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Expand your running knowledge, identify running misconceptions and become a faster, healthier, SMARTER runner. Let Brodie Sharpe become your new running guide as he teaches you powerful injury insights from his many years as a physiotherapist while also interviewing the best running gurus in the world. This is ideal for injured runners & runners looking for injury prevention and elevated performance. So, take full advantage by starting at season 1 where Brodie teaches you THE TOP PRINCIPLES TO OVERCOME ANY RUNNING INJURY and let’s begin your run smarter journey.
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On today's episode, how to run the perfect race with Matt Fitzgerald. Welcome to the podcast, helping you train, rehab and run smarter. When I first started running in my 20s, I knew it would be something I'd be passionate about for the rest of my life. But, unfortunately, developing injury after injury disrupted my progress and left me under-trained at the start line on race day. Even with my knowledge as a physio, I still fell victim to the vicious injury cycle and when searching for answers, struggled to decipher between common running myths and evidence-based guidance. That's what this podcast is here to help you with. So join me as a run smarter scholar and let's break the injury cycle by raising your running IQ and achieving running feats you never thought possible. If you are interested in running books, then Matt Fitzgerald is like you're well aware of, he is the author of 80 20 running also 80 20 triathlon, so many others, racing weight, how bad do you want it? The endurance diet. He was on two years ago talking about the new book at the time, run like a pro, even if you're slow and. We have another new book coming out from Matt Fitzgerald. He reached out and sent me the book and the title is how to run the perfect race. Better racing through better pacing. And yeah, we dive into all the elements. I had to look through the book and had a ton of questions for him. And you're going to learn a lot about this. It's not only looking at how to train, what to do in your train to prepare for the race, what to do mid race, like on the day of the event to try to. have everything work in your favor, but also a good chat about the philosophy of running and sort of seeing the bigger scope, the bigger picture. And I just love having a guest on where I'll write down some questions and the answers that he provides, I'm actually, it's something new. You know, I don't know, how long have I been in this game? Like four or five years of doing this podcast and 330 odd episodes. And I interview a lot of people and very few people like spark more or like build upon my knowledge with every answer that they have, then Matt Fitzgerald, he did it the first time when he was on the podcast and he did it again this time. And so I know you're going to love this one. Let's dive in. Matt Fitzgerald. Thank you very much for joining me again on the Run Smarter podcast. It's great to be with you Brody. Yeah. Uh, it was two years ago you were on episode 231. I have written down when you had, uh, run like a pro, even if you're slow. as a book, but now we have this new book coming out. Can you tell everyone about it and what's expected? Sure thing. Yeah, I mean, the title, I won't say it says it all, but it's a descriptive title. It's How to Run the Perfect Race. And then the subtitle helps, Better Racing Through Better Pacing. So it's just about this notion that, when race day is only one day in a long process, but obviously it's a capstone. It's a very important day. And, No matter how well you do in training, no matter how prepared you are when you show up at the start line on race day, the outcome is not guaranteed. Much still depends on your ability to perform, to execute. In a very simple sport like running, there's not a heck of a lot more to execution than pacing. That's really the big thing. Uh, cause there's a lot that's tied up in, in pacing, uh, including things like effort. Um, so yeah, there, you know, there had never been a book that was like really focused on just nailing it on race day. And so I wrote it. Has the idea for the book always been in the back of your mind, or was there any particular moment in time when you had the idea to write the book? I'm not sure how long ago it was, but at some point I became aware that. I seem to think about pacing more than a lot of coaches do. At the elite level, it's different, because people who get to that level, they're usually just good at it, and there's only a little bit of nuance. But for the population that I work with, mostly not elite runners, mostly less experienced or in the middle, You know, they struggle with pacing. Like it's very often, that's what I really, that was really the germ of it. It's like, I would coach athletes and, um, you know, feel like I would be completely focused on the training. It's like, you know, my job as a coach is to get the athlete prepared through training. And then I just sort of assumed that they would nail it on race day. And I saw, no, actually that's not the norm. You know, people usually don't. Nailed it on race day. So it just became a focus in my coaching where I wanted, you know, cause the way, the way I kind of look at it is like, you know, if you don't run the perfect race, then what that really means is that a certain percentage of the potential that you arrived with was wasted. You know, like you could have done like 2% better, three, four, 5% better and you didn't, you know, not because you didn't prepare well, but because you didn't execute. Well, in the moment and not, you know, I don't say that in a, like a, you know, I don't mean to cudgel runners, but it's just like, you know, that's sport you're trying to improve always, you know, like it, if you haven't yet run the perfect race, like perfect races do happen or, or races that runners look back on as kind of their perfect race, it's, it's possible. So why not? You know, you, you put, you put a lot of yourself into the sport. So let's see if we can like, you know, really, you know, run a race that you're proud of. as you know, for the remainder of your days. Yeah. It's a very attractive concept for the perfect race because people put in so much effort. It's, it's months, several months, years of just getting to start line in the best shape possible and then see a lot of them just cross their fingers and see where the cards fall. And a lot of, a lot of it, or some of it can be out of your control, but a lot of it can be within your control, probably more than what people think. And so I wanted to really dive into. the perfect race and pacing and all that sort of stuff. But I want to start off with kind of a few steps back to kind of work out someone's potential, um, well, let me know if I'm wrong here would be to sort of try to calculate or approximate what their, their race time, their finish time is it's like, okay, well, I can try to work out my pacing once I know where that finish time might be or where thereabouts, but do you have any particular advice for people to actually calculate what might be that ballpark figure of that finish time for their perfect race? Yes. Um, yeah, I do. I flip it around a little bit. And, and, uh, this is like the influence of Ben Rosserio, the coach of the Hoka, uh, Northern Arizona elite here, a team here in Flagstaff, Arizona, who was my coach back in, in 2017. And like, he was responsible for. for giving me a goal time for the Chicago Marathon, which happened at the end of my stint here. And what he said to me, and it made sense as an athlete and as a coach myself, he said like, you don't start with the finish time and calculate the pace. You start with the pace and see what finish time that results in. Like that's what your training tells you. And that's really the answer to your question is like, if you're really paying attention, In every run you do, there's a tendency to think that the easy runs, which are, are or should be the bulk of what we do, just like the vanilla, six miles, 10K on Wednesday, low intensity, that's just filler. But if you're really there, that's a treasure trove. Your body's telling you a lot about like... what state it's in the moment, but also what state where it is in the process. Like if you properly contextualize and interpret what you're experiencing, your pace, how you're feeling, measured against like how you would expect to be feeling. Maybe you did a really hard workout yesterday, so it's no big deal if you feel kind of flat. Like those runs in the aggregate tell you a lot about what you can do. Um, and it's helped by all the other training you do, the long runs and the intervals and the tempos and the steady States and all that, like, like if you're really like really there, like absorbing what you're doing, you know, you, you know, where you are, um, now, if you're racing like a particular distance or format or topography for the first time, that that's different, um, you know, but if you've, if you've like, if you've also raced before and you're really paying attention throughout the training process, you're going to have like, you know, it's like a number is going to come to you. Especially when you like you really hone in on the most race specific, most challenging, you know, kind of dress rehearsal workouts you do before any race, whether it's a 5k or an ultra, you're going to do something that's like pretty specific. That's, you know, you've you're you've got everything but the final sharpening done. You're close to as fit as you're going to be on the start line. So now you really, you know, and then, you know, of course you can't do a race effort in training, but like, you know, you can come as close as reasonably possible and training and like, that's like, that's kind of like the, where the process culminates and, and the final point I'll make is like, so what if you're wrong, you know, big deal, you know, like you find out and you learn. And like, that's ultimately the best. source of like to answer to circle back again to your original question like You know for me my very first marathon. I set out to run 245 And I ran 338 You know, I was on 245 pace for 18 miles and then I was walking But you know, I learned you know, like okay that was a little too aggressive. I wasn't I wasn't ready for that and And so, yeah, that day sucked. It was, it was painful. Um, especially when it's a longer race, it sucks when you don't nail it, but there really is no other way. Like you do the best you can and you mess up and then you learn from the mess up and, and apply, and that's what gets you on a trajectory toward your, your perfect race. Excellent explanation. Um, would we, in terms of like the type of workouts throughout your training? Would you then focus on when it comes to, okay, I think I can hold this pace for a marathon. You know, do we look at, do we focus on our long runs? Do we focus on like the race pace efforts, or is it moving away from those specific workouts and looking generally over the week, generally week by week, month by month, I think I can hold this for that period of time. Are we taking that global look or are we looking individually at specific type of workouts? I mean, I think it sounds like a cop out answer, but I really think it's both. Um, and again, there, there's a, it's different if you're a newbie, like if, if you're doing something you've never done before, you can't, you don't have quite the basis for comparison. Uh, but you know, just speaking for myself, um, you know, I ran, uh, like 51 marathons, uh, and, and so I had a lot of. You know, some of those were throwaways, but like, you know, I had a lot of marathon training cycles and so, you know, I know what I did in the cycle that led to my PB and Then I know what I'm doing now like Holistically, you know, I can look at the body of work like how I'm feeling You know and you know what my easy run pace is You know, like that's like I can compare all of that stuff Like, and also, you know, like, is my volume higher? Like, you know, is my training actually somewhat differently that like, in a way that I think is better and maybe itself is applying lessons learned from, which I certainly did. Um, and, and so that gives you a lot right there, but then I'll also, yeah, for sure, there, there are specific sessions, uh, that, that tell you even more. Uh, you know, like I give examples in the book, but like. You know, like, let's say you just, you're going to run a 10 K or a 10,000 meters on the track. Well, you might run like your, your big dress rehearsal session for that might be like six times 1500 meters on relatively short rest, like at like a certain pace where like it's your goal. Or it's like kind of where you think you are and you're just sort of testing it. And then, you know, you're just being smart. You know that you're getting rest breaks and that it's not quite 10,000 meters. You know this. So, but, and it like, but you're also like really like paying attention to how you feel while you're doing it. And you're asking yourself, you know, throughout the session, you know, with, you know, with the benefit of this really hard workout that I'm doing and a taper, can I hold this pace for 10,000 meters straight? And maybe the answer is yes. And maybe the answer is no. If it's no, you would. You adjust, um, and you know, it's a little bit of science and a lot of art. Yeah. And what I like about your response is like, you're taking the importance away from just one specific race because a lot of runners get caught up in, okay, they're signing up for their marathon. Maybe it's their first marathon, but that's all they think about. It's like, if everything needs to go well and everything, like I need to have a good day, I need to perform well, but a lot of your advice is This is just an experiment. Sure. It could be your best race day. You could have a blast, but you know, we can use this as a data point for your training cycle next time and your next 10 races, this is data point number one for the next 10, and I often try to change that scope for runners when they're injured and they like can't make a race or like they want to get through and to the finish line, even though they are injured and Sometimes I like to say, let's not think about this race. Let's think about the next two years of you running. Do we really want to risk this race and be really aggravated and irritated and develop another injury trying to get to this race and through to that finish line, or do we want to think of running as a whole, think of running year by year, decade by decade, even, and sort of get the general scope of things. It seems like you're taking that as, you know, seeing the bigger picture when it comes to. And not just seeing the races, the Beale and Endall, there's plenty of races after this next one. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, that word perfect, which is in the title of the book, it's a loaded word and, uh, you know, you know, there are probably more negative associations with that word than positive, but for me, you know, I, my bias is to look at it more positively as something you move toward. Like I understand, like I've known plenty of athletes where like that, you know, perfectionistic mindset just puts undue pressure on them and it ends up, you know, ironically causing them to underperform and also not have a very good time, which is, which is no good. But if you view it as like, yeah. So like, yeah. On one level, you do want to treat your next race like it's the last one you'll ever do just because you want to give your best to it. But at the same time, with half your brain, you want to understand it's a stepping stone. It's always a stepping stone. There's always the possibility of another race. And of course, as long as you're going to stay at it and keep competing, you want to be improving by some measure. You know, for me, I'm 53 years old. You know, my physical prime is, is well behind me at this point, but there are ways in which I feel like I can continue to move toward perfection as an athlete. And for me, it doesn't put undue pressure on me. It excites me. It's like, it's a reason to keep going. It's like, I'm, I can get even better in certain ways. Very cool, mate. Um, okay. So with that advice, some runners may have a bit of an indication of what They're at the start line. They've looking at a pace strategy, uh, based on your knowledge. What is, how should they pace this race? We'll use a marathon as an example. Yes. Uh, so yeah, I mean, in the book, I define the perfect race. Like what are we even talking about? And, I mean, I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. You know, to be fair, I mean, there's a lot, there are a lot of reasons to run. There are a lot of reasons to do races. And, but I'm, I am talking specific and many legitimate reasons, but I'm talking about like specifically from a performance perspective, like if you're, if your goal is just to like, you know, see what you can do, um, by, by the numbers, then a perfect race has really two hallmark characteristics. Like one is steadiness. Um, you know, for both physiological, um, reasons and also reasons related to physics. Like, you know, the energy that you, I mean, when you start a race, there's sort of like a black box you're opening and there's a potential performance inside there and you don't know exactly, you have a pretty good idea of what you're capable of, but we've all been there, right? Where it's just like, man, I thought I was gonna do better than this. Or like, wow, I really surprised myself today. You know, like, You open up that black box on race day and, you know, like your potential is unleashed. Like what does it take to, uh, to fill that potential? Like one is like consistency in the distribution of what energy you have to give to that race. When you have spikes and dips. So there's an average, right? So, you know, if, if you have, you know, let's just say you have 10,000 kilojoules. of energy that you can distribute to getting from point A to point B in least time possible. The question is how do you distribute those 10,000 kilojoules? If it's a steady line, you're likely to finish the race in less time than if it's a not steady line. And I'm not talking about pace. Pace only stands in for energy when you're talking about pristine conditions, like completely flat. windless, no sharp turns, no bodies in your way. Otherwise, like, of course, it's not gonna be like a perfectly steady rate of energy expenditure. Like you just like set your car on cruise control and you're just, it's not gonna be that. So that's number one. It's like you just want to, and again, like absolute consistency is not even possible, you know, because like there's just, you know, if you've done long enough races, you know, you can have a bad patch and that you can actually emerge from it. And like, good luck putting that into a calculator. It's like, I knew I, I know I needed to slow down a little bit between mile 16 and mile 18, but because I did, I was able to finish strong. So you have to like, you know, there's all lots of fine print on the consistency principle. But if you look at, you know, some of the cool studies that have been done that look that look for correlations between like pacing throughout a race and finish time. What they find is like the more erratic you are, the slower your finish time is. So like, you know, almost no matter where you are, if you're moving away from erraticism and toward consistency, you're moving in the right direction, even knowing you can never, the goal is not even ever to be completely like flat all the way throughout a race. And then number two is, you know, it's important, you know, I define pacing as the art of finding your limit. Because that's what you're really trying to do in a race. But it's crucial to understand that in endurance sports, the limit is psychological. The limit is perceptual. Like we have physical, we have obviously physical limits, very hard ones, but we almost never encountered them as endurance athletes. precisely because they are by their nature paced. So like, you know, if you're getting back to your example of a marathon, you know, at any given point during a marathon, if you are asked, could you run faster than you are right now, the answer either is or should be yes until you're within sight of the finish line. So where's the limit there, right? You are by choice. not at your limit because you want to be at your limit when fatigue turns your current pace into your maximum pace. So that and that you know scientists have tried to find like you know the philosopher's stone like you know the physiological key to fatigue. It's like oh here's what breaks inside the body when you know an athlete hits the wall and they can't find it you know and really the conclusion now you know. close to consensus conclusion is that it's not there. Like we're not encountering those hard physiological limits because we are consciously being a little bit conservative and holding back and pacing ourselves. And because, you know, similar to pain, perception of effort is, can be like excruciatingly unpleasant, you know, when you start to get, you know, often you feel pain before you're actually injured. Well, you also feel like you're like, You don't want to do it anymore, you know, before you actually can't do it anymore. But like feeling like you can't is actually the, that's the actual limit. So putting those two things together, like what you're trying to do is, is distribute your effort very, very consistently throughout the race in such a way that you hit your absolute perceptual limit. Just as you're approaching the finish line. Um, yeah, put those two things together. You got a perfect race. And I can't see number two. really being achieved unless you've had the experience, like experience would definitely. And then you'd have to factor in like other weather conditions and wind and nutrition and all that sort of stuff to, um, all of that, to get you so that you are purely exhausted as you cross the finish line, gave it your all. And it has been a consistent pace. That would be, um, a magical race for a lot of people. Yes. Why do people struggle with pace? Like I think You know, I do some YouTube videos and one of my most popular is about pacing and pacing the marathon. And a lot of that traffic is coming from search. Like a lot of people are searching about pacing a marathon or how to get the best marathon results. And it seems to be, um, definitely a worry for a lot of people. And I guess a curiosity for a lot of people, because like you've said, when people are racing, they're not really pushing themselves to the limit because they're terrified of. really hitting the wall early or, you know, just really suffering in the backend. And so they do treat it a little bit conservatively. Um, but. We're not, not a lot of us, especially if you've only done a handful of marathons, like your pace is erratic, like you say, unless experience kicks in. So why is it so hard for us to try to find where our limit is and where that even pace is? I mean, it's inherently difficult. I mean, the way I tend to try to explain it is consider like a marathon again, is for the average runner, a race of 55,000 steps, give or take, that's a lot of steps. And, you know, and it's also, you know, it's just a long way, you know. 42.2 kilometers. You can't see the finish line from the start line. It's a pretty vast distance to cover. I know we're really stretching the limits quite beyond that, but it's a long ass way. So let's be real here. And think about how precise a thing it is to cover that distance on foot in the absolute least time. that is possible for you, you know, in your body's current state on that day. I mean, think about like, you know, just statistically speaking, like all the other way, you know, if like a bullseye, like, let's just say, you know, you have the potential to run 256 13 on this day. You don't know that it's the black box, but like that's, that's your potential. Like, all right. That's a, that's a pretty precise number. And. And there are lots of other numbers you could also run all of them slower. Um, and, and so like, wow, you know, how do you, how do you get to that number out of all these other possibilities in a race of 55,000 steps? Well, pretty much every one of those 55,000 steps has to be on track toward 256 13. There's no other way to do it. Like that, that is just like, you know, you know, Astronautical level of precision, you know, you are really trying to hit a bullseye. And it's not even just marathons. Even shorter races, you know, I mean, there's a reason in horse racing, there's a jockey riding the horse. There's a reason in dog racing, they have like, you know, whatever the fake rabbit is, like the dogs are chasing. They can't pace themselves because they don't know what a furlong is. Humans have this capacity, but just because we have it uniquely doesn't mean Like it's easy, it's just inherently difficult. So absolutely everyone sucks at it. It's like no one's born knowing how to swim and no one is born knowing how to pace. Like you have to start from zero and perfection is like, it's way out there. You know, you don't beat yourself up about perfection or you're really not gonna enjoy being a rudder, but like movement, you know, improvement happens right away, you know, from your first run. to your, to your second, to your third. Um, yeah, I hope that answered your question. Yeah. Is there any common mistakes you might see maybe from first time marathoners that, you know, just with a little bit of guidance or maybe some tips here and there can help even out their pace. Thank you. You know, the advice I wish I had listened to before my first marathon was like, just assume you're going to run another marathon. You know, because like I wanted to knock my first marathon out of the park. And I just didn't really respect what a leap it was into like, just a different dimension of competitive running. And so I think that, you know, I wouldn't have listened to anyone at that age, but, uh, you know, you know, in hindsight, you know, I wish I had just like, you know, you know, definitely pushed myself, but, but just focused on like gaining experience in my first marathon. Um, and I think that's, that's good advice for, for most people who are at all competitively oriented, they don't want to just, you know, cross the finish line, but they want to like do their best. Um, you know, I think it's like, I mean, you can learn either way, but, um, you know, if you're like, if you're not like overly cautious, but you, you're, you're definitely erring on that side in your first marathon, then you're going to have a pretty good experience. And yeah, if you're very competitive, you'll finish like, you know, a little chagrin that's like, ah, everyone's going to see that I ran X time. I know in my heart I could run faster. All right, well that's not the end of the world. It's actually better than what I did in my first two marathons, which was walk a bunch. And so yeah, almost just like looking beyond it and thinking of it as kind of a scouting mission, like a learning opportunity and a cool experience. And you can save the day. deep depths of the pain cave for your second marathon and your third and so on. Yeah. I think like just gathering that data is a useful thing because when I talk to runners about what was the mistakes you made on your first marathon, like almost always was the start out too quickly. I got too carried away. I was like, you know, the energy of the start line, there was someone in front of me that I wanted to chase down. There's someone who passed me. So I tried to catch up to them and I just, you know, blew all my matches at the at the start and then I just had nothing left and then I had another 15 K to go. Um, but then you have some people that are like, okay, nutrition was bad. Um, some people actually say, oh, I started off too slow. Like I was, I actually feel like I had more to give and I feel like I was way too conservative at the start. Um, and so that could be a mistake as well, all of which comes with experience. So like a lot of people can, um, say, oh, damn I. didn't give it my all, but as you were saying, looking beyond it, Hey, now I've, now I can, you know, try to calm myself down at the start line. Now I can just like tune into my body a little bit more and, uh, work on those sort of things. And speaking of those, you mentioned in the book, when it comes to the pace, you said that there was like, body awareness was a main factor. Um, you also said judgment and toughness were some pretty key factors. Um, do you mind explaining what those are? Yeah, so, you know, just by my nature, I like to explore things at their depths, including a phenomenon that seems as kind of superficial, just like it's like, you know, pacing, it's like it's a skill, what else is it? But for me, in like studying the phenomenon, I found that no, actually, like, certain types of people tend to be really good at pacing. And it's more than just a skill that there are actual, you know, just sort of like psychological traits that are required, that have to be in place. Absolutely, you can get better at pacing by approaching it just as a skill and nothing more. But what you see in the true masters of it is those three characteristics. The first one being body awareness. And that's just because, again, if the limit, if pacing is the art of finding your limit, and the limit is perceptual in nature, rooted in perception of effort, then... Where was I going with that? You moved on to the body awareness then judgment and... Oh yeah, body awareness. Yeah. So exactly. You know, you have to be able... If the limit is perceptual, then you have to be good at perceiving, you know, like how you're feeling, like... You know, I mean, it's no accident that you feel different when you're running at your 5K race pace than you feel when you're lying in bed. You know, that is not an accident. Like, you know, that is like, that is a goldmine of very relevant information that your body is giving you. And initially, you know, the first time you go from lying in bed to running a 5K, all you, it's like a monolith. It's like, it's just hard. But as you gain experience, you see, oh no, there's all kinds of stuff going on here. And it's like, well, what seemed like a limit before is actually not. And there's a door I can open, a secret door I can open to get further and just all this texture and nuance to what you're experiencing. And in order to find your limit and erase, you really have to be able to just sort of interpret. what your body's telling you and also talk back to it. Because it's like, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, the great German cyclist Jens Voigt, his mantra was shut up legs. Sometimes you just gotta say shut up, shut up legs. So yeah, that's the body awareness piece. And again, that comes with experience, but also you can accelerate experience like with intentionality. Number two would be judgment. You know, really a well, a well executed race pacing wise is nothing more from one perspective. It's nothing more than a series of decisions, you know, speed up, slow down, hold steady, speed up, slow down, hold steady. Um, you know, it's like, it's not like you make one decision at the beginning of the race and just go with it. No, you're like, I mean, you are, or should be fine tuning, like making all these little micro decisions along the way, tons of them, um, And those decisions could either be helpful or harmful or neutral. And to run a perfect race, all of your decisions need to be helpful, or just like almost all of them. And so that's another one, just cultivating that ability to just, with confidence, not just make good decisions, but know that you're capable, trusting yourself to make good decisions is a piece of it. And the third is like, yeah. You know, the, again, it's the art of finding your limit. Okay, well, when you get really close to your limit, it hurts, you know, and that, and because the limit is perceptual, perceptual limits are real, but they're all, they're more mutable than if you, if you take something like, you know, exertional heat illness where, you know, if, you know, through a combination of exertion and ambient heat in a race, your core body temperature gets above a certain level, you're done. You know, no amount of toughness is like that's a hard limit. Like you're done. If you're a human, you're done. With perceptual limits, they're more mutable. Like if you're like, if you are tougher, then you can push a little bit deeper toward your actual physiological limit. That is kind of untouchable. Other than in cases like exertional heat, heat illness. And. And also if you're more motivated. So regardless, like at any given level of toughness, like you, you might have better and worse races just based on your motivation level, uh, for the, those races. And so that, like that feeds into the toughness piece. It's just like, you know, cause you know, you know, it's harsh to put it this way, but like in a sense, your limit is a choice. Your, your limit is like you blinking first in the game of chicken. And so let's just face it, it's a hard sport and you got to be tough. Like it pays to be tough and all of us can get tougher. Yeah. I just finished, um, last week talking to a breathing expert, James Fletcher is his name. And he was talking about how, uh, your body has so many little detectors to then, um, you know, have the brain kind of freak out and kind of start causing this fatigue or start breathing heavily. And, uh, he was mainly talking about the you know, CO2 buildup or CO2 tolerance that someone has, and you can work on building up your CO2 tolerance to not freak out when you start getting tired. Yes. He was even mentioning one of those triggers is just like your brain sort of registering the, uh, the rhythm of your breath and how in control your breath is. And it's, um, even if you just start breathing faster, even if your efforts, the same, if you consciously start breathing faster, your brain conscious. Well. will think that you're working harder and will actually start producing more fatigue and freaking out a little bit more. So I guess that's where it comes to like a bit of body awareness to say, you know, keep calm, these are just signals. These are just, this is okay. I'm okay at the moment and sort of calming yourself down to then continue at that pace. So there's a lot of, a lot of things that go on there. And a lot of, um, like you say, a lot of times it's, it's you just fighting those signals and learning. What is an actual. kind of, okay, I'm going too fast. Let me slow down. And what is like a bit of a false flag a little bit. Yeah. That's a great point. That's, that's super interesting. Uh, and yeah, in, in an earlier version of this book, I, I actually, you know, erroneously, the way I framed the body awareness piece was, uh, as it relates to pacing is that like, you know, athletes who are like really, really good at pacing. Um, like they, they're like, they can like really feel their bodies like more than worst pacers that do. And what I've since learned is like, that's not entirely the case. Like there's, there's certainly a, there, there are elements of that. Like if, you know, there's studies with musicians showing that like, you know, there are more active, certain nerve connections between the fingertips and certain, you know, certain parts of the brain involved in, um, motor control and, uh, you know, kinetic memory. Um, So yeah, that all makes sense. And, and for sure that's the, that's the case with, uh, with, uh, runners as well. Uh, but that's not the end of the story. Well, what's your thoughts on devices? Because some runners can say, oh yeah, well, I just have a watch that looks at my current pace and I can just glance down at it to see if I'm keeping pace or I can use heart rate when it comes to maybe interpreting my efforts so I can keep my heart rate consistent the entire time. Uh, what are your thoughts on devices? Yeah, it's, uh, you know, that it's in some ways, the reason I wrote this book when I did, you know, I was, I was very interested in pacing, but, um, you know, I started running in 1983 and there were, there just wasn't a lot of technology to, uh, you know, to guide runners. You know, you know, my dad was a runner. He's the one who got me into it and he would measure his routes with a car odometer. You just get in and drive. like, see that tree there, Matt? That's the three mile mark, okay, whatever. And, and, you know, when I was a kid, I, you know, a young runner, I used to wish that, you know, the cool technologies that exist now would, and now we have them and they're a double edged sword. You know, like any sport, like, you know, running is defined as a sport by measurements, like you got to measure shit. You know, it's very, very relevant. You have to pay attention to numbers if you're treating it as a sport. At the same time, like, you know, because your limit, again, is perceptual, like, that's what you need to be focused on. Like, you need to be focused on the ability to know when, like, your body has nothing more to give, and your mind, I should say, also. And I'm sorry, your watch doesn't know that. And it never will. And so, you know, there's plenty of research to show that athletes tend to perform better when they are paying attention to numbers and when they are, you know, pursuing measurable goals, outcome goals. But you know, there's a fine line where, you know, those things, all they're really intended to do is motivate and stretch you. You know, and and to sort of keep you on track towards stretching yourself. But that's it. Like, if you fall into the mindset of like, no, my numbers are telling me what I can do, no, they can't do that. They don't know. Yeah, there's a quote I share in the book from Jan Frodenio, the great German Iron Man. champion. And he said like on race day, all the numbers go to shit. And he was referring to the, you know, the Ironman world championship in particular in Hawaii where it's hot, it's windy and you're in the lava fields and you're racing against the best in the world. He was like, you just got a race and like, you got to be able, uh, to race. And so like, you know, and what, what happens all too often, especially nowadays, you know, like, you know, Me, I started running when I was 11 years old. But if you come to the sport when you're 35, and yeah, maybe you did some other sports, but it was like nothing even remotely, like running was the punishment. You just don't have, you're starting from zero and it's not 1983. So, all right, you're a beginning runner, H35 in 2024. Well, you're gonna get some gadgets, right? And then because you have the gadgets from the very beginning of your developmental process, it's, it's just, you're going to trust them more than you trust yourself, which is kind of appropriate given that you're a beginner, but like it sets a bad precedent where you just, it slows the process of learning to trust yourself and you have to learn to trust yourself to run the perfect race. Yeah. It's like, you know, the first and foremost, listen to your body and have the the numbers, like in training, that sort of stuff be like, okay, the secondary, uh, because I've had some people. Okay. Not moving away from the perfect race and just in training. Um, they're like, okay, my five minute pace is my easy run. Five minutes per kilometer. That's my easy run. And all of a sudden, like, that's just what they do. And then they're either like sick or not sleeping well and not eating well, not hydrated or a tilly or it's hot. And they're like, no, I know. my five minute pace is my easy pace and they're doing it way too hard or they're exerting themselves way too much and their effort levels are too high. And turns out like when it comes to their running, they develop an injury cause they're running too fast on their easy days. Cause they think that's easy. I think that's a perfect example of, okay, overreliance on the devices and sticking to a number when your body's telling you otherwise, your body's telling you it's too much and your effort levels are too high. And I think we do need to use that as. You know, develop it, develop it as a skill and have it as the primary. Cause like you say, mid race, um, it could be hotter than expected. It could be like, you know, unexpected things happen and you need to listen to your body and be kind of fine tuned and then have the, the devices as like a secondary, and I often think, um, I've spoken to experts in the past on this about cognitive load during the marathon. And like, You mentioned judgments before and like, you know, constantly thinking about slowing down, speeding up, hold steady, um, decisions. And a lot of decisions that you make actually like uses up brain energy. I like to think about like your brain uses glucose. Glucose is an energy source. You know, less thinking that you do in the race, more glucose can be distributed to the skeletal muscle instead of the brain, because the brain uses a lot. And so, um, if you do have devices and constantly checking your heart rate, constantly checking your pace, constantly checking, am I at the right section? Am I like, um, am I keeping up with my pace? Like if you're constantly thinking about that, you're draining that energy source because you're thinking too much. Um, and so I think listening to your body and just like calming things down and sort of making decisions without like raising a lot of alarm, a lot of alert and that sort of stuff can be quite helpful. And I think devices move away from that. Would you agree? You made another great point there about the decision component because, until you said that, I hadn't thought this through. But I think it's the really good pacers, they don't make fewer. Your point, I totally accept it. You're trying to, in an endurance sport, you're trying to find efficiency wherever you can. And that means like not putting too much energy into decision making. Um, but I think, you know, you know, talk to me tomorrow, cause I'll think more about this, but I think it's not, you know, the, the people who are really good at pacing, it's not that they're making fewer decisions, it's that there's, there's less energy going into each decisions because there's less tension and conflict. In fact, they're more decisive. And. I think, you know, where like, uh, just reflecting on my coaching experience, where a lot of runners getting into trouble is when they're conflicted around their, their pacing decisions and like, that's where the energy is going, but they're having a hard time. They don't know. They're unsure. They're having a hard time making up their mind. Whereas like the person who is nailing the race, making just as many decisions, but they're, they are decisive decisions where it's like, you know, here's what I need to do. Here's what I need to do. Yeah. Move on. So like. You know, making decisions in a karma situation or a karma scenario. And like you say, conflicting and sort of like, am I running? Should I run faster? Am I at the right pace? Am I doing this? And second guessing yourself is, um, yeah, sort of like using the brain. Two to three times much then just saying, I should slow down. Let me slow down. And then, you know, being decisive in that manner. So that's yeah, very well put. Um, if you change your answer, feel free to let me know. Ship me an email. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I thank you for actually getting me to think deeper about that. What about Healy Marathons? Because that's if we're trying to listen to our body as much as possible. Maybe we're trying to, well, even pace is at the window when it comes to Healy Marathons. What advice do you have for people? Two things one would be you know what the science tells us is that? Let me put it this way like if like let's say you Were you were asked to you Brody sharp were asked to run like two to one hour time trials one at? zero percent grade so perfectly flat one hour time trial and then one at but like say a 10% grade, so a fairly steep incline, both one hour time trials. Now, of course, you're gonna cover more distance in the flat one, but what science tells us is that you'll actually burn more calories in the uphill one, which basically means you did more work. Like you can actually do more work in an uphill time trial. Like our limit, our energy limit is actually greater. when we're going uphill. That's all kind of physics. But you see that born out when you look at more of these studies that look at pacing strategy as it correlates to overall finish time. Like the bike leg in an Ironman triathlon or the pacing in a 100K ultra marathon or whatever. It's like the people who finish fastest, like at the end of the race, they actually just kind of flatten everything out in terms of the energy expenditure despite the topography. So they're absolutely giving out more energy relative to the average when they're going uphill. But it's not as much more as the people who finish slower. And when they're going downhill, yes, they're giving out less energy than their average for the race as a whole. But it's not as much less as the athletes who end up with slower finish time. So they're like, again, it's like they're sort of like they're taking the topography and in effect kind of flattening it in the way. So that's how you want to approach it. Like you want to like if you're doing a marathon that's got like some big rolling types of hills. When you start going up, say, I'm going to burn an extra match going up this hill, but I'm not going to burn two extra matches. And when you start to come down the other side, you tell yourself, I'm going to save a match coming down this hill, but I'm not going to try to save two matches. I'm actually going to keep my foot on the gas a little bit. That, at a population level, is the way to approach it. However, we all know some people Some runners are great at going up and some are great at going down. So you also have to like factory in your own relative strengths and weaknesses into your strategy. But the background is like what seems to be true at the population level. What would you say for people who, you know, you probably get runners, you probably coach some runners that say like, I can never negative split or like, I need to start slow to sort of build some momentum towards the end. Or like someone who says that I perform at. my best when like just my, you know, my structure has me just racing the first half of the race quite fast and then me just holding on for dear life. Do you ever get those people and do you have any advice if some, if there are categories of people that may be suited for one pay strategy to another? Yeah, I do. I mean, for sure. I've worked with a lot lots of those, those runners. Yeah, I'm thinking of one athlete I've coached for some time, nicknamed animal. And yeah, I mean, like, you know, no shortage of toughness in this runner. And, you know, she does have a propensity to start out hot. and hang on, you know, both in races and in harder workouts. And initially, when I first started working with her, I'm like, we got to fix this. Like, this is not textbook. And I kind of like pushed her in my direction. And honestly, it didn't it worked out OK. Like, you know, there was like, you know, some movement in terms of, you know, like better, better execution in racing. But I also. I sort of ended up coming her way a little bit and recognizing it's like, you know what, you're an animal and I can't, if I try to take the animal out of you, I'll take your advantage away from you. So I've learned to be a little bit permissive with this athlete and it has taught me to be permissive or open-minded with other athletes. For the most part, athletes who say, yo, I need to bank time, they're just fooling themselves. But there is, again, there's some cases where you have to let an athlete race their style. Like Steve Prefontaine had to be at the lead of every single race he did. Easy to say, oh, well, he could have won this race if he'd been more cautious. But... then he wouldn't have been Steve Freefontaine. So I think the athlete has to be open-minded and willing to give a little and trust their coach when they're saying, how's that working out for you? Because often that's it, right? Athletes who just come out of the gate too hot and fade, they're disappointed. And they might be defensive or just headstrong and like, oh, it's not my pacing strategy that's the problem, it was my nutrition. you know, whatever a beast on me. Um, yeah. Uh, so yeah. Um, you know, again, for the most part, what's true of everyone is that you, you want to finish strong versus start strong. Yeah. Again, probably comes back to a bit of experience. So like that athlete that you had, and you're trying to pull her into more of an even pace. Let's try it. Let's like, you know, see how you go. And if you've lost enjoyment, if you don't find it that fun, if you want to grit your teeth and see what your capabilities are when you're really like emptying the tank, that's fun for you. Like maybe we need to, we've tried the even pace, maybe see if there's some gains there. If you're not happy with those gains and want to do what's fun, then stick to that. So I think that's a pretty good way to go about it. Yeah. Yeah. If you get some movement on both sides, then very likely you're going to get overall improvement. Excellent. Uh, what about like any advice on running at race pace in your training? Like within your training, some people say, you know, when it gets to your last couple of long runs before the taper, uh, doing a certain section at race pace or getting familiar with race pace. Uh, Do you recommend that for runners? And if so, like at what frequency, what duration, those sorts of things? Yes, that's another interesting one. I mean, you can find cases of runners at the elite level who achieved world-class performances without doing any training or virtually no training at the pace they end up running in races. So like, there you have it. Evidently, it's not absolutely necessary. at least if you're a runner at that level of performance and experience to do, you know, race-paced specific training. But, you know, there's also an argument to be made for doing race-paced training. Like, we know, for example, you know, it's just the nature of, you know, biology, honestly, is that like, you know, biology adapts to what is demanded of it. And so, yeah, there's really interesting research showing that like runners tend to be most efficient at the paces they run most often. And very often that's like, you know, like your bread and butter, you know, kind of easy pace, whether it's all that easy or not or not. So like the more time you spend at a certain pace, the more efficient and also just, I would say, comfortable. You get at that pace. And so that's an argument for spending spending time at race pace. So I think probably, you know, from very experienced runners, where they kind of know, you know, that like they're 98% of the way to, you know, fulfillment of their potential. They've been around the block a few times, and like they can just focus on focus on like the physiological preparation, and trust that like they'll nail it on race day because they've, they've raised that distance a lot of times at a very high level for you know, you know, more of the, um, you know, the everyday runner crowd, you know, there's, I would say more of an argument to be made for likes, you know, hanging out at race pace, just to like, you know, I had an athlete I've coached for a minute who raised a half marathon. Like, um, like she's on a mission to break 90 minutes for, for a half marathon. And like, she keeps coming like this. Uh, close and falling just short. So for an athlete like that, we know you can do this. We need to make this specific pace, like, what's that? 129.59 pace, feel like home for you. So I would say it's kind of case by case, depending on level of experience. Also, what you're doing. distance or specialization you have and other factors. Yeah. Good advice there. Um, I want to thank you for first of all, the book and giving us the opportunity to get some insights. We've only just scratched the surface on what the book contains. Um, plenty of other stuff, even like a lot of running programs in there as well. If people want to get the book, uh, where can they get it? I want to say everywhere books are sold. But yeah, Amazon, like all the major retailers. Like, yeah, so this book was actually, I'm not only the author, but I'm also the publisher of this book. 8020 Publishing is like the sister company of 8020 Endurance, another company I started. And so we recently were able to score a distribution partnership with Simon & Schuster, one of the biggest publishers. in the world, at least in English. And, uh, and so that makes it like really widely available. So if you're listening to this and you read books, go to where you normally purchase books from and chances are you'll find it there. Excellent. Um, is there, can we get another sneak peek? Is there any other books that you have on the horizon that's, you know, in the works? Yes, for sure. Um, yeah, I'm working on one called dying to run. which is about my journey through long COVID. So I got COVID very early on and I'm one of those folks who kind of never recovered. And so I have not run a race in four years and like just been like struggling to get my health back and then, you know, and then maybe some fitness back and then maybe be an athlete again. And I just took a moon shot at the gym. January 1st this year, I signed up for a 100 kilometer trail ultra marathon. And at the time I wasn't running at all because I couldn't run it all. I'm like, you know what? I've got 11 months or 10 months. I'm going to figure it out. Uh, so yeah, I'm writing, uh, dying to run doc is chronicling, uh, this, uh, someone calls suicide mission, but I don't, that's another story in itself. I look forward to reading that one. Yeah. Very cool, mate. Any other like, um, socials? any other channels or links that you want me to include in the show notes for those who want to learn more about you. Um, uh, Instagram, Matt underscore Fitzgerald underscore eight zero two zero. I'll include that for sure. Um, and obviously, and then also, you know, the dream run camp website, uh, cause that's, that's kind of my main focus these days here in Flagstaff, Arizona. It's like the ultimate, uh, training retreat for runners. Uh, so people can learn more about that at dream run camp.com. Okay. That is now in the show notes as well. Um, sweet. Excellent, Matt. This was great. I've learned so much and the book is excellent. Well done. Um, it's like I say, it's a topic that a lot of people are curious about. A lot of people want to improve on, um, it makes such a difference to overall performance and it's, it's a huge insight. So thanks for writing all that, you know, and sharing all of that knowledge and putting out a paper. And yeah, a lot of people are going to go buy this one. So thanks for coming on and sharing. Yeah. Thank you for the great questions. You really got me thinking about this stuff. I tried to do that. All right, Matt, take care. You too. If you are struggling to overcome an injury, you can jump on a free 20 minute injury chat with me, which you can book through my calendar in the show notes. While you're in the show notes, elevate your running IQ by jumping onto my free email list so you can receive material to help rehab your injury, lower your injury risk and increase your performance. If emails aren't for you, consider my Facebook group, Instagram and YouTube channels. And remember, each insight you get from these resources brings you one step closer to your next running breakthrough.