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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 (00:01.524)
Great. There we go, we are up, that's all recording, awesome. Yeah, Gordo, I was just saying congrats. So you've ticked off that sub 90 minute half in the process of the buildup that you're in, and I've been starting to follow a lot more closely than I was even when we last spoke. But what, that was only a day and a half ago for you now, so you're probably still feeling it in the legs a little bit.
Gordo Byrn (00:25.026)
Definitely feeling it in the legs more than a little bit, feeling it a lot. My buddy Justin described it as immediate onset muscle soreness instead of delayed onset muscle soreness. I got to 15K and I was like, oh yeah, my legs are totally hammered.
Tyson (00:34.991)
Mm-hmm.
Tyson (00:44.08)
I'm not sure where in the race the photos that you posted on Instagram were taken, but you looked like a man who was enjoying that immediate onset of pain far more than you should have been.
Gordo Byrn (00:55.666)
Well, I was about 200 meters from the finish line, and I was doing my best to keep my hamstrings and my erectus femoris from completely locking up. And so I was running very relaxed and calm. I wasn't able to push hard all the way to the finish line. And that was, I was really happy to be near the end. And my wife took the picture, so I was smiling at her.
Tyson (01:24.802)
It was well under the 90 minute barrier, what an hour 27. I think I read that you were trying to break 40. Yeah, you're trying to make 40. You're trying to break 130. Were you pretty confident that you're in that kind of form already? Like we're in the buildup, did you think you were?
Gordo Byrn (01:29.753)
Yeah, 127.
Gordo Byrn (01:39.746)
So, well, first off, I was in Austin and the race is called downhill to downtown. And then the net, so it's a net loss on the course and it was three degrees Celsius at the start. So it was perfect conditions for running fast. And a lot of people ran fast that day. And I think it was, you know, you can convince yourself of things in training and then you go out and you race. Now, one of the things I've
and we can touch on this a little later, is I've got better central fitness than peripheral fitness. And what I mean by that is my biomechanical fitness is really what limits me. And it limits me in training. And as I found out at the race, it limits me in racing, because I got to about 8K and I hadn't done any, I hadn't done any long efforts at pace because I'm all about being able to back it up.
and not get too tired. I don't want to take any injury risks and stuff during training. So I get to the race and my body's like, well, centrally I'm okay, but my body's like, well, what is going on? And, you know, looking back, I think I should have inserted a little bit of run walk, but it was a big race, thousands of people. And, you know, in those environments, it can be really tough to use run walk, to change the muscle activation, to give my hamstrings
slight break, I think I would have had a better result overall. So that's a learning experience. I was just like anybody else that's out there and it's like I'm not going to walk. I'm just going to run. But what happens is as you get tighter and I'll use run, walk, and training, but I didn't use it in the race. So my next outing, I'm definitely going to want to try it because I've used it very
Gordo Byrn (03:33.698)
both, well actually 10K half marathon and marathon running off the bike. And I didn't try it at this last race. And I think I'm gonna need to bring it back and see if it reduces the hamstring strain that I get during these types of efforts. Because it's clear to me that my central fitness is great, but what's happening peripherally in my muscles and with my nerves is what's actually
limiting me in terms of my overall performance. And this is something a lot of athletes will face in their training. They'll have a situation where they realize that they're not fitness limited. There's something else holding them back and it can be really difficult for us to accept that because what it means is easy mileage and training under the limit.
and we can have a lot of fear that we're going to have to give away these central gains. But if we're not able to access our central fitness, and by this I mean, you know, the VO2 max, our aerobic power, our aerobic endurance at the high end, if we're not able to really tax that, and my entire race felt quite comfortable, then it's a sign that we need to take these biomechanical
limiters seriously. And the difficult thing with biomechanical limiters is they adjust slowly. So the exercise physiologist will tell you that you can see a gain in central fitness quickly. And we see that with the studies that do red zone training, relatively short study periods, and you can see these big boosts in fitness and biomechanical limiters, peripheral limiters, adjust much more slowly. So long time horizons.
And it can be frustrating for people. And I think a lot of folks keep pushing and they get into this cycle of injury, feel better, re-injury. And I've been fortunate, but I've been kind of at the edge managing these little niggles and keeping them small. But it's just a sign that my progression is really at the limit of what my body can handle and I'll need to be patient and let time kind of build myself up peripherally.
Gordo Byrn (05:54.79)
And that's what I saw before. I mean, this race was really encouraging for me. My goal had been to set my running bench, what I wanna run off the bike. Before I do it in a triathlon, I wanted to do it in a running race. And that would let me learn. And the other thing is, when you run a half marathon, you get to see what your intensive stamina is like. It's like it's a zone four type effort.
and you learn and that lets you pace. If you're doing a triathlon, you step under that for the bike and then even lower for the swim. And it kind of lets you set this hierarchy of effort so that you're able to run fast at the end. So right now I'm sort of in good shape for a sprint triathlon. The first hour of the half marathon went great. The last half hour was rather uncomfortable and showed me that I just need more time.
Tyson (06:47.627)
Hey
Gordo Byrn (06:50.963)
That's all it is. I don't need more fitness. I need more time on the legs. And it's good to see that.
Tyson (06:55.546)
Mm.
Tyson (06:58.728)
I'm not sure if I saw it on Strava or on Instagram, but I saw your comment saying that, okay, now it's just time for time to do its thing. And this is something that I've connected with so much. In fact, everyone that I speak to about your writing, your videos, what it is you have to teach, seems to come back to that point that it's a real standout message, at least for me, and those I've spoken to about what you have to say. And I'm not sure if last time we spoke, I told you that pretty much all of 2023
a year of frustration with me trying to return to running. So about 10 years ago, I was a decent Australian middle distance runner over 1500 to sort of 5k. I ventured to 10k from time to time. And then I had about six or seven years off really structured hard training. So in my peak, I was probably running around maybe 90 miles a week, like relatively consistently without too much trouble and
I had no interest or no knowledge of different heart rate zone training. It was just, if I felt good, I would go and run hard. If I felt bad, I would probably run slow. And then last year I got back into running with that same mindset. And after about a month of training, I went out and did six by a K. And as you say, my central fitness felt fantastic. I was thinking, oh my gosh, I'm making rapid gains. And I was really amazed at how quick I was running. And then.
Gordo Byrn (08:20.364)
Yeah.
Tyson (08:25.56)
Sixth came in 150 meters to go. I strained my calf and I did that game that you just referred to where I'll recover, get back into hard training, same injury. And I reckon it's embarrassing to say based on the fact that this is supposed to be a scene I have some form of knowledge in, but without a history of injury, I think often my emotions just got the better of me and I was so desperate to run fast that I ignored the obvious signs that I wasn't quite ready to. And then.
As fate would have it, I bumped into you and your message and have been following a lot of the foundational elements that you speak about. And right now I'm running about 50K a week. What's that about? 30 miles maybe? About 30 miles a week. And I've been doing that consistently for about three months with just one relatively light tempo style session, like slower than half marathon pace. And then last week after being inspired by one of your sub stack posts, I saw
Gordo Byrn (09:07.412)
Yeah.
Gordo Byrn (09:19.501)
Yep.
Tyson (09:23.912)
You're referring to a session where you would do eight by 400, the first four at around half marathon pace, second four at around 10 K pace. I underestimated what both of my paces are, I think. And I went out and just did that. And already I can sense my, I know my fitness is improving as you say it will. And as I can experience this by, you know, the feel of being out there, but that head space of like, okay, let's do, let's do 35 miles this week.
Gordo Byrn (09:30.572)
Yeah.
Tyson (09:51.64)
is starting to creep back in. And it's so interesting watching that. And for me, I've said, no, for the next 10 weeks, 10 weeks, you're not gonna adjust the distance. You're just gonna try and layer up these weeks. And I'm not sure if you're referring to an athlete in my situation, but in one of the articles that you wrote, I saw you say that a lot of athletes will start to get fit and then they'll start to increase the pace. But you say, no, hey, let's see if you can be consistent with this current format of running for six months. And then you can look at introducing
another easier run before you start looking at intensity. And so I say all that to say that not only do I notice this desire in myself to want to speed up the process and let the central fitness dictate what it is that I do, but I would argue that it's the most common cause of injury and frustration in nearly every athlete that I coach all that I've come across when it comes to progressing training.
Gordo Byrn (10:24.116)
Yeah.
Gordo Byrn (10:47.282)
Yeah, we're all, it's a shared bias, I think, among anybody that's decent. I think it's because that's part of what's driving us, right? This desire to improve, this willingness to do more and maybe push ourselves at the limit and then maybe a bit past the limit. Something that's been really helpful to me is to connect with coaches
that may have struggled in their own careers with this. So that workout in the article, the progressive workout where you're doing the, you start with eight by 400 and then you go to eight by 600 and eight by 800. And it'll start to finish. It's probably gonna take me 10 weeks just to do those three workouts because I have little races and other things going on. But that comes from a coach who's 25.
actually 15 years older than me, and he's been in my shoes. So he's giving me the advice that he kind of, at some level, wishes that he had followed when he was in my shoes. And that can be really powerful if you are the type of athlete with an ability to execute. And I am, because it gives me comfort that I'm doing enough and I respect him. So I want to show him.
that I did the workout well. And he sets things conservatively enough so that if I go, you know, five seconds a K quicker on some of the reps or something, it's not the end of the world. So it's, I can feel good after the session, gives me enough pace that I feel good. And then afterwards I'm not sort of shelved and it doesn't mess up my week and it works. And I think that's a great way to approach it.
and think about the people you have in your circle. So the folks that I train with and the athletes I associate with are designed to try and help me overcome some of these biases and habits I have. And I just need to be careful of what I expose myself to so I don't get like over-amped and then head out and do something that hurts me. My issue has always been more volume oriented than...
Gordo Byrn (13:09.642)
you know, kind of pace oriented. But I think, you know, if we know what we have in terms of things that we need to overcome in our blind spots, we can put a team together that'll help us avoid that.
Tyson (13:21.952)
Yeah, so you mean with yourself that your challenge has been to hold the volume back more than the intensity? Like you're always desiring to increase the miles a little?
Gordo Byrn (13:31.971)
Yeah. I, you know, if it was solely up to me, and honestly where I'm trying to get back to, is the capacity to train long five days a week. I mean, that's what I really like to do, or what my brain thinks I'd like to do, which is a little bit different. You know, as an elite athlete, I was at the edge. You know, I was kind of the 30 to 35 hours a week.
of training and you kind of think you're enjoying it, but when you're doing that much, you're really tired all the time. So it's worth kind of stepping back and asking, well, am I really enjoying it? And these days, the question as well is, am I actually getting any benefit from putting all this time in? Now, one of the great things about being a master's athlete, that level of volume is completely off the table. So I have no ability to recover from that. I would get run down very quickly.
And so now in some sense, it's easier for me to do things properly or more sensibly, because the only option for me is to train like a serious amateur. That's sort of the highest I can get back to. I'm not going to be, I don't have the capacity to do the training of an elite or even someone aspiring to be an elite. So it takes the pressure off. The other thing that takes the pressure off is I'm 55 years old. I mean, my son jokes, he's like, dad, you've won your races. I haven't won my races. And he's right.
It's not gonna change my life to get a whole lot faster, but feeling good in my body and feeling good in my body when I'm not training is a very beneficial thing for me. And I'm able to see that now because I don't have that obsession that is characteristic of many young men in endurance sport where we're so driven and we don't really know why, but we're just really driven to perform and push ourselves and learn what's possible.
That fades a bit as we get older and it's easier to have a more sensible, more holistic approach to exercise.
Tyson (15:33.956)
Yeah, it's been really interesting and something I've been thinking about quite a lot recently, particularly after I had a conversation with a guy called Abderranan Finn, who is the author of a book called Running with the Kenyans. And in his book, I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but he speaks about moving to Kenya for six months in his late thirties to discover the secret of what it is that the Kenyans are doing. And spoiler alert, there was a long list of things.
Gordo Byrn (15:46.225)
Uh-huh.
Tyson (16:01.98)
But one of the standout features, and this was written or at least formulated, he was there in 2011. So I understand that things have changed and technology's improved and the access that Kenyans even since then have to really helpful data, nutrition, recovery strategies has improved. But one of the standout features with him was so much of what they were doing was based on feel. And...
Really interestingly, now obviously the absolute number of Kenyans that there were was just mind-blowing. He said there was literally hundreds of athletes each day out there. And you were fairly average if you were running a two hour 15 marathon. And these guys would just throw it at the wall and see if it's stuck. Some would break down, some would be injured, but some would become world-class. But what he was saying was it was very intuitive. Sure. They had professional coaches structuring the training.
Gordo Byrn (16:43.639)
Mm-hmm.
Tyson (16:59.228)
but there was very little data to back up what it was that they were doing at the time. And from one perspective, I really enjoy that because I go, okay, well, if you're being honest with yourself and you're waking up in the morning and you're saying, how do I feel? How am I recovering? How am I performing? It forces you to get in touch with your body. But the flip side of that, obviously, is there's a huge benefit if you know how to interpret the data that you have access to.
that you can marry with that intuition to get an even better result. And I sort of call it like your head knowledge and your heart knowledge. Like obviously your head knowledge is your data. Your heart knowledge is that intuition. What I like about you is you're a lot more deep into the data side of things that I've ever been before. And it's become a real recent fascination of mine because I haven't paid enough attention to it because I've always thought I'll just follow intuition, but turns out I
I think there's a lot that I'm leaving on the table that could be improved by having an idea of what that data says. And I was thinking about a few things that I'd like to talk to you about today. And this was one, I was just keen to hear your thoughts on that because when I look at what you teach, obviously so much of it is rooted in that data, which I love. But I wonder how the athletes, yeah, who are like me for quite a lot of years, who rely more on intuition.
Gordo Byrn (18:17.783)
Hmm.
So, yeah.
Tyson (18:26.085)
Respond to that.
Gordo Byrn (18:28.126)
Well, feel is really important. But where the data can help us is we can validate and generate evidence for our feelings. And we can check. The other thing is if it feels a certain way and the data says it's not that way, well, it's like, well, hey, there's no right or wrong.
but maybe we need to look into this. We might learn something about our physiology. For instance, John Hellam is my writing partner, has a great way of saying, and he says that. He says, if a competitive athlete says it feels easy, his starting point is it's easy. And by easy means if that pace and that volume and that program is building that athlete up.
and that athlete is improving and coping with it, then that is easy for the athlete. And as an approach to green zone training, zone one, zone two. Now, likewise, the flip side of that is, if an amateur athlete claims it's easy, but it's breaking them down, and the data shows that it's easy, the data's wrong, it's not easy. Whatever they're doing is breaking them down, and we need to figure that out.
So that you can use the data different ways. And I think the way to use the tech and the data is to inform the athlete and to help the athlete learn how things feel in an appropriate context, because an experienced athlete will have the feeling figured out, or if they don't, they will have burnt out and left. So there's sort of this survivorship bias.
in that, I mean, I imagine it's in the Kenyan book. If you have a couple hundred people doing elite levels of volume, many of them will fall away and leave the sport and you won't necessarily see them in the evidence that presents. And we see this all around the world. The great Kiwi triathletes, Norway is in the news a lot.
Gordo Byrn (20:49.346)
but there is survivorship bias in terms of the Norwegian athletes that rise to the very top on high levels of volume. Same thing in my peer group. You know, there was many competitive amateurs that would come to train with us and that was it. That's as high as they got. They never broke through to the elite level for whatever reason, their approach or their constitution or being able to handle the volume. So this, it's not a choice. So athletes don't need to choose
between feel or data. What they're doing is they're learning from both and using them to inform the overall approach. Ideally, there's two things we wanna do. We wanna make less mistakes, fewer mistakes, and we wanna get more done, more volume done, because volume is a very good explanation for what's going on. I mean, earlier in the conversation, you were saying, I was coping with 90 mile weeks. Well,
Anybody coping with 90 mile weeks doing a reasonable week and getting their sleep and their nutrition right is going to see fabulous results with running. Now the tough part is you and I now, we know that, and we're like, simple, just get back to 90 mile weeks, I'm gonna be crushing it again. But go too fast, we break down. So then it's like, okay, now I gotta figure out a way to work around this.
So if I've got, so if my limit, so my limit is similar to that figure that you were talking about, 30 mile a week. So this 30, this 50K that is at my biomechanical limit, actually it's a little below it, it's about 10K a week below my biomechanical limits. So I know I've got that to work on. How can I do more? Well, cross training. Likewise, how can I make sure that I don't break down? Well, now we look at other things, you know, daily.
mobility work because I know my feet are gonna, calves are gonna lock up. I'm gonna start getting plantar fasciitis or issues with my anterior and posterior tibialis. I know there's these little niggles that I can manage. Standing appointment with my PT. Proactive PT when small things are small, as opposed to waiting for it to become an injury and then going in. Same deal with using massage.
Gordo Byrn (23:12.406)
making sure I get my sleep. So although my volume as a 55 year old is down, it's stepped down. So as a master's athlete, my volume has stepped down, but my recovery can actually be at elite levels and my sleep can be better and my stress management. And so I can get more adaptation from these lower levels of volume. And as a result, my gains can be relatively quick.
And this is particularly for the athlete who is returning. So, you know, you and I are talking about coming, seeking to come back, not all the way, but come back to a respectable amateur level. So we can, by moderating our volume, using cross training, using recovery, as if we were elites and competitive athletes, we can accelerate those gains. And that's what I've been.
Tyson (24:07.229)
Yeah.
Gordo Byrn (24:08.674)
doing because that's what I can control. I can't control my rate of peripheral adaptation. I just need to accept that that's gonna take however long it takes. And by rushing it, you get all kinds of signals, you know, those little niggles that we all deal with. And it's just the science, like, okay, my chronic volume's too high. And centrally, I might feel fine and I might have the time in my schedule, but I gotta just...
Tyson (24:28.982)
Sure.
Gordo Byrn (24:37.49)
step it down and accept that.
Tyson (24:40.488)
when it comes to the biologic, sorry, the biomechanical fitness, obviously that's gonna change over time. So your central fitness is great. We've got to try and tap into, okay, well, when is it okay for me to actually increase the volume, the intensity, whatever. And I assume that based on what it is that you're doing, the level of the fitness that you're at, the amount of time you've been running, it's gonna dictate the answer to this question. But in terms of when you see yourself
as okay to go to the next level mechanically in terms of volume. What are some of the standout signs for when you're good to go? Because I've often overestimated my capacity and continue to make the mistake despite thinking I'm being relatively cautious. I know there's a lot of generic advice, like all about 10% per week or per run. Might be a good idea.
Gordo Byrn (25:33.918)
Yeah, I mean, the problem with that is you get 50% in five weeks if you got my personality type. So, you know, and it just doesn't work, right? Like, you know, it's like, oh, 10% a week, I'm good. But it takes six weeks for the overuse injury to start to manifest. So then you think the problem was a 50% increase when actually the problem was a 20% increase that was done a month ago.
Tyson (25:41.605)
Yeah.
Gordo Byrn (26:02.622)
And so then you step down, but you didn't step down far enough. So I think that's something to be aware of. What I find is everything's rolling along great for a few months, add 10K easy. I mean, it's the simplest thing to do. So I've got my week that I've been tolerating and I've been tolerating my week for a couple months. I've got no issues. So I've canceled my standing appointment with my PT because everything's going so great. And...
And if I want to do more, I do more in a non-impact sport. So I could do more cycling, I could do more swimming, or I could add at a plyometric session. So I could stress myself in a different way that might benefit my running economy. There's a lot of good work out there about using plyometrics to improve our running economy. And so I could seek to improve myself or make myself more durable with other things.
other than just constantly shooting for stack and volume. Volume is my ultimate goal, but I need these other outlets so that I'm able to maintain consistency because consistency in my running is gonna be what takes me to my ultimate potential. So that would be how I would approach it. Now, let's offer somebody a specific protocol. It's really simple. You just take your week, you add the 10K, you repeat it again, and then you step down.
and then you do it again. So two weeks. So if we talk two weeks with an extra 10K each week, easier week, and then two weeks with an extra 10K, and then an easier week, and end that easier week with like some sort of time trial, like 5K, 10K. It depends on your event and what you're shooting for. But something that's not gonna wreck you, but that's gonna have some tempo, and you can kind of see, am I coping, am I not coping? It's gonna give you comfort.
that is working and if it's not working, it'll turn up at the time trial and stuff. And it'll be away on a six week cycle. You can see if, all right, this increase in volume is working. And that would be one way to add. And I found that to be the most effective way to add. Easy volume. And by easy, I mean truly easy, like level one volume. It's warm up volume. It's not steady volume. So I mean, it's gonna be, not more than 50 beats.
Gordo Byrn (28:24.81)
below max. So it's gonna feel very comfortable for anyone with a competitive running background. And that'll work, that will work well for people. And it's also gonna put a lid on things because you're only gonna add about 10k every six weeks. And it'll be a safe way to bring stuff in. Now, on top of that, and this is what I'm doing and what I found.
Bike volume is a way for me to continue to generate metabolic adaptations as well as improvements in my central fitness while I'm working on my biomechanical limiter. And this timeline on the biomechanical limiter is so long that I have a hunch I'm always going to be a bit ahead from a central point of view, at least through my 50s. In our 60s, we can start to see more of a tail off.
Tyson (29:14.228)
Hmm.
Gordo Byrn (29:21.078)
But even in the 60s, I've coached many athletes who were able to maintain a very high level of central fitness. It wasn't until they got to their 70s that then things really started to shift on them. But somewhere between 65 and 70, for someone that's been very consistent, you are gonna see this tail off somewhere. There's probably a genetic component. There's also a bit of luck. You have to avoid injury as well as accidents because they have these step-down effects.
in our fitness where we lose strength, which gets more difficult to add. But again, my experience across my 50s is different than what people say. People say it's very difficult to add muscle or add strength after say 45. And I've found by being consistent, it actually isn't difficult in a sense. I just need to be smart about it and focused. And when I'm seeking these strength adaptations,
I need to take down my endurance load so that I'm able to move my strength forward. And so I follow a seasonal program. So winter is sort of energy positive, more anabolic focused. Spring is sort of bring the endurance up and then summer would be a typical more competitive focus when we cycle that across the year. And it's a nice way for an athlete to be able to do that.
such as myself, an amateur athlete, because I'm not under any pressure to race. I could really have a smart year every year. My federation isn't deciding when or where I race. I'm under no pressure. I just wait till I get fit and do something that sounds like fun to me.
Tyson (31:02.712)
Yeah. I was listening to Craig Alexander the other day in an interview speak about how he would play with different things, depending on the time of year that he was in, and one of the things that I've been interested in is the conversation around carbs for fuel versus fat for fuel. And he was explaining that in the off season, one of the things that he'll play with is going out and actually training his body to tap into those fat deposits as a source of fuel. Cause he says, eventually at some point during an Ironman race, I'm going to be relying on fat.
Gordo Byrn (31:17.25)
Yeah.
Tyson (31:31.512)
as an energy source. And so he'd go out and do like a fasted bike ride or a fasted run, not every run, but maybe once a week, he wouldn't touch any form of carbs for the first two hours on a bike. And I thought that was something that was interesting to play with. When it comes to the preparation, obviously I meant Gordo, we could do 50 podcasts and still, please.
Gordo Byrn (31:49.454)
Can I talk about fast head training? Okay. So that is a very popular session. Now, one of the things that most multi-sport athletes will discover if they look closely at it is they actually get a lot of depletion without trying to get the depletion. This is a difference between multi-sport athletes and single sport athletes.
because the multi-sport athlete does so many sessions in the week, there will be sessions where the athlete isn't fully recovered and is a little depleted. Even if these are endurance sessions, not tempo or threshold or red zone. And so this depletion stress is there. And if it's not there, you can kind of create it, but you don't have to go out of your way to create it. You just create these longer days where you do...
swim, bike and run, or a very long ride across the day. So you don't necessarily need to go out of your way for depletion training. As well, stuff happens. Things happen. Sometimes you're like out in the middle of nowhere. And for whatever reason, you didn't quite bring enough snacks or something. And sometimes you're just gonna have to get home with not a lot of stuff. So I always felt I did not need to go out of my way for depletion. Now here's the thing. If you are an outstanding athlete, like
Craig Alexander or Kylian Journet, Cameron Brown. What all these athletes have is exceptional capacity, metabolic capacity. And they do have the ability to go very long on very little. Like it would amaze you how far these athletes and the females can go even farther on even less.
Tyson (33:34.292)
Hmm.
Gordo Byrn (33:41.502)
The female body, the female ultra endurance body is absolutely amazing. We used to joke about it, the elite females, you know, you give them two goose and they head off on 200K ride and all they need is water, they're gonna be good. And it's true, they can handle it. Now part of it is, you know, their ability to use fat for fuel, but also, you know, the energy requirements are smaller. The smaller males, so those three athletes I described, were not necessarily massive guys.
Tyson (33:49.852)
Hahaha!
Gordo Byrn (34:11.394)
The larger males, if you take a larger male and you send him out sitting on 325 watts or something or trying to sit on 345 k pace, that size, that individual is going to burn through a lot of energy and it's going to be tremendously fatiguing and disruptive in the days that follow the session to get that larger athlete so depleted.
Gordo Byrn (34:40.97)
these types of athletes that can do large amounts of volume, they need to watch that they don't get depleted. So for them, the challenge is on the other side of the equation, it's managing and avoiding the depletion so that they don't disrupt the downstream training. And this is a key thing that you'll hear come through with the Norwegians when they follow a very high volume approach to the Norwegian triathletes. Now, typically runners, smaller frame, males and females.
Split sessions, even if they're doing doubles, there's plenty of time to eat, recover and reload between the sessions. They don't have days where they're doing three or four different modes of exercise. And so it's a different type of thing. So some of them will tolerate fasted training, but generally speaking, if you want to improve your metabolic performance, my recommendation would be add easy cycling rather than doing fasted training. In other words, have the body
produce energy, produce velocity by using fuel and become more metabolically efficient that way rather than fasting and trying to force yourself on your current level to fuel it with less. So it's a slightly different approach. And this is where I think runners could learn from triathletes because the triathletes, the metabolic fitness is so important for them. So lactate testing and seeing and answering the question.
how metabolically fit am I right now? And just looking at our lactate profiles and seeing what happens. And this is a fun one to do with a runner. You take them out and build up their long bike volume and just see what happens even when they're eating. Do they have the ability to fuel themselves just from eating or are they getting run down because their metabolic fitness is lacking? And this can give us a bit of an edge.
Tyson (36:38.709)
Hmm.
Gordo Byrn (36:40.438)
Because the better our low end fitness, the more we can talk, the more we'll be able to tolerate some of these more challenging sessions.
Tyson (36:49.528)
See, this is such an interesting conversation and I'm being a little selfish here, but the reason I find it super interesting is, so after our first conversation and hearing you speak to Rich Roll, hearing about that thousand day journey, I set myself the thousand day journey of improving my marathon. I mean, as you said, there's plenty of time in between. It allows me to train relatively hard and still have enough time for work.
Gordo Byrn (37:04.663)
Hmm.
Tyson (37:16.2)
family and I mean, I've still got a little time left in the day. Problem obviously with Ironman is, uh, oh, sorry, with triathlon is just the sheer amount of time that is required to get to a decent level of fitness, um, or a decent level of performance, particularly with the Ironman. And beyond that thousand day journey, I've got one little eye just peering towards the Ironman. It's something I'm really fascinated by. I've always been curious by, and well, I've never competed one, but my junior days, I was a triathlete.
in Western Australia and sort of just became more dominant on the run and thought that was the, the career choice direction that made the most sense. But in the meantime, I'm currently running four days a week, trying to take care of that, uh, that, that biomechanical fitness, but on the off days, I haven't been cycling at all, but I've been doing just one swim session and that swim session, I'm obviously it's time off the legs, but
The reason I've been doing that is because I'm thinking, well, technically that seems like the sport that I need to improve in the next few years if I actually want to get to a point where I can perform relatively well, despite the fact it's the shortest leg. But I see the cycling as something that potentially I could transition to a little more easily from the running background than from running to swimming. But with what you're saying, maybe it would make sense for an athlete like me, not just because I've got one eye on the Ironman in four years or five years time.
But even right now to improve my running performance, perhaps on the days that I'm not running, maybe look at including some form of bike session as well as a swim session. I don't know if that'd be beneficial to marathon running.
Gordo Byrn (38:55.334)
Yeah, so, well, like you, I'd like to get back to having the capacity to run marathons, but I do not have that right now. So I've got the capacity to run well for 15K. That's where I'm at right now. Now, by the end of this year, I imagine I'll have the capacity to run well for 21K, but my race showed me not there yet.
So one of the things I can do though, is it's not always on an off day. I can ride for an hour before I go out and do my run session because that's if I know my ultimate goal is a marathon well then I know my ultimate goal is to be able to do two and a half to three hours worth of exercise, say. The easiest way for me to do that is just
add some bike volume and then do my normal run. And the bike volume's easy, but my body is training metabolically to handle that dose. And that dose, you get a big benefit. It's almost, it's sort of, I don't know, exponential or whatever I find, is that as you add these 90 minute blocks, you're getting this big metabolic benefit because the body's having to work for so long.
And so that's something that I think people should consider, particularly anybody that's trying to push out their duration where they can really push themselves. So I've been able to accelerate my gains by putting these rides before my runs. And it's really just a warmup and it lets me get into my run session quicker. So my long runs for the half marathon, if you do a hour long bike ride before you head out,
no need for a warmup. You're kind of ready to go. You just, you just, you know, you don't want to go charging out full speed. But you can, you can get to the work set quicker. Yeah. And we talked about that a bit last time with talking about the cadence workouts and some of the other skill type stuff that we can do. But this is just purely on this subject of metabolic fitness, and improving our aerobic capacity, that ability to hold that fractional whatever the right fractional piece of our VO2 is for our
Gordo Byrn (41:17.206)
duration that we want to be racing well over. And I think that's something to consider for runners. Now, specific to your comment about swimming, if it's an easy day, if we're coming back to swimming, it can be quite challenging. So what I would say to you is make sure that you keep your easy swimming easy and you can use flotation, a pull buoy. I do a lot of swimming with a sleeveless wetsuit so I can keep my heart rate down and my legs are supported. You can break up the intervals.
Tyson (41:20.233)
Hmm.
Gordo Byrn (41:46.018)
So it doesn't need to be continuous. I'm a relatively strong swimmer. I can also use paddles that'll keep my heart rate down. So it enables me to do movement and develop myself technically on these off days. Well, not off days, easy days, but it doesn't fatigue. And it doesn't, so for a runner, I don't want any of the multi-sport to disrupt the running workouts. I would want the run workouts to maintain, be the core part of the program.
So what I would say to the runner is, don't get tired from your bike ride. This is all supplemental stuff. And that's a great way to handle it because it'll let you do more because your position and my position is what almost everybody's in. We're volume, we're gonna be volume constrained on the running because our bodies won't let us just ramp quickly.
Tyson (42:17.746)
Ha.
Tyson (42:34.244)
Yeah, that's really interesting feedback. My mindset approaching the swimming was the opposite. I thought, okay, there's no stress on my joints that I'm using every day. So I'll make this swim a really hard swim and get the heart rate up. But yeah, you're right. It makes sense the idea of not letting that take away energy from the run.
Gordo Byrn (42:49.502)
Well, now, okay, but that mindset, we can apply that mindset on the bike. So here's the deal. So again, so now we have a situation where it's like, I know that if I do, I don't know, 800 reps, at this intensity, I'm going to get injured. Okay, I know it. So I can't, that workout is off the table, but.
Talking to my coach or my peers, I think for whatever reason, I need that stress. Well, the bike can be a great place to give sustained stress, metabolic stress that doesn't have the impact component. So for an athlete with relatively, you know, it's this glass legs, if you got glass legs, the bike can be a safe place. And I've used it a lot with masters athletes where we would do hill reps.
to generate a high level of cardiac stress, central stress. So this would be somebody in a different position from you and me. They tolerate the volume and they need the central adaptation. But the central adaptation tends to injure them. So the bike, we can do long tempos. So we can do long uphill climbs. We can do intense red zone. So we can do VO2 efforts.
at very high intensities, but we're not going to break the legs down. And that's also the nice thing about having multi-sport, more tools that we can use for that type of athlete. It works, can work great for people.
Tyson (44:29.488)
Yeah. So say if there's an athlete who's in a similar position to you and I thinking, okay, this makes sense. Maybe this idea of including some form of cycling or some form of swimming into my running training program. I mean, my natural mindset is, okay, how many days a week can I squeeze in a bike ride to benefit my running? Like my mind always maybe like what you said, that obsessive approach to volume starts to sneak in, I can feel it already whispering in my ear, but perhaps.
One day a week before at the moment, I'm sort of doing around a 90 minute long run, like really easy on a Sunday. So maybe an hour once a week, would that be enough? Or are you thinking more than that?
Gordo Byrn (45:08.642)
So, so this, I view it different, I view it in terms of time rather than sessions. So, so let's say we got four runs a week, right? I'm still gonna wanna keep two of those. So I got three days left. I'm gonna, I wanna keep two of those days very easy. So I would like to have two back to back very easy days because I think that will do a lot. And
And you don't necessarily, they don't necessarily, you can put 48 hours of not running into a schedule and have somebody on average run every day if you have a couple of double days in the week or even one double day in the week. But this is a separate thing. That's sort of for somebody that can handle the high volume. But I would want two whole days with no running. So we wanna keep that. So we've got four days with running. Now we're gonna have your long run day.
And I'm going to be thinking about that. I'm going to change the nature of that in a sense to turn it to your long day with a long run. Okay. So we're going to have an hour easy before that long run. So now we're doing a two and a half hour run, which metabolically is more useful than 90 minutes of exercise. Although 90 minutes is a great block of exercise for metabolic adaptations. So now I'd want to fit in, I would look at...
what your total minutes are of that running. So let's use you for a case study. So those four runs, how much, how many hours do we get of running a week?
Tyson (46:39.628)
Uh, what's it? One, two and a half, three, four and a half, probably four and a half.
Gordo Byrn (46:48.402)
Okay, so we got four and a half hours of running. And in my mind, I'm gonna say, all right, I'm gonna try and build this up gradually to four hours of cycling, say. So we put one hour before the long day. And now I've got, what's that leaving me? So I got three more hours. So on one of those days where you're not running, an hour and a half easy bike.
So now I've got an hour and a half, and I've got three run days. So that's two 45 minute sessions somewhere in there. And what we've done is we've effectively, and especially if you toss a swim in, now we've effectively doubled your aerobic volume, but we've maintained your running the same. So you're gonna get a big boost from that, even if all that volume is easy.
and we just let that roll and we watch what happens to you. Specifically, what happens to your running? Does it improve? Because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to improve the running. And with the eye being on ultimately getting the volume up, moving towards the marathon, this additional volume is very beneficial. Now, it doesn't necessarily help this biomechanical limiter. We need to keep addressing that as a separate thing.
but it is preparing the one aspect of the fitness that you're gonna need for the marathon while time handles improving the biomechanics.
Tyson (48:24.948)
Sure, so you would do that and then I think the example you gave earlier in the conversation was hey, see if your body can handle the stress of the four and a half hours running a week for, was it six weeks or 10 weeks? And then add a 10K run. And
Gordo Byrn (48:38.826)
Yeah, so if you were, so then if it's like, okay, so now I'm rolling along, so I'm at this, I'm in this eight to 10 hours a week of mixed training, all right? And four and a half of that is running. And now I want to increase my running. Well, the easiest way to increase the running is let's take an hour of cycling out and let's put a half hour, two half hour, very easy runs in.
Tyson (48:48.66)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Gordo Byrn (49:06.102)
And we either, and one day we're gonna put it in as a double run on one of the shorter run days. And the other day we're gonna, instead of riding before a run, we're gonna do a very easy warmup. And so now you've got two, now you've got two long runs, right? You've got the 90 minute normal long run. And then on this other day where you were riding before a run, which wasn't a long run, we now have a second long run. And for an athlete working towards half marathon or marathon,
Now we're getting some bang for our buck. So we know metabolically, you'll be able to handle it because the volume is already in the week, it's being tolerated and now we're changing the mix and we're adding more run stress, but we're not adding stress in the sense of intensity, we're just adding more run volume. And that would be the way to build it up. And then in terms of the rate of buildup, it's highly individual. It's gonna have a big impact, you know.
size of athlete will have a big impact. Athlete's background will have an impact. How much stress is going on in the athlete's house? Are they sleeping well? Is something going on with somebody's parents? I mean, there's all these different factors that are gonna impact how we handle it. But that's a nice way to do it. And then the process is gonna take however long it takes. Now the reality is, you know and I know, if you wanna run a fast marathon,
going to have to just wait until we can get the volume up. Because a fast marathon is a sport where we need to be able to, or an event, where we need to be able to tolerate relatively high levels of volume. And even a half marathon, I saw at my recent event, it's going to take me some time, even though I might not think it's a long event. But to run fast.
Tyson (50:46.836)
Hmm.
Gordo Byrn (51:01.727)
for 21k you really do need this volume in the legs otherwise you get this you get the fade at the end
Tyson (51:09.992)
Sure. Yeah. The bike world is one that's relatively new to me. So I could be getting buried in the weeds here, but are you worried at all about whether it's road bike, mountain bike, stationary bike, or it's just the actual zone of non-weight bearing training?
Gordo Byrn (51:25.19)
In this context, all I would recommend for the athlete is easy volume. It needs to start easy, because remember, we're doubling the amount that ultimately this athlete is gonna be doing. So it needs to be easy. And then if that's tolerated, then we talk about things. But there is a good point that you bring. Do I care about the type of bike? In a set, you gotta watch this. If you have a fixed indoor trainer,
even if you're riding easy and it doesn't allow you to move the bike, if there's any instability in the pedals, so in Australia, if I say SBD pedals, do you know what I'm talking about? It's like a mountain bike pedal and they use them on gravel bikes. Now, if you're outside and you're on a mountain bike or a gravel bike and you're riding around and it's a loose surface or it's gravel or something, there's a lot of movement.
Tyson (52:08.68)
Oh, that, that a lot of listeners probably do. Okay. Sure.
Gordo Byrn (52:24.322)
but the movement, the bike moves. And so the movement, the energy from all that movement kind of gets dissipated. Now, if you lock the frame down into an indoor trainer, a lot of that movement is going to go up into your calves and your calves are gonna have to stabilize all this movement that's happening in the cleat and in the shoe. So if a runner is thinking about implementing this advice and all of a sudden they start to get Achilles issues or calf issues, what I would say is,
It's not you're running. You were tolerating your running before. You need to look at this bike set up. But if you're if you're riding inside and make sure that there's not this instability, that your calves are constantly having to stabilize. And the way to do that is you just get behind and you use a phone. You do a little video clip and you just ideally the slow motion thing. And you can see what's happening when the foot comes down through the bottom of the pedal stroke. But the other thing you can do is just clip your shoes in when
your feet aren't in them and just see if they can rattle. And you want that nice and stable so that you're on a nice stable platform. As well, you're probably gonna need a form orthotic. Doesn't need to be like an expensive one, but just something that gives you some arch support so your foot's not collapsing inside the shoe each time. And that will enable you to have the foot relaxed, the calf relaxed, and your easy training will be easy.
And this is the kind of thing where if you're thinking about doing a whole bunch of cycling, where if you get somebody to do a bike fit on you and you have your setup on a trainer, they're gonna be able to identify that pretty quickly for you, because it's a typical thing that a bike fitter would look for. But that's, multi-sport athletes are often, they think they're getting a running injury, but it's actually coming from another part of their program, usually something that's going on in the bike.
Tyson (54:20.624)
That's really interesting, man. It's just so, there's so much food for thought. I mean, it can keep you entertained for years. I know in both of our instances, it's certainly done that.
Gordo Byrn (54:29.258)
Well, that's yeah, that's why I like it. I mean, it's endless, isn't it? I mean, you can just, there's always something you can tweak.
Tyson (54:36.436)
Yeah, for sure. So in terms of where you're at in your preparation right now, obviously we've seen the half marathon on the weekend. I've been having a good look at your Stryver and it looks as though you've racked up a few weeks of 12 Ks a week in the pool. I can't remember what you're doing on the bike, but in terms of where you're...
Gordo Byrn (54:54.354)
I'm doing the program that I outlined. So when I was pushing my run volume and inserting some quality into my run training, that tempo type workout, where I was running zone four pace, but I was using rest so that I was only getting zone three heart rate. So it was a really good bang for my buck. And then I was doing some longer runs, which were challenging for me just because of the length of the run. My cycling was just all easy cycling, like I've outlined here.
Tyson (54:57.137)
Yes, sir.
Gordo Byrn (55:24.158)
So what's coming next is, it's still winter here. If I look out the window, I got snow and ice outside the window. So it's not great conditions for getting outside. So February is gonna be about ramping my swim volume up because it's a box that I can tick and it takes the pressure off the rest of my program, particularly my outdoor program. And then in March, in early spring,
I want to start focusing on what I call muscular endurance. So some hills, running and cycling. So it'll be tempos and trying to get strong, but strong in a sport specific sense, not strong in a, you know, like a leg press or a back squat sense. And then that just leads me into the weather gets good, or if I get a nice day, I can go out and do some long rides and start working on my.
Tyson (56:13.918)
Yeah.
Gordo Byrn (56:22.395)
overall endurance.
Tyson (56:24.468)
Yeah. Well, one of the things I've heard you speak about a little bit is, um, I think I messaged you personally about this. I was just asking around, um, I can't remember my specific question, but I think the intention was to find out what your thoughts on just longer, slowing, slower runs up and over hills. I live in a town, which is, it's just very, very flat, incredibly flat, a little seaside town and.
Gordo Byrn (56:42.687)
Yeah.
Tyson (56:49.5)
The other day I went out for a 10 K run and I just called it a hill hunting run and I just tried to find every hill that there was in my town. And I think over the course of 10 K, I might've got about a 150 meters of elevation and that was every hill and a couple of repetitions of the same hill that my, uh, my town had to offer. But, uh, I think your response was in reference to the long run, try and change the
Gordo Byrn (57:05.439)
Yeah.
Tyson (57:14.864)
the actual route that you're running on a fortnightly basis. Don't just get stuck in the monotony of one particular run. And so that's one thing that I'd take putting asterisks next to, because pretty much my long run when I'm in town, I'm out and back. I discovered a loop on the weekend, which has been a nice little addition with a few hills, but really in my town, you're not getting access to much hill work. Would you recommend a person in that situation?
Gordo Byrn (57:20.862)
Yeah.
Tyson (57:40.216)
actually drive a little bit and look for some solid hill running to not so when I say solid, I mean, just the elevation rather than the intensity that you're actually running.
Gordo Byrn (57:50.438)
It really depends. Unless somebody has a very flexible schedule, I'm reluctant to put driving into the training program just because I'd rather they're doing exercise. So if you can ride to the hills, now we're talking. Like ride out 45 minutes, run an hour at hills and ride home, that is a great workout. Because it doesn't matter how...
The effort of the bike doesn't matter. I mean, you're getting the fitness. What I've tended to find is athletes that have ability to access hills. So they have these different types of terrain, tend to gravitate towards one type of terrain over the other. And so I always encourage those athletes to do what I did when I was an elite and that is alternate by week. So long run in the hills, no pace pressure. You know, you just do it.
and enjoy it. And that can be a very long session because there is no pressure. And then the other week would be flat. We're gonna start easy and then we're gonna settle in and then we're gonna settle into this endurance pace. And by the end of, you know, if that's a two hour session, that second hour generates a fair amount of fatigue. Then when we get towards maybe competition, we combine the two.
So we would do say an hour or an hour and a half in the hills, which has an element of fatiguing our legs. And then we would come down to the terrain that we're gonna be racing in and just do a 30 minute or a 60 minute benchmark. I call that Hills Then Flat. And that gives us a look at what our aerobic paces are like when we're a little bit fatigued, which can be helpful for setting expectations for a race situation.
But that'd be, so we're getting tired, but we're not actually racing in the hills. But then we go and we might do a block of Corpace and we see, well, how's that stack up to what we think we're gonna be able to do in the race. And so it was a combination.
Tyson (01:00:01.344)
Yeah, just before I let you go, I know you've always got something super interesting that you're playing with or writing about. What's got you excited in terms of endurance performance at the moment?
Gordo Byrn (01:00:13.678)
Let's see, the most, well, this race. The, I mean, if anybody follows me on Strava and they have a look, they can see my pacing wasn't exactly outstanding. I mean, I really faded. So the course has some, it rolls a bit at the end. And if you're up for it, you can actually really rock the finish because there's three little sections.
that are relatively downhill. And if you're feeling good, I mean, people were going by me quick. Now it wasn't me though. So I found that exciting because I was sort of like, okay, if I can figure this out, I had a good race, put up a solid time, but if I can get this late race durability, which is just gonna be a function of time, I am gonna be able to run fast again.
And fast is not as fast as fast from in my world in sort of a competitive running world. I don't expect to get fast. But, you know, I could see myself theoretically getting down to sort of when I look at the fastest Masters times, particularly the 50 plus, I can see myself kind of getting back so I could compete with those guys. And at the race, there was a 63 year old guy that ran a 119. And I was like, that was I was like, if he can pull it off.
Tyson (01:01:28.514)
Mm-hmm.
Gordo Byrn (01:01:36.97)
You know, it's fast, but it's not ridiculous. And it would be really neat because it was fun for me, even at the pace I went. It was particularly fun in the first 5K, when I was going maybe a little too fast, but it was great. The whole thing was a good experience. So that's what I'm excited about.
Tyson (01:01:39.934)
Mm-hmm.
Tyson (01:01:50.824)
Hehehehe
Tyson (01:01:57.188)
Yeah. No, congratulations on that run. Gordo, I'll, I'll leave it there. I know. Yeah. As I said last time, it's a conversation that we could do 50 of and still have more to talk about. So I'm not even going to venture into trying to cover all the topics, but I've been, I've been really loving your writing. I'll make sure for everyone interested. I'll link here your website, your subs, uh, sub stack Instagram, Strava, whatever else there is. So if you're listening to this and you love what Gordo's about, check out that note, but uh,
Man, thanks so much for coming on again. I really appreciate your time.
Gordo Byrn (01:02:25.518)
Great to be here. Thanks.
Tyson (01:02:27.7)
Awesome, I'll cut that off there. Gordo, awesome, great conversation, man, as I knew it would be. Thanks very much.
Gordo Byrn (01:02:32.906)
All right.