Archive for December 2024

What’s the point of completing workouts like this? Ones that accumulate large run volume in multiple “short” (relatively speaking) efforts? Let’s dive in…

First of all, a session like the one in the picture is called a BIG MILE or BIG VOLUME session. This is one of the mandatory marathon prep runs you need to be incorporating into any marathon prep! Not too long ago, the Hill Pursuit Podcast highlighted 5 Key Runs that must be included into your marathon prep! For more background on this, go back and listen to episode 86 of the Hill Pursuit Podcast HERE!!

This type of run requires some background information, specific to the individual. So I’ll elaborate.

There’s a really important concept with endurance running called “threshold training.” Some athletes define “threshold” in terms of physiological. This relates to real-time lactate assessment: doesn’t get more accurate than this! Measuring blood lactate in real-time allows an athlete to see at exactly what pacing/intensity blood lactate is accumulating so much, that is not removed in time to sustain that specific intensity. There are numbers and values that apply to this assessment, and these are generally universal, although there is always a bit of individual variability…again, I dive into those specifics in episode 86 of the podcast (linked above).

But without assessing lactate in real-time, athletes are able to guage their “threshold” off a planned pace for endurance racing, or they could also use heart rate. For ME personally, I find that I respond well to planned pacing, since my heart rate aligns nearly perfectly in all circumstances. So instead of obsessing over my heart rate, I hit pacing. Now…where does the pacing come from?

Well, I’ve developed my own pacing off of my goal for the upcoming season. These goals impact threshold training, and also LSD (long slow distance) training. This season, I’ve increased the pacing for my LSD runs. This was intelligently designed after I took a critical and thorough look at what I could improve following last season. At this point, my LSD runs are all at 10:20/mile pace. Typically, any LSD sessions should be predominantly zone 2 intensity. For me, that falls in the low 140’s or mid 130bpm range. In terms of performance and not physiology, this equates to around 90 seconds to 120 seconds slower than planned marathon pacing. That being said, 10:20 perfectly falls into this zone 2, since my marathon goal is around 8:30-8:40/mile pacing.

So what does this mean about “threshold” training, or accumulating big run volume within a session?

Large volume run sessions involve accumulating total mileage of high volume, with brief recovery bouts. Since these are repeated bouts of small volume, the intensity can be at threshold, right at race pace, or slightly faster than race pace depending on the total volume.

Today’s session involved 10 total miles of “intensity” and purpose, with all warmup, recovery, and cooldown volume right at 10:20/mile pace. Based on where I’m at in my prep, I decided to run all of the 2.5 mile intervals at 8:30/mile pace. In theory, this is at, or slightly faster than my planned marathon pacing in May of 2025. As the season progresses and I re-visit this exact session, I’ll slightly push this pacing and reassess when looking at my heart rate response!

So in summary, accumulating big run volume is super valuable. It allows you to accumulate great volume at “race pace” or threshold (whatever you ultimately decide), without completely beating yourself up in the process. After all, we need to also train intelligently and with purpose! We can’t simply go out and run 20 miles at our planned pacing…all day every day. Eventually, sure. But for now, I’ll take the total volume while being smart about recovery and without sacrificing my sessions for the rest of the week/block!

I genuinely hope this information helps. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have specific questions about this, or anything else!

Train smart, train hard.

-Coach

Hi everyone and welcome BACK to the Hill Pursuit Blog!

If you haven’t checked out the recent podcast episode, I highly suggest you do! It has a lot of very relevant nuggets for athletes heading into a challenging and sometimes lonely/confusing off-season. Before we know it, we’re back into what we refer to as “the grind,” and it’s literally the WORST feeling in the world when we get to that point feeling like we’ve accomplished next to nothing over the winter (off-season) months. Have a listen!

But even COOLER than the recent podcast episode…is our new outreach initiative through LIV’s Promise: Family Blessings!

Let me start by describing the WHY related to this initiative…

In early 2024, our family’s world was rocked with the devastating news that our 9-month old had developed cancer. I’ve told that story likely hundreds of times at this point…and although that story isn’t over, and won’t be over for years to come, we are in a healthy and happy place. Our daughter needs to maintain some normal scans and check-ins at the hospital on a regular basis to ensure the cancer doesn’t come back, but she is healthy and cancer free! Thank GOD.

Looking back at the hardest times in the hospital…the diagnosis, the chemotherapy, countless drugs, scans, doctors, appointments, tears, sleepless nights…on and on…there was always a constant.

The hospital was an awful place to us. We were there what felt like 5-6 days/week for MONTHS on end, doing whatever we had to do for our baby. It was terrible. We were “regulars”…cheers, right? Wrong.

But in the darkest moments in this place we grew far too comfortable with, we experienced an outpouring of love from our neighbors. Most of whom, we NEVER EVEN MET. People in the community came into the hospital with free pizzas, free sandwiches, popsicles, etc. etc. Anything small that lightened the mood even for a MOMENT! Some organizations just blindly donated between $100-$500 to ALL of the families on the cancer floor. The love was just limitless. We even got bags full of toys and goodies for Olivia to play with, and some she could pass along to her bigger sisters!

ALL of these acts of love meant the world to us. And we knew that LIV’s Promise would eventually be able to give back in a similar way. Well, now’s the time!

We are starting a “Family Blessings” outreach to do exactly that: to give back to families and children dealing with early childhood cancer diagnoses. It can be in ANY form, but we aren’t waiting any longer! We will begin providing resources to families in all of the ways listed above, and we would love your help!

Please don’t feel like you need to donate anything large at all. This type of outreach takes an entire village..an entire community. If you feel called to do so, you can donate using the link below. Type “Family Blessings” into the donation message! You can even type something like “pizza” if you want your funds to be 100% allocated to a pizza fund!!

We have no rules. We just want to give back.

From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU for the endless love you’ve given to our family and to Olivia. Now it’s time for us to do the same for others who are experiencing their own darkenss.

Help us be the light!

Donate the Family Blessings!

-Coach Hayden