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Running 101: How I think about training runners to race faster

Running can be deceptively complex: for anybody chasing a Personal Best, it’s certainly not “just put one foot in front of the other!”

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For the runner who’s interested in improving and getting faster, running suddenly becomes complicated:

  • Should I *race* my tune-up half marathon?
  • How do you balance lifting weights with running?
  • What’s the best way to come back to running after an injury?
  • How does fueling work for long races?

Simply lacing up your shoes for an easy run isn’t possible anymore. It’s more complicated – now your running has purpose – it’s training, not exercise.

And for a long time, I never bothered with the complexity of running.

I just thought that running was a fun thing to do after school with my friends. But soon, I fell in love with the sport and with the process of training. My goal was to learn as much as possible.

So first, I stuck with the sport and had the honor of learning from more than ten coaches over my running career. The formal training I experienced – and the wisdom I absorbed every day by the track – form the backbone of my running philosophy.

I also soaked up as much knowledge as I could by reading more running books than anybody needs to read

Seriously, this is my bookshelf.

Combined with my USATF certification and experience helping thousands of runners over the years, I have a strong idea of how runners should get faster.

And today, I want to talk more about my philosophy of running with you.

How I Think About Running

Two years ago, I was interviewed for an event called The Running Summit. I spoke about wide-ranging topics:

  • How I started running
  • My injury prevention philosophy
  • The biggest areas of improvement for runners
  • Strength training do’s and don’ts
  • Warm-ups and cross-training
  • My favorite aspects of coaching
  • How running “scales”
  • My favorite running authors
  • The two principles of sound form you must remember
  • Who benefits from getting a coach?
  • How to build your mileage more safely than the 10% rule
  • Why ‘Run Less, Run Faster’ fails as a training methodology
  • and a lot more!

As you can see, we went DEEP on running and touched on nearly every important element of sound training.

To listen to the whole interview, subscribe to the show on iTunes or on the Stitcher app.

Show Resources & Links:

Now a question for you: did you like having me interviewed for a change? If you enjoyed this format, it would be wonderful for you to leave an honest review on iTunes and let me know. I’ll try to do more of these!

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