There’s a lot of misinformation about training plans for marathons, 5ks, and other races. In this episode, Coaches Caroline and Valerie separate fact from fiction.

Timestamps of big takeaways

Running Easy or Hard

[00:22] There's no such thing as easy running because running is hard. You run for the challenge and for the connection of using your body.

[01:41] If you're given a running pace, the first question is, how do you run? You can joke about how easy or difficult a run is, but what does that mean? Just because you can run a 10-minute mile doesn’t mean you ran it efficiently, let alone correctly.

[05:08] First, learn how to run because you might be spending too much time on the ground which is causing your speed to suffer.

Adjusting Your Mentality

[05:27] If you’re meeting a certain number of miles in a certain amount of time, but you haven’t been running for a while, your speed could change. In fact, if it’s been a while, you might not even be able to go the distance you once did.

[06:03] Coach Valerie tells a story about a client who likes to run faster every time she runs. And then the next time she went running, she'd return to her regular time and couldn't surpass her faster records. She hasn’t given her body a chance to adapt. That's why coaches Valerie and Caroline teach you to work with where you are today to improve tomorrow.

Progressing Step by Step

[08:43] When training a dog, you can’t just command them to sit and stay when your dog has only learned how to sit. You have to build up to it, and you must go through stages. Similarly, you must progress at whatever rate your body and mind are working.

Connecting with Your Mind

[10:52] When you connect with your mind it’s a beautiful thing. Coach Valerie loves to see when people start to feel the feeling of running and when they desire to feel that again.

Training Plans

[12:06] Coach Valerie has been writing training plans for 20-plus years. And none of her plans have time associated with how far you run. All of her plans are either interval by distance. For example, 400 meters, 800 meters, one mile, or however many miles. But none of the plans she has ever written tell a person how fast to run them.

[12:50] Coach Valerie shares when she ran for 40 minutes without a watch because she just wanted to enjoy a good run. She completed 5 miles of running. The lesson: it was less about how far she ran and more about how much fun she had while running. Some might say that's what easy running is, but you had to go on a journey to figure out what running was before it felt easy or relaxed.

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