#71 - PR Your 2 Mile, 3 Mile, or 5 Mile Run - The Tactical Athlete Training System

Crush certain components on the test but struggle on the run portion?

This isn't a "go run" episode. This is a system that ensures you're 24/7/365 ready - while also dropping your run time.

We break down the exact system:

• Readiness evaluation
• The three run types
• Weekly structure
• Specific pacing strategies

So the PR becomes a byproduct. Not the sole goal.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Everyday Responder podcast. And we probably have one of the most uh popular topics when it comes to some of the questions that I've received, um, some of the conversations that I've had. So I am very, very excited for this one. And we're gonna be talking about uh getting your PR, getting your PR for a two, three, or five mile. And I'm gonna get into specific strategies and tactics. So what we are going to do, the the big focus here for these types of runs, in in my opinion, is build such a broad base that the PRs become a byproduct, right? That is the most important aspect. So I want to be careful and and not just, you know, make sure people aren't just drilling down in two, three, or five, and that is all we're gonna focus on. We need that hybrid approach to make sure that that we are good to go outside of the the run as well. So as I'm going through this, um, and you've probably seen through some of the content. If you look at our content or listen to the the podcast, the previous episodes, what I'm gonna be doing is looking at these strategies and tactics through our three pillars that we focus on that that we drill down. So our pillars, these are our uh when it comes to you know programming decisions, when it comes to updates, when it comes to content, whatever that may be, I am looking through the lens of these three pillars. So I think it's important to go over them and and show you how they affect, especially two, three, and five mile. But more importantly, making sure that we're on the same page here. So we want to make sure that uh you are digesting this content in the in the idea or in the eyes of of these three pillars to make sure, and and we'll get into the the reasons why. Um, but ultimately to make sure that that we can sustain this and have that performance where we're hitting PRs, but also the the longevity. Um, we don't want a uh a broken PR or a PR on the sidelines. That's that's uh you that's useless. So the the first pillar here is appearance of the first line of defense. I talk about this so much. And when it comes to two, three, and five mile, we need to make sure that hey, you have uh a good body comp that that fits you. So maybe that's you know, asking the questions is do we have uh a couple pounds to lose that that might help us when it comes to run times? I think that is uh an overlooked aspect where, yeah, we obviously need to run, we need to get time on feet. But if you have, you know, uh 10 to 15 pounds or something like that that could be lost, then yes, we need to prioritize nutrition, we need to prioritize body comp while we're we're doing this, and it's gonna make it a little bit more difficult with um some PRs. But if we have, if we can get rid of some mass and do it safely, do it properly, um, I think that's gonna, that's gonna drastically help your runtime, right? It's just uh just the way it works. So that when that comes into play, it's like, okay, we need to also talk about nutrition, right? And it's not all, I'm not saying that everybody has 10 to 15 pounds to lose. But when it comes to nutrition, like, are we going to be uh you know in maintenance? Are we gonna be in a surplus to really hit home on performance? Um, are we gonna be in a deficit? Like maybe you are that person who has to lose 10 to 15 pounds. Um, maybe we recommend, you know, doing some uh calorie cycling where it's like, hey, on our harder or more intense days, we're gonna have more calories. On lower days or off days, we're gonna have maybe a lot less calories, right? So with calorie cycling, you want to look at it on a week-to-week basis and say, like, what is the total amount of calories or the average that I can hit for this week? Can that can I make that a deficit? So maybe one day, and I'm just spitballing numbers here, but maybe one day on your hard training days, maybe you're doing a full body training day and some speed work, right? So with that one, maybe we're at you know 2,800 calories, 2850, maybe 3,000 calories. Maybe an off day, we get that down to 2,500 or 2400, right? So kind of undulating the the calories there to make sure we're still in a deficit on a week-to-week basis. But that is a good way to you know maintain performance, make sure we're we're hitting it hard where we need to, um, also recovering, but still in that deficit. So kind of a little tangent there, but very important if you are in a deficit or you do have um some LBs to cut there. The last thing here under under this pillar that's gonna affect the the run times or your PRs is an actual fueling strategy. So, yes, we have your caloric allotment, we have what you need on a day-to-day basis or kind of relating that to training, but what does your pre and post or your your peri workout nutrition look like? So, what is your pre uh pre-nutrition or your pre pre-fueling look like? What does your post look like? Are we getting after you know high carb, maybe moderate protein, low fat, pre and post? Um, what does your uh your your testing nutrition look like? So this is something that's very important, but also like practicing that in training, maybe we're experimenting a little bit, figuring out what feels good, what feels bad. This gave me a lot of bloat, um, all these different types of things. So when it comes to a test or a time trial, we have the blueprint of something that works for you. I've seen this, um, you know, where people are like, oh, I haven't had pre-workout in years, but I have a test coming up, so I'm gonna rip some pre-workout, and now we're shitting our pants on our on our run, right? Um, so things to to take into consideration, but all kind of tie back to that appearance as a first line of defense. So not only are we going to improve those things for um your your job, but also will definitely have an effect on your runtime. So pillar number two, 24-7, 365 readiness. So this is understanding that, like, yes, we want to get after PRs, we want to get after um get after training in general, but we need to make sure that we are good to go. So, with that said, we need to train everything, right? That is the difficulty or or the thing that's unique about uh tactical athletes is there's no off season. We can't just say, okay, we're going to um periodize conditioning and strength's gonna fall off the map or power is gonna fall off the map and those different types of things. We need to touch on everything every week, if not multiple times per week. And it's understanding that, hey, yeah, we still need strength, even if you are are really dialing in your runtime. So you could still kind of stick and move when it comes to strength training, making sure that you can actually withstand the impact. So, for example, if you have somebody who wants to drop their runtime, maybe they're more of an elite type runner and they really get after it with running, but they're always injured, they're always having overuse injuries, they're always doing these different types of things. And maybe we unpack their strength training and it's like it's it's non-existent. Maybe they're, you know, strength training is body weight lunges, bodyweight glute bridges, bodyweight calf raises, like those different types of things. And it's like, yeah, well, maybe you can't withstand the the impact of running. Maybe you can't, you're not durable or uh, you know, uh physically resilient enough to handle more mileage. That is why we keep hitting a dead end there. Um speed. So making sure that, hey, we understand when it comes to speed, it's like a sustained throughput when it comes to attempts. It's not just, you know, absolutely blazing and and just full sending it on your speed work, but it's figuring out okay, what is our sustained pace that we could do? Are we keeping the intent intact for that specific session? And the last one here, um, when it comes to 24-7, 365 readiness, is building a solid base. So, what I like to do or talk about is if you think about a pyramid, right? Your conditioning base is that base of the pyramid for all things when it comes to training. So I think it should be for tactical athletes conditioning and strength, not strength and conditioning. I think that is how important conditioning is. So, a misconception here with base is uh like any kind of base building or anything like that, is hey, we're gonna go just super easy. We're going to, that's all we're gonna do. We're not gonna do anything else. But like we talked about with 24-7, 365 readiness, is you need to still go fast. You need to be able to be prepared to go fast. And I always use like a police officer example. If you are trying to build your base, all you do is go slow, right? You are just like very, you know, walk runs, you're you're going slow for every conditioning session. Now all of a sudden you have to sprint after somebody. That is a uh blown hamstring, if I've ever if I've ever seen one, right? So the idea here is hey, on it with a base building, think of you know, easy work as far left of the pyramid, right? Of the base of the pyramid. Speed work is your far right, you need them both. And now we're gonna meet in the middle with more specificity when it comes to practice. But again, building a base is is all of those. So that to me is 24-7, 365 readiness, right? We uh we are strong enough, we are fast enough, we are powerful enough, we are hitting all these things on a week-to-week basis to make sure that, yeah, we're gonna hit PRs, but we're also good um outside the uniform and inside the uniform. The last one here is staying power. So I talk about this time and time again. Staying power to me is hey, we're gonna have performance on one end, that is what we were getting after when it comes to PRs, but also longevity on the other end, right? You can't really have one without the other, or you shouldn't, right? This is what I was talking about with that idea of hey, if I were to, you know, snap my fingers and you were able to hit a PR after I snap my fingers, you were gonna crush your run times, you were gonna be at your goal pace, yada, yada, yada, but you would have a ton of overuse injuries, you'd be injured, you'd have, you know, be on the sidelines, you'd be burning the candle at both ends, all the things, right? I would hope that you wouldn't take that deal, um, like the genie in a bottle type type mentality. I would hope that you wouldn't take that deal. So we might as well play that long game, have that vision of performance and longevity. So yeah, and it it probably is gonna take a little bit longer than you want or than you expect. But again, this is that reality that we need with staying power. It does no good to be broken on the sidelines. That doesn't do anybody any good. So, with those things in mind, again, that is what how we're gonna be viewing the rest of this podcast here, and just understanding that that is where I'm coming from. So if you think this is gonna be like, hey, yeah, you're gonna PR next week, like uh you're you're in for a rude awakening. So after now that we understand that and we're we're kind of looking at things through the same lens, the first stop needs to be some sort of readiness evaluation, time trial, or different things like that. I see time and time again where we need to make sure that we're pulling the right, the right lever. We can't just be like shooting from the hip and thinking, like, I think this is what I need. Or we will all with that mentality, we will always drift into something that we want and not necessarily what we need. So the readiness evaluation is very important, is our baseline. And then everything is built from there. Now, I also want to say, I know how competitive people are. Your readiness evaluation, it is imperative that we execute and detach from that outcome. Where I don't like we're going to, it's just data. We are going to get that data. I don't care about what you used to be able to do, what you did in high school, what you did at basic or an academy. That stuff is irrelevant. We're talking about right now. I also don't care about how far you are from your goal pace, what you need, different things like that. Obviously, that fuels the long-term vision. But at the end of the day, we are right here. This is where we're at. This is the data that we're dealing with, right? And then we reverse engineer everything, like every everything from that. So when you talk about a readiness evaluation, we try to get a holistic viewpoint of where you are actually at. Again, your your current present moment. So, you know, maybe that's where we're getting some body comp metrics and seeing, do we have, you know, five pounds, 10 pounds? Are we good to go here? Um, we're we're getting all this data. So we're getting your your weight, maybe some waste tapes if that's available. We're seeing where you are at from a body comp or appearance standpoint. Appearance is a first line of defense, remember. Um, so we're seeing where you're at with that. And is there anything that we can do there, right? That's gonna maybe fuel some uh some no pun intended nutrition decisions and different things like that. Next, we're gonna also see where you're at, maybe a couple weeks of tracking your nutrition. So we're gonna try to figure out like what are you eating on a day-to-day basis? Is there any ways to optimize that? Have you been eating in a deficit for years? I see this time and time again where it's like, oh, you know, I'm trying to drop my runtime, but um, then maybe we unpack or find out you've been eating, you're you're a grown ass man or a grown ass man eating, you know, 1200 calories for the last three years. It's like, okay, well, yeah, we we could probably, you know, drastically increase that and you would already see performance benefits. So again, trying to get a baseline of where we're at and see where we need to go with also taking in the body comp data. Maybe we can be in a surplus, maybe we need a deficit and we start incorporating um calorie cycling or different things like that. Next, okay, we're gonna see some strength and power metrics. So, again, maybe these are rep maxes. I I like the three to six uh six range when it comes to rep maxes. Again, we want to just see foundational movement patterns. Where are you at with a hinge, a squat, a press, uh, maybe a pull, maybe some calisthenics for for uh not just rep maxes, but maybe some um some failure sets, maybe some density work, just seeing where we're at relative to your body weight to see if we need to maybe buy a strength or to see if we need to um we can put these in maintenance, you are quote unquote strong enough, right? I think that's a missing piece too, where you know we want to uh, you know, oh, I want to hit 315 on the bench, or I want to hit um 405 for squad or whatever that may be. And it's like, hey, are we do we need that strength, or is this for the ego? And I I would say to a certain extent, like neither of them are necessarily bad, but I think it's a question that needs to be asked because it's like is you know, adding 15 pounds on your bench really, you know, is that gonna make your break where you're at, or is it just like a want, right? So these are things that, yeah, like we need to make sure that you are enjoying your training and we're we're going after targets that you want to hit. But you know, I I always think it's important to raise those questions to see if you actually need it, right? Like, what are we gonna prioritize? Is 15 pounds on your bench really gonna help your uh your time trial? Like, no. So, how important is the time trial, right? That type of mentality. Last one here is uh, or last couple is conditioning, obviously, right? If we want we want to see where you're at, these are your time trials. Maybe we're doing a two, three, or five. Maybe we're going duration based. If you are not as advanced and maybe you're not ready for a time trial or different things like that, um, maybe it's a steady state assessment where I like these duration based. So maybe it's 30 minutes of uh easy conversational pace, and we're gonna collect all that data where it's like, okay, what is your average heart rate? What's your uh heart rate recovery? What's your overall time or distance, depending on what you do? So we obviously want to collect that objective data when it comes to all those different types of runs that we just talked about. But I also think it's important to get some subjective measures. So these are are very important. And it's like, what do you think went first? Like, was it your calves? Was it your quads? Um, was it your mental capacity? Right? Did you just kind of um give in a little bit? Was it, you know, uh your overall capacity? Um, those are types of things that is all good information. But again, once we have that data, we can kind of reverse engineer your programming. So, for example, if your calves always go and they just get like super tight and um they just feel like they're gonna rip in half. Maybe we start doing uh we incorporate a lot more low-level plyometrics, right? Maybe we work that in on strength days, you know, build up some tissue tolerance there. And now we can we can specifically target that. But without that subjective data, we don't really know kind of what we're what we're shooting for there. The last one here is overall standards. We need to see where you're at on those. So uh daily routine, sleep, lifestyle habits. Again, these are the things that um you know people are gonna gloss over. But these are the the needle movers where um, you know, maybe one you want to drop your runtime, you're super sedentary, and it's like maybe we we have a step goal on a day-to-day basis. Again, not direct transfer, but when you talk about body composition, when you talk about accumulating time on feet, when you talk about just general health, like that's gonna be very important. Uh, maybe we increase those. Um, maybe we incorporate a night routine to make sure that your sleep is good to go, right? If you are consistently saying, ah, I sleep five hours a night, and it's like, okay, you know, I think we would both be lying if we said there weren't any improvements to be made when it comes to sleep prep and sleep in general. So, what can we implement to make sure that your sleep is good to go? Right. These are things, again, that are unsexy. They're not saying, you know, hey, you know, this is gonna, you know, drastically do X, Y, and Z, but it most likely will. So very, very important to focus on those as well. So without knowing all those different types of things, again, I just uh kind of listed out a bunch of them. We're we're just guessing, right? We're shooting from the hip. And I think this is the biggest problem when people are like, oh, two mile program. I'm gonna search for a two-mile program and I'm just going to crush that. If you are not, you know, familiar enough to to auto-regulate, adjust based off of your needs, those different types of things, you you might be setting yourself up for failure. Same thing where it's like, oh, PT test program or prep or uh, you know, whatever that may be, you're you're typing in something very specific and you're just gonna rip that thing. And it's like, well, like where are you? Like, what do you need to work on? What where does this person who created the program like where do they expect you to be? Is there, you know, tiers? Can you go? Um advanced, intermediate, beginner, like can you adjust that? Um, these are all things that are very important. And without knowing where you are, um, we're we're like I said, just shooting from the hip and guessing. So all those things, your readiness evaluation that tells us how to set up your training. So not only from an objective perspective, but also intertwining that with what do you need on the job? What do you want? So we're combining all those things, and then that's what's going to build your system. So, with all that said, we have all that data. What are we prioritizing? Why, right? Why are we doing that? Are we going to bias conditioning? Maybe your strength is good, um, so on and so forth. What's the secondary, right? What is the the tertiary? And I'll give you an example here. I just signed somebody last night, and it's like he uh is somebody who is strong as hell for his body weight, like crazy numbers on in like a squat bench or a deadlift variation, dealing with some some lower back stuff, all those different types of things. So, what are we prioritizing? We're probably not going to prioritize a crazy amount of strength, right? And again, that does not mean it falls off, but he's good there when it comes to strength. So we'd probably prioritize conditioning, especially with a running goal that he has, right? Prioritizing conditioning, maybe secondary is strength. So we're gonna hit kind of stick and move. And you he might find, which I would I would guess if I was a betting man, I would say so. Um, you might find now he's actually able to recover and adapt. He's building a better foundation. He is most likely going to maintain, if not build strength, because he's able to recover and adapt. So again, sticking and moving. Tertiary, he's he loves pump work, he loves feeling like that. So maybe tertiary is uh a couple arm farms on off days, right? Something that is not going to um, you know, have a huge recovery burden, but it's going to hit that realistic, enjoyable um time frame or uh, you know, input when it comes to what he wants to do and what he likes to do, right? It's not gonna have an effect on strength, it's not gonna have an effect on conditioning, but it's something that he enjoys. And who doesn't love leaving the gym with a crazy armpar, uh arm, arm bar, arm pump, right? Very important. So that needs to be incorporated. But now we have that in mind, right? So we start with our readiness evaluation and we need to look through everything with those uh those three pillars that we talked about. Now, I wanted to get into you know where people go wrong, right? And and I've talked about some of these um in other pieces of content as well as uh mentioned a little bit of them in the beginning of this episode. Um, but a couple different problems that I've seen, right? We need to get those out of the way. And uh, if this is you, we should we should fix it, right? First one is full send on every run, right? And I like to think of this as uh I'm gonna hopefully you stay with me on this uh this analogy here. But it's it would be like building a clay structure, right? If without building with just full sending it, we are just kind of okay, we this is what we are working with, right? But if we focus on building Building a base, like we've talked about, like far, far left, far right, meet in the middle, all those different types of things with a base. As we do that, as we get better, as we practice with that, we are putting more clay on our structural on our structure. So now we can kind of start actually uh molding into what we want to build, aka a P R. It's the same thing with a pyramid analogy, where it's like I've seen time and time again, people love to sharpen before they actually build. And say if you have a narrow base and now you're putting, oh, more volume, more intensity, more strength work, more power, more this, more that, everything's gonna come collapsing down because we can't just keep building upward, right? But if we slow down and we keep the intent intact, now we're going to start building with width on our pyramid, we're gonna start extending that base, and now we're gonna be able to actually handle more volume, more intensity, and all those other goals that we have, right? So if you take that full send approach with every single run, every run is a is a straight burner, no rest periods, all those different types of things. Maybe you will get faster run times, but you're also gonna train yourself to have zero pacing ability. And we're going to, like I mentioned in those two analogies, we're gonna put a limit on our actual ceiling because we are just in an extreme deficit when it comes to a base. Another one here, kind of similar to that, is just repetitive time trials. Like, oh, I've been putting in, you know, I did my readiness evaluation, I did this, and now in two weeks, we are going, I'm feeling good. Uh, two weeks in, I'm gonna just rip another two-mile time trial, mile and a half, five, whatever that may be. Again, throughout this practice and in that specificity, maybe you'll see improvements. But again, this is where you see you'll also see drastically higher injury risk. There's no recovery built in. We're probably gonna dig a recovery hole. This is where we'll see that the training overall just stall. We're progressing too fast, doing too much too soon, too often, too fast. And again, this is where those injuries, overuse injuries, foot injuries, ankle, ankles, knees, all these different types of things, quote unquote, come out of nowhere. And it's like, no, they didn't really come out of nowhere. It's like we've been, these have been building under the surface from from training like an asshole. Um, couple other ones here, you know, training the test. I've talked about this uh a ton, but we don't want to just you know go for that green on a tracker mentality. Again, that is uh, you know, yeah, we'll we'll get better with the specific test because we're literally just training it. Number one, that is super freaking boring. I don't know who enjoys that, but just doing a test where it's like it's technically not the test, but it's you know, you derived straight from the test and it looks exactly like the test. Like, one, that is not fun whatsoever. Um, two, I think that it depends on how it's done, it could create gaps and everything else. When you talk about 24-7 through 65 readiness, again, that is strength, power, speed, all these different aspects, and we may have missing gaps. So the idea is like, okay, we're if we drill that down, we are going to maybe improve our two mile, for example, but we're gonna create problems elsewhere, whether that is not having the strength to be able to withstand anything, whether that is um starting to feel overuse injuries from just ripping pull-ups, nonstop failure sets, right? These are things that we need to take into consideration, and we don't want those gaps with what we're doing. The last one here I already talked about, but ignoring the base, again, very important. This is gonna be that injury prone, we're always gonna be in a in a deficit when it comes to performance. And again, this usually leads to progressing too fast. So with base, I I've written an article or two on this. I've talked about it on a previous podcast, but the uh a misconception that I want to be clear on is many people think that base building needs to be super freaking boring. And it's like, oh, well, now we got to do six months of easy runs and very slow, monotonous grind. And depending on where you're at, right? You could be setting yourself up for failure with if you're if you're very, very deconditioned with your runs, um, maybe you can run or jog for 30 seconds, and now you're all of a sudden your heart rate's already screaming, right? I hope that's not the case, but that is the reality, and and we don't want to, you know, make this a boring process or or whatever that may be. So there's obviously uh it depends on your starting point, but like I talked about, you're allowed to go fast. Um, it's okay if you drift into quote unquote zone three, it's not gonna ruin the run. These are all things that we need to consider. But if you were on the more advanced level, yeah, you can still build your base and add in some fartlicks or surges or different things like that to keep the overall intent at easy, um, but you could still have fun with it, right? So I think that's a common misconception that uh I've been um fighting for a while now because yeah, it doesn't have to be a super monotonous process. So now what I want to do, so we have your your uh problems that I've seen. Now we want to get into the specific runs uh that will be helpful for you. So again, there is so many different types of runs. There's uh progressions, tempos, uh people talk about zone one through zone five, all these different aspects. Again, there's no right or wrong way to do it, and there's a ton of different variations, whether that's messing with durations, messing, messing with distance. There's always something that you can change and update. But for me personally, I've found it beneficial, and a lot of my clients enjoy it of just keeping it easy. We don't need to overcomplicate it. So I like to look at it as easy, moderate, and hard, right? Those are the three different types of runs. And again, there's obviously a ton of variations within those categories, but again, just trying to keep it simple here. So easy. We are base building, we're going easy, conversational pace, right? You should be able to say a sentence or two without gasping. Maybe you can intermittently work in some nasal breathing. Don't don't feel by the way, don't feel like you need to nasal breathe the the whole entire time. Um, just kind of hyperventilating there. You don't need to nasal breathe the whole entire time, but um, you know, mixing it in every once in a while and being like, okay, I'm I'm pretty good here. Uh, that is is usually a good sign. Again, this is where that base is built, the foundation of your pyramid. I will tell you, pace here is irrelevant. There is no quote unquote zone two competition, there's no easy competition, all these different types of things. It doesn't really matter. And I think when when we think it does matter, that is when we come out too hot, or uh, I shouldn't be running at an 11-minute pace for my easy work. So I'm just gonna turn it into uh an 8 30 because I think that sounds cool. That's what somebody else did for their zone two. So I'm just gonna hang out at 8 30 and now we're just digging a recovery hole. Um, again, maybe that is more of a moderate type run, but um, it's it's not the intent of the session. So if you don't keep the intent at that RPE, you know, four to six range, um, you're you're just setting your your future self up for failure with other sessions. There's gonna be a recovery burden on other sessions. Uh, it's it's just gonna kind of put a damper on your entire schedule. So it's very important to keep easy easy. And again, it it uh is easier easier said than done because I know how it can be, but uh extremely important to get to where you want to go. Moderate here. So moderate, I would consider these like priority runs, right? So this is gonna be uncomfortable but sustained pace. Think something that you could sustain for maybe 10, 15 more minutes here. This is where you'd consider these like uh tempo, threshold, subthreshold type runs here. These are extremely important to be able to practice pacing, right? So this is where we train our internal monitor for test day. So think you know, RP7, maybe six to eight, right? That kind of range there. It's uncomfortable, but what we can sustain again for 10 to 15 more minutes. This is super, super freaking important when it comes to pacing for our time trial. Like I had mentioned, this is where most people will blow up. They'll either go way too hot and try to turn this into a hard session or repeat type mentality. Um, and we just kind of burn out. So there's a ton of different variations. Like I said, it could be durations of three minutes, it could get upwards of five, maybe a couple rounds of eight minutes, right? Maybe you're doing 15 minutes straight. There's so many different variations you can go here. Um, so it really depends. There's a ton of nuance. But having one of these sessions per week is is really good again to train that internal monitor. So we can figure out, like, okay, maybe I need to pick it up a little bit, maybe I can back off. But again, we're not obsessed about heart rate or different things like that. We are looking at feeling out a good goal pace or figuring out how long you can sustain a certain pace. So when it comes to testing, you'll be more equipped to to whether it's like, okay, this is where I need to be. I'm not worried about anybody else. With these types of runs and with all runs in general, what I've been doing um with my clients and with myself is not looking at heart rate data throughout the runs, right? I think it's better if we look at the data afterwards and kind of debrief ourselves where it's like, yeah, this was an easy or supposed to be, for an example, this was supposed to be an easy run. Um looking at the data afterwards, and my heart rate's at 175, right? It's like, okay, well, we're way off with training our internal monitor, so let's slow it down a little bit. And the same thing could be said for um moderate runs, where it's like, oh, heart rate, you know, was uh in my uh efforts there, heart rate was at um 135. And it's like, okay, well, we weren't pushing the pace uh during our intervals, intervals, right? So that's something that we can speed up, or maybe you have more in the tank. Um, but very, very important for moderate there. The last one is hard, right? So this is high intent, somewhat unsustainable beyond the interval, but again, still sustainable. So with these types of whether it's uh 400s, whether whether it's um 30 seconds at hard pace, you know, there's always gonna be some sort of rest period, depending on the intent here. But for this intent being hard, um, there's gonna be rest periods. We need to like maybe depending on the person, we feel out what faster than goal pace looks like. Maybe we feel out goal pace, right? We're just feeling that out. We're not going, you know, full blown 10 out of 10, 11 out of 10 effort, and then just kind of turning it into a slug fest. Um, you know, obviously there are opportunities for certain things like that, but it needs to be, you know, specifically programmed for the person. I personally with the two, three, and five goal, I would say, hey, let's slow these down a little bit. Let's work on our goal pace, let's feel it out. So, again, not mess necessarily max effort, but we're able to repeat the actual pace, right? If not seeing uh a negative split. So, um, with the negative split, like we want to maybe we played a little bit conservative on the first ones, but we finished strong. We want to actually keep our you know bouts five to ten seconds in between or around each other, right? We don't want to see a drastic drop-off of like 20 or 30 seconds, which uh is is no good, right? That's just gonna teach ourselves to slow down um in the in the moment there. So again, feeling out faster paces, um, not struggling to hold on. This is where you'd probably see RP, you know, eight to nine plus, different things like that, depending on the intent of the session. Now, getting into specific programming, right? The desired qualities and and different quantities of of certain intervals, different things like that can vary significantly depending on the person. But again, that is why the readiness evaluation is so important because we can see what you actually need, whether you need more easy work, whether you need uh less speed work, whether you need more priority runs if you're a little bit more advanced, whether you uh really don't you don't get the easy work done, you're a little bit more on the advanced side. Maybe we throw in, we we make it fun and we throw in some Farlics or surges to still keep that intent intact. But now maybe they're the person's doing it, their compliance is higher because they're actually enjoying it, right? Different things like that. But I would recommend um, so again, the disclaimer here the you know, qualities and quantities can vary significantly. But for most tactical athletes, this is what I would aim to incorporate on a week-to-week basis, again, tying back to that 24-7, 365. So maybe one hard or speed session. So that would be like I had mentioned, your uh intervals, maybe some 400s, maybe the 30-second repeats, uh, maybe uh a minute repeats, whatever that may be. Um, but that type of session where we're going after hard, we're feeling out goal pace, or we're just training for neuromuscular power, maybe some hill sprints, different things like that. One moderate or tempo threshold, subthreshold-ish type session here. One of those, this is that priority session again. So maybe we're doing um five by three minutes at moderate pace, right? And and kind of feeling that out, maybe progressing. Maybe it's uh two by eight minutes at moderate pace, maybe it's 15 minutes at moderate pace, right? Kind of feeling that out. It's it's dependent on the person, but I would probably put one, maybe one priority session on a week-to-week basis. Maybe it's a progression run. This is something that I love, but um it's uh maybe you're doing something like three by five minutes progressions. So maybe the first one is easy, the second one is moderate, and the third one is is moderate to hard, right? So something like that can be good for a more uh beginner-esque, where we're kind of the the average there is probably still moderate, but um, you know, you can get that that additional easy work, but also kind of open up a little bit with the uh the last interval there. So something like that is also an option. Now at the end, we have maybe one plus uh two uh one plus easy runs there. So this would be obviously depending on schedule availability, depending on skill level, training age, uh readiness evaluation, all those different types of things. But I would say at least one um one there, it can get upwards to two to three, depending on the person, like I mentioned. If they need to just practice the skill of running, I would probably drop in the beginning, drop a priority run and do more easy work, maybe one hard, maybe the hard is even uh bike sprints, maybe the hard is hills or uh sled work, different things like that. Um, so it doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, uh 400s or you haven't read in years, and now we're gonna rip rip uh 12 400s, right? Um, so again, just want to be clear that there's so many different variables and and variations here, but that is big picture what I would try to work in. So one hard, one moderate, um, one plus easy, again, depending on all those other variables. So uh yeah, that's why evals are so important so we can actually see where you're at. So I wanted to give you an example, and I myself am running something similar. Mine is a little bit more condensed just because I have a lot going on right now. Um, but I'm not throwing training out the window. Very important uh caveat there. If you got a lot going on like everybody else in the world, um you may have to adjust your system a little bit, but um, it should never fall off the map. So I'm gonna get into an example uh of something just showcasing how we can do all these things in a uh clear and concise kind of format here. Um, so day one, maybe this is the ply metrics, maybe somebody's calves go. So we're doing some uh low-level stuff, maybe some some pogos, some uh a pogo circuit, different things like that, um, building up tissue tolerance, all those types of things. Maybe we're hitting full body training, and then maybe we go our hard conditioning. So again, it could be uh 30 seconds, it could be 400s, it could be um bike sprints, whatever that may be, but it could be something that's in that hard category that we talked about earlier. Next, day two, maybe it's easy, an easy run. And again, I did a post or a story on this the other day. Like it's okay to run on fatigued legs, like we don't want to run through injuries, but um, there's gonna be inherent fatigue when you're training like this. Uh so yeah, you're gonna have to run on fatigued legs sometimes. Your times might be a little bit slower, um, your heart rate may be a little bit higher, but at the end of the day, we want to kind of build up that skill of running on somewhat fatigued legs. Um, it's not gonna break you. And at the end of the day, when you're going for a two-mile time trial, five or three, there's gonna be some inherent fatigue there. So we might as well work that into our training. Day three, off day. Day four, since we're coming off an of an coming off of an off day, maybe this is where we put our priority run. So we're doing this somewhat fresh. Um, this is where we add in that tempo or threshold-ish type work here for a uh a priority run. And again, we are really, really, really practicing pacing, keeping the intent intact, working in that that ugly, kind of moderate range there. Um, and that's what we can do for for this one. So, again, the time durations, the uh specific session varies widely depending on the person, but um, that kind of moderate intensity is where I would go here in this example. Next, full body training day, and then maybe we finish off the week uh day six with easy work. So this is where we could have fun with uh a little bit more duration. So you can see with something like this, yeah, we are hitting it hard, right? Day one, um, somewhat easy or easy on day two. And then maybe we we hit it hard with intensity, the front half of the week. So maybe the the back half, we're kind of undulating that a little bit, and maybe we do a little bit more volume focus. So maybe this is where your easy run is a little bit longer than the beginning of the week, right? So if you're training uh or if you're working, like a, for example, Monday through Friday, maybe a good time for an easy run on Saturday, we can go longer duration there. Um, and again, depending on your skill level, maybe that is the day where we throw in some uh fartlicks, some surges, different things like that uh on the last day there. And then uh day seven would be an off day. So that's an example that would work really well. Again, it would have to be individualized to you based off of your readiness evaluation, but that is something that works. So we got kind of the big picture strategy done. Now I want to get into uh some specific tactics. Um, so we've talked about some of the biggest mistakes. They usually uh surround just emptying the clip way too soon when it comes to a specific pacing strategy. So I wanted to get into a little bit of that, and um, that's kind of where we will we will wrap. So again, we don't want to empty the clips too soon, and we need to know kind of where you stand, what we are targeting. So, what I like to do with any kind of two, three, or five um when it comes to a specific pacing strategy, I love kind of like a, I don't know if you'd call it like a three-phase model or whatever that may be. But what I like to do is or recommend, and again, there's a ton of ways to do it. I I think the majority of people would probably work best with a negative split. So a negative split would be something on the lines of, hey, we're gonna start off a little bit more conservative, and conservative there is is relative. That does not mean it's gonna be like an easy jog or walk in the park, like waving to the neighbors. You're gonna be getting after it with that conservative, um, the the the beginning, and then going into a moderate and then kind of like emptying the clip there. I don't know if you can hear that uh that thunder, but it's pretty, pretty loud. So hopefully uh I don't lose power here. Um, but conservative. So the three-phase model, sorry, that threw me off. Um, conservative would be okay, maybe the first third of our time trial, we're gonna find that moderate pacing that was trained um throughout our moderate work. So you can see how that ties to that. Um, again, this is where most people would blow up, and it's just like, okay, I've seen it time and time again. I'm sure that you have as well. You have that person who is absolutely skating off of the start line, and then everybody's just lapping them towards mid to the end. So don't be that guy or girl. Um, so we want to find out that pace again from our practice throughout the training. The second kind of phase here is where we kind of settle in, right? This is that middle third, this is that controlled discomfort, right? It is gonna suck. We're gonna be in that ugly range. We don't want to show all our cards, but this is where it's an absolute grind. And I would say this is where uh PRs are now my now, my dogs are uh in here all hair up, all chaotic from the uh the thunder, they don't like it. Um, but this is where PRs are won or lost, in my opinion, right? This is where people either turn into an absolute slog fest and then they're just kind of a slow jog towards the end. But this is where, if we can kind of hold that line from practice, um, this is where we will see those results. So, again, with that moderate work or that those priority runs, that is where. We're going to fuel out 10 or 15 minutes more, right? That's what we got in the tank. So now we can kind of gauge off that internal monitor that was trained and go from that. The last one here is, you know, the idea of like, here's where we're going to empty the clip, right? So the first, if the first two kind of quote unquote phases were executed properly, this is where we'll still have reserves, right? And I'm speaking in relative terms. This is tough, right? It's going to suck. Um, but this is where, like I said, empty the clip, and this is where your your strongest mile or your strongest finish should be. Now, I say all this to say everybody knows pacing, right? Everybody says it, oh, just pace yourself. Like, yeah, we get it. But it's very hard in the moment. So again, that is why it's super important that we practice this stuff throughout and we actually train our body to feel what these paces are going to feel like. So again, with that easy work, it's kind of out of this equation. But the moderate and hard, we're gonna feel what our goal pace feels like. And we're going to like get comfortable, if you will, at that pace. Same thing with moderate. We're going to feel out our pacing, feel out our uh our breathing, our cadence, all these different types of things. So we can we can bend there, we can be there, done that when it comes to our training and our testing. So zooming in a little bit more after that three-phase model, a two mile, right? This is a tough one because it's, you know, in my opinion, short enough to allow us to be pretty aggressive, but it's also long enough where we could blow up, right? So for me, I I like to break up two miles into four hundreds. So again, maybe this is an opportunity to work in four hundreds with our hard work and really kind of practice those four hundreds. So we break in, we break it up by four hundreds, and then we can kind of see our pace, see our cadence, see if we're hitting it, hitting our goal times, different things like that throughout the two mile. So if you're somebody who overthinks it, maybe this strategy wouldn't work for you. But it's ultimately seeing like, okay, here's our game plan going in. Um, maybe these the first couple 400s are gonna be a little bit slower. Uh, mid is gonna be going after it, and then uh the last ones are gonna be okay, I'm going to uh kind of send it, right? Three mile, I like to break those up, obviously a longer duration here. Um, I like to break it up into miles. So same kind of concept works there. First mile, a little bit conservative, relatively again. Uh, middle is that moderate, kind of figuring out where we've been in our practice, and then final is just emptying the clip, but again, wanting to finish strong there. And then five, um, all these runs are obviously the are rewarding from an aerobic capacity standpoint, a base uh capacity standpoint. But with the five, it's obviously hard to to pace and practice there. But you know, if you maybe break it up into first two, mid two, and then the last one is where you can kind of empty the clip. But having little touch points and kind of segmenting these is where um I think we'll make the most money. And again, with the other work throughout training is where you can reverse engineer where you where you're uh where you need to be, not only from a speed capacity, but also mental capacity. So that is the benefit as well of training on heavy legs, right? Like working in some of that neuromuscular power when you are already fatigued, doing an easy run after a very hard session, right? Uh the next day, I'm in. Um, so all very, very important. Uh, and again, uh a disclaimer here there's no like right or wrong strategy. It's not, I mean, I guess there is or a wrong strategy, but that's not saying like this is the only way to do it. Like, that's not what I'm getting at here. There's obviously a ton of nuance. Hopefully, I made that clear. But um, you know, again, I'm gonna say it again just because it's uh it's the most important aspect, and you may not might not want to hear it again, but you're if you're listening, you're going to. Um, but realize, like, okay, building your base, that's time on feet. That is easy work. That's that's feeling really good, right? That's gonna widen the pyramid. Practicing pacing and execution with priority runs. Again, this is that practice, this is that ugly range where it's like, okay, uh, this is tough, right? But again, that is gonna pay dividends to your next PR with practice hard, right? We're practicing, we're we're working on pacing discipline and mental toughness with some of the hard sessions, right? So it's not necessarily quote unquote tough to just come out screaming on your hard work and then uh struggling to hold on towards the later, the latter intervals, right? So um, you know, if you have a higher volume work of 400s, like, yeah, that session is gonna be even more hard than it than it has to be if you were coming out screaming on everyone. But if you are staying around goal pace and you're you're holding back a little bit and it's still quote unquote hard, that's what is gonna pay off with pacing discipline and mental toughness, where it's like, damn, my legs are heavy as shit right now. I feel like I got cinder block feet. Um, yeah, getting through those is is sometimes a mental grind, but that's what's gonna pay off. So I talked about a lot here, you know, this is the plan. And I truly believe if you do everything in this episode or you work it in towards uh toward you towards you and your specific goals and your starting point, I think you'll be ahead of the majority of tactical athletes, to be totally honest, based off of some of the conversations that I've had with people and uh things some of the things that I've seen and heard in the community. So um let me know if this was helpful. Again, I appreciate you listening. Um, as always, if you enjoy the content, enjoy the episodes, just show some love. It makes uh it makes sure that that I am moving in the right direction. Um, and if you all if you ever have any questions or any any types of uh things that way, I'd love to answer those, whether that's in a QA, if you shoot me a question or something on a DM. Um again, I am very transparent when it comes to the strategies and tactics. So please don't ever hesitate to throw a question my way. But again, I appreciate you.