0:00

Rather, Than. Fat.

0:03

Know. This is episode

0:05

three thirty five with American record

0:08

holder in the one hundred mile

0:10

in twelve hour events for time

0:13

National Champion Running Coach in host

0:15

of the Human Performance Outliers podcast

0:17

Zach Bitter. Welcome.

0:28

To the Strength Running Podcast on

0:30

your host coach, Jason Fitzgerald. In

0:32

my singular goal is to help

0:34

you improve your running by getting

0:36

stronger, racing faster, preventing more injuries,

0:38

in achieving more of your goals.

0:41

I'm a monthly columnist for Trail

0:43

Runner Magazine, a to Thirty nine

0:45

marathoner, and author of The Performance

0:47

Training Journal on Amazon. You. Can

0:49

learn more about the and strength

0:52

running at Strength running.com. And.

0:54

If you enjoy the show please support

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2:19

My guest today is a Titan in

2:21

the ultra-running and podcasting world. Zach Bitter

2:23

is a former 100-mile world

2:26

record holder and now the current American record

2:28

holder in both 100 miles and 12-hour events.

2:32

He's a four-time national champion at the 50-mile 100k

2:35

and 100-mile distances, spanning an impressive

2:39

10-year span from 2012 through 2021. He's the winner

2:41

of the 2019 San Diego 100, the

2:47

2016 Javalina 100, and the

2:50

2012 and 2015 Ice

2:52

Age 50 miler. He's also

2:55

completed for Team USA's world

2:57

100-kilometer team on three occasions.

3:00

And don't miss his podcast, Human

3:02

Performance Outliers. We're focused

3:04

on endurance in this episode. I couldn't

3:06

think of a better person to discuss

3:08

how to gain massive aerobic capacity than

3:10

the American record holder in both the

3:12

100-mile and 12-hour distances.

3:15

We're going to explore Zach's background

3:17

in the sport, what it feels

3:19

like when you pace a 100-miler

3:21

really well in the final 20

3:23

miles, what Zach's training looks like

3:26

on a macro level, and we'll

3:28

attempt the big question. With all that we

3:30

know, how can most runners

3:32

go about building massive aerobic engines?

3:35

This is also a topic that I've

3:37

covered numerous times on Strength Running's

3:39

YouTube channel, so if you want

3:41

more actionable advice to reach your

3:43

endurance goals, go to youtube.com/Strength Running.

3:46

And now without further delay, please enjoy

3:48

my conversation with none other than Zach

3:51

Bitter. Hey Zach,

3:53

welcome to the podcast. Hey, thanks for having me on.

3:55

Well, I am super excited to chat with

3:58

you. I feel like this conversation is is

4:00

a long time in the making, as

4:02

I've been a fan of yours for years, both

4:04

as an athlete and as a coach and thinker

4:07

in the running space. So

4:09

full disclosure, I really like your content and

4:11

advice for runners. Awesome, I guess that just

4:13

means we've both been running and thinking and

4:15

creating content for a long time, right? Yeah,

4:18

sometimes it feels like practically my entire

4:21

life. I

4:23

wanna talk about a lot of things in this episode, all

4:26

under the umbrella of building

4:28

a monster aerobic engine and gaining endurance.

4:30

You seem to be one of the

4:33

best people for this conversation. You're the

4:35

world record holder for the fastest 100

4:37

miler and the prior

4:39

world record holder in the 12 hour event. But

4:43

before we really dive into all that, I'd

4:46

love to hear more just about your background as an

4:48

athlete, Zach. When did you start running? When

4:50

did you learn that you had a

4:52

knack for incredibly long distances? Yeah,

4:55

so I got interested in running

4:57

long, I guess in college. I

5:00

didn't really realize how long long was until then.

5:02

I was probably a low mileage runner actually in

5:04

high school and kind of a seasonal athlete more

5:06

or less, but I had to kind of catch

5:09

up to my peers in college and

5:11

the coach that I

5:13

had was definitely kind of more of

5:16

a volume mileage based philosophy. So I

5:18

started playing around with that and discovering that that sort

5:20

of worked well for me. I

5:22

tend to be the type of person who

5:25

can respond quite well to kind of higher

5:27

volume stuff. Where I

5:29

have to be a little more kind of careful

5:31

is speed work development stuff and the inputs there

5:33

where I'll typically get a little

5:35

bit of overreach if I'm not too careful or

5:38

pick up an injury or something like that. So

5:41

mileage always was the one where I felt like I could

5:43

get away a little more than my peers where

5:45

they'd get injured a little bit before I would

5:48

and I could seemingly stack more miles on top

5:50

of the training without that happening. So after

5:53

college, I sort of

5:55

just, I wouldn't say I accidentally found my

5:57

way into ultra running, but I sort of

5:59

did. aware of it at that point. I

6:01

had decided that at some point in my life I

6:03

was probably going to do some ultra marathons but I

6:05

was in my early 20s at the time so I

6:07

was thinking like that'd be something I would do like

6:09

you know maybe in my 30s and

6:12

I happened upon a 50 mile

6:14

race though that was not too far from where I

6:16

was living when I was just searching for a race

6:18

to do and decided to

6:20

jump into it and just kind

6:22

of see what would happen and my thought

6:24

at the time was like well do it get the

6:26

experience so I have that kind of in my

6:29

back pocket to know what this is all about

6:31

and then probably go back to training for some

6:33

other stuff for a while and I did that

6:35

race loved it the

6:37

good and the bad and ended

6:39

up kind of jumping full into ultra running

6:42

that following year and did like 350 milers

6:45

in about a nine-week time frame and at

6:47

that point I was hooked so from it

6:49

would be 2012 onward I spaced be training

6:51

exclusive for ultra marathons and so

6:53

you started sort of in your mid to

6:55

early 20s as opposed to your 30s as

6:58

your original plan sort of was right yeah

7:01

yeah I think I was 24 when I did my first ultra

7:03

marathon and then I waited a full year to do

7:05

another one but then from there on in it was

7:07

all in on ultras so we're gonna

7:10

talk a little bit more about your current training

7:12

but from a historical perspective let's

7:14

put some numbers on what you were

7:16

just describing as you know maybe low

7:18

mileage in high school you started playing

7:20

catch-up in college and then you started

7:22

realizing hey I can run fairly high

7:24

mileage compared to my peers and be

7:26

okay with this what kind of

7:29

numbers are we talking about when when you're talking

7:31

about low medium high

7:33

mileage yeah yeah in high school

7:35

I never really exceeded like

7:37

say 20 to 30 miles per week that would

7:39

have been like a pretty heavy

7:41

week actually and it would have probably mostly been

7:43

in season it really wasn't until my senior year

7:45

that I started even running year-round so

7:48

you know a lot of like

7:50

three four maybe five mile runs and then

7:52

like the occasional like monster at the time

7:54

which is like a seven to eight mile

7:56

run and then in college it was sort

7:58

of an eye-opening experience actually I didn't

8:01

run my freshman year but then my

8:03

sophomore year I transferred to the University

8:05

of Wisconsin Stevens Point and they

8:07

had a track and cross country program pretty well

8:10

respected in the division three category so I thought

8:12

hey if I'm gonna be here and

8:15

do any sort of serious running I might as well see

8:17

what see what I can do if I can be on the

8:19

team so I met with a coach and he sort

8:22

of laid out just like the

8:24

development process for for the

8:26

athletes that he works with and he said like

8:28

most the incoming freshmen are encouraged to get around

8:30

50 miles a week in their kind of summer

8:32

training leading into that first season and that was

8:34

a pretty good mark his

8:37

sophomores and juniors would oftentimes be doing like

8:39

you know 60 or 70 miles as kind

8:41

of the next stage up and then by

8:44

the time you're a senior or some of

8:46

his more like experienced juniors would maybe be

8:48

doing sometimes up to a hundred miles per

8:50

week in the summer during their training program

8:52

so I remember thinking like

8:55

there's no way I'm ever gonna run like even

8:57

a 90 mile week like in my mind I

8:59

was thinking about just like well if I take

9:01

one day off and I run six days how

9:04

is that ever gonna happen it was just like

9:06

mind-boggling to me that that would ever be something I would

9:08

do so I was like pretty

9:11

pretty reluctant to think that that was something

9:13

that would happen but you know you start kind

9:16

of going through the process and you start

9:18

realizing like yeah you don't normalize a 90 mile

9:20

training week when you're running you know 30

9:22

at that time maybe 40 miles

9:24

per week at most overnight

9:27

so you first get to 50 and then

9:29

you start feeling comfortable around there and you

9:31

let the adaptation sit in and then you

9:33

get to the spot where you feel like

9:35

you can add a little bit more without too much risk

9:37

and overreach and then next thing you know it you're not

9:39

too far away from 90 miles a week so I think

9:41

by my summer before

9:44

my senior year I hit

9:47

some 90 mile training weeks and

9:50

had sort of redefined in my mind

9:52

exactly what that meant After

9:54

college, I started playing around with even higher volume

9:56

than that. I was hitting some hundred hundred twenty

9:58

mile training weeks. Fairly consistently.

10:00

Ah, I sort of like stepped away

10:02

from speed work for a while though,

10:04

so I was like a little bit

10:06

maybe worn out from that side of

10:08

the training process and kind of just

10:11

reality did almost all my training load

10:13

into just building up. Volume.

10:15

In that's kind of how I gotta to

10:17

have higher numbers and it really wasn't until

10:19

I probably got a couple years removed from

10:21

that in started. Taking. Racing a

10:24

little more seriously with like altar of marathons and stuff

10:26

that I got back to doing some speed Web development

10:28

phase is when I get a year to a point

10:30

where it's like. You. Start to like rape.

10:32

Recognize that that input hasn't been there for

10:34

awhile and a half. Some consequences if you

10:36

don't get around to doing it. So I

10:38

sort of restructure the where we train our

10:40

at that point when I can have that

10:42

higher mileage foundation in place. It was probably

10:44

good spot the state reintroducing some of that

10:47

stuff. I love how running

10:49

helped you redefine what was possible

10:51

from a mileage perspective, but I

10:53

just love the parallels to every

10:55

other area of your life. Were

10:57

running can help you redefine what's

10:59

possible. In. So many other different

11:01

areas of your life to and it's to

11:03

start. A. Learning process that

11:05

running helps reinforce and then

11:07

you can. Apply it to

11:10

so many other different spaces. Yeah no absolutely.

11:12

and it's It's one of those things where

11:14

I feel like my my college experience as

11:16

a whole was like I'm using nothing that

11:18

I did in college he says as of

11:21

as a professor at this point but when

11:23

I think about just like the big the

11:25

lessons it was like what you just sad

11:27

were was yeah you have this huge thing

11:29

met you're you're you're supposed to get to

11:31

you're gonna try to get to. but if

11:34

you don't step back and realize there are

11:36

multiple steps I need to do on the

11:38

way here I. Need to be aware of

11:40

weather's and goals are by. Also be aware

11:42

that these earlier steps need to be done

11:45

and done well first. Before I didn't really

11:47

start stressing about what those are, so that

11:49

happened with Running For Me. It also happened

11:51

every semester. Because you do, you get your

11:53

like your syllabus of what was coming up.

11:56

You can look at literally everything you had

11:58

to do that semester know? So. He

12:00

to think like how my ever gonna do this

12:02

but then when you actually start unpacking and realize

12:04

if you spread it out over for four months

12:07

or so than this is is really not that

12:09

bad just management. Yeah. This this

12:11

is really interesting to me especially like

12:13

how you went about building your mileage

12:15

over the years cause i i i

12:18

think taking that very methodical approach where.

12:20

You. Know I love this analogy of you

12:23

know one small bite at a time,

12:25

you taken a small by the the

12:27

apple you know, every quarter, every semester

12:29

and to gradually pushing the envelope with

12:31

the mileage and it wasn't like a

12:33

happened in a year, didn't start running

12:35

one hundred miles a week and your

12:37

second year of running you know we're

12:39

talking about year. Eight Nine Ten

12:41

where you finally started getting into some

12:43

of those really high mileage levels. And

12:45

it just shows how long it takes

12:47

for the body to really adapt to

12:49

such a high level of work. I'd

12:52

love to fast forward a little

12:55

bit to Twenty nineteen, you randy

12:57

hundred mile world record. He ran

12:59

eleven hours, nineteen minutes, and thirteen

13:01

seconds, which is about. Six.

13:04

Forty eight per mile if my math

13:06

is correct. Zach when I

13:08

think about a performance like this which is

13:10

basically for sub three marathons in a row.

13:13

You. Know my first thought is. Just

13:15

what an incredible performance. I can barely

13:17

wrap my head around it's but at

13:19

the other time, on the other side

13:22

of the coin I'm thinking Zach was

13:24

probably and zones who for this entire

13:26

time and I'm just curious. like what

13:28

does it's feel like. Because. This

13:30

is an L hundred miler that you ran

13:32

on a track so it's very different than

13:34

say, Some. Of the one hundred

13:37

mile or that I'm familiar with the

13:39

I Go spectator Leadville One Hundred. Ah,

13:41

a lot and you know used to

13:43

these high mileage or up high altitude

13:46

very high elevation scenes. Titles: Ultra Marathons.

13:49

When. You're running zone to on a

13:51

flat surface for over eleven hours. At

13:53

this is relatively easy effort for you.

13:56

Can. You describe what it's seals like

13:58

in the later stages of race you

14:01

know. Miles, eighty, two, a hundred, what

14:03

are you going through And and does

14:05

it. Does. This feel like an

14:07

all day pace to you or. At

14:10

the end of this kind of an effort, does

14:12

it feel like you're racing? I think

14:14

for a lot of people it it is.

14:16

This is an alien scenario for them so

14:18

I'd love to hear very this release what

14:20

it's like to go through it. Yeah.

14:22

Yeah, that was an interesting race and

14:24

actually an interesting year for me because

14:27

I sort of flights a paradigm shifts

14:29

to some degree where I think my

14:31

mindset with Ultra Marathon up until that

14:33

point was really similar to what I

14:35

think a lot of people still look

14:37

at it as which is amid a

14:39

little bit more of a survival event

14:41

where you've got this like large task

14:43

and you sorta have this. This.

14:45

Like background message in your head that

14:47

no matter what you do whether you

14:49

go like. Like ridiculously.

14:52

Slow relative what you could tolerate.

14:54

It's gonna be painful and kind

14:56

of boring and. Uncomfortable

14:58

at the end because it's just a lot of

15:01

work no matter how you get around it.

15:03

So I think there's this mindset, olds running were

15:05

ten miles seventy. do a hundred or eighty

15:07

to one hundred are just gonna suck. So. The.

15:10

Mindset that goes to well as it bank

15:12

time early when my legs are fresh from

15:14

my my distress and. I've. Sort

15:16

of sort of reverse. That process works. I don't

15:18

think of it that way. I think of it

15:20

as like you're mine. Embarrassing of like a battery

15:23

were. like if I start like burning those things

15:25

too much to earlier than yeah, I'm gonna be

15:27

running on low batteries at the end of the

15:29

race when I want to have. Energy.

15:32

To actually execute So the other way to

15:34

think about it is like when I get

15:36

to the end of one hundred mile race,

15:38

even that race you mention And twenty nineteen.

15:41

That. Pace At Six forty eight, pace

15:43

is relatively easy. Like any day the

15:45

we've got to get out and run

15:48

that pace without too much trouble and

15:50

not think twice about it. So why

15:52

is a difficult at the end of

15:55

the event? So my my thought is

15:57

that like it's difficult because you've mentally

15:59

expanded some energy are potentially physically if

16:01

you went out like aggressively too fast

16:04

for me to cross your robot threshold

16:06

who frequently And things like that, mismanaged

16:08

fuel and stuff like that's awesome. Vs

16:11

putting his of a position where you're sort of

16:13

the sitting there and waiting and then you get

16:15

to like seventy and eighty and you start thinking

16:18

okay this is just kind of like. Another

16:20

long run that I could. Easily.

16:23

Speed up if I needed to but I still

16:25

have to be a little patience so you can

16:28

sort of a said attacking the course at the

16:30

end and I'm I've made a mess this up

16:32

more often than I've gotten it right for sure.

16:34

but when you get it right it's just a

16:37

totally different experience. Were like by the end of

16:39

that race I did feel like I was racing.

16:41

I actually ran my fastest splits at the end

16:43

of that race. I basically like progressed from like

16:46

seventy or eighty in from my pace saw my

16:48

ass splits for the day from the first half,

16:50

the second half were two minutes faster and the

16:52

second fifty. Miles in the first fifty

16:54

miles. So it was awesome. It

16:57

was a little different, wasn't like survival and

16:59

up until then I'd only had one other

17:01

hundred mile race where I didn't really feel

17:04

like I was holding on for dear life

17:06

at the end vs attacking and that has

17:08

kind of put me in a position where

17:10

now I sort rethinking about like okay, Step.

17:14

One is kind of figuring out just like

17:16

what is a reasonable target. And

17:18

then from there, Pacing. And

17:20

away where you're not looking at it. At

17:22

a point where I'm going to be aggressive

17:25

beyond my a goal early on to the

17:27

degree where I set up a situation where

17:29

I'm surviving it's again. but I am. I

17:31

more kind of attacking the course. so ah

17:33

yeah, it's it's. It's. Really an

17:36

interesting thing and it's almost. I

17:38

am fears about this because so

17:40

few people actually go about the

17:42

racing this way that it's something

17:44

where I quests sometimes. Whether that's

17:46

just a psychological thing to were

17:48

like certain runners. if

17:50

you find yourself early on holding back to

17:52

the degree that i did that day you

17:54

may find yourself just kind of creating anxiety

17:57

to visit us like kind of waiting too

17:59

much I had the added advantage of

18:01

it was essentially a time trial in the sense that

18:03

I was really the only person going after a 100

18:05

mile split of that caliber that day. So I

18:08

wasn't dealing with the background noise of letting the

18:10

field get out ahead of me or anything like

18:12

that. Whereas in a lot of the other races,

18:14

I suspect that's what the hiccup

18:16

is sometimes where it's like if someone went

18:18

out for an even paced race at a

18:21

course like Western States or Leadville, they'd find

18:23

themselves well behind first place. And

18:26

you have to be okay with that. You have

18:28

to be comfortable with that and almost get excited

18:30

about it and just know, okay, if

18:32

we look at the data for just

18:34

races at the 100 mile distance, even

18:37

the top ones, it's oftentimes not

18:39

just a positive split, but a relatively

18:41

aggressive positive split. So if you

18:43

even split or even just slightly positive split, you're

18:45

going to be running faster than the people ahead

18:47

of you. And then it just becomes a numbers

18:50

game of like, is there enough time

18:52

to close that gap? And did you

18:54

actually pick the right split? And that's always the hardest part

18:56

because unlike the marathon and shorter

18:58

distances, you just can't get anywhere near race

19:00

distance and training. So you are extrapolating like

19:03

data from your training to determine. I think

19:05

that's been my hardest thing to do since

19:07

then is just like I

19:09

had some injuries like

19:12

after that race, not right after the race, maybe a

19:14

year and a half or so after that race, where

19:16

it's like I have kind of a protocol that worked

19:19

really well for me that year, but now I have

19:21

to kind of get back to the fitness level I

19:23

was there to make those numbers that I would have

19:25

been targeting there applicable

19:27

for a pacing strategy on a course like

19:30

that. It seems like the

19:32

evolution of how 100 mile

19:34

races are run is now

19:36

converging closer to how

19:38

most other distances are run where you don't go

19:40

out super fast, you know, maybe with the exception

19:42

of like the 800 meters, but a

19:46

more even split is generally

19:49

considered a sound racing approach

19:51

in most other distances. You know, you don't

19:53

want to go too fast because then you

19:55

just blow up and it seems

19:58

like that's been the way in a lot

20:00

of. a hundred milers over the years and

20:02

you're pioneering almost like the old school approach

20:04

to racing where you're like, I'm not going

20:06

to go out super fast and blow up.

20:09

I'm going to have a more reasonable first

20:11

half so that I can have a stronger

20:13

second half. I'm curious

20:16

why the times,

20:18

records and podium finishes are

20:21

still using this sort of,

20:23

it almost seems outdated this go out

20:25

fast and don't slow down as much

20:28

as your competitors approach. Yeah, it's a

20:30

great question. My theory is

20:32

the sport just hasn't gotten to the point

20:34

where we've seen kind of the maximal talent

20:36

input that is required to force people to

20:38

do it. So you have a

20:41

situation where let's say

20:43

you're like a Jim Walmsley or someone like

20:45

that and you go to a hundred mile

20:47

race, even a really competitive one

20:49

like Western States, chances

20:51

are like you're more fit

20:53

than everyone else out there. So your

20:57

incentive is not necessarily

20:59

like I have to execute this

21:01

from a perfect pacing standpoint. I've

21:03

got some opportunity to play around

21:05

here. And if we

21:08

step away from even that kind of extreme example and

21:10

just look at just like the front of the pack

21:12

of any competitive race, I

21:14

really think what it is is it just

21:16

takes one person to really

21:19

get out a little too fast and

21:21

then it's going to bring the rest of the field

21:23

with it. So nobody has

21:26

paid the price dearly enough in my

21:28

opinion to change the way that they're

21:30

racing. So if we had

21:32

a scenario where like now let's say like

21:34

the individuals who were or let's just imagine

21:36

this scenario. Let's imagine that we have our

21:39

current kind of stable of like top tier

21:41

ultra marathoners at the hundred mile distance. Let's

21:43

say a whole new group came under like

21:45

a dozen people and

21:47

they were equally as talented

21:51

as this group that's currently there. But

21:54

this new group started even

21:56

pacing and just started beating these

21:58

guys by twenty. 30 minutes because of

22:00

it. They would have

22:03

to adjust in order to accommodate for the

22:05

fact that now they're all of a sudden

22:07

no longer able to compete that way because

22:09

someone out strategized them essentially. I

22:11

suspect that will happen. I think we'll get to a point

22:14

where the level of talent that

22:16

comes into the ultramarathon running scene and

22:19

the 100 Mile type stuff gets to the

22:21

point where if you decide to race like

22:23

that, you're going to pay such a dear

22:25

price where it's no longer about kind

22:27

of this mentality of like I go out hard

22:30

and survive and get my win even though I

22:32

had a 30 minute positive split to if I

22:34

do that, I'll be lucky to sniff a podium.

22:39

We see this I think at like a lot of

22:41

kind of the more historic races too where you actually

22:44

have a fairly high data collection opportunity like a race

22:46

like the JFK 50 Mile. You

22:49

can get even more specific I guess with

22:51

some of the like more timed events like

22:54

I've done or the loop type courses where

22:56

the terrain doesn't change so you can really

22:58

actually look and see exactly what an even

23:00

split would look like. Those

23:02

just tend to be a little less tested in the current

23:04

era. So I find

23:06

it sometimes more interesting to almost look at the trail side

23:08

of things. I love hearing your

23:11

perspective on sort of the evolution of

23:13

race strategies and some of these really

23:16

long races. I'd love to

23:18

switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit more about

23:20

the training side of things. This

23:23

is the endurance episode. You're

23:25

the world record holder in 100 miles. So

23:28

you're such a great person to ask about this. Let

23:32

me ask something very specific that is specific

23:34

to you Zach. You know I saw on

23:36

your Instagram recently you ran an easy base

23:38

run at a heart rate of 149 beats

23:40

per minute. I

23:43

think your average pace was 627 per mile. Now

23:47

I look at that and I go well that

23:49

just seems like a normal base run for Zach

23:51

Bitter but I'm sure a lot of

23:53

runners might look at that and think there's no way

23:55

that was easy. There's no way that's

23:58

zone two. You're clearly in zone two. zone

24:00

three at a heart rate of 149. What

24:02

do you have to say

24:04

to that? And we're going to talk a little

24:06

bit more about zone two and zone three, but

24:08

from this specific example, how

24:11

do you think about heart rate, easy

24:13

runs, keeping things manageable,

24:15

and what actually is easy for

24:17

you? Yeah, I'll just quick jump

24:21

in with I'm actually the 100 mile American

24:23

record holder now, so it did get broken.

24:25

I don't want to take too much credit

24:27

for one time for world record holder. Yeah,

24:29

I was at one point. Yeah, they can't

24:31

take that away from me. But yeah, no,

24:35

it makes sense. I mean, I get questions about

24:38

that a lot too, because people are, they're curious

24:40

and you know, with heart rate too, it's one

24:42

of those things where it's like, you can have

24:44

some some variance with that as well as like,

24:46

where is your actual like zone two number going

24:48

to cross over at. So you know, for me,

24:50

like, I have a little

24:52

bit of a higher kind of max heart rate,

24:54

I suspect in terms of just like where my

24:57

ranges would maybe get get calculated. But if I'm

24:59

in like the 150 to 155 range, that's basically

25:01

where my

25:03

aerobic threshold is going to be. So if I

25:05

start crossing over and I start pushing up into

25:07

kind of like the high 150 low

25:10

160s, that's where I start crossing over into

25:12

that territory where like, I'm

25:14

gonna like take on a much bigger training

25:16

load if I continue this for a meaningful

25:19

duration versus kind of in that, that

25:21

mid to low 150 range, that's a range

25:23

where I've had 100 mile races where my average

25:25

heart rate is in the 150. So it's just

25:28

like, you know, it's one

25:30

of those things where it's like, just when you look at

25:33

what you can sustain for

25:35

certain durations, it starts to make

25:37

a little more sense to people. Yeah,

25:40

and it's just one of those things where I just

25:42

use that as kind of like a data point, since

25:44

I know that I can run, you know,

25:46

12 plus hours at a heart rate of

25:49

around that 150 number, my

25:51

goal then becomes, how

25:53

do I get my pace as fast as

25:55

possible at that intensity? And

25:58

the lower I can get that, the more

26:00

tools I'm like, or I guess you

26:03

could say the more mistakes I can make, but

26:05

the more opportunity I have to have

26:07

a smooth, well executed 100 mile race without

26:11

feeling like things are gonna fall apart on me

26:13

if I make a small error or

26:15

something like that. I have a little more flexibility if I have

26:18

a mile that's a little faster than it should be or

26:20

something like that. So my goal

26:22

in training anytime I'm doing 100 mile

26:24

races essentially to first establish

26:26

a strong base at that spot, drop

26:30

in kind of a speed work development phase after

26:32

that to kind of just move the pace

26:34

at that system as

26:37

low as I can get it, reasonably speaking

26:39

with the timeframe I'm dealing with and then

26:41

go through a long run development phase specific

26:43

to the 100 mile with kind

26:45

of targeting around that heart rate range or whatever

26:47

I plan on trying to sustain for the duration

26:50

of the event. And yeah,

26:53

I mean, I've gotten that pace

26:55

down. I mean, in optimal conditions, I rarely get

26:57

those now in Austin just because the routes I've

26:59

chosen and then the humidity sometimes just kind of

27:01

like toys with the lip. When I was living

27:03

in Phoenix, I had like almost

27:06

two optimal training conditions at

27:08

times where it's like, it's almost un-comparable. When

27:11

you go anywhere else where you get

27:13

these long canal path stretches, pancake flat,

27:15

no turning, you'd go under underpasses over

27:18

the busy roads you hardly even had to

27:20

stop. You get a nice cool dry morning

27:23

out there. And I had a training

27:25

block where I was just at a 150 to one, like

27:27

155 would probably have been closer to 155 average. I

27:30

was hitting like six flat, maybe

27:32

even a pinch under six flat for some

27:35

of those runs. So that's

27:37

kind of like, when I can get

27:39

it down to that far, that's when I know like,

27:41

okay, if I go out to like a track event

27:43

where it's really controlled, if the weather

27:45

isn't bad, then if

27:48

I'm targeting a pace similar to what I did in 2019,

27:51

there's enough buffer between there and

27:53

what I could do at a heart rate that

27:56

Isn't super unsustainable for that

27:58

duration. If you give me

28:00

a lot of confidence to be feel like okay I

28:03

can, I can kind of stick this pace without worrying

28:05

about it being too aggressive. Now instead focus on the

28:07

feeling and hydration side of things. You're. Making

28:09

me feel better that my pace is

28:11

sometimes so slow when I'm at six

28:13

thousand feet altitude. like running up the

28:15

side of a mountain set a settle

28:17

for you down a highway like system

28:19

and seven B S a T's Now

28:22

that you've mentioned aerobics thresholds. this this

28:24

zone being you know, somewhere in the

28:26

the low to mid one fifty heart

28:28

range for you. When. You say

28:30

aerobics thresholds would he mean by that? Yeah

28:32

so it's just kind of like that first

28:34

ventilator a crossover point where I would say

28:36

like a lot of peace and we the

28:38

problem with any visitor these and earns terminology

28:40

is is is probably like half a dozen

28:42

names for everything we talk about and then

28:44

it's like the actual like training coaching like

28:46

terminology and and like a physiological terminology. the

28:48

author news so like. Most people listening

28:51

better like trained a probably see that

28:53

as like the top a zone to

28:55

where if you go any faster going

28:57

to cross over into zone three or

28:59

the way I like to look at

29:01

it is I guess the very end

29:03

of the easy category. If I go

29:05

past that I'm now entering moderate intensity

29:07

and you're going. I just have like

29:09

everything from just the sustainability of that

29:11

duration from like a metabolic standpoint as

29:13

well as as the wave and bill

29:15

physically tolerated is gonna start to drop

29:17

a lot more aggressively. So it's a.

29:20

I. Call it like kind of the no go

29:22

zone with hundred mile Link has is a even

29:24

if you get on the super controllable courses like

29:27

I sometimes do. I just think when you're pushing

29:29

past your robot threshold for any meaningful them on

29:31

a time you're starting to really play with fire.

29:34

Yeah, I just had of a exercise

29:36

physiologist on the podcast and and like

29:38

you said, you know that training and

29:40

coaching terms are usually a little bit

29:42

different than some of the physiology terms

29:44

and he probably would call your zone

29:46

to threshold. Right

29:48

when you start crossing into Zone three. What?

29:51

it what are your thoughts on zone three

29:53

to that there's this current climate in the

29:55

fitness world not just even in the running

29:57

world's but a lot of folks who are

29:59

interested in just getting in shape, staying in

30:02

shape. I think the current longevity

30:05

trend is a great one and zone

30:07

two has been featured very prominently in

30:10

some longevity circles. But is

30:13

zone three really that bad for us?

30:16

Is it like, let's not run anything in

30:18

zone three? What are your thoughts on that?

30:20

Yeah, it's a great question. And

30:22

the way I look at this is if we

30:24

think of it as like an intensity spectrum, and

30:27

there's these kind of like crossover points that

30:29

we've chosen to measure, like

30:31

aerobic threshold, lactate threshold, and VO2 max are

30:33

probably the three that really stand out to

30:36

most people. They just tend to

30:38

be like these data points where there's probably some

30:40

shifting going on that we should be aware of

30:42

when we cross over from those. But really when

30:45

you go for a run, I like

30:47

to kind of rethink it as like, you're

30:50

gonna have a training load component to that

30:52

workout. And none

30:55

of it's good or bad necessarily, it just kind

30:57

of depends on what are your goals. So

31:00

if I have someone go and run like a

31:02

zone three run, or they just happen to run

31:04

a zone three run, it's

31:06

not that that's like bad, like they failed

31:08

because they weren't doing something in the zone

31:11

two category or they weren't going fast enough

31:13

to be like really doing a proper lactate

31:15

threshold, like tempo run or of the O2

31:17

max short interval session or something like that.

31:20

It would just be like, well, you're

31:22

gonna benefit from that. Like if that

31:24

training load is something that isn't something

31:27

you've already adapted to, it's

31:29

gonna create a stimulus and it's gonna have

31:31

a bleed over effect into those other areas.

31:33

It's not like because you ran in zone

31:35

three, the only thing you're gonna be better

31:38

at is zone three going forward. It

31:40

just may be a little bit less direct.

31:42

So then I start looking at it as

31:44

like, what's the opportunity cost of that? So

31:46

if I'm working with somebody and our goal

31:48

is to really kind of build their lower

31:50

intensity foundation, we may be careful

31:52

with how often they're crossing over zone two

31:54

into zone three, because the opportunity cost of

31:56

them doing zone three work is likely at

31:58

the amount of volume. can get away

32:01

with optimal recovery in the category we're

32:03

trying to train for. Or

32:05

if we switch over to a speed work development

32:07

phase and they start doing zone three work, we're

32:10

not going to probably be up into what I

32:12

would like them to do for short intervals and

32:14

long intervals, but it is going to be a

32:16

big enough stressor where they may end

32:18

up spending a lot of time in zone

32:21

two. They may be in

32:23

a position where they're having a

32:25

hard time executing their more higher quality

32:27

work because they're adding a big enough

32:29

stressor that they're not really recovering

32:31

enough for that next session or to the degree

32:34

where they can maintain the quality for that higher

32:36

stressor stuff. So I think it gets

32:38

a bad name because it tends to be in

32:40

between a lot of the focal points where

32:43

it gets interesting for a lot of people, though I

32:45

think is the marathon because now zone three kind of

32:47

becomes race pace for a lot of people. You have

32:50

a situation where if you're not like the very back

32:52

of the pack or the very front of the pack,

32:54

your race is going to probably be right in between

32:56

your aerobic threshold and your lactate threshold. It isn't until

32:58

you become like a low two

33:01

hour marathoner that you're pushing right up to your

33:03

lactate threshold for race day, and it's probably not

33:05

until you're well in the back of the pack

33:07

where aerobic threshold is something that you can't cross

33:10

over in in a race of duration

33:12

of, say, four or five hours. So

33:15

then it becomes a thing where it's like the

33:18

opportunity cost of, say, doing something in zone

33:20

three for someone training for a marathon should

33:24

be low at the end of the plan because

33:26

you've done all the work that would prepare you

33:28

to now get more specific with the race intensity

33:30

as you're going to train. And then you should

33:32

start thinking about how do I spend

33:35

as much time as I can get away with and

33:37

recover from working on what I'll actually be doing on

33:39

race day. So I think sometimes

33:41

it gets a bad name because it

33:43

doesn't fit this nice clean target. Like

33:46

we see with zone two, the

33:48

threshold with VO2 max, we're going to see

33:50

a VO2 max push coming pretty soon here

33:52

if we haven't already. That's going to be

33:54

the next one I think that kind of gets its

33:56

popular health longevity

34:00

nod to it. But yeah,

34:02

you probably just won't see zone three, because I think

34:04

they'll probably always look at that as something where it

34:07

becomes unless your performance suggests

34:09

to do it, which I

34:12

think most endurance athletes are going to have a time when

34:14

that would be the case. But

34:17

if you're thinking of it through just the

34:19

general health sphere, then they're thinking about what

34:21

we have a finite number of inputs we

34:23

can get away with with their like, what

34:25

does the data say like, this many hours

34:27

is on to this many like, four minute

34:29

intervals at VO two max, and they're going

34:32

to just try to prioritize that and be

34:34

as efficient as possible. In zone three, unless

34:36

your goal target is to run a fast

34:38

endurance race feels inefficient, because it's kind of

34:40

not hitting either of those kind of popular

34:42

longevity metrics that they came up with. So

34:45

that's what I kind of if we

34:48

want to look at it appear through the endurance

34:50

lens, though, I would say like, the cleanest criticism

34:52

of it is, if

34:54

you are focusing on those

34:56

specific points, then it

34:58

does kind of put you in a position

35:00

where it's kind of too fast to be

35:02

in that base building, if it's a meaningful

35:04

amount of your training, and it's too slow

35:07

to be like, really kind

35:09

of targeting that that may not matter. Though,

35:11

I actually think there's a huge component for

35:13

zone three training, if you're looking for like

35:15

a muscular endurance input to your to your

35:17

training, when you get to a point where,

35:19

like, take me, for example, if I see

35:22

like a plateauing in

35:24

my like zone two, but I'm not

35:26

at a point where I'm going to

35:28

drop a real speed work development phase

35:30

because of the timeline for my next

35:32

race, I might just start adding

35:35

some zone three, like maybe some zone three uphill

35:37

work and work on some like kind of muscular

35:39

endurance stuff where I'm not really afraid of that.

35:41

And I'm not really concerned if it bleeds into

35:43

some of the volume I spend at zone two,

35:45

because I've already done a lot of work there

35:47

where it's like, in order for me

35:49

to increase the Adaptations

35:52

I'm going to get from that I would have to

35:54

add more volume on top of something that's already very,

35:56

very high volume. So You start getting a lot less

35:58

opportunity to kind of keep. Doubling down on that

36:01

input. So. If I'm understanding this

36:03

right and I just want to make

36:05

sure it sounds like Zone three isn't

36:07

inherently bad, but it's just not the

36:09

the more com in direct zones of

36:12

effort that are really going to contribute

36:14

to a lot of your improvements. So

36:16

if you're someone who's really focusing on

36:18

building your mileage. Zone. Three might

36:21

negatively impact your ability to keep

36:23

building volume because it's a little

36:25

bit too difficult and. On

36:28

the flip side to that, if you're

36:30

someone who might be training for a

36:32

marathon when you start doing a lot

36:34

of marathon pace work, you're probably in

36:36

zone three. And that's actually very specific

36:38

case study of using Zones three. It.

36:40

Productively to help you achieve your

36:43

goals. So it's It's not really

36:45

good or bad, it's more. Let's

36:47

look at this from a nuance

36:49

perspective and see where does it

36:51

actually fit your goals and where.

36:53

Is. It may be detracting from the training

36:55

goals that you my house yeah be

36:58

a perfect yeah look at all as

37:00

kind of like Opportunity costs for.for a

37:02

lot of his stuff were like if

37:04

I want to maximize the amount of

37:06

like say the oh to max short

37:08

intervals I can get into a week

37:10

and recover from so than over the

37:12

course of say for six maybe even

37:14

eight weeks I'm gonna get the most

37:17

amount of volume at the highest quality

37:19

at that employs. Then if I'm doing

37:21

a lot of Zone Three work in

37:23

between assassins. It's likely going reduce that

37:25

number that I can get to and on the

37:27

other side is kind of the same. Of my

37:29

goal is to see how much volume I can

37:31

stack up at zone to or or underneath if

37:34

I'm starting to kind of dripped up in his

37:36

own. three to frequent is likely and a put

37:38

a lower ceiling on on how much of that

37:40

volume I'm able to get. So so if you

37:42

check those boxes our those boxes are in a

37:44

position where it's ready to check. I think that's

37:46

where you get a little more opportunity or like

37:48

in the case of the marathon were eventually he

37:50

got to start doing the specific the you'll be

37:53

doing on race. Day. So. that

37:55

he said something earlier that i really

37:57

wanted to paulsen is it was just

37:59

fascinating You said something

38:01

along the lines of my

38:03

goal is to run faster with

38:06

a lower heart rate. If

38:08

we could boil down the holy grail

38:10

of distance running to one goal, I

38:12

mean, that's it. That's the key

38:15

to running faster. It's basically keeping your

38:17

heart rate low while improving your speed.

38:19

That's going to have bleed over effects to

38:21

practically any type of race that you really

38:23

want to run. So, Zach,

38:26

I want to ask the big question. How

38:28

do we do this? How do we go

38:30

about building the aerobic engine that's capable of

38:32

running very fast while in

38:34

lower heart rate zones? What are

38:36

the ingredients that contribute to this

38:39

holy grail goal that we're looking

38:41

for? Yeah, I like this

38:43

question. I also like

38:45

to answer it in what I think is more

38:47

of a practical way because you end up in

38:50

this situation where there's probably

38:52

too much individuality in terms of

38:54

how much someone can tolerate if

38:56

everyone was given an infinite amount

38:58

of time to train. So,

39:00

I try to step away from that because that's not

39:02

the reality for really anyone other than professional athletes. And

39:05

even for them, there's a spot before they run out

39:07

of time where they're going to probably break down and

39:09

have a margin of diminishing returns. But

39:11

let's just say, for example, we're working with somebody

39:13

who is, you know, they've got a full-time job,

39:16

they've got a family, they do all the normal

39:18

stuff, but they're also training for this

39:20

race. And they sit down and

39:22

determine, well, I have 10 hours

39:24

per week to dedicate towards training

39:26

for this event. If

39:28

I'm coaching them, my first thought is,

39:30

at first, we're going to unpack on what they're doing. So,

39:33

we have a background of kind of where their global fitness is at

39:35

and like where their inputs are coming from and try to get

39:37

an idea of like where their strengths and weaknesses are at. But

39:40

from there, in most cases, the

39:42

first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to try

39:44

to maximize that amount of volume

39:46

they have available to them at low intensity training.

39:48

So, if they come and they're running six or

39:50

seven hours a week, I'm

39:52

not going to start throwing speed workouts at them.

39:55

I'm going to first say, okay, let's first get

39:57

up to that 10 hours at this kind of

39:59

zone. intensity per

40:02

week and see what paces

40:04

that's producing. And as long as we're seeing

40:06

that pace coming down, we can

40:08

spend more time in that. Everyone

40:12

has a timeline usually, so eventually you want to kind of pivot

40:14

from that. In most cases, if they have

40:16

like a real strict race goal or something

40:18

like that. But if someone says like, I

40:21

don't have a specific race I'm trying

40:23

to necessarily peak for or I do,

40:25

but my long term goal is just

40:28

get as good as I possibly can. I don't care if

40:30

it comes at the expense of these first few races. We're

40:32

going to sit in that category basically

40:34

up until we see a plateauing where their

40:36

pace at that heart rate that is kind

40:38

of at their zone two, the top of

40:40

their zone two, just is no longer moving

40:42

with that 10 hours per week input. When

40:45

we start seeing that plateau, that signals

40:47

to me that we have, unless we

40:50

add another adaptation that increases their training

40:52

load, they're just going to essentially maintain

40:54

at that. So from

40:57

there, I'm going to drop a speed work development phase with them

40:59

because I don't have the option of pulling a lever of saying,

41:01

oh, well, we'll just go up to 12 hours per week and

41:03

see if we can get more movement on it. For that particular

41:06

person and their circumstances, 10 hours is the limit. So we're not

41:08

going to mess around past that. If

41:10

it was someone who's got more, then maybe we

41:12

would pull that lever further. But then I'll drop

41:14

that speed work development phase. And I'm going to

41:16

do that in an order of least to most

41:18

specific based on the race intensity that they're doing.

41:20

So if I'm working with someone training for say

41:22

like a hundred mile race, this is where we

41:25

might do some shorter intervals like the O2 max

41:27

target or the velocity

41:29

at the O2 max target for their

41:31

short intervals, then move into some longer

41:33

intervals closer to maybe their lactate threshold

41:36

as their speed work development kind of

41:38

progression versus someone who's doing like a

41:40

5K or a 3K

41:42

or something a little bit shorter. We

41:44

may start out with their threshold workouts first

41:46

and then start kind of phasing in some

41:48

the O2 max short intervals because we want

41:50

to be practicing those short intervals closer to

41:52

their race because that may actually be closer

41:55

anyway to their race day intensity.

42:00

development phase is going to be the thing

42:02

that kind of like will improve once we

42:04

go through that development and then go back.

42:06

So if I would just do that first

42:08

10 hours, see the

42:10

plateauing, then do

42:12

the spirit development phase when we come back to that. That's

42:15

where I often find is now when we

42:17

come back to it, reducing the speed work,

42:20

volume and just targeting that zone two again,

42:22

we see a faster pace at

42:25

that same heart rate or that intensity that they were

42:27

doing before. So I tend to look at these things

42:29

as like things like the heart

42:31

rate and the intensity that you feel when

42:33

or your perceived effort when you're doing something

42:35

like a zone two, a

42:38

threshold workout, a VO2 max

42:40

workout, those things are constant, those aren't going

42:42

to necessarily change. But what we will change

42:44

with the moving target is your pace at

42:47

that assuming everything else is controllable enough where

42:49

it's not like you were doing it in

42:51

60 degrees and now you're doing in 100 degrees or

42:53

like your example before where you're training on the

42:56

Phoenix Canal Path and you go up to Leadville, you're going to

42:58

get a little bit of variance in the pacing then too.

43:00

But I find like let's get really good

43:02

at identifying kind of how it feels to

43:05

run those different intensities and

43:07

work at moving things like pace in

43:09

like an environment. And a lot of people what they'll

43:11

do is we'll just pick like a route that

43:14

we can kind of more or less be a little

43:16

more accurate with our predictability. And this is maybe where

43:18

treadmills sometimes could be useful for people because

43:20

they can just control that environment a little more and

43:22

that doesn't mean you have to get on the treadmill

43:25

all the time. But we may just do an assessment

43:27

every few weeks to kind of see where things are

43:29

at with that more controlled environment and

43:31

see if our inputs are actually doing what we're trying

43:33

to do which is lowering

43:35

that pace at that intensity that we're targeting.

43:38

What if someone doesn't have that much

43:40

time to train? Is the advice just

43:42

scaled back to lower volume levels? Because

43:44

I know that 10 hours a week,

43:47

you know, we're looking at almost 90 minutes

43:50

a day of running. And

43:53

for a lot of runners, that's either

43:55

impossible with their schedules or their body

43:57

just won't handle that. So So

44:00

if someone's maybe only capable of half

44:02

that, five, six hours a week, is

44:05

the advice the same except we're just

44:07

going to continue to maximize our

44:10

time at that zone two effort

44:12

sort of as a base phase

44:14

at the beginning before moving into

44:16

that more speed-oriented phase? Yeah. So

44:20

I always find just when working with people, like we

44:22

sit down and we're like, well, what

44:25

are your non-negotiables in a sense? Like what

44:27

life circumstances are we just not going to

44:29

be able to compete with with training? And

44:31

if that adds up to a scenario

44:33

where they have five to six hours per week to

44:35

dedicate, or if it's just like,

44:38

that's what I'm willing to do for one reason or the

44:40

other, then we're going to work within that framework. I always

44:42

find that like, if we want to kind

44:44

of sum everything up as like the most important thing,

44:46

it's going to be consistency. So if

44:48

I'm programming 10 hours a week for someone who's

44:51

got five to six available to them, it doesn't

44:53

matter how great my programming is. They're

44:55

going to probably be inconsistent. They're going to feel

44:57

defeated all the time because they're missing essentially every

44:59

other workout at that point. It's

45:02

just going to be a bad setup. So you kind

45:05

of got to work with what they have available.

45:07

So yeah, you would do that. It would be

45:09

that same protocol just at a lower volume target.

45:11

And then that will impact speed work development phase to

45:13

some degree too, because I'm just less likely to have

45:17

as... The nice thing

45:19

about having a really large volume foundation is

45:21

it also opens up the door for a

45:23

higher amount of volume you can spend at

45:25

the speed work development phase. So this is

45:27

why the best in the

45:29

world we see oftentimes doing high volume

45:31

stuff. We don't see like Olympic marathoners

45:33

running 50 miles a week because they

45:35

would get... There's some

45:38

very, very good people running

45:40

very fast marathons at 50 miles a

45:42

week. But when you get to the

45:44

level of Olympic athlete, if

45:46

you're unable for one reason to the other to

45:48

put in that much stimulus,

45:51

essentially, there's going to be someone of equal

45:53

ability that is, and then they're going to

45:55

have a training advantage over you. Zach,

45:58

let's talk a little bit about your current

46:00

training. I'd love to hear how you structure

46:02

things for yourself. I'm not sure if it's

46:04

too much different from the entire approach that

46:06

you just outlined, but maybe we can talk

46:08

a little bit about when you are training

46:10

for a 100 miler, what kind of

46:15

a training cycle do you typically

46:17

look for for that kind

46:19

of a build? In terms of weeks, do

46:22

you set mileage targets? What

46:25

kind of workouts might you run for that? How

46:27

do you put everything together? Yeah,

46:30

so I

46:32

would say I set loose volume or

46:34

mileage targets, but then I'm looking at

46:37

certain things within

46:39

them as the indicators as to whether I

46:41

can add more or not before I move

46:43

on to the next stage. So oftentimes,

46:48

the urgency is eventually you have to get around to

46:50

picking a race. So regardless of what

46:53

timeline I would like, if I'm going to

46:55

do a race, say in June, then I

46:57

know if I'm starting today, I have this

46:59

much time. So then there's a

47:01

certain amount of spots where

47:03

I'm going to transition into the next phase and

47:05

I'll take what I get for this race based

47:07

on what I've available to

47:09

me versus if you had an endless

47:11

amount of time. But since I've been doing this for a

47:13

while, usually that's not a problem

47:16

I'm dealing with and I can pick races far

47:18

enough out because there's enough opportunities to line the

47:20

timeline up where I think I'm going to hit

47:22

those transition points when I would anyway. So

47:25

the way that usually looks is like the beginning of

47:27

my plan, I'm just trying to

47:29

confirm that I'm able

47:31

to kind of hit some historic standards in

47:33

terms of my pace at that kind of

47:35

zone two or that base foundation. I'm

47:38

usually trying to get up to a point where

47:41

I'm putting in without too much trouble a pretty

47:44

reasonable amount of volume per week. So that'll usually

47:46

be somewhere in the neighborhood of like 12, maybe

47:49

15 hours of running volume or

47:53

somewhere in the neighborhood of usually around 100 miles, 120

47:55

maybe at the most during that

47:59

phase. And then that'll

48:02

usually be like a phase of like, usually

48:05

at most, unless I'm coming off an injury or

48:07

like an extended off time, like eight weeks, at

48:09

that point, usually I'm at a point where like,

48:11

all right, I either need to add more volume

48:14

or like a speed work development phase because I'm

48:17

just not seeing this number go down any further

48:20

at this intensity with the volume inputs I'm

48:22

doing. So then I'll do a speed work

48:24

development phase that follows least specific to

48:26

most specifics. So if I'm training for a 100 miler, I'm

48:30

gonna do a phase of short intervals that are

48:32

gonna be pinned to like an intensity I can

48:34

sustain for about 12 minutes in all out effort.

48:37

And I'm gonna be doing those at like a one

48:41

to one work to rest ratio. So if it's say

48:43

like two minute intervals, I'll do

48:45

two minutes on, two minutes off. And

48:48

I'll spend anywhere

48:50

between four to eight weeks with

48:53

that being kind of like a target that I'll

48:55

do for my

48:57

kind of key workouts for the week before

49:00

kind of moving into long intervals that I'm

49:02

gonna pin to an intensity that could stand

49:04

for like 60 minutes

49:06

on a race day setting for

49:09

people that are looking to maybe like kind of find

49:12

how to maybe work this in their own training,

49:14

like 30 to 60 minutes is kind of like

49:16

a goal target for this intensity. I

49:19

really like just doing like, I mean,

49:21

you could always go into a lab and get

49:23

like a metabolic test done and get all these

49:25

numbers like spelled out for you, which

49:28

to some degree can be a gold standard, but

49:31

a lot of people aren't gonna be able to or

49:33

are gonna do that. So I find like most people

49:35

are gonna still wanna kind of use a field test

49:37

of some sorts to determine some of these things. I

49:40

just like a 30 minute time trial because if

49:43

we're looking at an intensity that's 60 minutes on

49:45

race day setting and it's kind of like

49:47

height for the average runner, then

49:50

we're looking at a scenario where like, if I

49:52

have you go out and just like an average

49:54

training day and do that

49:56

workout or do try to pinpoint What

49:59

that workout is. The odds of you getting

50:01

anywhere near what you'd be all the

50:03

do tapered add or a setting with

50:06

all that goes into that's with a

50:08

full development. It's. Just not going

50:10

to get to be sixty minutes. So we're

50:12

probably going to get closer to that number

50:14

by doing a thirty minute time trial in

50:16

training. and I can also tell them you

50:18

don't have that actually ring yourself dry on

50:20

the see their cars were targeting the low

50:22

end of what this intensity will likely entail

50:24

for you on race day. Setting targets, helm

50:26

the go to thirty minutes, give it a

50:28

good hard pushed, don't really get to completely

50:30

destroy yourself, but make sure you are focused

50:32

and giving it a good efforts and and

50:34

I'm going to use that intensity to do

50:36

like. Some long intervals be some long intervals

50:38

off of so that. Next day the training I'll

50:40

start to see if do that. With long as

50:42

one hundred miles I'll probably actually like focus on

50:45

some of these inputs. As as

50:47

the was one at a time for the

50:49

most parts. Ah, so insulting shorter. I might

50:51

blend some of this stuff into a more

50:53

pena traditional like structure with speed work where

50:55

you're doing like a short interval session and

50:57

along interval session in the same week in

51:00

your kind of building those in tandem. Ah,

51:02

but for hundred miles since it's so far

51:04

to the lower end of the intensity spectrum,

51:07

I tend to just go be specific with

51:09

the short intervals. First, transitional phase those out.

51:11

don't have a long intervals. I'll spend a

51:13

similar amount of time he wasn't as four

51:15

to six. we sometimes a little longer than

51:18

that. Ah, before I get to a point

51:20

where now I'm like. If.

51:22

I'm like if I'm coming off like more than

51:24

one training cycle or even multiple training cycles, these

51:27

windows use the shortened does I just don't need

51:29

as much input to kind of get back to

51:31

where I want to be? Ah, sometimes it can

51:33

be as short as four to six weeks for

51:35

I'll do like an ultra marathon longer and development

51:37

phase if I haven't done a lot of old

51:39

ultra marathon stuff for a while for one reason

51:42

or the other symptoms of stress a little longer

51:44

to eat others even ten weeks where. Now I'm

51:46

kind of. Pulling. back on speed

51:48

work and replacing that training load input

51:50

with more volume and during these phases

51:52

of training this is where i'll get

51:54

my high volume during the year is

51:56

now i'm targeting like the pace than

51:58

i'm gonna try that time on race

52:00

day if it's like a controllable race

52:02

like a track where I

52:05

might go out to say actually get out on a

52:07

track and do like a three three and a half

52:09

hour run where I'm hitting like you know something in

52:11

the mid six minute range to try

52:15

to replicate the intensity that I'll be doing on

52:17

race day and just stack as much volume as

52:19

I can on that kind of fitness that I

52:21

developed through that foundational phase and that speed work

52:23

development phase. So the way I look at that

52:25

is like since once I've moved

52:27

to race intensity target I

52:30

want to be doing that at the highest

52:32

just kind of general endurance fitness I can

52:34

get because then every minute input from that

52:36

is going to be a little bit at

52:38

a higher quality versus

52:40

if I come into that kind of like

52:42

unprepared or less fit specifically

52:44

to just like more of

52:46

a more general endurance event and

52:50

yeah that's kind of the peaking phase so I mean there'll be times

52:52

where I'll be hitting like 150 miles per

52:54

week during that because I've removed a huge

52:56

component of intensity and a lot of times

52:58

that's even a little bit lower than even

53:00

what I would be pushing up to for

53:03

kind of that base development phase from a

53:05

pacing standpoint. Sometimes

53:07

I'll keep in some like kind of threshold workouts

53:10

if I'm feeling like I'm bouncing back from workouts

53:12

really quickly and I'm just getting like I want

53:14

to kind of just test to see kind of

53:16

where that fitness is still at and and

53:19

kind of keep in the back of my mind

53:21

that like a minimal input will maintain a lot

53:23

of that and just kind of keep keep some

53:25

of that some speed work in there that I

53:27

don't see as being a big opportunity cost but

53:29

I'm gonna be putting a lot of my value

53:31

at that point into like back-to-back longer sessions where

53:33

I'm kind of pushing a little bit more volume

53:35

into like two or three days and

53:37

I'm getting really specific with both the environment

53:39

and the environment if I have access

53:42

to it but the

53:44

intensity specifically of what I'm trying to do on race

53:47

day and those weeks sometimes I'll get up to sometimes

53:49

even some 20-hour training weeks and things like that. Sorta

54:00

like pad the the volume numbers

54:02

or are you strictly running. Yeah.

54:05

It's a good question arms in a

54:07

pass. It was strictly running our do

54:09

like some strength work and things like

54:11

that and mobility. Ah I've done a

54:13

little more cross training now. I find

54:15

with like. I. Find with

54:17

the cross training stuff I think there's

54:19

probably a bigger value add for that.

54:21

If I was gonna do say like

54:23

a mountain race where there is can

54:25

be some appeal component to it and

54:27

things like that then I think like

54:29

stretching out the volume on on cross

54:31

training stuff has been useful. Although I

54:33

will say this like and thirty seven

54:35

I'm Terry Thirty eight. In. A few

54:37

weeks actually. so it's like it's one of those things were like.

54:40

Impact is the big limit or with

54:42

running an insurance we were procedures for

54:45

their it as a reason why triathletes

54:47

and cyclists have higher volume training plans

54:49

oftentimes than road do so. There's.

54:51

There's there's some value to. That's the

54:54

way I usually do look at. that

54:56

is if I'm going to say add

54:58

a cross training day I ask myself

55:01

like. What is the value

55:03

for this and is it interfering

55:05

with what I would be able

55:07

to do running wise. So if

55:09

I'm capable of running. More.

55:12

Without becoming a negative, I'm using

55:14

the default the that if I

55:16

have a scenario where I can

55:18

add this cross training mortal without

55:20

interfering with. What? I'm trying to target

55:22

on the running side of things. I. Will

55:24

do that from time to time. But

55:27

I. It's. It's usually

55:29

quite minimal. I'm not doing like

55:31

any like long cycle cycling sashes

55:33

or even most cases. Ah, I'm.

55:36

Usually. A becomes more com and let them

55:38

do like a trail. hundred miles of like that

55:40

I might get. It on like

55:42

on a bike or something and do some

55:44

some cycling said as think that mechanic is

55:47

going to feed into like an uphill climb

55:49

a lot More specifically then it will like

55:51

a flat track or something like that. ah

55:53

I might do some like. Some.

55:56

more like i guess you colleague

55:58

of robots strength work where like

56:00

I'm pushing or pulling a sled. I'll

56:03

do this muscular endurance kind of like lower

56:05

body session that at times can kind of

56:07

cross over into something that could be considered

56:09

cross-turn to some degree where it's like a

56:11

series of like either

56:14

body weight or light weighted

56:16

sessions of like lunges, jumping

56:19

squats, jumping split squats, back steps and things like

56:21

that. And if you get to kind of like

56:23

the final stages of the progression with those, like,

56:25

you know, I can do a series of those

56:27

where like my heart rate might be drifting up

56:29

into like the 121.30s for it because

56:32

of just like kind of the frequency

56:35

of that, of that

56:37

kind of circuit of training. So those are kind

56:39

of some of the things that I'll usually put

56:41

in. Most of my cross-training tends to be strength

56:43

work though. It's not like necessarily specific to the

56:46

running, the running side of things. What

56:49

does the strength training look like? Is it

56:51

primarily for injury prevention reasons? Like

56:53

you're trying to stay healthy with all the

56:55

volume that you're doing or are you trying

56:57

to gain power or force

56:59

production or any of those types of

57:01

goals? Yeah, for like the muscular endurance

57:03

stuff. So like the lunging and the

57:05

box steps and that sort of stuff,

57:07

that would be more to kind of

57:09

build that like that power side of

57:11

things. I'll do some other stuff just

57:13

from like an injury maintenance standpoint and

57:15

just from a balancing standpoint. So I'll

57:18

usually do like some hex bar deadlift stuff

57:20

as like the most of the two legged

57:23

things I'll do. But then I'll

57:25

do like a series of, I'll

57:29

get on like a leg press machine, but do like

57:31

a single leg press to try to get like, just

57:34

for an injury prevention, single

57:36

leg, make sure I'm producing

57:38

the same from one leg

57:40

to the next. Because if I notice like one is getting

57:42

a little bit imbalanced or like

57:45

less strong, the other one, I want to be aware of

57:47

that and address it before it

57:49

becomes something where I start favoring that one leg over

57:51

the other. I'll

57:53

do some other stuff like bridges and

57:56

things like that. that

58:00

are gonna be good for kind of like the post-tier

58:02

chain to pair with like the hex bar deadlift. That

58:06

muscular endurance routine is something that I'm

58:08

gonna do a lot more frequently, especially

58:11

as I get kind of closer to the race

58:13

versus kind of some of the more foundational stuff.

58:15

I find like if

58:17

I'm able to do the foundational lifts at

58:19

like a level where like

58:22

I'm not like super weak, I

58:24

don't know that there's gonna be a huge value

58:26

add to kind of continue to progress those. So

58:28

things like the hex bar deadlift, even like squats

58:30

and stuff like that. If I'm able

58:32

to like just easily do like

58:35

a basic kind of like three set

58:38

series of those and be like

58:40

somewhere between like body

58:42

weight or two X body weight, that's probably

58:44

the spot where like I don't know

58:46

that I'm gonna do myself a whole lot of favors

58:48

for like 100 mile racing by saying getting any stronger

58:50

than that. So at that point, it becomes more of

58:53

a focus of how do I kind

58:55

of train my body in the specific movements that

58:57

are gonna be useful for things like you said,

58:59

like power production, things like that. And that's where

59:01

I think like that muscular endurance routine is gonna

59:03

be more productive. So usually what I'm doing is

59:05

I'm doing some of those other stuff maybe earlier

59:07

in the season, just to kind of see like

59:09

where things are at and make sure I'm not,

59:11

I don't have any deficits. But once I

59:13

know that those deficits aren't there, then I'm gonna try to

59:15

get a little more specific with it. Yeah,

59:17

and if you were say racing for something

59:19

like the 5K, then

59:22

yeah, maybe you would wanna get stronger

59:24

and really be able to help

59:26

with a lot more force production and your

59:28

finishing kick and things like that. But I

59:31

like how you're being very specific with your

59:33

approach to strength training. Now,

59:36

Zach, let's sort of tie all this

59:38

into the 30 to 40 mile

59:41

per week runner, their training for

59:44

half marathons and marathons. What

59:46

are the low hanging pieces of fruit

59:48

that you might encourage this person to

59:51

go after in their training to really

59:53

take their training to the next level?

59:55

And if I could be so bold as to

59:57

guess, is one of them just

59:59

more volume? It seems like

1:00:01

more zone 2 easy volume is

1:00:03

probably the answer especially if you're

1:00:05

only running 30 to 40 miles

1:00:07

a week. Yeah,

1:00:09

it's a good question. I would say like

1:00:12

the lowest hanging fruit for anyone is going

1:00:14

to be somewhat dependent. I used to answer

1:00:16

this question a little more like quickly and

1:00:18

like without as much thought that I've

1:00:20

had so many new people come to me for

1:00:22

coaching now that are coming from like just a

1:00:24

totally different discipline. You get like these hybrid athletes

1:00:26

and stuff now too where it's like if

1:00:29

I had someone historically if I

1:00:31

had someone running 30 to 40 miles per week,

1:00:33

I would just usually assume and we'd clarify but

1:00:35

I'd usually assume they've spent a lot of that

1:00:37

doing low volume already or low intensity already. So

1:00:40

like then it's just like trying

1:00:43

to decide is that what they're doing or is that 34

1:00:45

miles a week with like a bunch of speed work in

1:00:47

which case maybe we do want to kind of back off

1:00:49

for a little bit and just see where we can get

1:00:52

them with that all being just a low

1:00:54

intensity volume input. But now I'm kind of

1:00:56

having a scenario where like could

1:00:58

be somebody who has like a huge

1:01:01

development phase that's almost

1:01:03

leaning towards the anaerobic side of things. So for them,

1:01:05

I'm definitely going to do a lot of low intensity

1:01:07

stuff, try to fill that volume up for a while

1:01:09

and just I'm going to see quite a bit of

1:01:11

movement in most cases in their pace at that

1:01:14

intensity sometimes for a fairly

1:01:16

long period of time versus someone that sort of

1:01:18

already maximized that input. So

1:01:21

their low hanging fruit at that point is going to be

1:01:23

probably some speed work so we can still maintain that 30

1:01:26

to 40 miles per week but increase their

1:01:28

training load because we are adding some faster

1:01:30

running components to it. It sounds

1:01:32

like you're sort of dividing people up

1:01:34

into almost two buckets. I know this

1:01:37

is over simplifying things but you've got

1:01:39

your more anaerobic power sport. Maybe I

1:01:41

played basketball or baseball and I've been

1:01:43

lifting weights but I don't really do

1:01:45

a lot of just easy low intensity

1:01:47

running. For those people, you need the

1:01:49

easy volume and then for those people

1:01:51

who might be running 30 to 40

1:01:54

miles a week and they've been doing

1:01:56

it for a long time but maybe

1:01:58

without a lot of intensity. The next

1:02:00

step for them is to actually add more

1:02:02

intensity, try to move those numbers that way,

1:02:05

and then hopefully they meet in the middle,

1:02:07

and then you can start a

1:02:09

more traditional approach for them. Did I get

1:02:11

that right? Yeah.

1:02:13

Another way to think about it is if someone

1:02:15

comes to me and they're like, I've been running

1:02:17

30 to 40 miles per week, and then I

1:02:20

ask them about some specifics, or

1:02:22

we look at their profile on most people

1:02:24

are logging their stuff now. So you look

1:02:26

at wherever they're logging that, and

1:02:29

we determine, oh yeah, for the past few months, you've

1:02:31

been doing this 30 to 40 miles per week, and

1:02:35

it's at this zone two intensity, and you've

1:02:37

more or less been running the same pace

1:02:39

the entire time. If we

1:02:41

know they're not doing more than that 30 to 40 miles

1:02:43

per week, and I just

1:02:45

continue to have them do what they had been

1:02:47

doing, I'm likely not going to see a whole

1:02:49

lot of change. So they're

1:02:51

essentially working with me to

1:02:54

continue what they were doing, which is just

1:02:56

a plateau. So for

1:02:58

that person, then it's like, yeah, we need to

1:03:00

increase their training load somehow. And

1:03:03

usually, that's either going to be through

1:03:05

increasing volume or adding some intensity so

1:03:08

that they kind of increase their training

1:03:10

load without adding extra volume. So like

1:03:13

you said, it's a lot of it's like circumstantial because you might

1:03:15

have someone who's doing 30 to 40, and

1:03:17

they find like, yeah, I can add a

1:03:20

little bit extra volume, which we might play

1:03:22

around with that first and maximize that

1:03:24

first. But if

1:03:26

not, then yeah, we're definitely kind of moving into something

1:03:28

a little more higher

1:03:31

intensity than what we're doing. What

1:03:33

about the runner who might be completely new? And

1:03:35

you know, they've been running for two weeks. They've

1:03:37

just gone out there a couple times, they've jogged

1:03:39

around. They're like, hey,

1:03:41

I actually really like this. I want

1:03:44

to do this more consistently. How

1:03:46

would you start building their fitness level

1:03:48

for the true beginner? Is it a

1:03:50

hybrid or would you focus on intensity

1:03:53

or easy volume first? Yeah,

1:03:56

if they're new, I'm almost always going to focus

1:03:58

on easy volume first. and

1:04:00

try to get them to stick with that as long as they

1:04:03

can. I can appreciate

1:04:05

there's like there's two things that

1:04:07

usually I'll pivot from that at

1:04:09

an individual level and one would be like most

1:04:11

people are coming with in

1:04:13

that situation they're coming to me because they're

1:04:15

also like oh I've got this this 5k

1:04:18

I'm gonna do on whatever date it happens

1:04:20

to be or like it

1:04:23

could also be something where like I want

1:04:25

to keep them interested in the sport too

1:04:27

so we may like step away from some

1:04:29

of that lower intensity base building even if

1:04:31

we felt like there could be some more

1:04:33

progress there to do like a speedwork development

1:04:35

phase just so they can get an idea

1:04:37

of just like this is kind of like

1:04:39

some of the inputs that we're gonna work

1:04:41

on and give them tools that they can

1:04:43

use later on as well versus just that

1:04:45

one tool because I find

1:04:47

it to be really valuable for

1:04:49

someone to get good at understanding what it

1:04:52

feels like to do those different things. So

1:04:54

to the degree where like if some of the people

1:04:56

have worked for the longest amount of time it's pretty

1:04:59

easy to like communicate with them because I can just

1:05:01

say like like I could just say okay

1:05:03

we're gonna do base a

1:05:05

base run which is zone two they

1:05:09

know what that feels like so I just got to tell them how

1:05:11

long to do it or

1:05:13

I wanted to do short intervals they know what that

1:05:15

feels like so I could just send them out with

1:05:18

something that allowed them to see the time

1:05:20

duration we're going for and

1:05:22

I wouldn't even probably have to worry about whether

1:05:24

they were hitting the right intensity. I can just

1:05:27

look at the data afterwards and assess where they're

1:05:29

at versus worrying about whether they're like in the

1:05:31

right zone or not. So I

1:05:33

think there is some value to kind of practicing

1:05:35

some of that stuff early on so you can

1:05:37

get closer to being able to recognize where those

1:05:40

or what those workouts feel like so your kind

1:05:42

of perceived effort gauge starts getting

1:05:44

some some repetitions. Yeah I

1:05:46

love that that's speaking to the idea

1:05:48

that you should just expose yourself to

1:05:50

a wide variety of different types of

1:05:52

stimuli because then you're you're gonna be

1:05:55

able to better know effort

1:05:57

levels and paces and yourself as a runner and that's

1:05:59

really gonna help you make wiser training decisions I think.

1:06:01

Yeah, I was just also gonna add one more thing

1:06:03

too because it's like people have like we talked about

1:06:05

me in the beginning where I tended to respond to

1:06:07

volume and I had to be a little more careful

1:06:10

on speed work but like there are people in the

1:06:12

total opposite end of the spectrum with that. So I

1:06:15

find like when you do kind of add some of

1:06:17

those inputs to you can kind of discover kind of

1:06:19

where that person first where their global fitness is at

1:06:21

and then maybe where their strengths and weaknesses are at

1:06:23

because that can tell you kind of how and when

1:06:25

to pull some of those levers later on in their

1:06:27

training too. Super actionable. Thanks for

1:06:29

kind of tying this into a lot of

1:06:31

different types of runners so that no matter

1:06:33

where you are in the spectrum if you're

1:06:35

someone who's a high responder to volume or

1:06:37

you respond really well to speed work you

1:06:40

sort of know some of the inputs that

1:06:42

are gonna drive fitness gains for you but

1:06:44

then also some things that you can add

1:06:46

that you're not very good at so that

1:06:48

you can work on. Thank

1:06:50

you Zach for your expertise today, your time.

1:06:53

You make some of my favorite running content

1:06:55

on the internet so I want to make

1:06:57

sure our listeners are able to check

1:06:59

it out. Where can they find you? Yeah awesome

1:07:01

I appreciate it Jason. I've been a fan of yours

1:07:04

for a while so it's always fun to hear that

1:07:06

the stuff I'm doing is good catching. I'm

1:07:09

most active probably on Instagram on the socials it's

1:07:11

just at ZachBitter. My website

1:07:13

zachbitter.com has kind of like a landing page

1:07:15

to everything my podcast social channels Strava all

1:07:17

that good stuff. Cool well there are

1:07:19

gonna be links to that in the

1:07:21

show notes and in the description of this episode

1:07:24

that folks can check out Zach Bitter

1:07:26

thanks for being here. Appreciate it thanks for having me.

1:07:28

And that's

1:07:30

our show you can learn more

1:07:32

about Zach on Twitter at Z

1:07:34

Bitter and on Instagram at Zach

1:07:36

Bitter. You can also listen to

1:07:38

his podcast titled Human Performance Outliers.

1:07:41

Now if you're a fan of my

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