#82 - How Tactical Athletes PR The 2 Mile (Part 1 - The Running)

There is nothing more frustrating than running hard without leg turnover or results. The goal of this series is simple: Do less, but better, and earn your next PR.

In This Episode

• RPE - the most valuable skill to practice and develop
• 3 ways tactical athletes sabotage their own run times
• The run system (easy, moderate, and hard)
• How to develop the your pacing technique 

About This Series

This is Part 1 of a 4 part series. Each part has an associated article with a deeper breakdown.

Part 1 - The Running
Part 2 - Strength Training
Part 3 - Nutrition and Lifestyle
Part 4 - The Full System

Check out the full article here: 

3 Runs The Tactical Athlete Needs To Dominate The 2 Mile - Part 1 of 4

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Everyday Responder podcast. And we have a nice Zinner in and we are we are rolling here. So I was thinking about the uh the then the Zinn topic and caffeine topic. I'm currently working with a client who we need to kind of kind of deload those things. So he just got selected for warrant, and now he's not gonna be able to have Zinn, caffeine, um, different stimulants, obviously there. So we're gonna try to try to wean off of that. And it just kind of got me got me thinking about it. So we're gonna be talking about a bunch of different things here. And again, it's been a a last uh or been stressful last couple of weeks with a ton of different things rolling around, but we're still we're still here, we're still showing up. So um there's been a I also wanted to mention a couple of different clients who are absolutely crushing it. Um one client just recently, he in his own words, absolutely nuked the his readiness evaluation from a strength perspective, from a conditioning perspective, from a you know, resting heart rate perspective. Literally every single objective that we had or readiness evaluation that we had absolutely, and it's like I said in his words, nuked it. Um, I mentioned the the client who got selected for warrant. There's uh another person who just absolutely crushed the pack test for wildland firefighting and set a company record. Um, somebody else, you know, ramping up their running, feeling really good with running, um, and and building that skill and that habit, setting PRs there. It's been it's been freaking awesome. There's a lot of other clients who are working, uh, very good, very uh, very competitive targets coming up, whether it's a a half marathon, um, a bunch of different half marathons. And uh yeah, we're we're all just getting after it. I love it. So in recent conversations and dealing with uh, you know, PT tests, those different types of things, a lot of different conversations I've been having with with clients as well as different questions are always surrounding the two mile. So there's a lot of different questions with that and and really making sure that we're we're trying to or targeting the max out here. And I actually have another client who's about to test um coming up on or coming up in July, who is uh going for a max, he was uh 497, um, the last readiness of or the his last test. So super excited about that as well. But a lot of people are talking about it, right? So um, as well as the the Air Force going from 1.5 to two miles, that was a big topic when I was at drill. It's like, what do you think about you know adding a half a mile? And how could they do that? I'm just like, whoa, like we gotta, we gotta chill out. It's not a big deal. And if you were training properly, um, it it shouldn't be much of a change, to be totally honest. But like I said, I think it's a very important question. And I've seen some people absolutely butchering their approach to the two mile. So, what I am doing is, you know, trying to come up with a series where we're going to answer a lot of these questions. Now, when it comes to the two mile specifically, we're also going to be talking about strength training as well as nutrition, those different types of things in later episodes. Um, because again, it's not just about the the running, right? We don't want to just accumulate a crap ton of miles, be weak, be small. Like that is not the objective, uh, especially for tactical athletes. So, again, the the big focus within these next couple episodes, and we're gonna have some intermittent guests come on, but the focus point is like, hey, hey, how could we, you know, showcase this system with uh with what we use? So to start here, I kind of want to differentiate there's a lot of different people, but we have like uh, and I did a post on this the other night, but it's like we have person A, you know, everybody fires up the Garmin or Apple Watch, whatever that may be. And then, you know, maybe they're starting a new program, they start off, they come flying out of the gates, right? Maybe their legs are turning over uh in the beginning, they feel pretty good, pace feels right, and then you know, confidence is is very, very high. Then you look down at your watch and it's like, oh crap, I still have a distance to go. I'm already smoked. That's when the self-doubt kicks in. So the goal here is to be person B, where we fire up the Garmin, we have specific evidence, and we're operating with historical context of saying, okay, I have been around these paces, I have set PRs and training, I am going to be good to go, right? And that doesn't seem like you know, uh that big of a deal, if you may, but it's thinking about it from a perspective of, okay, I know that I'm going to hit a PR here. I am familiar with the pace, I have been practicing the pace, and now we are good to go, right? So the goal here is to go through this episode and have you have a better understanding of how we would program for this. Again, like I always say, there's obviously nuance here um based off of your starting point. And I always say there needs to be some sort of readiness evaluation to figure out what you need, what your specific weakness is. But again, big picture, these strategies or the overall structure will work for the majority of people, right? So again, if you are, I'm gonna give some you know beginner, intermediate, and advanced kind of tactics here to make sure that we are, you know, thriving where we're at. But again, it's super important that we actually take an honest self-assessment of where we are at. And I think uh a readiness evaluation is the perfect kind of pulse check for that. So the first thing that I wanted to dive into before we get into the specifics of the runs, uh, again, I think this is you know the most important aspect and the most important skill that we can develop. And it's RPE, so rate of perceived exertion. Now, I think this is super important because it allows us to be able to adjust our training based off of how we feel. So at the end of the day, RPE is going to be subjective, but I would argue that's not necessarily a bad thing because I know how tactical athletes are, I know how I am. Where it is, if you saw a certain pace, if you saw, you know, a certain distance, whatever that may be, you are going to hit that regardless of how you feel. But if we start getting in tune with our body and actually practicing the RPE scale, that could be easily the most important tool to make sure that we have staying power with what we're going to do. So RPE, if you aren't familiar, is a scale of one to 10. And we're going to go over kind of what that means and how you can practice it. And then we're going to show you how to incorporate some of these runs within that. So you think RPE, like you are alive, you are able to walk RP one, you are able to walk, you are able to just be alive, right? That is the the easiest that we are going to be, and not necessarily, you know, sitting on the couch, but hey, you're you're good to go, right? Now, the the main kind of premise that I kind of want to focus on here is RPE four to six, right? That is your easy, and that is traditionally known as zone two. So when I like to give you a kind of a couple different things that we can focus on for RPE four to six, right? And again, you'll see that there's ranges here, but that is okay. It doesn't have to be, you know, overthought where I think a lot of people will go into the zone two territory, and I'm gonna touch on the the problems with that, but a lot of people will be so freaking neurotic about that. But we got to realize as well, like our heart rate monitors are not gonna be super accurate. There could be, you know, just uh a ton of data coming into your your Garmin, whatever you use, and it's just a little bit, you know, saturated when it comes to the information you're getting. Maybe you are running high one day. Um, maybe you are your heart rate's really low and you're maybe a little bit above. Again, we don't want to overthink those things. We just need to actually execute. So in order to stay in that RPE four to six range, think conversational pace, right? If me and you were having a conversation, you would be able to respond without gasping for air, right? And if you want to get like super um in the weeds with it, think of like a 12-word sentence beforehand that you could say without gasping for air, air. Another thing is you could do like I call it intermittent nasal breathing, where yeah, you're like don't expect to nasal breathe the whole entire time. That is going to slow you down and eventually um have you raise your heart rate, anyways. But intermittent nasal breathing, you could just breathe in, deep belly breath, in throughout your run, exhale, um, and and not have to be like gasping for air. So these are things that I I think about again, you know, somewhat comfortable, controlled, sustainable. That is that easy range there of the RPE four to six. Now, taking that a next step up, RPE six to eight. This is your moderate. So think tempo, threshold. Again, we don't need to be over consumed about the names, but here you you could talk, but you'd rather not. Right. So I think about this as being able to hold a pace for let's say 10 to 15 more minutes if you had to, right? So this is controlled urgency. We're not necessarily sprinting, we're not necessarily, you know, jogging, waving to the neighbors. It's like, hey, we're we're finding that middle ground here. Now, the last couple ones. So I like to say RP eight, eight and a half or eight point five to nine. These are your hard efforts or you know, repeats, different things like that. So here I like to say, hey, we're we're thinking about a couple words max, right? You're you're working, you're getting after it. It is definitely uncomfortable, but it's still sustainable, right? There's a little bit more in the tank, but but not too, too much here. So the most important aspect that I see butchered with any kind of hard work or repeats is there's zero pacing, right? So pacing is still very, very important. So I like to say, hey, this, these types of runs here, we want to essentially earn your rest periods, but still keep negative splits, right? So the that would essentially mean that your last rep on, say, just for an example, a 400 would be theoretically your best one, right? So again, I talked about it being all these different scales, right? Or the last one here. Sorry, I'm jumping around. The last one would be, you know, RPE 10, right? These are this is the the last 200 or 400 on your time trial. So think, hey, here is where we are, you know, swearing we're dropping four letter, four letter words. Yeah, I'll let you you let you kind of decompress that a little bit, but we are sending it, right? This is test day. This is the final 200 or 400. This is where, okay, we are going to be a little bit banged up, but he we're going to send it. We are going to, you know, see what we got, right? But I want to be clear that RPE 10 or the end of those time trials is testing, right? So we need to differentiate that with testing and training, where training is going to be day-to-day. Testing is going to be something like a time trial or a PT test or something like that, right? So we need to definitely differentiate those. So again, I I was started talking about you know auto-regulating, being subjective. But again, this is a very big tool to say, okay, we are not necessarily associating these RPEs with paces, with you know, cadence, those different types of things. What we are doing is associating these RPEs to how we feel for that specific day, right? So if you are absolutely smoked, your easy run, your RPE four to six might be a 930 pace. If you're feeling really good or the the weather is cooperating, everything like that, maybe it goes down to a 9.15 or a nine minute, right? I want you to really like think about that where it doesn't necessarily matter your specific paces, especially with something like easy. Now, once we get into the moderate or hard, we could still bias the RPE, whether it's seven, whether it's eight, we can bias those things, but keep the splits in mind, right? Now we can start actually practicing these things. So, what I always say to my clients, and I think is a very, very good tool so we can actually practice these, is record your data, right? You know, use your Garmin, use your chest strap if you have one. Record all of this data, but do not look at it during the run. I would rather every day of the week have you actually practice these RPEs without a without the influence of Garmin, right? Without external feedback. We want to really focus on internal feedback or our internal monitor of how we are actually handing handling these runs. And then from there, it's like, okay, now we can debrief that data afterwards. So, me personally, I like to gamify my stuff. So I will not look at my watch and then I get my Garmin data once the once the run is finished. And it's like, okay, this was supposed to be RPE six. Where does my where's my average heart rate? Where's my max heart rate? Where was my pacing? Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I feel like I was in that RPE four to six range. Same thing for moderate. We're now moderate or hard, really. We can start doing that same kind of premise. Don't look at your heart rate, don't look at your splits, and really, like I said, gamify it and test yourself. So now, after moderate and hard, we can look at that data afterwards and say, hey, yeah, like these splits on my uh 400 meter repeats, they're looking pretty good. Oh, holy crap. They were within, you know, say five seconds of each of each other, maybe um less than 10 seconds of each other. These were really good. And the last one was was my best one with you know all the rest periods and whatnot. That is showcasing to me that okay, you are learning your your pacing, and now we can get a better understanding of how to actually race prep during a two-mile or during a PT test, where it's like, okay, the goal, and again, like this, there's a lot of nuance here. I know how you know testing usually goes. There's a game plan, and sometimes unfortunately, the the game plan goes out the window, but we can start really thinking about these things of okay, I'm going to start my test at you know an RPE eight. I'm gonna ramp up to maybe a nine, and then the last, you know, uh 800, I'm going to empty the clip, right? So now we can actually practice those or execute those things because we practice them on a week-to-week basis. So now what I want to do is to get into some of the problems that I've seen with you know how people execute on a day-to-day basis, and we don't really focus on or they don't really focus on RPEs. So the first main problem is the the slow and steady, right? This is the person that only does zone two, and then that's all they really get into. It's like, okay, I'm going to do, you know, zone two four to five times per week. I'm not going to really, you know, train too hard or anything like that. And then I'm going to improve my runtime. Now, I'm going to be honest. Obviously, depending on your starting point, maybe that's what you need is just more consistency of just saying, okay, I'm going to do, uh I'm just going to run, right? I'm just going to do zone two. And again, if you maybe have a lot of weight to lose or you are somebody who doesn't run at all, maybe this is approach, but I would this is your approach. But I would still argue that okay, maybe we can add in some hard work so you can actually feel out these RPEs and have a better understanding of what easy feels like relative to your other runs. So for that person, maybe it is uh bike sprints, maybe it's a lot of work on the rower, maybe it's uh incline sprints or hill sprints, maybe it's sled sprints, right? You can work in a bunch of different things here, but I've always found a big problem where okay, we're only going to zone do zone two. And this was, you know, one of the mistakes that that I've made in the past, where it's like, okay, I need to build my base. I'm only gonna go really, really slow. And then we have no understanding, or we don't, you know, actually learn the skill of running because maybe we are in, you know, so deconditioned that it's just okay, well, I have to keep walking to stay within, you know, an arbitrary zone two range, right? So this person, a lot of times I've found them kind of overconsuming or being neurotic about all the little things that matter to a certain extent, but we treat them like the main thing. So think about you know, the heart rate formulas or um the zone ranges or you know, having to walk because your Garmin told you to, right? Again, we are losing a lot of different bandwidth by actually practicing the skill of running because we are so glued to uh arbitrary numbers. So that is the one problem that I've seen. And again, if you want to talk about tactical athletes specifically, say the example I always use is say law enforcement. Somebody in law enforcement's like, okay, I want to improve my two mile, I want to improve my run, I'm only going to go slow. Well, what happens when you need to sprint and chase after somebody, right? That is a blown hamstring. So again, it depends on your starting point, depends on where you are. But it's very important to say, okay, I actually want to practice these skills. So I'm going to kind of mix and match different types of runs that we're going to get into. So last thing I will say on this with zone two, uh, I think it's very important that we start focusing on easy. So, like I said, RPE four to six, but again, understanding that we need to drop our pride and ego and say, Oh, there are times when you might have to walk, and that is totally fine to stay in that relatively easy realm. Now, I think it's very important that, you know, with that said, it's also important that you make that intentional decision based off of your easy and based off of historical context. Now, what I mean by that is you are going to go off of your easy. And then if you make the intentional decision, it's like, okay, yeah, I need to walk. I'm getting, you know, I'm not able to nasal breathe. I'm not able to say my 12-word sentence, that is totally fine. But if you are just kicking off and you're like, oh, you know, hit 144 uh beats per minute, that means I need to walk and get it down. It just gets overconsuming. And like I said, that we we leave a lot of progress on the table. So another one here, another different type of uh demographic or different type of person is the full send mentality. Now, I had a conversation with somebody recently who is like, I want to improve my runtime, like I want to be, you know, in front of the pack with the the people that I am leading and the people that I am teaching. Um, so is there any way that you can kind of review a little bit of my program? And I'm like, okay, sure, like send it over. I saw the program and I'm like, dude, there's no wonder. So not only was there a a lot, a lot, or he said as well, I'm not really making much progress. I'm either really good, or I either go conditioning heavy and then that improves, and then I'm super weak, or I go strength training heavy and then I can't run. So that is that was one of the driving forces between thinking about this series here. But I looked at some of his running, and you know, we're talking about based off of from what I would assume a beginner when it comes to running. And I saw, you know, multiple sessions where it was 60 minutes of zone two, which to me is is a lot, especially from a beginner standpoint. And then there was a speed day, which was like a 5k tempo plus four by four minutes with a three-minute jog in between. There was a lot of different things like that. And I'm like, okay, well, no wonder like ripping a 5k tempo as a beginner is just an onslaught, and then the four by four at the end is just insult to injury, to be totally honest, right? So the full send mentality when I see a lot of these different programs is usually a driving force and not a good one. So, again, we talked about the full send or the max effort, as in my opinion, the the last 200 or 400 of a time trial. That's where, in my opinion, that RPE 10 lives, right? We shouldn't be consistently touching on those things throughout training. Again, that is testing, that is not training. So the tactical athlete that runs everything at a 10 out of 10 effort is either going to, you know, have injuries pop up, they're either going to build a very big extreme deficit when it comes to recovery, or they're going to just be keeping at those quote unquote fast paces and not have turnover towards the end, right? So that would be that person who is going to come out of the gates flying, then all of a sudden they get hit maybe because they don't have a base or they've never really practiced um not or running hard or moderate without, you know, wanting to keel over. So these are all things that that I would definitely think about. Um, because again, we we don't want to just destroy our covery recovery. That is not the goal of running, and I think a lot of people take that path. So the last person here that I'm trying to help with this, uh, with this series is the person who's not clocking any miles at all. Right. I was talking to a friend the other day and we we talked about it and we were laughing um on the phone because it's like, oh, like you talk about or people talk about, oh, I bought this running program, or I have new shoes, or you know, the tech is completely dialed in. Maybe there's zero miles logged, or they're they're watching a ton of different hours of cadence, of foot strike, of you know, breathing cadence, all these different types of things, and we aren't even getting any miles in. So I want to be clear like I am not saying that you shouldn't be doing any kind of research or learning throughout the process, but I will tell you from my own experience as well as working with tactical athletes, the best teacher that we could have is actually getting in the ring. So your body is way, way, way smarter than you give itself credit for. And I can promise you, if you just practice, your body is going to adjust and figure it out. Now, obviously, I say that I think a strategy strategy is very, very important, but we're not going to be able to plan our way to a PR without the execution component. So if you are a beginner and you're on the sidelines, or a lot of the The times I see, you know, people are getting ready for a run and they start doing a mile before their strength training or a mile after their strength training or just treating it as an afterthought, you are going to be frustrated with a time trial, if I'm being totally honest. So again, that person is technically checking a box. But if you really want to PR or you're more intermediate or advanced, like you need to go beyond just checking the box with these things. So now what I want to do just because uh again, I wanted to cover some of the mistakes that I see I've seen, some of the demographics, um, and then the RPE scale, because now it's going to be directly applicable to the three different types of runs that I would recommend for again the majority of people. So within these runs, again, my biggest objective with my clients, and again, maybe this is from my own doing um when I was when I didn't know much when I just was running to run. Um, but I think this is super helpful, you know, talking about RPE and talking about three specific runs or three specific categories, I should say, of runs, because now we can stop being so neurotic in the process, right? We can stop obsessing about heart rate zones, um, certain mileage targets. That's another big one where I've I've uh you know onboarded some clients and they're like, oh, I need to run 50 miles per week to make progress. And my question is always, well, why? Why did like what's special about 50 miles? Can we drop that down and get better results? Or um drop that down and get to where you are now, right? Um, so that's something to think about as well as the the last one here. We don't need to overthink like cadence metrics either. We obviously want to build that and get better with our cadence over time. But again, I found a lot of people will be at the starting line worrying about all those things before they even start touching the pavement. So, with that said, the three types of runs, again, I talked about this a little bit with the RPEs, or that is why I broke out the RPEs the way I did. But it is just simply easy, moderate, and hard, right? So, again, for something like the two mile, we want to work towards, you know, each one of those once per week at least. But again, depending on your starting point, maybe you are biasing the easy runs, or maybe you are somewhere, you know, you're running a certain mileage per week. Maybe we could do uh, you know, bias the moderate and hard and keep maybe one or two easy runs, stuff like that throughout the process. Um, so there's no simple solution for everybody. That is the power of individualized coaching. But I will tell you that the framework works for everybody. So again, with the easy, moderate, and hard, what I like to think about is a stoplight, right? So again, thinking about you know, yellow, green, and red in that perspective, it is like, okay, we want, you know, a blend or one of each of those. So green would be easy, yellow would be moderate, and red would be hard. Where even if you think about the time durations, okay, like that is usually the time durations at a light stop are usually a pretty a pretty decent representation of the amount of time we should spend on each of those. Now, that's obviously not a fact, and I get that the lights change depending on which road, but just something to put it in perspective there. Now, when it comes to run number one, I talked about easy runs there, right? We talked about conversational pace and thinking of that RPE four to six that we've talked about. Now, I think it's very important that we, like I said, detach from the pace on your watch. Does not matter. This gets, you know, there's no zone two or easy run competition or your pace. And and I promise you, you know, people watching you run by are not like, wow, that guy is, or that guy or girl is clocking a 10 30 minute per mile. What are they even doing out there? Like that, that is all in our head. Nobody cares. Um, so the again, the one thing that we want to focus on during that easy run is okay, can you respond with approximately a 12-word sentence without gasping for air? Right. If you are able to do that, then you're probably in the right intensity, right? That is where we need to be with that, like I said, the four to six range. If you are not, and you're like, damn, I'm this is getting a little out of control, you need to pull it back. Again, that remember that this is the foundation that everything is built on. So we need to kind of widen that. I've talked about this before, where I like to think of a pyramid. If you think about you know, performance as a whole of a pyramid, the easy work or your aerobic capacity is that base of the pyramid. So the more consistent that we can be while keeping this in that actual easy range, the better that we are going to be for it and the wider that we're going to be able to spread out that pyramid so we could put more goals on top of it, right? We can maybe do more hard work, more easy work on top of that, that easy foundation. But again, I found a lot of people, they'll either rush it, they'll be over consumed by pace. Now their easy run starts to bleed into moderate and hard. And it is like, well, what do we, what are we even even shooting for? And again, once we debrief with data, now we can start seeing and providing feedback to ourselves of like, okay, yeah, this was supposed to be an easy run. And my heart rate, my average heart rate after after the the run was at one 165, 170. It's like, okay, well, maybe it wasn't too easy, right? Maybe we need to fix that for next time. But like I said, that is how you actually train your internal monitor. And it's going to be even more beneficial when we get to the moderate and hard. So again, with a beginner, here maybe we're two to four, two to four easy runs, maybe 15 to 20 minutes per session, and then adding five minutes per week, depending on your recovery, right? So now we can really build that base. Now, if you're intermediate, I would probably focus again two to four easy runs. Maybe we go 30 plus minutes and then we progress that as well. Now, with the advanced person, what I would say is maybe you know one to two easy runs, and then we're going 45 minutes, but now we have some bandwidth to be able to bias runs two and three. Because again, we need to understand, and we're going to be going over strength training in the next episode. But it's very important that all these things need to be considered with your strength training, right? It's not this is your run plan, and now we're going to make up a strength training plan or and then also pile on a random nutrition protocol. It's like, no, all these things need to respect and reflect one another. So keep that in mind. That's why there's bigger ranges on the um on the amount of easy runs in this example, because again, we don't know what your whole system looks like yet. But again, it depends on what we are biasing, what your weaknesses are, right? What is going to be our leverage point? So the last thing I'll say on easy, and I had a client, I was talking to a client about this, is realize that easy does not mean effortless. I think that is a big, you know, misconception where people will say, like, oh, I'm going on an easy run, and it was just like blissful. I was, you know, like I said before, waving at all my neighbors, you know, looking around, having a great time. No, like four to six out of ten effort does not, you know, it's it's easy relative to your other stuff. So again, this is why I think it's important to get some hard work in so you can get that that humble pie of like, okay, this is what easy is supposed to feel like. But again, just just know that it's it's all relative. So easy does not mean you're just gonna be out there floating and everything is is sunshine and rainbows. So that is run number one, easy runs. Run number two is hard runs. So this is your speed work. So think of again that 8.5 to 9 out of 10 effort here. So again, we're going hard, but pacing is still required. So, again, like I talked about, those negative splits. So, some examples here that we could we could really work on. And again, the the goal here or the objective is to not only build your capacity with these, but it's also to train your legs. So I started this episode with that person with okay, they're doing, you know, they're they're only 200 or 400 meters in, their legs aren't turning over, they're getting heavy, and they're just they're they're not turning over, right? So, again, that is the the big aspect of the hard stuff. So um, you know, also that neuromuscular power, it's not just aerobic capacity, but obviously there will be some some blend of the two. So here, maybe you're doing 400s, maybe you're doing 30 second sprints. I uh depending on the person, I like to do a lot of time duration stuff, not just necessarily distance. Um, again, depending on you know if you are specifically targeting a two mile, obviously you you distance might be a good call. But I like for a lot of different people um durations. So maybe we're going 30 seconds, maybe 60 seconds, maybe a minute 30. Um, just again, getting getting back to that RPE principle because I know how we all are. If you see 400s or 800s, now we're looking at historical context and it's like, oh, I gotta beat this, I gotta beat that. Um, so that's just a tool that I like to use to kind of switch it up a little bit. But that would be run number two. Now, with the hard stuff, what I like to do, and again, depending on your strength training, um, a lot of the times have some, obviously you're gonna be pre-fatigued, but do some hard intervals after a strength training day. So whether that's a full body day, whether it's a lower body day, it's a great tool to do that to consolidate some stressors and really hit it hard. So you can hit you can already start the recovery process for the rest of the week. So, yes, it's going to be a tough session, especially if you combine them. And I'm not saying that you have to combine them, but it is a good training protocol or a training tool to say, okay, here this day is pretty open from a bandwidth perspective, like big picture, whether that's work or family. Let's hit it hard and let's start that recovery process. So that is a tool I like to use. And again, with the hard runs, depending on where you're at, that could also be something on an air bike where we're mitigating some of that impact, but we can still feel out that hard effort or that hard RPE or your legs kind of talking to you a little bit, right? I think that's very important so we understand the relatively easy stuff. The last type of run here is moderate. So this is a blessing and a curse because I think that a lot of people they're either all moderate or none at all. So this is that middle ground where we can really practice pacing. And again, talking about tempo threshold-ish type stuff is going to be the the middle ground here that's going to help really, really, really hit your PR. And again, like I've been hammering, practice pacing. So, again, this is where we can not, we don't necessarily have to run at goal pace. Again, it depends on your starting point and maybe how aggressive or how big your goal is from where you currently are. But just realize that this is that, you know, controlled, honest, deliberate, this is that uncomfortable work that it's not, you know, crushing you, but it is not necessarily super, super fun, right? So, again, this is that RPE six to eight, like I had mentioned, you could talk, but you'd rather not. This is that that pace that you could hold for 10 or 15 more minutes, right? So, this in my opinion is where PRs are made, and this is where either time trials or won or lost. So, we can have some fun with these. We can do progression runs, we can do, like I said, tempo, we can do a little bit, you know, higher intensity to threshold. But again, what I want you to think about is thinking about these as different categories. So it is not saying that this is an easy run, this is a moderate run, this is a uh hard run. What we are doing here is thinking of almost buckets where we can put certain runs in. So there is that creativity component, but this is how I like to look at it, especially from a training perspective to understand different stressors that we're going to be accumulating throughout the week. So with moderate, maybe it's uh just some examples here. Maybe it's three by five minutes resting two minutes between attempts. So you run, you know, one five minute rest, you know, you rest two minutes, you do another five minute rest, and then you do another five minute. So one of the things that I like to do that's that's pretty fun is doing progressions where the first five minute is easy, the second one is moderate, and then the third one is hard. So that would be a nice little progression run where I personally would probably put that in the moderate range of uh when you're looking at intensity overall. But that is a good tool there. There's also, if you want to extend them a little bit, like two by eight minutes, resting two minutes, uh, one by ten minutes, right? For at moderate pace. But these are all different types of runs that again we can kind of flex our creativity within the within each category there. So I already talked about the deep debriefing with data. I want to hit it one more time because I think it's very important, but it's such a good tool and a fun tool, in my opinion. Maybe I'm a little bit um weird with analytics, but I think it's such a fun tool where now we can actually see some progress throughout. Why is this important? Because again, you think about an easy pace. A lot of people will complain about their easy pace or not think, like not it's not good and it's too slow, those different types of things. Well, if you started collecting data at the start, and then maybe six weeks in, eight weeks in, you start comparing your eight-week in, you know, easy pace to your beginning easy pace, you will likely see progressions if you are holding that standard. So some things that we can look at is average heart rate. Some things that we can look at is if you're doing 30 minutes, for example, you can look at distance covered, right? There's you can look at cadence. There's so many things that you can look at in there, but you will see, and I promise you, if you improve your RP, we'll call it RPE integrity. If you improve your RPE integrity, you will see improvements, even if, like obviously, the goal is to improve your aerobic capacity. Even if you didn't improve your aerobic capacity, but you improved your pacing ability, you will improve your runtimes. So that is another reason. And again, looking at the moderate or hard, you could look at a lot of different different splits, same kind of thing with your heart rate. Um, another cool one that's a little bit uh under the radar, I don't see a lot of people talking about it, is heart rate recovery, especially after your uh repeats or hard work. So, what I like to do for this one is you know, you run your intervals. Now you can kind of collect some data on your heart rate drop-off during your rest periods. Another thing you can do is, okay, after the run or after the moderate work, how long did it take you to get below, say, 120 beats per minute? Now we can take our pulse. As soon as you hit your eight minutes or 10 minutes, we can we can see our heart rate. And it's like, okay, it took me a minute 30 to get below 120 beats per minute, just for an example. Now all of a sudden it takes you uh a minute 15. And it's like that is a drastic improvement. And I want you to think about it from a perspective of okay, you recovered a lot faster from your bout. Now think about what that's doing from a training perspective when you are doing, say, a PT test. So for the army, it's like, okay, you have to crush all these different events before the run. So if we can recover a little bit faster, now all of a sudden we open up more bandwidth to be able to not only improve those, but we have more gas in the tank when it comes to our two mile time. So a little bit of a tangent there, but very, very important nonetheless. So with all those things, like I said, you know, distance covered, we can look at average heart rate, we can look at splits. Were they negative? Did you practice pacing or did you come out too hot? I think the most important thing here is realizing if you do, like say, oh, you you did your easy run, and then it's uh the the pace is quote unquote technically moderate, right? Maybe it's a little bit high for easy work. That does not equal a failure. That equals a lesson learned where now we can go, okay, we're going to fix our approach and we were going to take a different approach, our next easy run. Did we improve it there? Yes. Okay, that is a lesson learned. That other session wasn't a failure and it wasn't useless. A lot of people will say, like, oh, what happens if I drift into zone three? Or, you know, what happens if my moderate run was a little bit low? We are still uh building our aerobic capacity. So realize that none of these things when it comes to zones, they are arbitrary and it's not saying like zone two, oh, I'm stepping into zone three. I'm turning off zone two now, and now I'm going to turn on zone three. Like, no, that is not the reality. Again, I also they're always all on, they're just at different, different levels here. So it's again, if you think about a dial, it's like, okay, we're dialing things, but everything is on. So very, very important there. And again, that is how you actually build wisdom and the skill of running and training your internal monitor. So when it comes to test day, you will be better off because you understand some of these paces and you understand the approach needed to hit your PR. So, again, how these runs work together, think about it from a perspective. I already talked about the pyramid aspect of the easy, but easy builds the base, it allows you to recover and uh improves your recovery, but also it you don't accumulate a lot of fatigue if you are keeping the intent intact. Hard builds the engine, right? This is that leg turnover, that leg drive, but also it touches on that aerobic capacity. Again, understanding that they're all on. Moderate, now that teaches you how to race, right? That teaches you how to step it, step on the gas and feel out okay, where am I at when it comes to my RPE? Yeah, I'm probably at that mid-range. I have, I know I have a lot more in the tank. Now we can kind of empty the clip when it comes to our test. But again, it is understanding that we need to practice these things. We need to familiarize, familiarize ourselves with the desired pace so we can actually improve it and we know what it feels like. We want to create with these three together that that I call it that been there, done that mentality where we have practiced these so much. We have developed our pacing strategy internally, and we use debriefing data uh for externally for the the debrief points, so we can actually make sure we are in the right realm. So that is the the full picture here. Now I want to be clear like all those other things that I talked about, you know, zones, um, certain strategies for beginner, mediate, intermediate, and advanced. We do we just don't want to overcomplicate it. So, yes, we could get into way more details, we could dive in a little bit further on each run. We could give you specifics here. But again, I've found in my experience, the majority of people don't need any more overcomplicated information. We just need simple. That is why I talk about easy, moderate, and hard. So, like I talked about, this is the uh, I would say the the one quarter of the equation. We still have strength training, we still have nutrition, we still have lifestyle, um, we still have a bunch of other things that I'm going to be putting in this series. So be on the lookout for that. But I appreciate you. And as always, let me know if you have any questions and I'd be able to uh to get those answered for you.