Alex Ostberg | Nike Bowerman Track Club

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to The Endurance Lab Podcast. My name is Dr. Bill Evans, Professor of Exercise Science. And this podcast covers a physiology of some of the best athletes on the planet, as well as talking with their coaches and sports scientists. And on today's podcast, I am joined by Alex Osberg, who is the Assistant Coach with the Oregon Track Club. Not only is he a great coach, but he also is a great runner. Now he's been working with them since 2024, but before that, he ran 13, 18 in the 5K. He's also still running. He actually has a race coming up, a half marathon that he just shared with me. And it is the run to stay warm, half marathon in Eugene. Rumor has it, he's gonna go for running a 62 minute, half marathon off of 20 miles a week and nothing but four minutes of VO2 max four times a week. Alex, thank you for joining me. How'd I do with your intro? - Pretty good, except I'm gonna have to correct you. My half marathon's not gonna be that fast. I am totally a piece with the fact that my collegiate PRs and my best running days are most likely behind me. And I've since shifted my attention to something else equally as exciting in my opinion, which is now coaching and trying to develop some of the best talent in the world. But other than that, you are accurate. - I have two words for you. Are you ready? - Mark? - English. - Yeah, I know. - Do you know what that means? - I do know what that means. I'm still younger than Mark English. (laughing) - So it's possible. - Mark, yeah. Mark English is what is the European champion in 142, just PR. So, okay, Alex, dude, I have so much to ask you about and I wanna give the listeners their piece. I don't wanna just steal your time selfishly and talk about nonsense, which I would happily do. But the first question I wanna ask you after thanking you so much for coming on the pod 'cause I know you're a busy, busy man, is tell me about your favorite research study or physiological kind of concept that you've ever read about or studied in any level of detail? - All right, I'm gonna share one that will probably resonate with your audience and it's some research that's been done by Andy Jones. I actually just listened to the podcast you did with him. Yeah, like within the last 24 hours, I think what you meant to say is you listened to it the minute it came out, right? - I actually wasn't aware of your podcast and the very recently, so I've done a deep dive over it. The past 48 hours, all I've been listening to is the endurance lab and I love it. - High praise. - Pretty. But I, he did some research, it's like the simplest study but I found it very fascinating. I don't know if you've seen this one, but he actually took like 20 plus runners and he did a passive sit and reach test and then he correlated that with running economy. Have you seen that one? - No, but I'm familiar with Jack Daniel's concept that flexibility might impair running economy. But he published that in 1989 or 1983. - Okay, maybe Andy Jones is the second one. - Yeah. - I don't know what this study was. I'll tell you about Jack's, but go on. - Basically, what he found is that the more flexible you were on a passive sit and reach test, the worse you're running economy wise. And it was almost a perfectly linear correlation. And like, yeah, so it's pretty fascinating because I use that as a centerpiece and a newsletter that I wrote to try to like talk people out of static stretching (laughs) and I was like, the evidence is so good here, right? It's a simple study again. It's just you can do with the tools that are in the closet, basically. There's no fancy metabolic card or anything like that, but I love that one. I also have very recently been very interested in the concept of critical speed and D Prime. And I know Andy has done a lot of work there. He published a paper with Brad Wilkins that looked at how you can correlate like Nier's data with metabolic turn points. I found that really tough. - Do you know who else? - Do you know who else was on that paper? - So it would have been Brad Wilkins. It would have been Andy Jones. It probably would have been Brett Kirby. I'm probably missing someone who else. - I think Jake Huggins was on that paper. - Oh, Jake, I know Jake. - Yeah. - Oh, you do? - And he was also on your podcast. I listened to that one. He now works with Brooks. So Jake and I overlapped Nier Jean for a year. He was working with Brad at the OPRL, the Oregon Performance Research Lab. And we run all of our efforts. You're testing in that lab every few months. And Jake's an awesome dude. I mean, I'm so happy for him that he's now got in a spot with Brooks and he worked with Josh Kerr on his mile world record attempt. And so yeah, Jake's a cool guy. I've spent many, many hours picking his brain in the lab. - So it's funny, he's actually, I look at you, I look at Jake, I look at a few other big exercise physiologists, Brad Wilkins and them included. I'm like, gosh, I'm so jealous of these folks. I'm like, dang, they get to do some of the coolest work. But I also know that in between that, there's a lot of work that's not very cool where you're just sitting in the lab like while somebody runs on a treadmill and you're like, what's your RPE? - It's like, it's not always as glamorous as people think, but yeah, that is a fantastic paper. And I have some colleagues who are doing some work. And I believe it or not, I also have my nearest probe right here. I keep it with an arm's length. - Nice. - I've been testing some nitrates. I don't have them behind me. Testing some nitrates to see how they influence reactive hyperemia. But those are really good papers. And those are, dude, this is how I know you know ball. 'Cause when you're referencing those papers, that's good. Now, I looked up the Andy Jones study while you were talking. And so the one thing I was wondering about and the one thing I think is interesting is that their VO2 maxes weren't all that high. So one of the things I wonder here, and I didn't see if there was a correlation between VO2 max and, wow, this is also a super janky figure he has, but this paper's in 2002. - Yeah, it's super old, yeah. - But I was wondering if they had a relationship between VO2 max and their VO2 max and their sit and reach. Because one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking was if, and I'd have to read the whole paper, but oh no, yeah, so wait, they did do one with VO2 max. It says running economy was not significantly correlated with VO2 max and negative 0.004 was already - It's like no relationship. - Yeah, no relationship. But the VO2 max in the study is a pretty low range from about, relatively low. So I'm from 45 to 58. So I'd be curious if that relationship holds if we were to take people who's running economies or between, or sorry, who's VO2 maxes are between 70 and 80. I'd be curious, I don't know. 'Cause my theory there would be that the dispersion, because the range of VO2 maxes is so much, I should, how should I say this? The, the, how should I say this? In that range between 48 and 54, the VO2's, the performance correlation with VO2 is much stronger than the performance correlation. I presume between 72 and 80. So I would assume, right? So I'd be curious because I'd wonder if that relationship would hold true, but mechanically it makes sense. So what was the, what was the main point you made in the newsletter with that? Just that like, we don't stretch? - Yeah, no, I was like, yeah, so I think, basically, yeah, I was just my case against static stretching and that was one of the main studies I used to use it. I loved, I loved debunking myths. I also have a hot take that I wrote a newsletter about, which is like, I don't really see a lot of value in long cooldowns. So, dude, are we, are we in agreement on that? - One of my earliest viral posts, I posted it in October, 2025, when I just started making content. Maybe, maybe even earlier, was why cooldowns don't matter? - Yeah, I completely agree with you. - I don't, I don't ever cool down. - Yeah, in fact, in fact, someone recently, I gave them a six mile workout and they were like, that's an 11 mile day. I was like, no, it's not. It's an eight mile day. And she was like, what about the cool down? I was like, oh, I don't cool down. I don't believe in it. It doesn't do anything. Why don't you believe in it? - Well, if you look at the research, I think Jonathan Peek has done some good work. He's out of Australia, if I'm remembering correctly. He wrote a nice paper that goes through, what is the purpose? What is a recovery that you go through right after a workout? You need to replenish your glycogen stores, you need to rehydrate, you need to repair, like, you need to repair muscular damage and you kind of need to like stabilize the cardiovascular system. A cool down does not make any of those things go faster. You know, you're basically prolonging the window. Now, there's an argument to be made that the mileage that you run in a week is the easy mileage you run in a week is highly correlated with performance, right? That study has been done. But I just think like when you're rushing through a cool down just to get it done with poor biomechanics and it's an afterthought, I just don't think it's very high value running. I would rather have you do a double later that day if you're someone who doubles, rather than do it in a damaged, you know, depleted state. So I usually just try to keep the cool down to like the minimal effect of those. I mean, there's some evidence that if you don't like, there's that cardiovascular stabilization element of it afterwards where like there's a slight increase risk of like post-exercise syncopy where your blood pressure needs a like a minute or two to stabilize, but that happens in like 90 seconds. Like so and also it's been a relevant phenomenon. And dude, your gosh, Alex, we're kindred spirit. Let me tell you about this study. Van Horin, 2018, he did a massive narrative review and he looked at all the physiological effects of cooling down, blood lactate, muscle tissue lactate, laid on set, muscle soreness, muscle damage, stiffness, muscle glycogen immune system, cardiovascular sweat rate, hormone concentrations, psychological, then he looked at mood, state, self-reception and sleep, sports performance, same day performance, next day performance, long-term effects, injury prevention, adaptive response, all these things, right? Guess what? You know what the single most evidence to support a cool down was? Above and beyond anything else. That within a few minutes, your blood lactate probably is a little bit lower? That's it. 18 studies showed that, guess what? Cooling down lowers your blood lactate. You know what also lowers your blood lactate after exercise? Rehydrating and waiting. Sitting just sitting there. No, it's like, like lactate comes down pretty quick and it doesn't, I think cooling down started because people were just like, oh yeah, you can cool down and lower your blood lactate. But guess what? So does sitting there and lactate doesn't cause fatigue so I don't care. Exactly. So, and the cardiovascular stabilization point, I'm just-- just like, yeah, okay, so just walk home. Like, who finishes a five minute VO2 rep and is like, I think, well, sometimes I guess, maybe 800 runners. I think I'm just gonna lay here and sit stationary without moving any joint or muscle for five minutes. - That's not the half. - Yeah, I mean, maybe for a minute to catch a breath, but these are fantastic takes, Alex, I love it. Tell me this, how much pushback did you get when you post these types of articles that are non-unconventional and somewhat pushback on traditional views? - Not actually that much, which might be surprising. I think part of that is driven by the fact that I'm publishing on a sub-stack. So it's reaching an audience that's a little bit more open to nuance. I have a business partner, I guess I would consider my business partner, Dom. We've been working on, I mean, he's run the running effect now for many, many years. Dominic Steter says, but he wanted me to start a newsletter about two years ago and I was like, sounds good, but like, I don't wanna spend any more time on Instagram 'cause it's just like, I have a lot going on and that's just not where I wanna spend my time. He's like, no problem, I'll handle the marketing side of things, you handle the writing. If you write great pieces, we'll make this successful. So he basically does all the Instagram facing side of things and I just handle the sub-stack and I respond to comments on sub-stack. So I think my audience is a little bit more appreciative of long form nuanced content. Whereas I think if you're posting hot tastes to Instagram, you're gonna get people who just watch the reel. They don't read the comments, they don't read the citations and they're gonna get, you're gonna get way more of an inflammatory response because of it. Would be my guess. So I actually didn't get a lot of pushback. You are a hundred percent right, dude. People just wanna be upset. And honestly, I love when it's somebody who doesn't have their GED, which no disrespect. My grandpa never got a high school diploma and he was one of the smartest people I know. However, my grandpa didn't get on Instagram and tell someone with a PhD in exercise physiology why cool down some matter. And I think like, that's not to say that you can't have expertise or valuable opinions because I forget what that logical fallacy is. It basically says, I have more experience than you thus I know, which is logical fallacy, right? But you know, it's just like often times they miss the nuance. But honestly, sometimes Alex, you just gotta rage batom. Just gotta let 'em, just let 'em be upset. And the best thing I do is I just post in ghost. If I get ratioed, I'm like, yeah, whatever. So I recently started carousel postings to try and avoid people from doing that 'cause you can put far more information, almost in newsletters worth of information on there, which I'm gonna do with this podcast once we're done. Okay, next question I have for you. I'm kinda buzzing along here because I have so many questions for you. You work with one of the best coaches of all time. You work with one of the best programs currently. Tell me what is Alex Osberg's coaching philosophy? What is his, and even if it's not like concrete, but if you had to prioritize in the training, easy running, threshold, VO2 max, speed development, strength, any of those things, three months before a race, which of them are you prioritizing the most? - Yeah, I'll tell you the way I think about this question. Another great researcher, Steven Seiler, at a Norway, in many presentations that I've watched, he's referenced something that he calls the Seiler's hierarchy of endurance needs, which is basically shamelessly copying Maslow's hierarchy of needs, in order to progress the self-fulfillment, like you need to be safe and you need to be sheltered and you need food, essentially, right? So Seiler went through and he's based on the 40 years that I've spent in exercise science. Here is what I would consider to be, like Seiler's hierarchy of endurance needs. And he would say that the base of the pyramid is the frequency of training, which is highly corresponds with the volume of training, then the intensity and then the intensity distribution. So those are the three core variables in my opinion. Are you running enough for the demands of the event? How, what is your balance between the easy running and the hard running that you're doing? And then what are the specifics of your hard running? As you move further and further up the hierarchy, so important things, but only important if the lower levels have been satisfied, you get, so what is your yearly periodization scheme? What is your weekly periodization scheme? What are your environmental enhancement strategies, right? You're altitude and your heat strategies. You're, you know, and then, you know, at the top is like a taper because like a taper is only effective at the work before a hand has been sufficient, right? For instance, so I kind of, I kind of view training through that lens, like I'm, if it's not already obvious, I try to be very evidence based in scientific and my thinking and, you know, as I think about like, what are the variables that I care most about? I'm like, okay, what does the evidence say? Now, I work with a very elite population. I'll be the first to admit that a lot of scientific studies are not generalizable to like the 0.001 from, but I think there's lessons and principles to be extracted regardless. So I would say number one, just, okay, let's focus on the hierarchy of needs and make sure we're nailing the hierarchy. In terms of how I progress training variables, I like the, it's called a couple of different things, like inverse funnel, funnel periodization, where like you start broad on like, you know, you're working on, you start on opposite ends of the spectrum, right? So like, you start with small doses of speed and then you extend those as you go and then you start with long durations of strength type work and then you intensify those as you go. And then you can meet in that specific VO2 type of range. Because I just, I believe that the body responds much better to gentle nudges than big torturous pokes. And I always think about like, how do you, how do you systematically progress training variables? And I kind of like the way that those things come together. So it means, it means a couple of things. One, it means you need to have a multifaceted base. I don't believe that you should overemphasize any one component of training for too long at the exclusion of everything else. And then it also means, in my opinion, there are times to turn up the dials and turn down the dials. I just wrote a newsletter recently, which is like, you're, you're overpaying for fitness you already have, basically making the case for how biological systems take are very expensive to build, but are a lot cheaper to maintain. And once you've done a sufficient volume of work on the aerobic system and you've done a sufficient volume of threshold, it's actually remarkable how much you just need the minimally effective dose or the maintenance stimulus to keep those physiological capacities pretty close to max with a significantly less amount of work. So I hope that wasn't too rambling, but that's, do that's, that's perfect. And did you listen to the training philosophy's podcast? - Yeah, yeah, so we have a lot of common ground there. - Yeah, some of this probably sounds very similar. One of the things I love that you said is that it's far more expensive to build the systems than it is to maintain them. And what the other thing about this is that not all systems require the same minimal effective dose. And I think a lot of people assume that they do because the detraining can very much happen quickly if you're in a sedentary state. And this is one of the things that I want to clarify 'cause I feel like I've almost contributed to this conflation of concepts. So yes, you detrained super super fast. If you just sit in a bed and do nothing. But there's also studies by Hickson and you kind of mentioned this that basically show you can cut your training intents or your training volume, and duration, and frequency by like up to 60, and if you maintain intensity, you will maintain VO2 max for six to eight weeks. And if you cut up by 30% and you maintain intensity, VO2 max will continue to rise for up to 12 weeks. So, you know, this is what I try and explain is like what I think about every training parameter as a dose response curve. But also a detraining curve, right? So you're basically looking at these kinetic responses and you're saying, okay, I've introduced this stimulus. It takes about this much time to actually see the benefits of that stimulus. And then if I don't touch that stimulus again, it will detrain at some rate. And the rate at which it detrains is gonna be an exponential decay. It'll detrain very rapidly at first, and then it'll flatten and it'll detrain slower the longer that I go without doing it. And, you know, like, this is why I have a former pro runner who I'm gonna start working with, Isaac Yorkes. And he lives in Yorkes for a row. Yeah, he's awesome, Yorkes is the man. So he's, I've been talking about Danny Mackey about him, just trying to understand a little bit about his historical physiology. And Yorkes, if you're listening, which I doubt you are, hopefully you're okay with me sharing this. But, you know, one of the things I'm gonna do with him is basically cut a lot of the volume of the intense running that he's done to try and get him, we don't know what his goal is right now. Right now, he's just doing it for fun. I have my own goals with him that he doesn't know about. But what I'm gonna do, for example, is cut his sprint volume by like a substantial amount and just have him do like three or four, 30 to 40 meter buildups with a 10 meter fly. Because that's 150 to 180 meters of sprint volume, okay? 'Cause the buildup counts, it does. It's just like the fly is like to really, really intense stuff. And my theory there is like the 80/20 rule. I can get most of the benefits by doing a very, very small dose. And I think in running, and this probably goes back to one of your newsletters I think you wrote about like more or less the idea that we're trying, we're overdoing it with a lot of our sessions. And you're better off just getting like an effective good session as opposed to really just slamming it super duper hard crushing people. Which I think has been a kind of a theory from the 90s and 2000s where people were just getting buried. And Steve Magnus talks about this. And frankly, I haven't read his book and I know that's a shame, whatever, whatever. I'll get to it eventually. But I think he's big on this from what I understand, from what I can gather, is that we push people too hard. And that seems to be something that you have a subscribe to too is just that like we need to kind of introduce these stimulus and very controlled manners. We need to make sure that you're getting, as you said, the minimal effect of dose to not just maintain, but in certain circumstances, push it upwards. So of those things that we've talked about in the pyramid, and I have some funny stories related to Steven Siler, 'cause he's really the father of like modern polarized training. - I know. - Which some people are like pushing back on now, which is interesting. But kind of a follow-up question to that amongst all my rambling where I'm just shaking my head and like yes Alex I completely agree I completely agree Everybody loves threshold right now everybody so two questions Are you doing double threshold and how much VO2 work are you doing if any? Yeah, so I think you mentioned in the interest I'm the assistant coach and I'm working with Jerry Schumacher who I think you alluded to him earlier one of the arguably one of the greatest American distance coaches in the past couple centuries Just in terms of metal count and whatnot So I am providing input on sessions but I'm like not the sole author of these workouts So like it's like my own independent training philosophy might differ slightly from what Jerry does But like I can explain to you like what we're doing with some of the world's best runners We went through a phase in 2024 of trying double of trying double workouts However, we double workouts are double threshold that's actually an important distinction I don't think we had great intensity control over them Which is like the most the most fundamental aspect of this right is like you know there's a point on like you know The you know speed duration curve right where fatigue becomes non-linear right Like whether that dividing line you consider it like LT2 or you consider it critical velocity And I think that one of the challenges with the group at this level is especially on the women's side We have athletes coming at it from really good 1500 meter runners and really good 10,000 meter runners And we have a small group so we want them to work out together as much as possible And like you're going to have to make some compromises in terms of there are some workouts that are going to be really great for the 1500 meter runners And some workouts that are great for the 10,000 meter runners But what we found is that like it really seemed to help our five and 10,000 meter runners But like our 1500 meter runners kind of became collateral damage for instance You know that was like one thing we noticed Were they flat? Were they flat? What do you mean were they flat? Oh just like were they feeling flat? Yeah, well were they were yeah were they feeling flat and were they performing flat on race day? Basically as if they didn't have that next gear Yeah, that that was probably that was one of the observations we noticed Interestingly enough like a lot of people They're almost seem to be like a rebound effect We're like we switched from the double workout and then we went back to what Jerry considers as like 10 or 14 day cycle And then they almost seem to like dig themselves out of a little bit of a hole And we had people who ran great at the Olympics that summer with with Moemet and Kerrister's lights Or they were running their best in like July and August So like it could be there could be a timing piece to this Where like you know you almost like intentionally overreach a little bit And try to super compensate off of it But that's also a dangerous game to play Because the line between peak performance and the line between injury is razor thin And so anyway we dabbled with with the double workouts We were not measuring lactate that's not Jerry's style He's a little bit more old school And I think you can visually observe To a large extent like where people are on that intensive spectrum Especially with the trained eye for someone who's been doing it for 40 years So we were not I think we lost a little bit of control of the intensity And then we ended up switching back in 2025 and 2026 to like a traditional weekly structure That Jerry has used in the past with some tweaks So I've tried it I don't I kind of love the opinion I try to approach all training questions with humility That there's a recency bias to all of these things There's a hype cycle and the hype cycle is going to ramp up And then it's eventually going to fade into obsolescence So like we just happen to be in a phase right now If you study nutrition you see this all the time There's these recurring cycles of either supplements or nutritional strategies That come around every 20 years And then they're going to eventually fade and then come back And so I just I don't know how much staying power the strategy has yet I think there's some validity to it And I know a lot of athletes have been doing it I also think there's a little bit of survivorship bias Like I think that when we see people at the top doing it Just because Yaka Binger-Britzen has been successful That doesn't mean that 199 other people could have tried it and failed at it But they don't reach the headlines so therefore we don't know Now obviously this is why we have science This is why we have controlled studies to answer these questions We don't know This is an open question That's what's frustrating for me is like And I'm doing a study on this I've been doing a study on this Or probably like you've been saying this study for a year I'm like jokes on you podcast has only been out for eight months But I'm doing a study for three years now On high intensity interval training versus double threshold And it's just cross-sectional because it turns out It's very hard to do a longitudinal study on this Secondly, it's also nothing is mutually exclusive in training Because anytime you train someone there are structural adaptations that last for years Capitalization can last for years Especially if you have some minimal effect it does And you're never going to find an elite runner You're just going to sit in bed for three months And then we're going to do this other training paradigm And see what happens, like there's no perfect way to do it So I'm trying to do this cross-sectional study And it is very challenging But we do have some preliminary results And I've done a lot of pilot testing on myself Because I'm a mad scientist And so I'm a proponent of it done right I think a lot of the preemptive or precursors to it You need high mileage You have to have, you have to stay in this golden zone You got to do this, you got to do that It's important, but it's not mandatory And I think that's one of the things that people can fight The other thing is when you're on a team like you said It is impossible Impossible to moderate intensity It's impossible And people don't realize how sensitive Lactate threshold is You go over it by two or three seconds And you're cooked This is why someone's PR tends to be very consistent Week over week It's because the physiology is very consistent And I think those are some things that I've thought So I want to come back to something that you mentioned It's like the functional overreach And that tend to 10 to 14-day hole So to speak that you felt like they were in So the two questions I have is one What is Jerry's kind of 14-day rollover cycle Or 10-day rollover cycle And then secondly, have you guys ever Have you ever done that where you're like Hey, you're going to do two hard to-ish sessions Back to back, 10 days out With the idea that we're going to functional overreach a little bit And then you're actually going to taper really, really hard Have you guys experimented with anything like that? Yeah, so two questions there The first one is what is the typical structure So Jerry's your marker There's three primate And I'm not revealing any trace secrets here This is, I think relatively public information There's three workout types that he likes to Typically return to And of course, these take on various different flavors Depending on where you are in the season And how close you are to a race But one would be like a typical strength session Like usually for men accumulating Somewhere between eight to up to 12 miles of work On short rest Doing intervals of a mile, two miles Sometimes up to four miles He used to do straight 10 mile tempos But we've since modified that To more just doing, doing mile repeats on short rest Doing two mile repeats on short rest So on and so forth Those are all done around Probably just trying to undershoot like LT2 It's like accumulating a lot of work Just that or below threshold When you say below, sorry Just slower than The second type of workout that he'll do And this becomes, this is something that he'll do more and more of As we get closer to championship season And this will look a little bit different In early season Is what he considers to be like a combination workout So he'll typically do a lower volume of threshold And in recent years This presents as doing 400, 600, 800s are ks on short rest So like four hundred and thirty seconds A six hundred and thirty seconds The eight hundred on between thirty and forty five And the ks on forty five seconds And he'll do that for about, depending on the runner Three to five miles worth of work Then take six days All that, all that Threshold but actually probably approaching a little bit more like Critical velocity And I guess those numbers are pretty similar But usually getting down to 10k pace And you know, slightly faster than threshold Yeah, exactly Then we'll take a break And then in the beginning of the season It'll just be like dosing in a little bit It'll be like ten by two hundred on a hundred meters jog Just to start feeling the rhythm of mile pace Because if you're going to, or, or three k pace You're going to try to run seven, thirty for a three k Or if you're a female You know this is a trend where you have to be able to run 32 seconds for a two hundred and make that feel comfortable after some time You need, you need some appreciation of the rhythm of that pace And the feel of that pace And so 200 meters is not that long But it's enough of a stimulus that you can start to condition the body to it So we'll start dosing that in Those reps will become longer and more demanding as we go But in that combination, typically The second part of that workout will either just be some speed on, on appropriate rest Or some speed endurance, typically And so that will be like I said it In the beginning of the season it might be like You know, two thousand meters worth of work At a round mile pace With a steady jog in between As we get towards the end of the season That might be a couple sets of four hundred two hundred On short rest In between those two sets And so anyway That's typically workout type number two Work out type number three is specific So one thing that I think I should caveat here Is that as professional runners We have like almost complete control over our schedule And when we want people to race If you're in the collegiate system like I can predict that with 16 months of a forecast Like this is when the regional meet is going to be This is when the national meet is going to be We have the ability to be a bit more opportunistic Also craft the schedule to race when we want to In preparation for qualifying times And US championships and so forth So we probably do a little bit more race-specific work in practice Than I would recommend for a high school or a college kid Just because we're not actually racing As much as much people do So we need to simulate that more so And those will be like, you know Those will be some soul-crushing sessions Those will be like 2K, 1K, 2K, 1K, 2K at 10K pace Maybe a little bit faster Those will be like One of Jerry's class that we're going to discuss is Mile, 12, 8, 4, Mile Going from 5K pace and getting faster So they're almost like a lot of dirty or broken races Basically to simulate what you want Yeah, those are actually my favorite type of session I think they, as you said, are soul-crushing But they are so effective because they allow the athlete to go through the rhythm of hurting, and if you don't race, you don't get that. And I believe it's harder in a workout than it is in a race. You don't have the adrenaline. You don't have the audience. You don't have the team. And it's almost as anxiety inducing, but it really shows you your limits. So that's the third session is like a very specific session. And so just so I got these rights. So I have basically a lot of tempo threshold work. Then you're moving into a combo session with some threshold work, elicit some fatigue, and then basically build running economy in a little bit of metabolic tolerance, I guess we'll call it. - Correct. - And then the last session would be highly specific. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. We do a long run. The long run gets dropped from the program almost completely once we get to early summer. But from the fall to mid-winter, we'll be doing a long run typically either once a week. In a 14-day cycle, let's just say for instance, we might do one long run that's just like maintenance, just like time on the feet. And we might do one long run that has a little bit of a progressive element to it. One thing I'd actually be curious to pick your brain on is I have noticed that the way I view training is a little bit different. It used to be very biased towards what's the work. And I'm also now much more interested in the question of what does the recovery window look like afterwards? Because like training is not a maximization problem, it's not can I cram it as much work as possible. In some cases, yes it is. It's like how can I cram it as much work as possible in a sustainable way, right? And it's balancing all these different factors. And I have been very interested in the question of, if you try to, I know Garrett Stanford has done a lot of work in this domain, can you try to profile athletes? And like if you take a four flat female 59 meter runner, there's different ways you can arrive at that point. You can come from the aerobic side or you can come from the anaerobic side, so to speak. I'm simplifying. I know that. And he would say that if you're an anaerobically driven athlete, you're much better off taking a threshold session, breaking it into small chunks and doing like 24 by 400 on short rest, rather than doing long tempo type efforts. And so one thing, this just triggered the thought as I was talking about the long run, we have a very strong middle distance program right now for our women. Claudia Kismiris here was just the top 50 meter runner in the world last year. She's gonna be ranked the world in the long run. - Yeah, she's in, just crushing it. - She had a, she had a pretty good season I'd say. - She had a good season. - Yeah. And one thing that I've noticed is these type of athletes, like they're incredibly fit, but like that fitness is specific to some extent and they have their own innate physiology. And like these long runs for these athletes are very taxing and damaging. And like long, very low. - Yeah, totally bearies them. - Totally bearies them. So yeah, I'd be curious to hear you riff on that for a little bit, just like how you prescribed like threshold are longer than how you would modify that based on athlete profile, so to speak. - Dude, I love this. Thank you for teaming me up. I need you to interview me. No, before I answer that, which I will answer in a moment, one thing I wanted to follow up on is, these are yes, no questions. We're rather things that I'm figuring out. So the CV threshold distinction. - Yeah, I asked David Poole directly, who's one of the godfathers of this area. He's really a vascular biologist. He studies microvascular churn. One of his famous papers shows that basically blood flow always moves through muscles and then through very tiny tortuous vessels and moves more slowly. And so you don't actually turn blood flow off and on. In doing so, he's learned a lot about near for a spectroscopy. He was a runner himself. He's worked with Andy Jones. They've worked with Thomas Barstow, some of the best in the game. And when I asked him, I sent him an email, which was bold. But he was basically like, you know, they should intercept and become very similar to one another. But then there was a more recent study that basically showed that threshold and CV can differ from one another. And so I like your definition that it's slightly faster than threshold. Because, and if I had to pick one thing that I think is like, should be a priority, it's, you should have some CV in your training or some running slightly faster than threshold. Not way faster, but slightly faster because of incrementalism and just moving that needle very, very incrementally. Unless you're going to introduce it, excuse me, subsequently during the double threshold. So for example, sometimes what I'll do is I'll move up my speed on the double threshold before I'm technically ready to do so to try and drive stimulus. And I think a lot of people would say, well, your lactates weren't under two. You didn't follow this rule and they'd have all these stipulations to which I'd say, well, at some point you have to increase load or you're not going to get any faster. And so I think CV is like one of the best ways to do that. So the fact that you guys are using that on your combo session, I think is like so underrated. The second thing I was going to say is about the work to rest ratio. It's sort of leads into what you're saying because you had mentioned like doing these 400s at VO2 with a lot of stuff. I think the work to rest ratio is the single most important thing that you can adjust as a coach. Like if you know your intensities, then playing with the work to rest ratio is so important and I think highly underrated. And it's often why I'd say knowing the purpose of what you're doing is crucial because if I want to build running economy, then I don't care about the work to rest ratio for the most part. There may be instances where I'm trying to use fatigue such as by doing on your second session some threshold work or CV worked into some 200s, where I'm actually trying to have a little bit of fatigue in the system to force the neuromuscular patterns in a certain manner because your body's going to do what's most efficient for it at any given point in time. There is a volitional aspect of that though. There is an effort element. And so I think it's the way I think about this is actually through a lot of ball sports. So if did you play ball sports as a kid? - As a kid. - As a soccer for a bit, golf is probably has no transfer ability to running. - Actually, I think golf is the perfect scenario. - Okay, yeah, golf is perfect. - So if you've ever golfed, then you know how hard it is, but also what's your handicap? - Oh, it used to be a 15, but I haven't been - Oh, so rusty right now. - Perfect, yeah, he's sandbagging it folks. He did the same thing to me on the line of a 5K before he ran 1350. So my point though is if I tell you, if I give you a cue, right? And I say like, hey Alex, I want you to extend through your backswing more. You're coming too far inside and you're hooking the golf ball. We can actually, we can do that and we can have you do that and we can give you cues, we can give you tools, right? We could put a stick in the ground and it's okay. Keep your swing path outside the stick or inside the stick. And we can do that to adjust your swing and it takes time, but it can be done and it may not be the most efficient and in golf that may not matter, but in running it does. And so my point is is that much like we can stick, put a stick in the ground, we can use tools such as fatigue to drive a motor pattern a certain way. And so there's some theories and sprinting in particular that you can do tempo before sprint work because it forces the body to run as efficiently as possible. And I think the same can be true of some of the running stuff. And so when you're playing with the work to rest ratio, like, and to answer your original question about like, you know, these different athlete types and the long run in particular. 'Cause I think that was something you asked about in particular as long runs. So in my opinion, it should be highly individualized. If you have an athlete that's getting buried by long runs, take 'em out, it's not worth it. The research on long runs, unless they're a 5K 10K 3K runner, you don't really need them. And maybe I'll get like lambasted for that, but you need them to adapt to training stimulus to complete a 10 mile tempo, you need a long run because you're not going to be able to maintain your oxygen consumption for the length of that 10 mileer unless you've done long runs because that's the main purpose of them. The second piece is that they are very neurologically and structurally taxing. If you have somebody do a long run, let's say you take a vertical jump, quick counter-moving jump, it is a very neurologically taxing movement, okay? So you do that, it is a good index of neurological fatigue and then you have them do a long run and you have them jump. I would argue, yeah, I would argue that a hard long run will tax that counter-moving jump and they actually did this in the Zineini paper so I could go find this. Far more than if I were to have you do something that you would think is more neurologically taxing. So if I said, like, hey, go do 10 by 200 at mile pace with 200 meter jog, a lot of people would say, oh, that's a higher neurological demand, you know? And like, it is more intense, there are more neurological patterns, but if you look at the central nervous system fatigue, the CNS fatigue, it'll be far higher for the long run. And so this is where I would say that I would prioritize the things you care about more. And then in terms of the type of athlete, and I hope that this is someone answering your question, like, I think for the 800, you're better off focusing on their strengths, optimize their strengths. I think the 800 is the one unique circumstance where it has a very specific race, right? And in a 100 meter dash, you don't really see people doing long runs. Why? It's not relevant. And in the 800, you're getting close to a sprint. And so you're far better off, just like hammering your strengths, hammering your strengths, like if you look at Georgia Hunter Bell, from what I understand, she's hammering her strengths, she's working the 800 exclusively. And then to the point of like how you do this, and how you can, if you have an athlete who's a speed, quote, unquote speed based athlete, so they perform proportionally better in a 400, 800 than in a mile 3K. And you break these reps up and you give them this rest. This is where I think it depends where you're at in the season. I think it's totally fine and preferential and usable to break up the VO2 work and give them short rest and break it into sets, 'cause sometimes like mentally for those types of athletes, like they just struggle to stay engaged. You know, it's, yes, I think the physiology is driving that, the fatigue is, contributing to that lack of focus, but at some point, at some point, you have to put it together. And I think maybe that's the thing that people miss is that, yeah, hey, it's fine. Let's keep that work to rest ratio like very, very thin and break it up into sets and give you 10 by 200 with 15 seconds rest at 32 seconds or whatever. But then and do two, three sets of that whatever. And then, but at some point, you've got to put it together. They have to be able to run a 600 at mile pace or it's like, they're not going to get through the race. And I think if you look at Danny Mackey's programming, which is all out there because Josh Kerr, he does an amazing job with that. Like, to me, that's like, that's the bread and butter. You know, I think everybody should be able to run a hard 800 if they want to run a fast mile. And they should be able to do that multiple times. So, so anyways, in short, I think there's merit in what Gary Sanford is saying. I also think that it's very, it's very context dependent on where they're at in the season. As you get closer to the race, you have to do things that are more race specific. And so, hope, I don't know. I just gave you a lot. You told me to riff and I did. Does that align with does that align with what you would think? There's one thing that you said that really resonated with me, which is when you get athletes like the Claudia Kazmiris goes over the world, you have to protect the gift. That's another way. It's the same kind of thing. It's saying like hammer the strength, like protect the gift. And if there's anything that risks impairing the gift or getting in the way of it, like you're just you're you're doing the athlete at this service. Yeah. So, yeah, I want to, I mean, there are times of the year where they need to be able to express their speed and they need to be able to express their acceleration. Today's our first practice of the year, and a few hours, like I don't care what Claudia's like, you know, 40 meter acceleration. So, it's fun. Like we can put that on the back burner a little bit. But when we get into the point of the year where we're racing, like I don't want to do anything that's going to impair what makes you're so special, which is like, gosh, her ability to switch gears and like and and drop a 57 second last lap and a 15 hour meters. Let's not do anything to get in the way of that, because that's like an innate and innate and also developed physiological characteristic. Yeah. Well, let's not let's not, let's not. How much speed? Okay. I would ask you some some yes or no questions. And then I'm going to ask you a different question. Yeah. Treadmill or track. You just have to pick and you can't say it depends. Let's say for threshold, for threshold work. Oh, I track if the weather's good. What about if the weather's bad VO2 day? I almost want to say how bad I would like to say I would say about our wins. I'd still probably say track. Oh, you're solo. I guess solo tough spot here. I personally would go treadmill for threshold, but I'd still try to do the I2 outside. Okay. Okay, interesting. Let's say if you could pick a higher, let's say a higher priority would it be CV or threshold, which would you prioritize more? And you're three three months before the race. Three months before the race? Threshold. Okay. Young athlete. Do you prioritize specific sessions or race experience? Race experience. I like I'm not giving you easy questions. I never said these would be easy. Yeah. Okay. Strength work. Do you do it the same day as a hard session? Or do you do you put it? Do you space it out? For us, this is athlete dependent. We don't have a mandate. We go with we go with what their personal and lived experience has been. Okay. Historically, I have done it on the same day. Like when I was in college, I was not ready my own workouts. But I would love to debate this one. I actually have still not arrived in a satisfactory answer on that one. So yeah. I was I was talking with Mr. York's and he was saying that he likes to do his speed the day before a session. And basically I said, we're not doing that anymore. And I think if you look at it from a traditional strength and speed and power perspective, they would say, you know, like you don't want to carry neurological fatigue into sprinting because it's going to dampen the sprint stimulus and you're not going to get faster. I would so like that's you know, that's why that perspective makes sense. I would say you should focus on the thing you want to focus on. Like at the end of the day, you're a miler. That always needs to take priority. That should take doing your mile work. And I'm sure Jerry would agree on this. I don't know that actually. I would presume. But I guarantee you, if somebody comes in and does a spec mile workout poor because they're fatigued from the gym or sprint work to or a day prior, I'm not thinking coach Schumacher's going to be stoked about that. Not at all. Not at all. We said we always keep the main thing the main thing. Don't major in the minor. Like yeah, see the weight room should allow you to run more. It should increase your structural durability. We would never lift hard on the day before I worked out. It would always either be the afternoon later in the day like or would be the following day. And that would still assume there would be about 48 hours before the next session. So I compete with you there. Never would never do it the day before. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. That makes me feel better. Sauna's same day as the session or or not at all or after. Well, this is challenging because the protocols would have you do it probably four days a week. Three to five. I would basically have you do it every day or more. But I've done it. We've done it. We've done it with a modified protocol here. I work with Chris Minson who works in Hayward Field and is one of the leading heat researchers in the United States or the world arguably. And we've kind of come up with a modified protocol, which would be their hot tub or sauna. And we we try to do it three to four days per week. So in some at some point in time, you almost don't have an option. You have to you have to fit these things in. What's the minimal effect of those two guys though? Cause to me, it's like if you get it at least two or three times a week. Yeah, I think that's good. I bet twice a week you'd be fine. I bet it would start you'd start not seeing as good of a benefit if you limit that. Do you view it as recovery or stress? I view it as stress. Good. Yeah. That's a selfish question. Okay. These are these are fantastic. So so basically, though, the answer to that question is you do it. It doesn't they overlap at some point. What is your protocol? Yeah. So our protocol and we've done we've done core body temperature testing. Chris Minson would say, if you're getting and and again, but athletes are biased reporters, you have to remember this. But like if you are thinking about a thermal distress scale from like zero being perfectly comfortable, the 10 being like, I am going to I get me out of here. He would say that like usually you're reaching that critical core body temperature. You don't want to exceed a seven out of 10. So if you're getting to an eight out of 10 and you're stumbling out of the sauna, you've pushed it a little bit too far. Like the recovery cost is exceeding the benefit at that point in time. So our protocol has typically been, you know, for for a hot race, if it's coming up, which almost all of our championship races are, we would try to do like three to four dedicated heat sessions per week. And it's usually going to be somewhere between 20 to 25, sometimes 30 minutes in the sauna. And we I like to try to pair it like with a rod with a double, for instance. So we'll do a they'll do a 30 to 35 minute double and then try to get right in the sauna because you've already elevated your core body temperature. You can extend that stimulus for a little bit longer. Now here's the caveat. A lot of times we're training in altitude in Park City and we drop down a Salt Lake City for our workouts. It's unbearably hot in Salt Lake City in the summer. You're already getting a sufficient heat stimulus from your sessions in Salt Lake City. So I actually think sometimes people over index on this strategy and they try to cram into too much heat stress. And then you're over cooking yourself. This is one of those things where it's like you're balancing the reductionist perspective of, okay mechanistically, you need to achieve this level of this duration at above one on one point for whatever it is, the critical core body temperature. But like empirically you need to ask yourself like what works, you know, and like what works in an elite athlete's schedule. So I think heat adaptation is one of those perfect like, you know, debates where, you know, if you just copy and paste a protocol into your training with it with no consideration as to what is the total stress doing to your body, you can just as easily be doing harm more so than benefit, in my opinion. And so I'm assuming your next words were going to be like we would deprioritize the sauna if they're already getting in good bit in their daily sessions, is that right? 100%. Yeah, I think training doesn't occur in isolation. And you're, you don't adapt into heat silo and you're training silo. These are all the stimuli all get into your mix. And so I have tried to be really careful about dosing in heat and considering what that adds in terms of total training stress. Because I still would rather, if you have, if you only have so much stress you can expose the body to, I would still rather use the minimal effect of dose for environmental stress and get the majority from from training. Whereas I think sometimes people are just crushing the sauna. And I'm like that's great, but you're still going to benefit more from from probably just running more miles. So that's, that's typically how I'd approach that question. Okay. I, yeah, I mean, I think that, that's what I kind of agree with. And like I wish I had more time to commit to heat protocols, but I also think there is, there's, I don't know the research on this, but I should look. There's probably some slight danger that people don't realize of like the cardiac stress that comes with heat. Yes, there's, it's a good stress, but you can also like potentially overdo it if you're not careful. And especially if you've got people who have any degree of cardiac abnormalities, this is where I'd be like, is it really worth it? You know, I remember one time a few years ago, I was doing a session and the key came out with PVCs that lasted for six months. And the only thing, yeah, and the only thing I could figure was like, well, that is structural damage by definition. Like that is, that is structural damage elicited by an environmental stimulus that is persisting for six months. And we know that some of these cardiac fibrosis events take a lot of time. Like if you look at somebody with a heart attack, like they regain function over a very long duration. And now I'm asymptomatic, but I just, it's always a caution I give to people of like, I'd be careful in the heat. Because the other thing I think about is that you're trying to produce the stimulus that heat will often times. like mitigate, you know. If you're trying to build running economy, he's the easiest way to break down reform. If somebody trying to tempo in the heat, they're just gonna self-destruct. - Totally. - And so it's always kind of a balance and stuff, but Alex, there's a few other questions I wanna ask you that are quick hitters 'cause I know you've practiced soon. What's your favorite book? Let's go with non-science and science. - Okay, non-science, I love a book called Think Again by Adam Grant. Have you ever heard of it? - I know Adam Grant. I don't know that book. - It's actually, now I'm gonna tie it back to science, of course, but he basically, it's basically the book about challenging your assumptions and how a lot of times we substitute experience for expertise. Like, you know, everyone thinks that they're an expert in nutrition because they eat three times a day or you know, however much you eat. But like, nobody would claim to be a neurosurgeon. Like they could do a neurosurgery successfully, right? So it's just interesting, like, where we take our experience when we assume we're experts. But he also has this fascinating point where he breaks down. There's more types of kind of people in the world. You have your preachers who are saying I'm right and I need to defend what I believe. You have prosecutors who are saying you're wrong and I'm gonna prove it. You have politicians who say, what do I need to say or what do I need you to believe to say to win your support? And then lastly, he says, like, then you have your scientists who are like, I have an hypothesis. Like, let's see what if the evidence supports it. And I just love you. Can we make that one public publishers so that they're all peas? - Wait, say that one more time. - Can we make it publishers so that they're all peas? - Oh, let's see. - They're all peas and then we got a nice settler. - Yeah, yeah. - The alliteration broke down. - Maybe the alliteration breaks down on the fourth pea, yeah. Fair enough. But I just, I love this idea that I always think you know, I think the scientific method applies in lab settings. But I also think there's like a scaled down version that can apply in coaching, which is like, you observe, right? You hypothesize, you measure, and then you update your beliefs accordingly. And I think coaches who don't have some semblance of a scientific method in their practice are just playing games of whack 'em all. Where it's just like, I see a problem, I'm gonna try to smash the problem. I see a problem and try to smash the problem. And I think that, and you're just constantly putting out fires, whereas if you're making projections or hypotheses, and then you're measuring outcomes, and you have a benchmark of what you thought originally. So you basically pre-register your hypothesis. Like I think that's so important in coaching, 'cause so many people were like, use hindsight and say, like, oh, I knew that workout was gonna go poorly, or I knew that race was gonna go poorly. And I'm like, do you really though? Like, I'd love to see like a written prediction beforehand and see how close you are afterwards. 'Cause that just helps us become less wrong, you know? That's really what science is, right? It's like science at its core is arrogance control, you know? - Yeah. - Oh, that's such a good way to put it. And that makes me think, like, I, again, I'm referencing posts I made. I made a post recently about readiness, checking your readiness, and how there was a study that had, it looked at 800 runners and predictors of performance, and one of the strongest predictors of a good versus a bad day was a quick vertical jump. And I'm like, like, I, 'cause it's, again, it's neurologically, it's determined by neurological fatigue, your CNS. So I'm often like, man, that's what you're speaking to, is that we have such confirmation bias, and it'd be far better if we actually had, which the subjective experience is important, but it'd be better if we had some degree of, like, actual real testable data, which is the benefits of having your PhD and being able to do the things that I do as you can test it. The downside is I don't have enough time to test all the things I want to test. - I know. - I know. - Oh, yeah. - What's your favorite science book? - There's a book called Good to Go by Christy Ashwanda, have you heard of it? - No. - Basically, I reject annuals every day. - Pretty much? - No. - No, I haven't. - Tell me about it. - You should, it basically takes the entire recovery industry and debunks everything except for sleep and nutrition, which, like, you know, you know, there's, pretty much surprising. - It's not surprising. - Yeah, it's totally unsurprising, but like, she just does it in such an elegant way. I think the way she goes through the narrative of the book, because like, we just live in a world, there's a lot of snake oil salesmen, you know? - I'm one of them. - There's a lot of people out there who are trying to, they're marketing a strategy, but really there's a product they're trying to sell that's hidden behind that marketing, that behind that pitch. - And I just, it's not exciting, but I can make a career out of just trying to explain the obvious things better. - I just, I think I really can. Even with professional athletes, you think we're doing the most sophisticated things in the world, but like, most of what I do on a day-to-day basis is just making sure we're nailing the basics, day in and day out. And these are with the world's best runners. And so you need to, before you graduate to the last 1%, like, don't even talk to me about some of these things until you're doing the first 99% right. That's kind of my opinion, you know? Like, we have so many conversations about recovery and training that are really the icing on the cake. And it's just like, let's graduate to that level once you've demonstrated proficiency and everything else below it, you know? (laughing) - I love that, that is so good. I don't have the clout to say that, but I completely agree. There are times where I'm like, I often operate that way in my day job where I'm like, why are we talking about this? We don't even have this other thing. We're not even proficient in this thing. And yet we're focusing on this thing. 10 units down the road. And among PhDs, this is like a very common thing that happens. You get a bunch of PhDs in a room and we live in our idealistic bubbles. Instead of just being like, what is the single most important and simple thing we could do to address the problem? It's like, oh, be on time. Okay, we could do that. - Exactly. - And so, yeah, I completely agree. All right, two final questions here. So, while I would love to ask you about the fact that you're a twin, that you weren't even see, that you ran BRR and your team ran so fast that the course record didn't count. And if you're ever willing to come back in the podcast, I would love to chat more about it. But the other thing I wanted to ask you about is actually in reference, I think it's just a piece that you wrote about these indicative workouts. So workouts that are like, oh, this is the fitness tester. If you do this workout with this rest and this pace, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you did this workout six years ago before you ran 1250 zero. And now you're doing it this year. And if you don't hit this time, that means you're not gonna run the pace. And basically, what I believe you said, it was like, stop worrying about it. Get the stimulus in, get the fitness in, and leave the race in a race. - Leave. - Totally. - The times to racing and competing. And so, the question I have, I guess, is like, are there any physiological metrics though, or do you view physiological metrics in the same way? For example, if you looked at someone's data three or four years ago, when you have their lactate threshold and their VO2 max, and then you look at their data three years later and you're looking at it again, and it looks marginally different, or even noticeably different. Would you take that with the same view as you would the tester workout? - It's a great question. - So let me just back up one second. Yeah, so there are these like, in the pro space, I'm like, in the high school space, in the college space, there's these class like indicator workouts, right? And old school part favorite, what are my favorites? I mean, there's like a favorite. - There's like typical, like, you know, if you're gonna run a mile, maybe you'll do like eight by 400, you know, at mile pace with like 90 seconds rest, or something like that, you know? Or if you're gonna run at 10K, you'd do six by mile, or if you're gonna run at five, you run six by K, seven, I don't know, something like that. The idea of being like, if you can run this in a workout, you can run this in a race. Now, I don't wanna say there's no correlation, there absolutely is, there are things, in order to be able to run certain times in a race, there are things you have to be able to do in training. But that line is not nearly as clean as you would expect in my opinion. And the argument that I make, based on a lot of personal experience, is that we make a lot of training decisions based off of insecurity. - Amen. - Amen, dude. - Amen. - My insecurity drives so much decision-making, and we train to prove fitness to ourselves, rather than training to gain fitness. And I think it's a one word difference, in those two things, gain versus prove. But like, it has an enormous impact on how you actually approach the training session itself. I almost think that like so many athletes are just like, they're walking around, like feeling like they have to audition their fitness every single time, and they audition for their own fitness by crushing themselves in the process. And there's a lot of metaphors I could bring in here. Yaka Benga-Britzen has this metaphor that he spoke about of throwing a carrot, and how you don't wanna rip the carrot out. - Oh, yeah. - You have to plant the seed, nurture the seed, and then you only pull up that carrot on race day, because once you pull it out, you can't replant it again, and again, there's-- - But that's not entirely true. You could replant, no, I'm just kidding. But to that analogy is that I heard that analogy, and I liked it, but the one piece of it that I was like, I think I would change it a little, is that it assumes that the psychological component plays no role. And I think like, I think the one thing to keep in mind is that, for that example, specifically, is like some athletes, you have to let them go do it. You just, hey, look, and as long as you do it in an appropriate manner, where they're not doing it two weeks before their peak race, I think it's fine. I just think, I think the point is that if you're doing it every week to be like, can I still do eight by 400 on a minute at 60 flat, so that I can break four? It's like, all right, we're kind of, we're missing the point. And I think the reason I asked about the internal metrics is that you can use those as a means of taking a look at the carrot. As a means of without digging it up, can I apply this other tool that's going to at least give me a idea of the size, or at least how deep the roots are, or whatever? I don't know, that's why I asked that question. So I'll let you finish her now. So you gave these analogies, I guess like, what's your follow up to that? - So no, I think you're right. You have to consider, the athlete is not just a series of biochemical equations, [BLANK_AUDIO] to an output. There's belief effects, right? So I'm not advocating for never doing hard workouts. That's not at all what I want to take home message to be. But I think what happens is, like, I'll give an example. When I was in high school, I had a great coach, but I also made some really dumb training choices. When I was a senior in high school, I was doing all these college visits to follow my senior year. And we had this one indicator workout that I ran before my junior year, outdoor nationals, where I ran 14, 16 in the 5K as a junior. And I was like, and like that, that workout just got put on a pedestal after that. Because I was like, I just assumed like, I did this workout. I got that race result. And therefore, I need to run that workout or better every single time. And that's just the logical thing that my mind was thinking. Anyway, I'm doing all these college visits to following fall. And I hadn't yet gotten a chance to do my indicator workout. And we based end of my conference meet got rained out. So like, it compressed the championships in schedule. And so I was left with a scenario where I could kind of train through my state meet because I just thought I could win pretty easily and then go on to compete at fall lockers. So I go and I run the indicator workout the day before the state meet. And it was three, three by mile, four by 400, because I was just like tomorrow's just washed. So I do that. And then I do a race the next day, which I did end up winning. It was no problem. But 15 to 20 days later, I ended up with a formal stress reaction. Now, is it that one workout? No, I think a lot of times injuries are not the one thing that you did. But it's really the last straw that broke the camel's back. So I just think sometimes when you're like piecing together this Tetris puzzle and you have these indicator workouts that take on these outsized importance in a training plan, a lot of times it just forces you into a corner where you try where you have to be like have to do this workout to get this resulting gain this confidence. And then oftentimes, I think it backfires as a result. Now, I think it's great if you could be measuring internal metrics, but the degree to which runners are collecting this information in a systematic way and interpreting it correctly. I would be hard pressed to say that a lot of, but a lot of runners are doing that properly. So I was speaking more to the general audience who like is not going and doing threshold testing and VO2 testing, but rather is just relying on splits and workouts to drive their confidence. Yeah. And at the end of the day, I think even, even among that, it's possible that the physiology, physiological data could lead you astray, because I have tons of examples. And I'm going to find out this year I'm running the Richmond 8K. I've run the Philly 8K. I wish I was running it again. Can't do it due to schedule. I'm also bummed because they changed the Richmond 8K such that the finish is no longer a bomb downhill, but it's okay. We'll make two. But I have all this data suggesting that I'm more fit. And today, I'm going to do another four minutes on the treadmill at my velocity of VO2 max. I'm actually going to see if my VO2 max has gone up at all because I'm just going to measure it during the first few reps on the exact same treadmill, on the exact same metabolic cart, you get the point. And even if those metrics suggest that I'm getting faster, like it doesn't necessarily predict performance because there's other parameters that are unmeasurable. And like neurological fatigue, my VO2 max, get this. My VO2 max could be the same day over day, but my performance could vary by 18 to 20. My threshold could be the exact same way. How is that possible? Well, because there's an entire metabolic system and physiological system that's related to structure and the brain that you're not measuring that drives performance. And I think that's the point. And I think that's also the point you're trying to make is that like it's far more complicated than just like, oh, I did this workout or I didn't. And so yeah, like I, you know, I very much resonate with those concepts. So last question. When it's all said and done in your careers over, you've done it Nike, whatever it is, what do you want to be most remembered for in the sport outside of a world record or a world championship or an Olympic gold medal as a coach? I keep it simple. I learned this from my college coach, Chris Meltonberg. I think it's like, people don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care. And I'm in this, I'm in this sport because clearly I love the exercise science and the physiology behind it. But you're also shaping the lives of human beings. And you're helping them with something that's really, really hard. And you're helping people who are really, really neurotic. And like, you know, and I'm a partner. I'm a facilitator in this process. And I get to do something that is incredibly unique. And you know, people are remembered for their moments under the bright lights. But like, there's hours and hours of like pain and tears and suffering behind that. And if I could be like a partner in their darkest hour, like I think they're going to remember that more so than like, I mean, maybe not. They're not going to remember that as much as the gold medal. If you can get a gold medal, but if I could be, if I could be with someone like in their darkest hour and help them through those hard times. And then we get the victory on the other side of it. That's a pretty special feeling. I've got, I've gotten glimpses of it so far in my coaching career. But I think that's what I want to be remembered for. I love it. I think that's very well said. And a lot of elite coaches have said the exact same thing, including Danny Mackin, Pete Julian. So you're, you're in company with the World Record holders coach Alex. It has been such a pleasure to have you. Thank you for teaming up for a few questions. I'm sure I'll have some people that will be like we wanted more from Alex. And so if you're ever willing to come back on the pod, dude, we'd love to have you. For those of you that aren't already subscribed to our newsletter, subscribe to Alex's. What is it called again? Reminding? It's called a rundown by the running effect. You can find it on sub stack. I, we're probably competing for the same eyeballs, but I'm an advocate of drawing the pie, not dividing it. So let's get more people in the running space, getting evidence based content. I'm all for it. I think to the point is that there are don says this often. He says like a rising tide raises all ships. And, you know, I, I once had a friend of mine, Elias Grofke, he ran at Princeton back in the day. He was like a four oh guy from Pittsburgh in the mile. And one time I was like, man, like I wish I could X, Y and Z. Or I wish I could be as fast as you're if only I don't remember what my point was or who's better at this. And he's like, why can't we both be good at it? And I remember that that always took out to me. Oh, it's not either or it's not you versus me. It's like we can both, we can both be good. And yeah, 100%. And also, I think there's content that you're going to drop that I'm definitely going to read and be like, Oh, I want to get my take on that. So, um, needless to say, check them out there. If you guys are listening to the podcast, make sure you guys subscribe, leave us a five-star review. We've actually haven't gotten as many reviews lately, which is okay. But when you only have 69 reviews and each podcast is downloading a thousand times in the first day or two, that ratio is not good. If you're going to listen to the podcast for 60 minutes, surely you can take three minutes to drop a comment and a review. It's only an additional three minutes. And if you listen to the podcast on 25% speed in excess, that gives you enough time to leave a review. So please do positive reviews only just kidding. But the final thing is that if you guys are interested in being coached, you can apply on mine at endurancelaboratory.com. Be sure to continue to follow up with Nike as they get ready to start their season again. Alex, all the best and good luck this year. I know you guys have a really competitive team. If I'm ever out in Oregon, which I don't have any plans to be, but I'm going to knock on your door and see if you can give me a pair of those fresh Nike Apexes. So thank you again for coming on. I really appreciate it. And I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.