243. Spring Marathon Training: Phases, Tips, and Strategies

[00:00:00] You're listening to episode 243 of the Marathon Running Podcast. In this episode, we're going to talk about how to get ready for your spring marathon.

[00:00:16] This is the Marathon Running Podcast by Letty and Ryan from WE GOT THE RUNS. Join us in our running community for weekly content that is motivational, educational, and inspirational, and let the Marathon Running Podcast take you from the starting line to the finish line and beyond. Hey runners and welcome to episode 243. My name is Letty. My name is Ryan.

[00:00:42] And we are back with another informational episode. This time we're going to talk about how to get ready for this spring marathon that you signed up for. Maybe you're already kind of training and everything is going well and you just want to get a little bit more information, but whoever you are, hopefully we'll have some information for you guys. Is it too late to start? It's not too late to start, Ryan, and I'm glad you asked because you might be completing one of those spring marathons. We don't know yet. Uh-oh. What'd you get me into now?

[00:01:12] We'll talk about it later. But let's talk about these spring marathons. Realistically speaking, most spring marathons happen in the month of April and May. There's, of course, some of the earlier ones. I have the LA Marathon coming up and I didn't even realize how soon that is. LA Marathon is on March 18th. So we only have about eight weeks left for it and that really snuck up on you.

[00:01:38] So is it really possible to train for one of these marathons in less than 16 weeks? Well, it is. But obviously your goals kind of have to change, right? It depends on how seasoned you are as a runner and also how much you've been running already. Because in reality, if your mileage is great already, then you could basically just jump into the marathon specific training. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Yeah. I mean, anything's better than nothing, right?

[00:02:07] Yes. And again, you know, having realistic goals and expectations is always key. So you're going to lay out different plans based on time or? So, yeah. So I'm talking to Chris Knighton, who I've spoken with in the past. He is the author of the book Run Faster Marathons, a book that I, well, he sent it to me, I think it was at this point a couple of years ago.

[00:02:30] And I really liked his thinking. He's very logical, very science based on how he structures these marathon training plans. So we've had him on in the past quite a bit. And he talks about the phases that he includes in his marathon training and what they entail. So the base phase, the speed development phase, the marathon specific phase. And then I believe it was the taper phase.

[00:02:57] So do you go into details about how to shorten the plan or how to cut stuff out? Well, we talk a little bit about the importance of each part of the plan. And if you were to have to make it shorter, then what is, again, the reason for making it shorter? Is it because you just don't have time and also considering what type of runner are you? Are you a beginner runner or are you advanced? So where can you, you know, shorten it?

[00:03:24] So I guess, I mean, obviously it depends with running training plans a lot on where the person that you're talking to is at in their running journey. So any benefit to the person that did plan and is already on a training program? I mean, what should they change it up at this point? Or maybe they can just get some insights to tweak what they're doing. Maybe they're not happy with their current progress or? Yeah, I mean, I think as a runner that Chris is not my coach.

[00:03:51] I usually have run tap who's at this point a family friend of ours, right? Training plans for me. It's still always interesting to see how other coaches approach things. Chris makes a lot of sense, science based. And I know there's a lot of not so great coaches out there. But even if you're happy with your coaching, then this is still a really nice insight in how does your coach structure something? Unless you're one of these people that, you know, just follow the plan and don't question anything.

[00:04:17] But at this point, I think that person would not be listening to a running podcast because if you're listening to a running podcast, you're always trying to see how can you tweak things? How can things be better? How do other people do things just, you know, for knowledge? Because knowledge is power. Mm hmm. Yeah, definitely the way I approach things. I like to get as much information, maybe too much in some cases as I can. Yeah. So this episode will come very handy for your upcoming spring marathon. Again, we'll talk about it. So you want to get into it then?

[00:04:47] Sure. So without any further ado, I'm now going to play my conversation with Chris Knighton. All right. So I'm back on with Chris Knighton. Chris, thank you so much and happy New Year's. Thanks for coming back. Yeah. Happy 2025. Appreciate coming back on. It's been a little while and always love the invitations. Absolutely. Especially now that as you can imagine, so many runners have New Year's resolutions and we have our spring marathons that we want to sign up for.

[00:05:17] Or we probably already signed up for. And so we're talking today about marathons and how to train for them for mostly, I want to say April, right? Because you've got some in March. You've got like the LA Marathon and a couple, the bulk of them probably being in April, May. Would you say that's pretty much on? Yeah, totally. And, you know, even for the folks who may be listening to this, you know, down the road in the future, we're talking about training for marathons that are roughly four months out.

[00:05:47] And four months is a good timeframe to get started. So today as we record this, January 3rd, if you're doing a race in April, it's about four months. That's perfect. Um, sometimes people do it in three, sometimes people do it in five, but four is kind of the sweet spot. Perfect. So yeah, let's talk about exactly that just for a second. Um, you know, what if you only have 10, 12 weeks for a marathon? The information that we're given by you today, how can that be tweaked?

[00:06:17] I know we're going to talk about different phases that exist for marathons. Uh, if you were to have to take some of it away because of lack of time, where would you start? Maybe as we go through this, we can talk about which phases can be of shorter length, et cetera. Yeah. So it, it kind of depends on what you've been doing prior to the start of your marathon training.

[00:06:44] If you've been running a lot, if you've been putting in decent amount of mileage running as good amount of days per week, you know, you may be able to skip over some of the preliminary base building or potentially even the speed development aspects of marathon training and get right into marathon specific training. My wife actually just ran her first marathon in about eight years this past November in Philadelphia. And she did amazing.

[00:07:13] Actually, she, um, it was her first marathon in eight years, but she ran like a, it's like a 25 minute PR, which was really, really cool. Great to see. But even though it was her first marathon eight years, she had been running for most of those eight years, but she was focusing on shorter distances. So she had already built speed. And when we went back to the marathon, she really just needed to focus on that endurance component of it. And she was able to earn that endurance fairly quickly.

[00:07:43] She only trained for about three months specifically for her marathon. We just focused on endurance and then she was able to achieve her goal time. Um, so if you have less than four months to train, you can definitely do it. You just might sacrifice some of the, the, the, all the different components of what it, of what a complete marathon training cycle might include. But if you have a lot behind you that you've been doing, that may be okay.

[00:08:13] Uh, kind of depends on where you're starting from. So I guess I'll ask you that a little bit later on in the podcast, once we have revealed what these different phases are, which ones you can take less off. But let's start with the main idea that somebody should be running already, but what if they don't, is it possible to train for a marathon in 16 weeks? It is, it is.

[00:08:42] Um, I think if someone is not running at all and they just say, Hey, I'm going to start running, I'm going to do this marathon in 16 weeks. Um, yeah, I mean, it's definitely possible that person's training plan is going to look very different than maybe someone who's been consistently running for a year or more. Uh, I would think for that person, you would probably just want to focus on slowly building up your mileage, building up your consistency, getting in some long runs. And you don't really need to overcomplicate it.

[00:09:11] I think for someone who's just going from literally not running to a marathon in four months, um, no, that's going to be someone who's just trying to finish the marathon. That should be your main goal. I think time goals for that kind of situation, you wouldn't really want to think about too much. You're just trying to finish the marathon feeling strong.

[00:09:32] And if you can do that and have a good race, that's a win for someone though, who has been running consistently for six months to a year or more, and maybe this is their second or third marathon.

[00:09:45] And if you can do that, then I think that person can start to do a bit more, um, have their training be a bit more involved, go through a bit more of the steps we're going to talk about today and, um, really hone in on more of a time based performance. Perfect. Perfect.

[00:10:04] And so when you're referring to running consistently, what in your opinion is the base mileage that a person should be running in order to be able to realize those aggressive time goals, even if they only have 10 weeks? Yeah, great question.

[00:10:26] Um, so, you know, I think that coming into starting a marathon training cycle, you know, hopefully you're already comfortable running four days per week. Um, some people come into it with like three days per week, but I would say you want to ideally be running at least four. That way you're running more days than you're not running as you move into your marathon training cycle and go deeper into it.

[00:10:53] Most people, I would probably encourage them to increase that to maybe five days per week, maybe six days per week. Um, again, some people get by marathon training on four, but generally I like to have that a bit more like five to six.

[00:11:07] Uh, and then in terms of like how much mileage that should be for a marathon, um, I would say, I would say that if you can do, well, you, you, you'd, you'd want to be able to at least do a long run of, of, I would say six to eight miles before you start marathon training, just because you need to increase that from six to 26 in just a few months time.

[00:11:37] Um, you know, one of the things with, with training for a marathon is I always recommend that people become very confident in shorter distances before they move up to it. Uh, because the marathon is a challenge of both distance and speed.

[00:11:59] So marathon is very popular and it is very common that people sign up for a marathon having never even run a five K or a 10 K. And I've coached athletes like this. It's in some ways it's kind of funny. I just had a guy run a five K. It was his first five K, but I've already trained him for New York city marathon, Boston marathon, Berlin marathon.

[00:12:25] But generally I think it's really important for people to become very competent at their shorter distances and then slowly work their way up. Um, so, you know, by the time you, you start training for your first marathon, you've already hopefully done a half marathon or a couple of half marathons. You're pretty comfortable running 10 to 13 miles maybe, um, as a long run, or at least in a race. And then when you, then you have a good foundation to then build towards running 26.2 miles. Yeah, it seems a little backwards.

[00:12:54] Um, my brother actually did that. He'd never, I think he'd done one five K and then he decided to run the row marathon and it went accordingly. But, um, all right, so let's start talking about the phases of a marathon. I have the Bible, which is Chris Knighton's book, which is run faster marathons. It's a book that I've read through a lot and highlighted a bunch. So I'm very familiar with it. And I know that you have six phases for marathon building. So how do these six phases work? Does each phase get an equivalent amount of times?

[00:13:23] How many weeks is, uh, distributed to each phase? Yeah. So, um, so the six phases just to go kind of quickly through them. It's, it's base building, then it's speed development, then it's marathon specific training. Uh, then we go into a taper, then you race, and then you have your post-race recovery. So those are kind of the six aspects of the training cycle.

[00:13:53] And then say you run two marathons a year, you go through those six phases that takes you four to six months. Once you repeat, and that's how you get a full year of running in, um, they are, they are not of equal length. Um, and really how long they should be again, sort of depends on who you are as a runner and where you're at.

[00:14:22] So, um, let me try to give some generalities, but, but know that this isn't necessarily going to be for everyone, but this is a good starting place. So in general, um, whenever you're training for any race, you want to be doing a lot of work types of types of runs that are specific to the demands of that event.

[00:14:52] So what is the demands of the marathon? You need to be able to run 26.2 miles. That's the first thing you need to be able to finish. That's really hard for just about everybody, even for very experienced athletes. And then if you can do that, uh, there's the second demand of how fast can you do it?

[00:15:15] How you structure your training should be totally dependent on how you want to approach those two goals. If you just want to finish the marathon feeling good, run 26.2 miles, do the best you can, not too worried about your time. Maybe if this is even your first marathon, um, I would consider, I would encourage you to build a very strong base.

[00:15:40] That may be like half of your training, just easy running, slowly building up your mileage. And then in the second half of your training transition to doing marathon specific based work. So with this approach, we're going to kind of skip over the speed development components of it. You're just going to go from building a base of comfortable, easy mileage to then transitioning to marathon specific work.

[00:16:08] Um, you may be wondering what marathon specific work is basically here. I'm talking about your longest long runs, uh, both at an easy pace and at a pace close to marathon pace and doing tempo runs that are either going to be a little bit faster than marathon pace, marathon pace specifically a little bit slower, um, maybe broken tempo runs, things like mile repeats with a short rest, um, or things of that nature.

[00:16:38] But you're doing a lot of long running and running close to marathon pace. And that could be the second half, the entire second half of your training. Um, so if we're talking like an 18 week training cycle, you know, this could be, uh, eight, eight weeks of base building, six to eight weeks of base building. And then like six to eight weeks of specific training in your longest long runs.

[00:17:05] But the taper is always like the last two to three weeks of your marathon training. And I think for most of the folks listening to this, a two week taper is enough. So, um, starting the week prior, so like 14 days prior to your marathon, um, you can start to taper and basically the taper is just a reduction of how many miles per run you're doing.

[00:17:30] So you can roughly cut your, your distance of your runs or your time running by about 50%. Uh, and if, and you know, you could get more in depth on nuances of a taper, but if you've reduced your mileage by about 50% two weeks out, you're going to freshen up before race day. Um, and, and that's going to basically get you your, your kind of, you know, 18 ish weeks for a marathon.

[00:17:56] Um, there is this, this, this phase of speed development that I talk about, um, which would be really good for someone who has ambitious speed goals. They, they really want to run a fast marathon, but they also, um, need to build speed. They don't already have the speed they need. Uh, if this is someone like you, like someone who maybe you want to qualify for Boston and you're training for a marathon, but you know, you're not quite fast enough yet.

[00:18:25] You do need to include some speed, speed training in your training. Um, and, um, and, and generally this would go kind of in the middle to beginning portion of your marathon training before you get into that marathon specific work. Um, I know this is probably a little confusing to, to follow, uh, but I do have this all outlined both in my book and on an article on my website. If you look for it.

[00:18:55] Yes, yes, yes. So I already know this, but maybe you can just clarify a little bit how speed development differs from marathon specific, because as you've elaborated already, when we are marathon training, we don't just do everything at marathon pace. That's not what that means. You do broken training, tempo runs, et cetera. So how is speed development different than the marathon race specific, uh, uh, time that you're having your runners do? Yep.

[00:19:22] So basically, um, simplest way to think about it is with any run you can do, you can either be trying to improve your speed or your endurance. Speed is defined as how fast you can run. Endurance is defined as how long you can hold a fast pace. So, um, how does this apply to who marathon runners?

[00:19:48] Uh, basically, um, think of it this way, half marathon pace, running marathon pace, running tempo runs, long runs that runs of that nature basically improve your endurance. They, they teach you to be comfortable holding an uncomfortable pace for a long period of time. They teach you to maintain a steady, moderately challenging pace for a long period of time.

[00:20:17] They essentially let you make the most of the speed that you've already developed. However, tempo runs, marathon pace runs, um, half marathon pace runs, these kinds of things. They're not really necessarily going to make you faster if you don't already have that speed there to unlock, uh, to, to harness.

[00:20:42] So you need to do running that's much faster than these paces to actually develop the ability to run fast, to, to move your arms and legs fast, to fire your nervous system fast, to, to, you know, run a fast 5k, run a fast mile, to be able to sprint. If you can't do those things, you're not going to be able to run a, be able to run a faster marathon.

[00:21:10] Ultimately everyone's speed in a distance race, everyone's, um, the, the best time you could ever run in a distance race is more so limited by your top end speed than it is limited by your endurance. Um, endurance is obviously super, super important, but.

[00:21:39] You need to build your speed first before you can run the long distance race times that you want to run. Uh, it'll be a lot quicker and I just think it's the better approach. So, um, if you can run, basically what you want to try to do is there are all these race calculators online where, you know, you put in your time from a 5k, a 10k, maybe, maybe

[00:22:08] a mile, maybe do a time trial, something like that. And it will project how fast you could run in the half marathon and marathon. You want to do types of workouts either early in your marathon training or when you're not training for the marathon that are at mile pace at 5k pace, maybe 10k pace at the slowest, but really you want to be touching into these mile pace and 5k pace or potentially even faster

[00:22:36] paces to develop your ability to move fast and run with good form. When you do that, maybe then you can go run a local 5k or some shorter race like that and see, you know, most, most people, um, well-trained athletes. Most people can run a 5k in under 30 minutes, more advanced athletes under 20 minutes. You know, how fast can you can, can you run for that shorter amount of time?

[00:23:02] If you can run a good 5k and then put that into a race calculator. And then that says, okay, if you can run this fast for 20 or 30 minutes, that's fast. That projects out to this time for the marathon, which is, you know, three hours, four hours, five hours, like much, much longer than the 5k. Um, that's how you want to think about improving as an athlete long-term.

[00:23:32] You want to build that speed first, and then think about how can you extend that as you train for the marathon to build your endurance. Um, if you don't have that speed in the shorter distances first, it's really, really hard or impossible to develop it in the longer distances. Hope that makes sense. It does. It does.

[00:23:54] So basically, even if you later on closer to your marathon are given by your coach workouts that include 400 meters, you don't go all out in those. You go more of a pace that the coach finds for you that is in line with, that'll help you for your marathon. Whereas in the speed development phase, you might have also a 400 meter that you have to run, but that one you will just do much faster.

[00:24:23] Did I understand that right? Yeah, totally. So one of my favorite workouts is a high volume of 400 meters at like 10k or, or to half marathon pace. And I love that workout because it feels super slow on the track, like running a 400 at half marathon pace on the track, which just feels super, super slow. So, but you know, I can do those. I can do that in like 90 seconds, take a really short 30 second rest.

[00:24:52] And then, you know, I've, I've been able to do anywhere from like 12 to 20 of those. So like a lot of volume, but broken up, but at this kind of half marathon pace, this is a very marathon specific workout or, or distance running in general specific workout. I wouldn't say it's particularly marathon, but it's okay.

[00:25:15] Um, you're getting a lot of volume, a little bit faster than marathon pace, but it's this type of workout is going to improve your endurance. It's not going to help with your leg turnover, your ability to run fast and fire your muscles fast, which you ultimately need to be able to run those endurance workouts at a quicker pace. Um, so earlier on in your training, you might be doing things like, you know, like five to

[00:25:42] eight by 400, but at like mile pace. So that'd be like very hard, like a 90% effort. And you might take a long rest of full recovery. Um, and that's a totally different workout. Got it. Okay, perfect. So in order to later on, when you are training for your marathon and you're in the marathon phase and you are trying to, I guess, not have your body forget about these fast paces, is that why you give your runners strides? Yeah.

[00:26:11] So strides are something that in my opinion, every distance runner should do regardless of the distance you're training for, whether it's marathon or half or 10 K 5 K or even track strides at least twice per week, potentially even as much as every day you wanted to, um,

[00:26:37] strides a great way to touch on speed and touch on your running form on a near daily basis and small bursts. One of the biggest problems with training for the marathon is you're doing primarily long, slow running, which is good. It's important for running a fast marathon because the marathon is 99% aerobic.

[00:27:01] It is a long, slow event, but if all you do is run long and slow all the time, you're going to lose your fast twitch muscle fibers. You're going to lose the ability to run fast and, um, potentially you're going to stagnate or even get slower. So strides are a great way to maintain your speed and continually work on your running form. Um, so yeah, I highly recommend that any distance runner do them. Yeah, I would say probably like two to four times per week.

[00:27:30] Okay, perfect. Perfect. So, yeah, so that makes sense. But let me go back to the base building because I guess, you know, we're going to mainly be talking about, or we are talking about the base building and the race specific. Earlier, we were talking about having the runners be ready for a marathon plan when they already run about three times a week with the long runs being, um, six to eight weeks.

[00:27:54] Tell me a little bit about how much of an increase you will give a person in mileage during the base building for both the beginner runner that has the goal to just finish and the advanced runner. Yeah, I think that, um, in general, it's good to, yeah, be patient with your mileage increase, but from the beginning of a training cycle to your, to your marathon, you're definitely going

[00:28:24] to increase a bit, um, more advanced runners honestly don't need to increase their mileage quite as much, um, because they're already starting off running a lot longer. Um, like my athletes who run at their peak, let's say 60 miles a week, um, at the very beginning of their marathon training, they might be doing like 10 to 12 mile long runs. Um, they might be doing something like 40 miles a week and over 18 weeks, they build from

[00:28:52] 40 to 60 per week, more beginner runners, just because the fact that the marathon is 26 miles need to be, unfortunately a little more quick with how they build mileage. Um, but you know, when you think about your, your progression as a runner, I think it is good to be patient. So, uh, you know, I always encourage people to delay signing up for a marathon until they're ready. But if you're listening to this and you're already signed up for one, you're like, oh,

[00:29:22] I need to run 26.2 miles soon. Um, you know, I think the most important thing is like being gradual with it. Um, so, you know, there, there's tons of good training plans out there that might start you off at like six to eight miles per week. Every week, the long run gets two miles longer or something like that.

[00:29:43] Um, one thing that's really helpful for, for new marathoners is to just try to trust the plan that they're following, even if it doesn't go all the way up to like a super high mileage or super long, long run. I don't necessarily give every athlete I coach like a super, like, like super, super long, long runs.

[00:30:09] I, I've coached people to run marathons on as little as like 16 or 18 miles as their longest long run. Often people want more than that. They want to do like 20. Sometimes people even want to do more than 20 before their, their marathon, but you definitely don't need to. The most important thing is really just like being consistent and growing your mileage patiently. So generally I suggest that like whatever mileage you're doing, uh, in a week, you should try

[00:30:39] to maintain that for, for two or three weeks. Uh, and then if that feels good, then you can consider increasing it. What I generally do with the athletes, I coach one-on-one is I'll keep them at a mileage for about three weeks. Um, the first week that's going to be new to them. It's going to be kind of hard on their body, but over the course of three weeks, they adapt.

[00:31:01] And then we take a recovery week to what that, that's that block of three weeks soak in. And then that recovery week, we do a little bit less mileage. And then in the next week we, we increase it, um, maybe by like five to seven miles or something like that. So essentially what we then get is let's say you have four months of training.

[00:31:26] You get four one month blocks where you're basically running a mileage for three weeks. Then you take recovery week. Then you increase run a mileage for three weeks, take recovery week, then increase. And you do that for four or five times, depending on how long you have before your marathon. Um, because the marathon is 26.2 miles. Often I like have to bump that long run distance up pretty aggressively.

[00:31:50] Uh, but I try not to, but the long run distance is actually very personalized to the athlete I'm working with. And, and it often has a lot to do with their mental state and developing their sense of confidence as much as it does with like the physical nature of what I think they truly need to be prepared. Um, so hopefully that gives some insight into it. It does. It does. And I've heard this from other coaches, really great coaches as well, that they don't really

[00:32:19] go over 16 to 18, um, miles during the long runs because that's really all you need. And the rest is kind of just a mental thing, which obviously if it's mentally, if the athlete mentally wants to do it, then obviously it's something that you as a coach do for them, but it's not necessary. Talk to me a little bit about the step back slash recovery week. What is that happens with our bodies after we, like you said, get used to new mileage? Why do we need that recovery week?

[00:32:47] What happens with our bodies and how does it prepare us for the next week of, uh, maybe a little bit more? Yeah, I think recovery weeks are really helpful. You don't see them in every training plan that you might come across, but, but I pretty much always put them into my athletes plans. Um, essentially, yeah, it's after three weeks. Of running a consistent amount of mileage. You take a cutback week for recovery week.

[00:33:15] I generally have people do 20 to 25% less mileage and less intensity during that week. So they're running less mileage. And maybe if they were doing speed workouts, I cut those. They're just doing easy runs. Maybe they're just doing some strides or some hill short hills or something like that. And really the idea is to let your body rest during that week and soak in the benefit of the hard work of all of the training you did in the previous three weeks.

[00:33:43] During that week, you rest, you get a little bit of a mental break, you get a big physical break. And I think during that period, it's kind of like a mini taper. It's actually a good week to structure in a tune-up race if you're going to be doing one before goal, um, marathon, because, because you'll be well rested going into that race. But, um, these, these cutback weeks are great. I think to just give you a little bit of rest in the middle of the training, uh, kind of

[00:34:13] break it up. So it's, you're not just like, Oh, I have 18 weeks to go into my marathon. Instead of you're like, I got to work hard for three weeks. Then I get an easy week, work hard for three weeks. I get an easy week. And, you know, for, for people who love to run and want to be doing this for a decade or two, um, I think taking these little bits of recovery throughout your training and then taking time off after your goal race and resting before you get into your next one is really, really helpful to keep you healthy and improving long-term in the sport. Perfect.

[00:34:42] And that's how exactly taper works too. But just, uh, you know, in the grand scheme of things that it is even more of a rest and gets you ready, lets your body absorb everything. Um, Chris, thank you so much for coming on. And if somebody is interested, please, uh, let me know what you provide for the runners and what they can look forward to if they decide to coach with you. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. I feel like I was a little all over the place today, but I was trying to give it, give the

[00:35:10] listener a little bit of insight into my thought process behind all this stuff. Um, you can find me at my website, night and runs.com or on Instagram at night and runs. I actually have a free audio book edition of the book we're speaking of today, run fast marathons, proven path to PR. So in that audio book, I speak, uh, more to the point of all these six phases of marathon training.

[00:35:38] So if you'd like to download that, just go to my website or my Instagram and follow the link to my website and you sign up for my email list and I'll send you a free copy that you can listen to on your next run. Uh, if you're interested in potentially getting some support with your training for your spring marathons, I work with folks both one-on-one where I write custom training for them and we work very closely, uh, on, you know, a day to day, week to week basis.

[00:36:03] Um, and I also offer training programs that are, you know, proven to work. And I've had lots of people follow, uh, where maybe you can get occasional support from me, but you're mostly just following a proven system. Uh, you can find all that stuff on my website along with my book and check out the options. I also do, um, consultations occasionally. Like if you're just interested in talking with a coach, um, I do those occasionally. Some people really enjoy those just having someone to talk to.

[00:36:30] So you can learn all about that on, on my website, nightruns.com and, uh, happy to help if you, if you're motivated to work hard and at the goals in the marathon. Perfect. And we'll link everything in our show notes and Chris, thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I always appreciate it. Thank you, Chris, so much for coming on and speaking with me and elaborating on your phases of the marathon training.

[00:36:59] And of course, we're going to link your website in our show notes. If you're interested in Chris's audio book or you want to learn a little bit more and yeah, hopefully you guys learned something and that you enjoyed this episode a lot. Or contact Chris and get some more training tips. Absolutely. So Letty, this week is your journey to Kenya. Yes, Ryan. I'm super excited.

[00:37:25] And hopefully people will tune in to your YouTube channel. Yes, we are at running podcast on YouTube. Because Letty is going to try to post videos daily. I'm going to shoot for doing a daily vlog just because I've never done this before and I've challenged myself with New Year's resolution. I know I have this channel already, but I really enjoy being behind the camera more than in front of it. But I've challenged myself to do this vlog.

[00:37:54] You know, just this little quick mini series of the trip to Kenya, given that we're going to an elite training camp and we're going to see a bunch of athletes. We're going to be in a different culture. We're even going to do a safari. So just to kind of make it fun and do it daily. So that way I can just get rid of all the footage that I'm going to accumulate and just get it out. So yeah. So you'll be in real time or near real time, depending on how internet connections go. Yes, yes, yes. That's the thing.

[00:38:24] We've already learned that internet connections at the training camp is going to be a little iffy. So for that reason, I've already pre-downloaded a bunch of the songs that I want to use for the vlog and other things that I need. And, you know, for the software that I'm editing on, I've written down a bunch of information so I can do the best job I can. So hopefully it'll come out great. And then I'll find some internet cafe where I can just pop it up and upload it.

[00:38:50] So if you want videos of a bunch of the backs of elite athletes as they run away from Letty and they would run even further away from me. So it's not saying anything against Letty. You can shoot into the vlog. Well, you know, that is kind of the little bit of embarrassing part about this whole trip to Kenya. Not only are we slow people, we're also slow people coming from sea level. I know. The elevation is hard. Yeah. We're going to get like 7,200 feet.

[00:39:18] So we're coming from, I think your watch actually said we're negative something. So we're literally coming up. We're not negative. And we're already, yeah, we're not underwater, but we're already coming in very slowly. I mean, these are elite athletes. We're going to be staying with Amos Kipuruto, Benson Kipuruto, Evan Chabert, and the guy that recently won Valencia, Sebastian Saas. So those are just a few names. If you follow marathoning at all, you know that you have London winners here.

[00:39:48] You have Chicago winners. You have Boston winners. You have the most recent Tokyo winner. And they're all at this camp. And we're going to be running with all of them. So we're already really slow. You're going from seven feet to 7,000 feet. Yes. And maybe it'll give you some more red blood cells for when you run your LA Marathon in March. I don't think those blood cells are going to stay in my body for a month. 120 days is the lifespan of a blood cell. I don't know how much you'll gain from a week of high elevation. Watch out LA Marathon.

[00:40:18] Which if you guys haven't signed up for LA, I'm an ambassador for the LA Marathon. So I just want to kind of throw that in here very briefly. We do have a discount code. And if you message me, I will send that to you. And you can join us in LA. But that's just a side note. So you're going to attempt to film a documentary. And then what will be done of it is to be determined. Yes.

[00:40:43] So yeah, my primary reason isn't really going to embarrass myself at the running. Although I will participate in the training camp as much as I can. But yeah, we're going to film a documentary on these elite athletes with the big question being why are Kenyans so much faster? And then we'll have hopefully some answers for everyone. Sounds good. Maybe we'll get some more insight from your daily vlogs. Yes, absolutely.

[00:41:11] But next week, we've already pre-recorded the episode. We're going to talk about self-defense for runners. And I have a great person that I interviewed that I met recently at the running event who has made quite an impact, actually. She has actually been even quoted quite an impact in the world with her self-defense business. Even one of the former presidents has mentioned her. So stay tuned for that one.

[00:41:39] And with that, have a great week of running. Thanks for tuning in. For more information and marathon running news, please head to www.marathonrunningpodcast.com and we'll be back next week.