Final Surge Podcast

Many high school teams are winding down their track seasons and starting to think about their summer program. Today we welcome Coach Ben Rosario, who has a couple of high school plans available to purchase on Final Surge in to talk about summer running and building a team culture during the summer. This podcast came as a suggestion and if you have an idea you would like us to explore please send us a message on Twitter @FinalSurge or hit us up on our Facebook Page.

We put out a question out on Twitter asking what topics that people wanted us to cover in upcoming podcasts, and we had a group of high school coaches asking for a show on the structure of summer running programs. So we decided who better than the author of probably the best high school cross country book out there which is called Tradition Class Pride, Coach Ben Rosario.

I think we all know the goal of the summer is to build the aerobic base for cross country. I have heard college coaches and successful high school coaches say they think many high school kids are malnutritioned in the aerobic area. So how do we start working on this?

The long run is a staple. I read when Mark Wettmore was a high school coach and winning state championship after state championship his upperclassmen had a 20-mile loop for their long run, and this was high school not at Colorado. And others say high school kids really shouldn't be running either longer than their age or longer than 90 minutes. What is your thought?

How do you vary mileage between boys and girls in high school?

You have a new summer cross country training plan that will be available for purchase on Final Surge this week. How do you break it down for a team that may have new freshman runners and experienced runners going into their senior year?

For a beginning group of new runners, how many days a week would they run early in the summer compared to the end of the summer?

How do you keep running fun during the summer for them?

What percent or your training is the long run on Saturday?

One of the plans I looked at in week two you add in a couple days a week of drills and strides. What pace should the strides be in?

And you mentioned drills are included, are these form drills?

In the plan I looked at, you started out around 27-miles and built up to just above 50-miles at the end of 10 weeks. What type of mileage do you think this person was doing the season before?

By week two you are getting a workout in on Wednesday, but not really faster than a tempo, and then the long run. The rest of your runs are steady runs, what pace do you recommend. There are some kids who will go to hard and then there are other kids who will jog if you don't give them some paces. What pace do you recommend based on their current 5k times?

Some questions from Twitter

How often should female HS runners lift weights in the summer? What are 3-5 key lifts to include?

How often should they be doing general strength/core exercises in addition to the lifting?

What's the best way to evaluate HS talent to determine what distance they should run?

You have two programs available for sale on Final Surge, the first is a training plan for the xc season and the second is a detailed schedule for summer running. If someone buys your 5k cross country plan, what can they expect to see inside the program?

Links Tradition. Class. Pride. Ben Rosario on Twitter Final Surge Plans

Welcome to episode 43 of the Final Surge Podcast today we talk to professional runner Craig Lutz about how he got his start in running and talk to him about his high school running camps. Please remember to subscribe if you have not done so yet, rate and review us on iTunes and follow us on Twitter @FinalSurge.

You are a very successful professional runner, you had a great college career at the University of Texas, but when did it all start for you, when did you first start really running?

Your high school career was extremely successful. You had a top 4 finish at Footlocker and you won the individual title at Nike Cross Nationals, when did you start thinking of running in college?

What type of mileage did you run in high school?

What was the thought process when you graduated UT to go in the professional running route instead of using the business degree?

You seem to be using that business degree now with your newer Lutz running camp in Flagstaff, can you tell us about the camp?

Is Lutz Running still doing camps in Texas too or just Flagstaff?

How long is the camp in Flagstaff?

What can the kid expect when they come?

Where do the kids stay at your camp?

Some camps have a lot of running involved and some camps have less. How is the running aspect of your camp?

One of my favorite places to run is Buffalo Park. Do you have any plans to run there?

Final Surge 5 questions in under a minute Favorite running book? - Steve Scott The Miler - Biography Current trainers you are wearing? - Hoka Clifton 3 Favorite race? - Austin Capital 10k Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Homemade smoothie Your favorite workout - Mile repeats and long run at altitude.

Website: LutzRunning.com Twitter: @Craig_LutzCraig's Running Log

Welcome to Episode 42 of the Final Surge Podcast. This week we continue what we started last week with our popular 'best of show'. This week we focus on episodes 21-40 and bring you the best highlights from each podcast.

We hope you enjoy it. If you want to catch any of the full episodes head over to FinalSurge.com/podcast and listen to any episode.

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Welcome to Episode 41 of the Final Surge Podcast. This week we have something different for you. With 40 episodes recorded, we have talked to some of the greatest living US coaches and endurance athletes around. Every week we add many new listeners to the podcast so we wanted to give you a best of show. We have gone through the first 20 episodes of the podcast and pulled out some of the best highlights from each podcast. This is part one that focuses on Episodes 1-20. We hope you enjoy it. If you want to catch any of the full episodes head over to FinalSurge.com/podcast and listen to any episode.

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Welcome to episode 40 of the final surge podcast where we talk to Jonathan Marcus, the coach of High Performance West about the subject of coaching. Many of you may know Jonathan as the co-host of Magness and Marcus On Coaching Podcast. We talk about his podcast, and he dives deep into subjects like training and racing strategy as well the word coach means to him.

How did you get your start in running?

At what point in high school did you decide to stop the other sports and focus on running?

How did you get into coaching and then form your group High Performance West?

Are you looking for only elite athletes or would you accept anyone, even a local 5k runner, if they were serious enough?

You and Steve Magness, who was our guest in Episode 18 of our podcast, you two have a podcast called "On Coaching," why did you start a podcast on coaching?

When you think coach, what is the first thing you think about and how has that changed since becoming a coach compared to when you were running?

You have coached at every level from high school to elite professionals, what would you say are some of the more common mistakes coaches are making in developing runners?

You talk a lot about the latest science and the little things that people are doing to get that extra marginal increase. We have a variety of listeners from high school coaches and age group weekend 5k runners. So knowing the wide variety of people listening do you think many people are making a mistake of focusing too much on the small things before getting the basics down?

You recently did a podcast on interval training. When we are looking at interval training, what should we be looking for as far as putting together a training plan?

Let's talk about the art of racing, one of your podcast episodes. Playing devil's advocate, if your goal is to win a race, and there is a one best way to run the race the fastest, isn't that how you should execute it?

That's if you are in the position to win. What about the person who may be mid-pack and may end up in no man's land all by themselves in the race. How do you advise that person who is looking to run a PR, not necessarily a win in a race?

Going back to that quote of "the goal of preparation and practice is to perform and compete." Can you give us a few examples of a few workouts that you have done recently with some of your athletes and what your goal was as far as transferring that to racing?

Final Surge 5 questions in under a minute Favorite running book? - Unforgiving Minute Current trainers you are wearing? - Sketchers GoRun 5 Favorite race? - Cross Country Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Self Made Smoothie Your favorite workout - Acceleration Session

Website for High Performance WestPodcast On Coaching Jonathan Marcus on Twitter

Welcome to episode 39 of the Final Surge Podcast where we talk to head coach and co-founder of TeamMPI, Mark Sortino. Mark is a Level III Triathlon coach and has been published in publications such as US Triathlon Magazine, Triathlete Magazine and was a featured coach in Endurance Films TriMinds series. TeamMPI has triathlon plans available on Final Surge from all events from sprint through Ironman.

How did you get your start in endurance athletics?

How did you make the transition into triathlons?

That lead to you forming TeamMPI, can you tell us about your group?

How many coaches do you currently have on staff at TeamMPI?

You mentioned you are using Final Surge in your training, how are you using it?

We want to start out with some basic training and triathlon questions for those who are looking to do their first multisport event. For someone who is looking to get started with triathlons, maybe they are someone who has done a lot of running or swimming, what do you see as the most common mistakes made?

You have a wide variety of training plans available on Final Surge, everything from sprint up to Ironman training plans. Let's look at the basic first week for a beginner Olympic distance race plan. Before we talk about specifics, what type of base should a beginner have before they start training for their first triathlon?

Week one: the first day you have 30 minutes of swimming builds and 30 minutes of aerobic running with strides. For the swim the 30 minutes is: 200 easy choice warmup mix 3x the following: ((100 easy, :30 RI 100 moderate, :30 RI 100 fast, 1min RI)) 100 easy choice cooldown mix ***No paces to hit, just go with feel and intention. For someone who is coming in without a swim background, how important is it to use perceived exertion on the swim?

After the swim, you have the 30 minutes of running. Should these be done back to back, does order matter or should they be separate so you are recovered?

Day two of week one is: 30 min swim active recovery and 30 minutes of bike base spinning One thing I noticed on the swim is on the second day you have 150 warmup, build each 50 4x 50 - alternate easy/fast up, then 4x100 alternating and again 4x50 alternating hard and easy. For someone who is coming from a run background, we don't see a coach saying go hard two days in a row. How different is it training for the swim?

Then the bike is 30 minutes of staying in zones 1-2. Is all of your biking done in heart rate zones vs training paces?

Day three is a Fartlek run - 10min EASY warm-up, building to Z2 - 15min of fartlek where you have 4 sprints at any type of distance (for 20 sec, 1min, stop sign to stop sign), but make sure you recover before each one. Why and how often are you incorporating fartlek work into your workouts?

In week one you have some days that are just running or just bike, but every day of swimming has either bike or run. Is this a normal pattern for your triathlon training?

For the new triathlete, they get to the start line on race day and they are looking at several hundred people ahead of them waiting to get into the water. How do you prepare them for what will likely be a much rougher swim than what they practiced?

Looking at an Ironman plan. An Ironman is going to be a lot more time in the water and roads. Looking at one of the weeks for your ironman training you have a total of 3.5 hours running, 5.5 hours biking and just under 2.5 hours swimming. Do you try to keep each week proportional to the amount of time they will actually be spending doing the event on race day or do you focus on what they may need the most help with?

On days where you are doing either both swim run, swim bike or bike run, is it important that you do them in the order you will be doing them on race day, not important at all or should you switch it up?

Over the last few years, there have been a lot of technical advancements that make it easier to train, such as the availability of power meters and testing your heart rate variability. How important are these tools to your coaching?

Can you tell us how you are using HRV with your athletes to monitor the overall picture of what is going on with them?

We all live with our Google calendar, our day planners and our family calendar hanging on the fridge, and they all have the same thing. 7 day weeks, which is what we seem to focus on training around to are those 7 day weeks. You recently had a piece on your blog TeamMPI.com about changing the cycles up some. What do you recommend people consider when putting together a training cycle?

Team MPI has plans available on Final Surge from everything from the sprint up to the Ironman triathlons. I will leave the links in the show notes to those plans, but if someone wanted to reach out to you about coaching or other questions how could they best reach you.

[email protected] or [email protected]

Final Surge 5 questions in under a minute Favorite running or endurance book? - Born to Run Current trainers you are wearing? - Newton Favorite race? - Kona Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Shakology and Energy Lab Armor Your favorite workout - Running a hard trail run, Bike short interval work, Swim long repeats.

Team MPI Social Media Follow us and participate in the conversations on our social media pages: Facebook: www.facebook.com/teamMPI Twitter: www.twitter.com/teamMPI Instagram: www.instagram.com/teamMPI YouTube: www.youtube.com/TeamMPITeam MPI Website

In episode 38 of the Final Surge Podcast we are joined by Denny Krahe who is a coach and best known for his running podcast called Diz Runs. Denny has almost 400 episodes of his podcast and releases three a week. We will talk to him about his first ultra run he did recently, his coaching and his new upcoming book Be Ready on Race Day.

How did you get your start with running?

You made the transition from not being a runner until after college to coaching. How did that transition happen?

At what point in this journey did the DizRuns podcast start?

What are some of the best stories that you remember from your podcast?

Recently you made the jump to ultras and did your first ultra trail run, what was that like?

You have done a lot of marathons, but here you get to 26.2, and you had another 10k to go. How did it feel at the 26.2 mark?

What were the big differences in your training leading up to the ultra?

What about fueling, how did your fueling change running the ultra vs. what you were used to in marathons?

What lessons did you learn from the ultra? What would you change next time?

You have a background in exercise science and talk a lot about injuries on your podcast Q&A episodes. What are the most common issues you see with the athletes you work with?

What are the strength and core routines you are using with your athletes to keep them healthy and for injury prevention?

You do a lot of coaching when someone comes to you for coaching where do you find them to most often be at? Are they a new running looking to get started, a more experienced running looking get that extra 1% improvement or somewhere in between?

You recently announced you have a new book coming out. Can you tell us the topic of this training book?

What is the market for this book, half marathon, and marathon?

When is the book coming out and where can they get it?

Final Surge 5 questions in under a minute Favorite running book? - 80/20 Current trainers you are wearing? - Altra's Favorite race? - Running with the Bears in California Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Greasy Burger and fries Your favorite workout - Mile repeats

Denny's website Denny's upcoming book - Be Ready On Race Day DizRuns on Twitter DizRuns on Instagram

Welcome to episode 37 of the Final Surge podcast where we talk with coach Nate Helming. Nate has been featured in such publications such as Competitor magazine and is the founder of The Run Experience. I recommend you check out his videos on Youtube at The Run Experience. Today we will discuss running injuries, hips, footstrike, nose breathing and more.

How did you get your start in endurance sports?

Did you do track and cross country in high school or was it just something you did on the side?

What did you do after high school, did you do these sports in college?

You now run The Run Experience and specialize in movement and keeping runners injury free. Did you study Exercise Science in college?

Depending on the survey you want to believe, 65-80 percent of runners and triathletes get injured every year, why do you think the injury rate is so high?

You mentioned thorough dynamic warm up, what does that look like for you?

You mentioned range of motion; one argument is you only need as much flexibility or range of motion as the activity requires. So with running that is not a whole lot. Do you agree with this or do you think we need to work even more on increasing range of motion?

If we look at the newer runner, some of the common injuries we see are shin splints, Achilles injuries, runners knee, tight calves, most of what we see is lower leg injuries, but usually, that is the symptom of a different causing factor. What are some of the things you most often see leading to these lower leg injuries?

You mention hip extension, when I see lower leg injuries, the first thing I look at are the hips, and often, the hips are back when we look at them on video. It is easy to tell someone to get your hips underneath, but it is a different thing to make it happen. How do you work with athletes to get their hips under them?

In your videos on Youtube at The Run Experience, you talk a lot about proper foot strike. While there may not be a one best foot strike for everyone, where are some of the things you look for?

You mentioned during the first mile of the warm up run to breathe through the nose only, does this teach deeper belly breathing?

When working with your triathletes and runners, you have them working with these drills and movements. How much general strength and weight lifting do you do with your athletes?

You mentioned barbell movements, are you working with the Olympic movements or what other types of strength work do you have your athletes do?

You have the 2-week quickstart program on your site, can you tell us what is involved in that?

You have a new mobile app too, what is included in that Run Experience app?

Final Surge 5 questions in under a minute Your favorite running book? - Bowerman and the Men of Oregon Current trainers you are wearing? - Altra Loan Peak 3.0 Favorite race? - Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Sushi and ice cream Your favorite workout - 90 min trail run working uphills

Youtube Website Instagram Facebook TheRunExperience App

Welcome to episode 36 of the Final Surge Podcast where we talk to former Syracuse Orangeman, and current NAZ Elite Runner Marty Hehir about his first year as a professional runner. We talk about his career at Syracuse, how he found out he would be running in the Olympic trials just 2-days before the race and how his training has changed since going pro. Marty helped lead Syracuse to the National Title in cross country with his ninth place individual finish at the 2015 Championships.

We like to start out by introducing the listeners with our guests by asking how you got your start in running?

What made you want to run at Syracuse, I'm guessing not for the weather?

While I don't think he is under appreciated any longer, for a while I think Chris Fox was probably one of the best college distance coaches that few knew. What was it like running for him?

When you were thinking about going to school at Syracuse was it something you were thinking about going to school to become a professional runner, or were you a runner for something to do while at school? And at what point did you decide you were going to pursue a professional running career?

How has the transition gone, have you enjoyed it as much as you thought you would or has it been different?

You joined NAZ Elite in August, but you ran at the Trials in the 10k before that. Who were you training with before joining NAZ?

You mentioned you were not even in the trials until 2 days before. What is the back story there? How did you get in?

All runners for the most part have big personalities in their own way. Your group though seems to be on another level. How fun has it been to be part of that group in Flagstaff?

Marty answers the question, does Scott Fauble eat as many burritos as it seems during the week?

You have a 3k pr of 7:49 and have run a half in 63. So you have a lot of versatility. What do you think you will be focusing on over the next few years?

What races do you have on the schedule?

One thing I love about your team is your openness. Your teams complete training logs are online at FinalSurge.com/nazElite. Do you guys get a lot questions about your training and why do you open it up so much when some others seem to be so secretive about what they do?

First what I have learned from interviewing so many professional coaches and runners is there is no one road to Rome, there are many ways to get there. There are many ways to get to the top, but all of them involve hard work and consistency. So what is some of the biggest changes you have seem since joining NAZ Elite vs what you were doing before?

You mentioned 15x1k. Saturday you did a Lactate Threshold 15 x 1k in 2:58 with 1 min rest. And this is one of the things I love about your online logs is not only do you have workouts, but you have notes that you put in post race. So it looked like you stayed 2:57-2:59 on each rep. And it states you did it with a few other of the guys on the team. Is this a staple workout?

Today you did a leg speed workout where you did a 3 mile warmup, 10x200 in 31 with 200 recovery jog and 3 mile recovery. How often are you doing these types of high leg speed workouts?

What advice would have you have to a runner looking at your logs and looking for ideas. Obviously not everyone is an elite runner, so what could an age group runner in a local 5 or 10k learn from reading your logs?

Final Surge 5 questions in under a minute Favorite running book? - Born To Run Current trainers you are wearing? - Hoka Clifton 3 Favorite race? - 2015 NCAA XC Championship Race. Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Chocolate Chip Pancakes Your favorite workout - Cutdown workout

Coach Ben Rosario in Episode 4? Marty on Twitter Complete Training Logs Marty's Training Log

Welcome to episode 35 of the final surge podcast where we welcome Coach Greg McMillan to the show. If you get any tidbits or learn anything useful from this podcast please head over to iTunes and share a review. Today we are going to discuss How Greg got involved in coaching, we will break down his world famous running calculator app and answer some common questions that coaches and athletes have about it and we will talk a lot about his training from 800 to marathon. Greg's calculator is now built into Final Surge as one of the calculator options, and when you match that with his training plans there are now over 100 McMillan customized plans available at Final Surge.

How did you get started in running when you were younger?

Can you give us the history of how you got started in coaching?

You started with exercise science. There is the science of coaching and the art of coaching. What is something you learned early, maybe in a classroom, that didn't translate to real world coaching?

Who were your big coaching influences?

I believe you made a transition in the last few years away from coaching elites runners in person to more of an online model, is that correct?

You developed what may be the most widely used running calculator around. We recently added in your running calculator into the Final Surge software and started adding your plans as an add-on. So let's start talking about your calculator and your plans.

When looking at your plans you ask if a runner is level 1-4, can you describe the difference between the levels?

Another question you ask is if the athlete is an Endurance, Speedster or Combo. You go into great detail on this in your book You only faster. But can you explain to someone who hasn't read the book what the differences are between those three?

One of the ways to figure out what type of runner you are is your running calculator. So If I understand it right, if someone runs a 5k of say 17 minutes and types it into your calculator it says they should be running a 4:54 mile. Now if their mile time is 4:45 that would tend to show they are a speedster if their aerobic training was in place correct?

If that same athlete has recently run a 17 minute 5k it says their Tempo runs should be 5:44-5:58.. but if you use their recent 4:45 mile it would give them a tempo pace of nearly ten seconds per mile faster. So which would you recommend they use, the faster time because they may be more of a speedster of the 5k time because it is a longer event? Of course, this assumes both those events were recent good races and true times.

In your mobile app you have 4 groups of workout paces. The first two are Endurance and Stamina. How do these two differ and what percentage of time do you think you should spend in each of these sections during a typical week or 12-week training cycle?

Now let's jump to your plans and take a look at some examples. Based on the training plans, if someone is following a level 4 training plan they obviously have a good solid base. What do you see as a typical base buildup looking like before someone jumps into a 12-week training plan?

In your 800/1600 training for a combo runner you start out week one with an easy run on Monday, then Tuesday you go into a 800m cruise interval workout with 6-8x 800 with a 200m recovery. Then 3x200 with 200 recovery. Can you talk about this workout and the goal of cruise intervals and what the pacing is for the cruise interval and 200's?

Then Wednesday you do a 40-50 min recovery. Then on Thursday for a miler, you go 16x100 race goal pace with 2-400 recovery. You go right after goal pace work week one, so this obviously assumes they are coming in with the base. How often do you tough race pace work?

Then you go Friday/Sat easy days and Sunday a long run up to 80 minutes. How long do you think 800 runners and milers should be working up to on their long runs and do you do them every week?

Your peak week 10 you start out with the recovery run on Monday, Tuesday you comeback with 10-12x200 with a 2-300 recovery jog to work on building sprint speed. What paces are these 200's at?

Wednesday is a recovery day. You give a wide range of 40-60 minutes. What advice would you tell your athletes on determining if they should go 40 or 60 minutes?

Thursday is a 20-30 min warmup run.

Then they do 15-20 sets of 15-second strides with a one min recovery jog and 20-30 min cool down.

Are these strides at 5k pace? 3000 pace or what are you using?

Many coaches I have talked to use strides at the end of their workout, you are doing them in the middle, what is the reasoning?

Then Fri/Sat are easy run days with a time trial on Sunday. how should an athlete run this time trial?

We have a lot of high school coaches who listen to this, and I would expect many of those purchasing the 800/miler plans are likely high school and college coaches. Many high school athletes who are not national level elite may be racing once a week. So if a high school runners has a race on a Saturday, do you substitute one of your workouts during the week for the race or how are you changing a week?

You start out with an easy run for the first few days then on day 4 you do a goal pace workout where you do 10-12x400 at goal pace, then a couple more easy days and your long run of 70-80 minutes. What some will notice is how similar this is to the 800/mile plan we talked about earlier. Many coaches today treat the 800 through the half marathon with similar training just working on around the edges on some pacing work and a little volume changes, what do you see as the biggest differences between maybe a miler's training and a 5 or 10k runner?

There are a lot of similarities there, but then things really change when we reach the marathon. One of the big factors in the marathon of course is the wall and how to properly train the fueling systems. What does a runner who is making the move to the marathon really need to know about this jump and teaching their body to burn fat more efficiently along with glycogen?

When it comes to hip mobility, core strength, strength auxiliary work, what do you recommend and how often?

If someone wanted to reach out to you and find out more about your services how could they best reach you?

Final Surge Round

Your favorite running book? - Once a Runner Current trainers you are wearing? - New Balance 1080 Favorite race? - Mile or 5k Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Cheeseburger, Fries and Beer Your favorite workout - 10-12 400m

Resources

McMillanRunning.comFinal Surge PlansYou Only FasterGreg on Twitter