The Running Public

After completing just 2 races in the past year, it is time for Brakken to sign up, show up, and get back to racing!

For the past 25 years, Rich has never stopped pursuing his goal of becoming the best runner and athlete possible. Why has he now, at the age of 39, seemingly reached new heights of fitness?

The Long Run is a staple of life for many distance runners. It is also pretty demanding on the body. Here are our favorite “bang for your buck” options!

Darla returns to talk injuries, rehab, holding on to fitness through cross training, and refusing to ever give back or back down.

Can you just do classic track workouts on the trails? Sure. But sometimes you need something specifically designed for your off road racing needs!

On Tuesday we covered the workouts that give you solid fitness benefits with very little recovery costs. Today we are taking the opposite stance: workouts that are crazy costly but have the potential for big improvements to your fitness and/or confidence!

Minimum recovery costs; maximum fitness gain. These are the workouts we find to be most repeatable, manageable, and enjoyable! We choose multiple options each for Speed, Threshold, and Tempo sessions.

Running is hard! Are you playing to your strengths as a runner or just banging your head against the wall?

Kirk was in California crushing marathon workouts and big mountain runs. Brakken was in Sweden… cross training? 

Scott H. Frey, Ph.D., Ed.M., is an award-winning scientist, mentor, and lifelong endurance athlete. For the past 30 years, he led a research program that focused on understanding the relationship between the brain and human performance and is now applying his methods to endurance athletes around the world. Visit cerebralperformance.com to learn more.

Professional runner and Guinness World Record holder Michael Wardian talks goals, recent runs and races, and his work with World Vision on a clean water initiative. 

When pace, gps or hr fails you during a race, having a metronome stride you can fall back on to ensure that you are pacing correctly is a huge advantage!

Sean is the founder and owner of Emergence Physical Therapy Strength and Running Performance Center in Redmond, Oregon, an ultra runner, and a holder of multiple Master's power lifting records.

Workout One: 12x 1000m w/ 1:00 float recovery. Workout Two: 10x 200m w/ 150m jog recovery.   Both workouts didn't quite go as planned and adjustments had to be made during. What do you take away from a workout that goes awry?    

Life and personal questions, generated randomly, answered by us? Sounds like Long Run material!

“I probably shouldn't do this cool local race because it doesn't fit in with the training block I'm currently in.” Sound familiar? Let's chat it out!

You asked and we delivered! Three years after our last chat with Derek about his journey with running and his battle with colon cancer, he rejoins the show to update us on his life, health, and running.

We take some time to talk through racing goals and pick each other's brains about the training needed to accomplish them!

Matt joins us to talk about: After three years of dealing with Long COVID, going from zero miles per week to racing a 100k Adapting his training to accommodate his body's “new rules” His new book: Chasing Mastery

Far too many runners choose their training volume based on what others are doing. This is how we think about the appropriate volume to train at!

We continue from where we left off last week with Kirk taking the lead on his most impactful takeaways from our early episodes.

How we approach them, our strategy, our training adjustments, and our expectations.

We have had the opportunity to listen to so many incredible individuals impart knowledge, wisdom, and warnings over the past 500 episodes. Today we recap some of the best lessons we've learned from others since starting this podcast.

Our current practices for injury prevention. How to implement hill work and at what grade of steepness. How Lactate Threshold HR and pace change over time. When to time trial and when to race. Plus more!

Why should runners lift? What is really considered strength training when it comes to endurance running? How often do we think a runner should lift? Do we prioritize performance or prevention of injury? And much more!

This isn't us telling you what shoes to get. We're not telling you what shoes we think are “good”. There is really no such thing as a “good” or “bad” shoe these days; just a shoe that does or doesn't work well for your foot and purpose. Today we discuss how to decide what shoes are likely to be a good match for your feet, your stride, and your terrain.

Cam is a renowned endurance athlete, through hiker, and all around outdoor adventurer. In 2024, between completing the Pacific Crest Trail and several other adventures, he slept outdoors more than indoors!

This is episode three in a series of Training Tuesdays explaining our rationale behind the way we think about and execute various pieces of our training. Today: How to approach your Off Season. 

Ian completed two of the tougher 100 mile races in the US this past year, despite never running a race longer than 65 miles prior. Today we chat about persevering, staying the course, and putting one foot in front of the other when you absolutely do not want to.

This is episode two in a series of Training Tuesdays explaining our rationale behind the way we think about and execute various pieces of our training. Today: Speed Development for distance runners. How much, when to do it, and how to know what exactly you need as a runner.

We lay out our training and racing goals & aspirations for the coming season!

We're kicking off a series of Training Tuesday episodes explaining our rationale behind the way we think about and execute varies pieces of our training. Today: the Pre-Race Warm Up. Most people do far too little. Some people do way too much. Either way, we're not telling just telling you HOW to warm up, we're telling the REASON we believe you should warm up a certain way.

One of us did a lot of running and racing. The other did a lot of rehabbing and dreaming about racing. We both learned a ton.

The world record holder in the 400m and 800m, Austin competed at the 2016, 2020, and 2024 Summer Paralympic Games, winning a gold and a bronze medal in Paris 24.

We discuss our recent training, team racing strategy, fueling during stage racing, and our reactions to the training principles David Roche implemented during his build to the Leadville 100.

How often should you look forward to your runs? How often should you feel good during a run? How should running (or missing a run) affect your daily life? Does race performance affect your self worth?

Ian Hosek combs through the social media clips from our 2024 episodes and questions us about things we've said that he disagrees with!

Traditional lifting vs CrossFit for runners Speed first vs Endurance first for a new runner How early to wake up before races and long runs Workout anxiety/doubts and more!

If you aren't an elite runner, is OCR style training your best way to improve your running?

When Betsy was diagnosed with MS she had two choices: give in, or go all in!

So you want to significantly raise your training volume but you can't safely run any more than you already are. What are your options for doing this in an outside the box manner?

How do I know if I need to work on speed or stamina? Should I give my coach another chance? Should I use the track for intervals? And more!

The US has seen countless global medals on the track in recent years, so why have we struggled to match that level of success in the Marathon?

After capturing second place at World's Toughest Mudder in 2023, Cali has spent this entire year chasing the source of chronic pain in her back, leg, and ankle. This episode is for anyone who has ever struggled with injury, motivation, rehab, or simply anyone who enjoys the power of the human spirit!

We're not necessarily talking about our best races, our fastest races, or the races we're most proud of. These are the races that changed us for the better, both as runners and as coaches. 

Today's episode is a rundown of the thirteen workouts that had the most impact on me as a runner and coach. Starting with my freshman year at Campbell University in 2005 and moving through my training years in Colorado in 2015, this is a decades worth of lessons learned via hard work.

You are either injured or you will be. There is almost no way around it. But that doesn't mean training has to stop! Today we break down everything you need in order to build and execute highly effective cross training workouts. You may not need this right now in this moment, but store it away until you do!

The off season is a great time to back off your interval intensity a bit, rest your body and mind, and stay away from training styles that are prone to wearing you down. But, it is also a perfect time to send it! Run some time trials, crank on the last few miles of the long run, jump in some random races! When done appropriately, and in moderation, this can keep your off season stimulating and it can even make you a better racer next season.

We have 20 mini topics to discuss and we go through them like a Quality Long Run. We have to pick whether to spend 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 minute on each topic. We complete four rounds of this. If you run faster during the “rest” period between answers and run easier during the answers themselves, you will complete a 2 hour long run with 60 minutes of faster running throughout it! Or you can just listen the normal way.

What do you do if your Off Season is approaching but you aren't wanting to actually take time off? What if you just want to build some fitness without following a super specific plan? Let's explore it!