Head Coach and Executive Director of the Hoka Northern Arizona Elite Team, aka Hoka NAZ Elite, Ben Rosario helps us understand how the pros train. You might be surprised that there are many things they do that you can too! Regardless of your ability level, age, or experience, we can learn some key principles that will help us run faster and/or further.

1. Sleep
2. Nutrition
3. Strength Training (you don't have to have a gym membership)
4. Stretching
5. Taking it easy on easy days
6. BONUS – Pacing

You can learn more in the book he co-authored with Matt Fitzgerald, In their new book, Run Like a Pro (Even If You're Slow): Elite Tools and Tips for Runners at Every Level, they help us understand that we can reach our potential if we include some of these training techniques and strategies.

A few weeks ago we spoke with Addie Bracy about mental training. We loved it so much we bought her book, Mental Training for Ultrarunning: Your Psychological Skills for Ultra Success, and asked AJW if he would join us to talk about the principles she writes about.

Visit her mental performance page at Strive Mental Performance

We often see photos of people, especially outside the USA, running with poles. Running with poles can be more efficient - using both legs and arms to help you uphills. Have you ever considered running with poles or not sure how to use them proplerly? In this month's Training Principles episode, we get some sound advice from four professional runners, Max King, Courtney Dauwalter, Sabrina Stanley, and Tim Tollefson on how to be successful with poles.

Check out

• Max King's runnning camp
• Sabrina's coaching

Check our Leki, if you want the best poles on the trail.

Runner, coach, certified nutritionist and author Matt Fitzgerald teams up with the coach of the Hoka Northern Arizona Elite team, Ben Rosario, to help us understand how the pros run. In their new book, they help us understand that we can reach our potential if we include some of these training techniques and strategies.

Matt has been on TRN ten previous times including the episode we referenced, How Bad Do you Want It?

Find out more about Matt and coaching at 8020endurance.com

Runner, coach, certified nutritionist and author Matt Fitzgerald teams up with the coach of the Hoka Northern Arizona Elite team, Ben Rosario, to help us understand how the pros run.  In their new book, they help us understand that we can reach our potential if we include some of these training techniques and strategies. Matt has been on TRN ten previous times including the episode we referenced, How Bad Do you Want It?

Find out more about Matt and coaching at 8020endurance.com 

We've all heard the saying, "Ultra running is 90% mental and the rest is in your head". Addie Bracy a sports and performance phychologist rejoins The Nation to dive deep into this oft-times neglected part of our training. We discuss mental toughness and how it correlates to performance, mental distractions, and how to get into the "zone".

Check out her book, book, Mental Training for Ultrarunning: Your Psychological Skills for Ultra Success

Visit her mental performance page at Strive Mental Performance

Trails can be intimidating with varying technical challenges. Four coaches from Sharman Ultra Coaching help us understand these challenges and give us some tips on how to feel more comfortable.

Ian Sharman, Liza Howard, Hillary Allen and Addie Bracy are all excellent technical trail runners and share their knowledge with us.

Learn more about mental training at Addie's web site: strivementalperformance.com

or her new book, Mental Training for Ultrarunning: Your Psychological Skills for Ultra Success

FInd out more about Hillary Allen HERE

Find out more about Liza Howard HERE

Check out Liza's great camp for veterans and their families HERE

Hillary Allen was on the top of her sport, Skyrunning, when she fell 150 feet off an exposed ridge, breaking two ribs, fracturing her back, ruptuing a ligament in her foot and breaking both wrists. She joins The Nation to discuss the mindset of injury recovery, why having a support system matters, and the importance of balance in athletics. LINK to her Tedx CU talk

LINK to Hillary's web site

Get her Book, Out and Back: A Runner's Story of Survival Against All Odds

Sometimes we just have to have a light fun episode. We invited Andy Jones-Wilkins to join us on a new type of episode, Spin the Bottle, a randomized vocabulary game. Join us and play along.

We referenced AJW's postmortem episode shortly after his first DNF. HERE is that episode.

Hire Andy as a coach! or check out his weekly Tap Room at iRunFar

Dr. Megan Roche helps us all, men and women, understand the physiological differences that women have and how it might be an advantage.

Dr. Roche is an MD and current PhD candidate at Standford University working on epidemiology, focused on population health and genetics for athletes, spedifically women. she is also a freaking fast runner:

• 2016 USATF Trail Runner of the Year
• 5-time national champion
• North American Mountain Running Champion
• 6-time member of team USA

She is the co-author of, The Happy Runner: Love the Process, Get Faster, Run Longer and co-host of the popular podcast, "Some Work, All Play"

You can also hire her or their coaches at SWAPRunning.

Check out this past episode with Megan and David about their book.