and your squats. These guys aren't getting big because it's very, very difficult to put on a huge amount of muscle mass when you're training for an event like the marathon or a lot of distance running events for that matter. So spend a little bit of time. Ideally, it'd be great if you could get a running, a running physio or running strength coach, someone like Dane Verwey, who's been on the podcast before.
He looks after relaxed running athletes as well. So jump onto the support crew aspect of this membership if you haven't already and get in touch with him to find out what a good strength and mobility routine might look like for you. A couple of sessions like this a week can go a great deal in improving your running performance, not just with your actual muscle strength, but also with the protection that it offers your joints.
Tyson Popplestone (18:28.622)
and some of your ligaments and things with a regular practice. It can be also very beneficial for running technique, a regular core routine. For myself, I pretty much, I try and do a bare minimum of two strength and conditioning sessions per week. Now, mine, because I'm a little newer to the world of marathon running, I haven't tailored mine specifically to marathon running. However, a lot of the exercises that I do are very beneficial to me as a runner as well. So,
Usually on a Monday I'll go into the gym and I'll do a torso session. So my torso focuses on, I'll do abs and core. I'll do my chest and I'll do my back. So that might look like for me, I'll do usually three exercises or three reps of each exercise and I'll try and hit six different exercises. So for me, that session might look like bench press. I'll do some dead lifts. I'll do some chin ups. I'll do some seated row. I'll do some inclined.
bench press and I might do some dumbbell flies to target my back there. At the end I might finish with 10 minute ab workout. So very targeted to that midsection which I find really beneficial in the latter stages of a race when fatigue starts to kick in. If you've got a little bit of extra strength through that midsection it can really help you improve your capacity to remain relatively upright, not hunch over and start impacting your knee lift and things like that.
Then the next session that I do is a leg session. So that one's focused on obviously my legs. I do four to five exercises. That one there I'll do some squats with the bars. I'll usually start off with the 20 kilo bar, then work up to about 80 to 90 kilos if I'm doing like a heavier session of shorter reps. Or I might leave it at about 70 kilos if I'm doing some more longer reps. So like I might be hitting eight to 10 reps with the 70 kilos.
I alternate month to month usually. So one month I'll go focused on like just minimum reps, but maximum strength, if that makes sense. So my minimum reps, maximum strength might be, okay, what can I do five reps only of, and then the next month I'll go, okay, I'll do 12 reps of whatever this weight is. So a lot of the time I'm adjusting it as we go. If I do get in there for another session, a lot of the time that one will be armed specifically. This, as I said, was developed before I was training specifically for the marathon.
Tyson Popplestone (20:49.166)
That was just for general overall strength and well -being. I always feel better, look better when you got a little bit of size in your upper body and you're just not a scrawny little runner. Which I mean, to be honest, it's a fair trade off to make if you're trying to eliminate some of the weight that you're carrying, which I'm already starting to see. I've dropped two kilos or so since I've started training more specifically for the marathon. So it's just a trade off I'm happy to make and going to have to make.
On top of that sometimes in that 15 minutes after some of my easy runs I'll jump on YouTube and do some of Alice Baker's Pilates sessions which are a really targeted strength exercise. I find it really difficult even 10 to 15 minutes and that's why I do it because it's just so beneficial. So if you haven't got any form of strength routine really encourage that one. The last one and this is specifically for you longer runners and something I've learned a lot about now. It's nutrition or more specifically hydration. So
I've done a bit of work in the past here with Precision Hydration. I've recently just retaken their sweat test, which you can get for free over at their website. You answer a few questions about your sweat rate, your sweat intensity, and it helps you navigate the most important products for you to consume around salts, around carbs, around caffeine, to make sure that throughout your training sessions you're well -fueled, and especially throughout your races you're well -fueled. So it's an area that a lot of us ignore, don't pay a heap of attention to. Highly recommend you check that out though.
Get familiar as well with some high carb or some high quality energy foods that really sit well with your tummy. That's the thing with running is we're all individual. So different things suit different people. Some people handle heavier foods closer to the run. Some people like lighter foods closer to the run. Really, really unique experience. A lot of trial and error involved. So find something that works for you there. Really recommend you check out Precision Hydration Sweat Test.
and find a product that works well for you there, because these are some areas that a lot of athletes can get a great deal of benefit from without actually focusing, without actually having to break the bank or break the budget or whatever. So, hey, I hope that's helpful to you. These are a few things that I've been focusing on specifically in my own marathon preparation and have a great deal of confidence in the improvement that I'm gonna see through here. Hoping the same for you. If there's any questions or podcast topics that you would like to hear me speak about,
Tyson Popplestone (23:08.43)
Hey, please just let me know. But for now, that is the end of episode one of the Training Hub podcast. Thanks so much for being here. Looking forward to coming back at you on a fairly regular basis, at least a couple of times a month with either my own thoughts or a conversation with a trusted expert in the field. All right, happy training and we'll see you all soon.