Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown
326: Running After 40
As we age, our bodies, minds, and lifestyles evolve - and so should our approach to running. Rather than pushing harder and doing more to clock faster times, we advocate for a shift in mindset and training routines. We offer advice on how to adapt your training program in line with your age, stressing the importance of the stress-rest cycle in achieving optimal running performance. We also explore how our motivations for running might transform as we enter our 40s, and emphasize that this evolution is not just acceptable, but an exciting part of the journey.
But it’s not just about the running. We also tackle the crucial role of nutrition in supporting your performance, offering insights on how to adapt your dietary habits as your body changes with age. We tout the benefits of an effort-based training approach, enabling you to find your ideal running pace without being a slave to the watch. Moreover, we present the value of a run-walk program as a sustainable long-term strategy, demonstrating that it’s possible to maintain, if not improve, your pace while prolonging your running career. By the end of this episode, we promise you a redefined view on what it means to be a runner over 40!
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Grab your free Strength Guide for Runners here.
Interested in our coaching program? Check out our coaching options here.
Grab your free copy of the Running Snapshot by clicking here.
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Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.
As we age, our bodies, minds, and lifestyles evolve - and so should our approach to running. Rather than pushing harder and doing more to clock faster times, we advocate for a shift in mindset and training routines. We offer advice on how to adapt your training program in line with your age, stressing the importance of the stress-rest cycle in achieving optimal running performance. We also explore how our motivations for running might transform as we enter our 40s, and emphasize that this evolution is not just acceptable, but an exciting part of the journey.
But it’s not just about the running. We also tackle the crucial role of nutrition in supporting your performance, offering insights on how to adapt your dietary habits as your body changes with age. We tout the benefits of an effort-based training approach, enabling you to find your ideal running pace without being a slave to the watch. Moreover, we present the value of a run-walk program as a sustainable long-term strategy, demonstrating that it’s possible to maintain, if not improve, your pace while prolonging your running career. By the end of this episode, we promise you a redefined view on what it means to be a runner over 40!
To join the Academy waitlist, click here.
Thanks for Listening!!
Be sure to hit FOLLOW on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player
Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one!
Grab your free Strength Guide for Runners here.
Interested in our coaching program? Check out our coaching options here.
Grab your free copy of the Running Snapshot by clicking here.
Come find us on Instagram and say hi!
Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.
This is the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 326 running after 40. If you're looking for ways to bring more joy into your running and you want to be a physically and mentally stronger runner, you're in the right place.
Speaker 2:This is the real life runners podcast, and we're your hosts, kevin and Angie Brown. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Now let's get running.
Speaker 1:What's up, runners? Welcome to the podcast today. Today we're gonna be talking about running after 40, because we want to Help you understand the best way to train after you hit age 40, so that you can continue to feel good, run as much as you want and not let injury Stand in your way. So many runners think that they will inevitably get slower or have to cut mileage after they turn 40, or maybe it's 45 or 50 at some Point. You know, maybe it's not 40 in your head, maybe there's another age that you've put on it.
Speaker 1:But there's some number there the concept stays the same, right, and so this idea that well, we're getting older, so we're gonna get slower and I'm probably gonna have to cut back mileage, I'm probably gonna have to do all these things can lead to a lot of disappointment and frustration, or Can also lead to a lot of people to fighting that idea and trying to push harder and do more To prove that they can and prove that age isn't gonna slow them down.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's not that they have to cut their mileage, it's that they're gonna prove that that's so wrong. They're actually going to up their mileage right into an injury right. And that's never where you want to be exactly so.
Speaker 1:Today, we want to help you understand that there are some changes that occur as we get older, but those don't have to stop you from doing the thing that you love, which, in this case, is running, and really you can apply this to Any other part of your life as well. So let's start off with this idea of you don't have to accept the inevitable decline of aging, and you definitely don't have to give up running just because you're getting older.
Speaker 2:This is fantastic. I mean that that's just such a positive statement. You don't have to accept the inevitable decline. As sad as inevitable decline is, not accepting it is great.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? As sad as it is like that statement the inevitable decline, but I think it's wrong. Yeah, I don't think there is an inevitable decline, like I see so many people and so many examples, and we see this in the running world of these Centerions. Is that centurarians? How do you send 100?
Speaker 2:plus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the word for someone over a hundred?
Speaker 2:hundred plus centurion.
Speaker 1:Nope centurion, that's. Isn't that like a mythic mythological?
Speaker 2:creature. Yes, they're centaurs. Once you're still running as a centaur, you become half horse. That's actually how it works.
Speaker 1:All right, so we're gonna have to look up that word, isn't it sent send centaurion, centaurion right or centaur.
Speaker 2:It might be centaur.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of people that are 80s, 90s and their hundreds that are still running. So they show you that you can still do this. And one person you know. Someone might argue with me and say, yeah, but they don't look the same as like a 40 year old running, and they're only running the hundred meter dash or this or that. Sure Put whatever qualifier on that you want. But I'm gonna go ahead and believe that aging and decline is not inevitable. It's based more on lifestyle choices than anything else.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, this whole idea that you will inevitably get slower or have to cut mileage, what I feel like this kind of match each other. If you feel like you inevitably have to cut mileage as you start Decreasing in your mileage, you're probably gonna get slower because you're not training as much. If you, at whatever age, cut your mileage, you're then Also going to follow that up with not being able to run as fast. You'd take a 20 year old and Cut their mileage and be like, oh, we have to cut your mileage in half, they're going to automatically slow down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's called centaurion centaurion, centaurion I just looked it up or centaur or a centaur, but yeah.
Speaker 1:So Thinking that age equals limitation or age equals decline will lead to a lot of frustration, a lot of disappointment, a lot of just sadness.
Speaker 2:Yes, sadness. No one wants that, but that I feel like that would be my my go-to. If I knew that getting older automatically meant I had to cut all the running, sadness would be my go-to response.
Speaker 1:It automatically meant that you are going to be slower.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it automatically meant that you had to cut my life have to slow down, I have to cut my age because I'm getting, I'm getting older, so every birthday would just be just sadder and sadder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so today we want to help bust through that myth, because if you are someone that thinks this way, I'm sure if you have people in your life that don't run, that don't understand running and or understand you as a runner, I'm sure you've probably heard some of this of like aren't you getting too old for that? Or don't you know that running is bad for your Knees?
Speaker 2:is definitely bad for your knees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're definitely gonna.
Speaker 2:It's not an old knees.
Speaker 1:No, okay, but it is true that there are age-related changes in our bodies. Yes okay, that is a true statement. We're not lying here, there that happens as we get older, our bodies do go through changes and a lot of those changes are Hormonally related, especially us as women. We go through a lot of changes Hormonally, especially around the age of like somewhere in like between, depending on who you are like 45 to 50, like when menopause hit sure but for some women peri menopause can start up to 10 years before Official menopause.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's a big window that you're working with a window right, which is right around the age of 40, like we can start having shifts in our hormones that can lead to Differences in the way that our body handles energy distribution right, like with fat and burning energy and bone density and lots of other things. So there are actually changes that our bodies do go through, but they might not be exactly what you think they are and they might not be as bad as you think they are. So let's address this first one, which is running is bad for your knees. We've all heard this one.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've heard this one since high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we've all heard this, especially me as a physical therapist. It's everywhere. This is not true. Running is actually good for your knees and so a lot of times when people talk about this, they're actually talking about arthritis. They're thinking that running is an impact sport and the more you run, the more your knees are gonna break down and that's gonna set you up for arthritis in the future. Yeah, and they've actually shown that Runners actually have a lower incidence of osteoarthritis versus non-runners when they compare the two groups.
Speaker 2:I mean that that announcement there. It seems crazy to me because I've heard this running is bad for your knees, since I Literally was running cross-country as a high school athlete and I figured that the the Levels of osteoarthritis are probably comparable because there are people that train poorly and poor training Could be bad for your knees right.
Speaker 1:Poor training will definitely lead to a higher risk of arthritis.
Speaker 2:And you hear of so many runners that get themselves hurt, usually through poor training, right, and that's gonna increase it. But running itself, simply running on its own, is actually lower incidence of arthritis because the impact actually causes increases in strength. Or what are we talking here?
Speaker 1:So it's big the hypothesis the impact actually improves your cartilage Also, because cartilage is a tissue that I mean. Obviously, if you are overdoing it and breaking down that cartilage all the time, that's problematic, but Cartilage is a tissue that does well with impact. That's the whole point of cartilage. So when we engage in impact types of exercises, you're actually compressing the cartilage and then decompressing the cartilage and that Movement basically will push fluid in and out, so you're actually circulating through the cartilage more, which actually can lead to cartilage growth in some instances as long as you're not overdoing it and giving the cartilage time to actually Expand back out and pull fluids into it.
Speaker 1:That's the key is proper training proper training right and like the, the stress recovery cycle, which is something that we're gonna talk about in today's episode too excellent, so let's also address a couple of the other age-related changes that may occur. Another thing that people think about is bone density. Like when we, as we get older, we tend to lose bone density, and again, this is something that running can actually help you with, because Impact exercises actually help to improve bone density, because you're stressing the bone and if you are stressing the bone, obviously within reason right within a good range.
Speaker 1:That's actually building strength in your bone and you're actually building bone if If you are again giving yourself proper recovery on the back end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in terms of both time of recovery, nutrition of recovery, but I'll think other things we're gonna talk about a little bit later, but that's a good one of Again, the impact helps this is this part of like, and I could be totally off on this but is the muscle pulling on the bone and therefore the bone actually strengthens itself?
Speaker 1:Yes, it is Way to go right, because the muscle is attached to the bone via a tendon, and so that this is why strength training also improves bone density.
Speaker 2:So, yes, that's up the next one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so running improves bone density, but strength training also helps to improve bone density because of what Kevin just said with the bone placing or sorry, the muscle Placing forces on the bone. That's a good thing. You want those things within reason, because if you're Lifting too heavy, if you're running too much, then you're breaking the bone down faster than you can build it back up. That can lead to problems. But if you are Breaking the bone down with your exercise and then allowing proper recovery and nutrition to help build your bone back up, it's going to build back up stronger, right.
Speaker 2:And if you're putting no impact on it, then bone density actually does decrease over time, right, if you're putting no impact on it, then you actually get this loss of lean muscle, which it has a fancy word which I'm gonna let you say well, the fancy word is sarcopenia and this is one of the reasons that we see like a big.
Speaker 1:They did a lot of research on bone density and sarcopenia with astronauts in space.
Speaker 2:Yes, because of the lack of gravity and the lack of impact that you know their body is Experiencing right, like you can try and have astronauts do various exercises, but it's all like springs and stuff like that and it's there's no pounding right, and so they've really tried to generate ways for astronauts to put impact on their body like.
Speaker 1:Exercise is extremely important for astronauts so that they don't lose bone density and muscle mass when they're up in space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they also have to bring them out of space, because now they've realized that their brains are swelling. Really, yeah, it's not good.
Speaker 1:Oh, I haven't heard about that. Yep. So Going back to sarcopenia, that fun word means the loss of lean muscle mass as early as age 30. Okay, basically after the age of 30, there's this theory that our body starts to break down and lose lean muscle mass.
Speaker 2:Is this hormonally related, because I feel like I've peaked testosterone somewhere before the age of 30.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's definitely a hormone. Hormones play a big role in all of this, of course. So While this is a true medical phenomenon and this is something that we've known about for years, it's in all the medical textbooks, right? Recent research shows that this may not be as inevitable as we once thought, and that lifestyle plays a huge role in this condition.
Speaker 2:Essentially, you can lift your way into not having sarcopenia Basically. Yeah, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:If you are active enough, if you're lifting weights, if you're running, if you're doing those things, you may lose a little bit, like when you're looking at your lean muscle mass from decade to decade.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:But that will be much, much, much smaller than it would have been had you not been that active.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're looking at decade over decade as opposed to year over year muscle mass, because the decline is just so minor that it's tough to pick it up year over year.
Speaker 1:Right, so sarcopenia doesn't just happen to you. You have some control over the speed of progression and the extent of which this affects you.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Speaking of speed, do you get slower as you get older? Do you just naturally get slower as you get older, or is that connected to this whole loss of muscle mass and maybe the bone density? Is it all actually connected? Because I feel like muscle mass should be really closely tied into how fast you can run. So if you're able to not lose lean muscle mass, you should be able to maintain decent level of speed. But at the same time I haven't seen a whole lot of 40 year olds in the Olympic 100 meter dash.
Speaker 1:Right, and yes, it's all related, it's all connected, right, like lean muscle mass and the type of muscle fibers that you have, like the type one muscle fibers, type two muscle fibers, like there's definitely something to be said about being younger and just having, like your engines, like your body's engine just runs a little bit more efficiently. Like think of yourself as a car. Yeah Right, it's not that our bodies as 40, 50, 60 year olds there's nothing wrong with our bodies. Our bodies just have some more miles on them than the 20 year olds. Like you're going to have a fresher engine when you're in your 20s, so do we get slower with age? That's typically what happens, but it might not be, again, as severe or as significant as some people think it is.
Speaker 2:And so I've also heard that. Well, you might not be able to like hit the get to keep your car analogy going. When you hit the gas pedal you don't quite zip off the line as fast, but because your muscle fibers are actually changing, you automatically increase your endurance. Right, any loss of speed is countered by increase in endurance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's why you see a lot of like Olympic athletes right that start with shorter, faster distances and then as they get older, they tend to go into longer distances so that they can still compete at that level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean one of our favorite, you know super runners to talk about. La Kipchogi used to be an Olympic 5000 meter runner.
Speaker 2:So many people don't know that 1500 meter runner like they're shot there. You go back enough and you have him competing in the 1500 on a world class level. And then he moved to the five and then the 10, and then he hit the roads and it was like, actually I'm even better as I run a marathon, Is he? Just he slowed, but he didn't slow drastically, as his distance went from running three miles to running 26.
Speaker 1:Right, and so that's one of the things that I think that you'll often see. It's not that like, yes does like our high end speed tends to decrease as we get older and that's because of the loss of the type two muscle fibers. And again, if we train those type two muscle fibers specifically, we can hold on to them more than we would if we didn't specifically train them.
Speaker 2:Sure, but if I'm going out there and I'm training as like a 5k runner, I'm not training type two muscle fibers the same way that, like, olympic caliber sprinters are training.
Speaker 1:Right, and we just tend to change focus, and I think that we're going to get into that more as we go into this episode. But the last thing I wanted to kind of mention in this section about like not having to accept the inevitable decline of aging, is that a lot of us tend to blame time for a lot of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't have enough time.
Speaker 1:We don't have enough time, and especially when our kids are younger, I don't have enough time to train, I don't have enough time to do all these things. But this can actually be something that works in our favor as we get older, right, because as we get older, you might actually have more time to devote to your health and fitness, because your kids grow up, you're more settled in your career maybe you're not, you know, climbing the proverbial career ladder so things just kind of settle down and you have more time and energy to focus on fitness pursuits.
Speaker 2:I mean personally. We've left the kids in the house, as both of us have gone out to run before. We did not used to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a benefit of us not having to try to figure out our schedules as detailed of like. Okay, I'm going to run during this time, on this day, and you have to run here so that we make sure that someone's always home with the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean when they were super little you could throw one of them in the stroller. That was convenient, but then we had two of them and that they're just really hard to run within a double stroke.
Speaker 1:Yeah we just decided not to get the double.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we tried, tried pushing it in the store and it's just really heavy.
Speaker 1:That it is. So let's talk about the things that you do have to do differently Because, yes, while it is true that you don't have to accept the inevitable decline of aging, you do have to think differently than you did when you were in your 20s and you do have to train differently than you did when you were in your 20s, because life is just different, right, and I don't think that there's anything negative about that. I think that a lot of times, people think about this and they're like oh, I have to make all these adjustments and I have to do things differently. And it's like, yeah, but you're in a totally different place in your life right now than you were 20, 30, 40 years ago also, so doesn't it make sense that you're going to have to make some of these adjustments anyway?
Speaker 2:I know, but change is hard and I don't want to change. I want to do exactly what I did and get the same results that I've already had, so I don't. Thinking differently is actually what's going to be the precursor to actually training differently, but thinking differently is super important. You have to change the way that you're thinking about running. I think a lot of people have to move away from thinking about PRing all the time. We had a whole episode on what if I never PR again, and you can still go after PRs, but I think that there needs to be other pursuits in running than purely PRs, and I think if you've been racing for years, you might actually get bored of simply chasing PRs all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that if you're only thinking about times, paces and PRs, that can lead to a lot of frustration. It can also lead to a lot of boredom and disappointment. If that's your only goal in running, then I think it also leads a lot of people to existential type of crisis as well. What's the point of all of this If I'm just chasing a time on a clock?
Speaker 2:we're just running around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're just running around. What the heck's the point of all of it? Because I think that we hit those as we get older anyway. We start having those types of questions of what's the point of this, what's the point of that? I know that I've definitely had those questions and our 14 year old has definitely had those questions, like last week when she just turned 14.
Speaker 1:As we continue to get older, we just start thinking about things differently. So, yeah, you got to start thinking about things a little bit differently and some of the common misconceptions that we need to really start to break down and if you've listened to our podcast, you've heard us say these types of things before but we need to really accept the ideas that harder is not better, more is not better and pushing harder all the time will not get you faster, and I think that that's those are some really common thoughts that a lot of people have when coming into running, because a lot of people come into running with backgrounds in other sports or with this weight loss type of mentality which is calorie, you know, um, running miles or minutes equal calorie burn and so if I just do more, I'll be, it'll be more effective, and it's just this whole idea of more is always better, more is more effective, harder is more effective, and we really need to start breaking that down big time when we start hitting our 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean there's the last comment here of pushing harder all the time will not get you faster. I am a hundred percent on board with this. The other ones, I think we got to not put them like carved in stone. More is not better. More is not always better. Sometimes, on rare occasions, you can increase in safe ways, with appropriate recovery. More could be better. But as you get older, it doesn't mean that you have to run less Again. If you just start running less and less because you're like well, I'm getting older, I guess I should cut my mileage, then you're going to lose speed. You're going to lose the ability to run farther if you're not running farther. So there are times in certain training cycles where you could push a little bit harder as long as you're recovering, where you could run a little bit more as long as you're recovering. But always harder, always more is definitely not better, right?
Speaker 1:But what we need to understand too is that your reason for running may shift or change as you start to get older as well. Definitely Right, and I think that a lot of us and we can. I want to kind of look at this through two lenses. One would be people that are over 40 that are new to running. So if you are someone that is new to running, you know, if you're already in your 40s, 50s or beyond, you might start running for health or to help control your weight or lose weight, or maybe to be more active. Maybe your doctor told you that you need to start increasing your activity level because you've got some heart issues or cholesterol or blood pressure, there's some other health related issue. So you're like, oh well, I'll start running, right. So that could be a shift, for you know, from not running to running. Yeah, I know 100%.
Speaker 2:But then there's this whole other group of people who are 40 plus that may have been running for years. They may have been running for decades, Like I started running when I was 14. I have run way more years than I have not run in my life. And at this point the whole idea of chasing PRs I'm like how many years do I need to chase a finish line clock? And I still am, but not as often as I used to. And even if I had like all the money and could sign up for every race that I wanted to, I don't think I would race as often now as I would have a few years ago.
Speaker 2:Why I chasing a PR and then finishing that race and immediately sliding into a next, like training and racing cycle, and going from one to the next to the next, Just it doesn't seem as as fun to me. Finding other ways to challenge, finding other things that I can do, other ways to run, other ways to train, like chasing improvement, and sometimes you could say the improvements in number on a clock. But chasing improvement is the fun aspect more to me than the number on the clock, and so seeing different ways to train and how my body reacts to that, how my body responds to increasing mileage, how my body responds to maintaining mileage and increasing weight, how it responds to different speed protocols, to different speed workouts and different things. All of that is fascinating to me, much more than let's tow the line for another weekend 5k and see what the clock says at the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because when you're young, a lot of times you just go out there and you gut it out yeah, right, like so you're. I think that when you're young, your training strategy probably matters less than it does when you get older.
Speaker 2:I mean in high school. I'm really just reading hard, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, and we as cross country coaches, like, yes, we do have a training strategy, and we wouldn't go out there and just not train our runners with any sort of strategies. But there are plenty of coaches out there that do this. Right, there are plenty of cross country coaches out there and I'm not, you know, speaking anything negatively about these people, but in a lot of, like, smaller towns or things like that, where they don't have, like a cross country coach, maybe the basketball coach will come and coach cross country. And who was? I was talking to somebody I forget who it was and they told me that their cross country coach. They just went out and they ran. Yup, that was it. There was no workouts, there was no structure, it was just go out and run and that's all they did, over and over and over. So there wasn't as much of a strategy. And I think that as we get older, we do have to have more of a strategy and more of an actual plan if we want to see improvement.
Speaker 2:Right, Because eventually you're going to get to that point where just running more is not going to get the improvement and, as a newer runner, running more is going to get the improvement Right.
Speaker 1:And once you get to that point, also, if you just continue to add more, because of the way that our bodies are and the hormones and all the changes that are going on physiologically with us, just running more could lead to injury or it could lead you to actually get slower Right.
Speaker 2:So there's, there's this way of looking at running. There's also this complete shift in, like personal identity around running, which also differs of people who got into running a little bit later in life, versus people have been running for decades and decades, right.
Speaker 1:So if you're a new runner over the age of 40, you will probably notice a shift in your identity from non-active person to active person, or from non-runner to runner, and you're going to have to start thinking like that new version of yourself. You're going to want to start thinking like a runner, like an active person, if you want to get the results that runners have Right.
Speaker 2:And I feel like new runners will start taking on all sorts of different running identities. Yeah, now I'm a 5k runner and now I'm a half marathon runner, and now I'm I'm this and that kind of runner. On the other hand, I feel like people who've been running for decades go the other direction. I know I have because I've identified as all sorts of different things and I've gone the complete other direction. I identify as runner. I've taken a very broad approach to this.
Speaker 1:Okay. So let's kind of like, before we get into that which I definitely want to, because this is a really interesting concept I just kind of like to spell out what you were saying. Someone that first gets into running they it probably will take them a while to even accept the identity of runner. Like, first I'm just jogging, maybe then they actually call it running. But like, then they actually decide okay, I'm going to call myself a runner. But then they do try to start defining oh, I'm a runner, but I only do 5k, so I'm a 5k runner. And then I wonder if I could do a half marathon. Could I be a half marathon or could I be a marathoner? Right, they try to define themselves as a runner, not just as runner, right? So go back to what you were saying now.
Speaker 2:I've run all the races. I don't define myself by race distances. I've covered. I've done a bunch of different things. I'm a runner. I'm not a fast runner. I'm not a slow runner.
Speaker 1:I haven't defined myself as as a fast runner since I got out of college, where I suddenly redefined myself as a slow runner regardless of what the times on the clock said and this is like mind blowing to me, because you said you said this last night and we were talking about this episode, Right? And I said wait a second, you didn't define yourself as a fast runner when you were winning half marathons and marathons and five Ks.
Speaker 2:No, because I still had the comparison from college where I ran against, you know, quote unquote actual fast people, Like the people who were on scholarship. They were, they were the fast people. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I actually turned into professional runners.
Speaker 2:Yes, Then graduated in signed contracts.
Speaker 1:So in your brain you were a slow runner because you were comparing yourselves to actual professional runners People who were getting paid money to run for a living.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was my comparison, which is why comparison is not necessarily the best strategy ever, ever at all. Just avoid comparisons. A bad call. And I think that's where I've kind of come to I'm a runner, because it takes all the comparison out of it. I'm a runner because I enjoy going out and running. Sometimes I enjoy running in a race, sometimes I enjoy getting up and running in the dark. Sometimes I'll go fast, sometimes I'll go slow. I do all sorts of different things in my training. I enjoy running. I'm a runner.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's a very interesting shift, right Of like, from the new runners kind of trying to define themselves as a runner and then you, as an experienced runner, kind of getting more broad.
Speaker 2:Trying to undefine myself.
Speaker 1:Trying to undefine yourself. Yeah, that's a very interesting stuff, so I'd love to hear from you guys of your thoughts on this and so, if you wanted to send me a DM over on Instagram at real life runners and let me know, are you a new runner and does do you find yourself kind of defining yourself more, or have you been running for a long time and do you kind of resonate with what Kevin is saying, where you're trying to kind of take and peel away some of those labels?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm curious if anybody else falls into my world there, because I've been there for a while of trying to remove some of the labels from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very interesting. All right, so now let's get into the thing that we're probably all wondering about, which is how do we train differently in our forties? Because you need to train differently now than you did when you were in your twenties.
Speaker 2:Well, certainly if you weren't training in your twenties, there would be a drastic difference. Now, good point. So we've got a couple of different categories here of people who've been training for a long time, and definitely the training is going to be altered from twenties till now.
Speaker 1:But because they're adding in training. Right, that weren't was not there before.
Speaker 2:Right, so that's clearly just a big difference. But yeah, no, I was saying the people who have been running for a while. Oh, they have been they have been running, there's going to be a difference in training and people that haven't been running. There's a healthier way to get into it and a lot of that is trying to avoid the whole push super hard all the time.
Speaker 1:Right. So yes, you do have to train differently depending on your biological age. We'll say it that way. Sure Right. The mistake that we see a lot of people making is that they try to maintain their training the same as they did when they were in their 20s, when they were in their 30s, and just kind of trying to do the same thing because it's worked for them in the past. And the frustration that we see in a lot of runners is when they're doing the same things that they've done before but they're not getting the same results anymore.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the biggest issue is no, no, no, I've done this training cycle before and I PR'd it in the half marathon, so I should be able to run the same cycle and it's going to work out perfect for me. But you're just not the same person, Right? You know, in in 20s and 30s, you could probably run the same cycle and actually improve with the exact same cycle. You could run it again and get greater benefits. But if you run this cycle multiple times or as you're starting to, to get a little bit older, then the same cycle is going to give you not the same results. It's possibly going to give you weaker results as you move along.
Speaker 1:It's possible, and so that's one of the things we just really want to help you guys understand is that, regardless of how old you are right now, as you continue to get older, if this is a sport that you want to continue with, there's going to be periodic adjustments that you're going to have to make along the way, and that doesn't mean anything negative. I think that a lot of times we, as runners see this as a negative thing, that, oh gosh, I have to adjust my training because it's not working anymore. But we could also choose to see it as part of the fun of all of it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's figuring out what training plan does work for you. I mean, I think that you probably, if you've really been trying to figure out how to optimize your best, how to get as fast as you can, how to run farther and faster, and all the things you've probably played with a variety of training styles throughout your running journey. So now that you're moving into later decades, you're still going to continue playing with training styles and see which one works for you at this point.
Speaker 1:Right, because no matter where you are or in your running experience, in your age or any of that, sometimes you do things and they work out well, and sometimes you do things and they don't work out so well, and that's part of training. That's part of running. Like, if you have ever trained for a race, then maybe you've gone through a cycle and things have gone smoothly for you and you ended up with the results you wanted. But if you're like a lot of runners, you probably have had cycles where things haven't always gone so smoothly and maybe you haven't gotten the results that you were hoping for, and, as frustrating and as disappointing as that can be, it also leads to the challenge that I think keeps a lot of us in this running game for the longterm because, we want to figure it out Right?
Speaker 1:So as we change, as we grow and mature and get older, we're just going to have to keep making adjustments along the way, and that's okay, that's part of the fun, and if we can start to see it as this is just part of the process. No, I don't have to accept the inevitable decline as I get older, but I do have to accept the inevitable fact that things are going to change as long as I want to keep running, because I am going to keep getting older and I'm going to have to change things and adjust along the way, based on the way that my body is responding to things at any given time.
Speaker 2:Right, I was just listening to a podcast on the concept of change and how people are moving away from the concept of homeostasis.
Speaker 2:Oh, this was, that was a great podcast of moving back to back to where you were, homeostasis of stability based off of going to the same place versus allostasis stability based off of movement. I think it's literally continuously changing and that's what provides stability which I thought was really funny because they were talking about it on like a life spectrum is change actually provides stability to you? But from a running perspective, literally you're more stable as you keep moving. If you try to stop mid run, at any point in your running gate, you're going to fall on the ground. Your stability comes from continuously moving. You know, I learned this in running downhill. If you try and quickly stop as you're running downhill, you're going to trip and start rolling down the hill Like you're most stable by just continuing to go, let the momentum go with you and gain stability through movement. So this is the thing is just because things are changing does not mean you're in chaos. Change can, in fact, just be part of the interesting process of training.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So. Let's go into some of the ways that you are going to need to train differently once you get to 40 and beyond. Number one the number one principle that you need to keep in mind with this change is the stress rest cycle. So what does this mean? When we work out, when we stress our bodies, when we're placing a demand on our bodies, like running or specifically a harder workout or strength training or anything that's stressing our bodies, that is actually breaking our bodies down, and then, during our rest period, our body builds back stronger than it was before, as long as we give it appropriate rest and nutrition, which because the nutrition is what helps the body build back stronger. So you, as a runner, as a human, need to have a cycle of stressing the body and then allowing appropriate rest and recovery so that you can actually reap the benefits of that work.
Speaker 2:Right and the length of that cycle varies. The length of that cycle varies throughout your entire life because stress is stress in all forms. So if you go into a hard workout and then you've got a really mentally stressful day at work, at home, family, whatever it is super stressful you're not. You have not yet moved into the rest portion of the stress rest cycle. So you can't be like well, I had a hard workout and then a rest day where you had, you know, a startout which, well, it was hard. When I cut my spine and started to put more pressure on that.
Speaker 2:I tend to lose a lot ofszyst and I tend to lose� the whole like social world falling around you and it's just this emotional, stressful day. That was not a rest day. You still need to have more rest after this as we reach our 40s and beyond. Even when it's a physical rest day and even an emotional rest day, you might need an extra one in there. The stress rest cycle might not be in every other day. It might be a three-day cycle, it might be a four-day cycle, it depends on how you're putting this in, but you just need appropriate rest for you.
Speaker 1:Right and I think that that's something that is important is that we need to figure out what that cycle is for ourselves. And this is the part that people often get wrong, because they are trying to make that the same as it was when they were back in their 20s, when they were single, when they didn't have kids, when they didn't have X, y or Z in their life. Your life likely when you're 40, when you're 50, when you're 60, looks differently than it did when you were 20 or 30. So your training also needs to adjust.
Speaker 1:So, like Kevin said, the stress rest cycle as much as it would be wonderful if we could just give you a very easy formula to follow, it's not that simple because it varies from person to person. It varies within you as a person, from day to day, week to week, year to year, season to season. You never know because, like Kevin said, stress is stress, and physical stress, emotional stress, mental stress all of that plays a role in how your body responds and adapts to exercise. So, depending on the level of stress in your life, you might have to adjust your recovery to include more recovery days or longer recovery periods so that you can actually gain the benefits of those harder workouts.
Speaker 2:Right. And then this also just depends up from person to person the type of physical stress you're undergoing. So if you and I both hit up the gym and do like a really pushing it strength routine, you're going to recover faster than I am.
Speaker 2:Why do you say that you are naturally better and quicker adaptation towards weightlifting because you enjoy the process better. So I think that there's not an emotional stress attached to the weightlifting Okay. So there's that to begin with, but there's other workouts that that I adapt really well to and I can come back off of like one day.
Speaker 1:So, if I do like an effort, the way that you run 20 miles.
Speaker 2:I can come back off of that I cannot come back quickly after that.
Speaker 2:Right, I can come back quicker off of that, off of something where I'm moving to like a level five effort and going back and forth on, like you know, change of pace, run up and down throughout the run. I can come back and recover off of a day and then do more speed or do a strength or do something like that. It's still a whole lot more rest than I used to have in like collegiate training where it was like long run on Sunday, tempo run on Monday, speed workout on Tuesday, recovery 10 miler, 12 miler on Wednesday, speed workout on Thursday, race on Saturday, long run again on Sunday. I'm not sure where the rest was on that one. Wednesday was the rest day on that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so the thing that we sometimes have a hard time accepting as runners is that we might need more rest than we think we do. And that can be very difficult, especially if you are someone that is a very structured person, that you're like. On Monday, like what you just said, on Monday I do strength. On Tuesday, I do speed work. On Wednesday, I do an easy run. I know that I'm that way. I'm a very structured runner.
Speaker 1:I like knowing what I'm doing on any given day. It simplifies my life. It makes it easier. I don't have to think about what I'm doing, I just get up and I do it, and that's again one of the benefits of having a training plan. But when you have a training plan, you can set it up to give yourself the appropriate amount of recovery that you need during that given cycle of your life and also know that some weeks you might need to adjust that, some weeks you might need more recovery, some weeks you might not need as much. Maybe you're feeling really good, you're fueling really well. Maybe the regular life types of stress are low, you know, like the stresses outside of running, in your family and your career, whatever it might be. Maybe you're just in a period where everything is kind of going pretty smoothly for you. So your training is going really well and maybe you need less recovery because you don't have as much stress in other areas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it. Just it really varies for per person and it varies based off of your running history. If you're a kind of person who has been running, say, like four days a week and throwing in one speed session during the week, you probably have some recovery built in there. If you're somebody who's been training like six days a week with two speed sessions, you might need to look at this and be like I'm not sure I can fit in both of those speed sessions. Am I going to be fully recovered from the first one by the time I go to the second one? This has been my case before.
Speaker 2:I used to do like a faster speed session and a slower speed session during the week, and sometimes I wasn't fully recovered from the first one by the time I got to the second. So then I changed the order. I did the more moderate effort earlier in the week to recover for the second one, and if I started the second one and it was like, oh, I'm going to go a little faster day and I wasn't feeling it I would turn into strides and be like All right, let's at least experience some of the faster speed, even though I'm not going to do like a full blown lengthy workout. I'll get in some miles and I'll hit some speed with some, some faster running.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you are willing to adjust.
Speaker 1:That's the key and that's the key right and understanding that just because you have to adjust doesn't mean there's anything wrong. It doesn't mean that your training is going downhill, it doesn't mean that you're inevitably declining from this point out. It just means you need to adjust and that's okay. And the next thing that we want you to focus on in running after 40 is strength and mobility. This is absolutely essential. This is a non negotiable. You must be doing strength training and mobility work If you want to continue running healthily.
Speaker 1:I'll use your word from last week Definitely a real word into your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond Okay, your body. When we look at strength and mobility, mobility is not the same as flexibility. I know a lot of people think I need to be stretching more, that they think I'm getting older. I need to be stretching more.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've heard that one a lot that could have gone back up in the things that people say. As you get older, you got to make sure you stretch more stretching all the time.
Speaker 1:No, you don't. Okay, you don't need to stretch more. You might, but this is not just a blanket statement that everybody needs to be stretching more. You do, however, need to work on mobility, which is the way that your body moves. It is the quality of your movement, because we as a society, tend to be very sedentary, and so the more you sit as you get older, the more hours you're spending in a sitting position. Your body will tighten up if you spend a lot of time in one position. So just the fact that you're spending more time sitting down because you're getting older and you're spending X number of hours per day in that position, your hips will get tight, your knees, your ankles, like different parts of your body, your, your back, your lower back, your upper back, your neck, all these things. And that doesn't mean that all those things are happening to you because you're getting older. It means you've just been spending a lot more time in those positions without moving out of them frequently, and that's the problem.
Speaker 1:The problem is not the age, the problem is the movement. If you, if we look at other cultures around the world, there are people in their 80s that just they squat all the time they're sitting on the floor. It's just a part of their culture. They don't have the type of movement restrictions that we in the Western culture, specifically in America, have, because they just have a different lifestyle. Though they move their bodies more, they go into different positions where they're kneeling and sitting cross-legged and squatting a lot more, and so they don't have the mobility problems that a lot of Americans have, and so it's very important for us, as runners, to focus on getting into some of those positions and moving our joints through their full range of motion several times throughout the week I would say daily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, the more often that you're sitting and you get a desk job or you come home at the end of the day and you're you're wiped out from sitting at your desk all day. So then you sit on a couch and you look down at your phone. All of these are like closing positions and it's tightening everything up around you, except like the back of your neck which is getting all stretched out because you keep leaning forward looking at your phone. So, but so many of these other things are are closed off positions, especially for your hips. So you need to make sure that you've got that mobility in your hips so that you're able to express the strength that you have.
Speaker 2:Like you can go out and run and you can do some strength work, but if you don't have the mobility, also trying to take the strength and put it into an appropriate movement that you can actually move through a good range of motion, that's a challenge. So this highlights both the strength and the mobility. And strength we've already covered. We already talked about. But you have to say the fancy word again because it's fun every time you say it as you lose your lean muscle mass through sarcopenia. You got it, nailed it. You have to make sure that you're lifting, and lifting some decent amount of weight, so that you can combat your body's natural tendency to try to lose the lean muscle mass. It doesn't have to, but if you're not trying to maintain your strength, to build your strength, your body will in fact naturally lose the lean muscle mass.
Speaker 1:Right. So you definitely need to be incorporating strength and mobility at least two to three times a week. I would argue mobility would be even more frequently, just to combat our positions of daily living.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good choice.
Speaker 1:All right. The next thing you're going to want to focus on as a runner over 40 is nutrition, because, with all of the hormonal changes that we're talking about, there are going to become differences in the way that your body processes energy.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So this might result in weight gain or your body not burning weight or calories or food the way that it used to it's going to change your metabolism. It will change your metabolism.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that is what that is the word I was looking for when I talked about energy, energy it's going to your metabolism will change Right Somehow, because this is all connected to hormones.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. This is one of the reasons that we see a lot of people get into running in the first place, because they are starting to notice some of these changes with their body. So they're like well, I better start running because clearly I don't want to continue to gain weight right now. However, when we start running to lose weight, oftentimes what happens and I've seen this both with myself and with a lot of runners that we've coached People will get into running with that initial goal of losing weight. So that is the sole focus. But then they start to understand what running is about and they start to enjoy running and they start to want to race and run longer and run faster and try to become a more competitive or improved runner. So they want to start increasing their mileage and doing all the things that they need to do. Maybe they want to train for a half marathon or a marathon, but a lot of them still maintain the mentality of less calories are better, because if I don't eat as much, then I will lose weight. So they still have this restrictive mindset around calories. But that does not work.
Speaker 1:When you want to improve your running, that does not work. If you want to increase your distances if you want to train for any sort of races, even if you want to just get faster and maintain your distance. In order for you to get faster, you actually need more fuel. Going back to our car analogy, you need fuel. One of the most fuel inefficient things that you can do is, if you're sitting at a red light, to slam on the gas every time the light turns green right and just flood the engine with tons of gas, like you burn a ton of gas that way. So if you think about that, in running, if you're trying to go faster, you're requiring more fuel in order to go faster. But then people are trying to restrict their calories because they don't want to gain weight, but then they're trying to get faster or run longer, which is requiring an increase in their fuel, and those two things don't match and that can lead to a breakdown in the body.
Speaker 2:Right, which you've already got, these actual things that could potentially happen as we reach 40s, 50s and beyond, where you've got bone density issues, you've got muscle loss issues and now you're not feeding your body. Well, if you're not feeding your body and you go do whatever the most amazing strength routine possible, but you're not putting calories in afterwards You're not putting calories in before, you're not putting in calories afterwards- and specifically carbohydrates and protein.
Speaker 2:Right, both of them Like, or that's the other thing. Maybe you're putting in calories, but you've decided that one of the macros is not allowed.
Speaker 1:Right, because there's a big push towards the keto diet and like ketogenic type of eating and fat burning and all that stuff now, all of which are not usually conducive to runners.
Speaker 2:So if you're trying to go through and build muscle or at least prevent the sarcopenia loss of muscle and you're not taking in enough protein, it doesn't matter how great your strength routine is, you're not building muscle mass Because you need the protein. It's as I've learned and taught in my biology class. It's kind of the building block of muscle. Protein's pretty important for this guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those were. Amino acids come in and they help to build the muscle.
Speaker 2:There you go, so you need food into you. You can't cut calories and have the goal of getting faster, running longer. These are complete opposite ends of the spectrum. You need the food.
Speaker 1:Right. But because your metabolism is now changing, in your 40s, you're not going to be able to eat the same way that you did when you were in your 20s.
Speaker 2:Yes, possibly ordering the pizza take out. Well, you're like a senior in college and just downing half a large pizza every night might not be the best choices anymore, right? So you got to be careful, like be conscious of what you're putting in.
Speaker 1:Exactly. You just want to be more intentional about what you're eating. You're probably going to want to decrease the amount of processed foods that you're eating, because if you're like most Americans in Western culture, you're eating a decent amount of processed foods things in packages. So if you're starting to notice that you're not liking the way that your body is looking or feeling as far as when it comes to weight or fat storage or those kinds of things, think about what you're eating versus how much you're eating first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:Right, like really start to think about the quality of the ingredients, the quality of the food. Try to cut back on that more processed food or junk food, like excess processed added sugars, like those types of things to help your body feel better than it did before.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, and everything's going to feel better, your digestion's going to feel better, you're going to perform better, you're going to be able to think better. Take in quality ingredients, but take in plenty of them. Don't worry about cutting calories. Worry about cutting things that you would not be super proud of eating. Like. If you're telling other people like, oh yeah, I know, I'm training for this, I ate this all day long which are the things that you're not telling other people that you're eating? Perhaps you shouldn't cut? Put those into your body on a regular basis. And I'm not saying you should avoid all things. Someone came up to me the other day and they said I saw you eating a hamburger last night. I was like, oh my word, what is he doing? Like I've never eaten a hamburger in my life. Like yes, I had hamburger and french fries because that's what was dinner at the function that we were at the event.
Speaker 2:At the event we were at. It was burgers and fries and they were delicious and I made sure that I had enough food that night and that was the food that we had. I had to run the next morning so I was making sure that I had enough food. So it doesn't mean that you have to avoid anything that people could be like oh, french fries, Don't ever put those in your body. You can have things on occasion, but maybe not french fries every night. Like pay attention to what you're putting in.
Speaker 1:Right. So, like the going back to some of the things that we might need to change in the way that we're thinking the whole idea of like I run for the cake or I run for the cookies like justifying what you eat based on the fact that you're going to run and burn it off Maybe you're going to want to start to shift the way that you're thinking and start to shift it to more of I'm going to fuel my body for performance and so that I feel better on my runs, versus I'm going to use my running as a way to make up for all the crappy food that I'm eating and putting into my body.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I fuel for my run, not I run to get rid of the fuel.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and the last thing that we really want you to think about when running over 40 is pacing and the way that you're actually training, and so a lot of runners try to get faster by picking out exact paces and exact pace ranges for different types of training, and they do this through a whole various methods heart rate, power zones, threshold zones. There's lots of different ways that runners determine their training, and what we want to offer you is the idea of using more effort based training in your running training and like effort based training in your training.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's it, but that's what we're doing here.
Speaker 1:Right. So understanding how to learn to connect and actually listen to your body and determine how hard you're running based on the way that you're feeling, versus whatever number is coming off of your watch at that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean this has been something that I've been coming around on because there's been some personal changes in the last I don't know year or so that I used to be able to go for a mile warm up and sometimes I would stop and do drills if I was going to hit like higher speeds. But I used to be able to go for a mile warm up and then just slide right into my L five pace and it was always pretty darn close to the same number and now it takes me a couple of reps. So, like the other day, I did two minutes on, two minutes off and it took me two rounds of it before I was onto the pace that I'm used to. My first two reps were they felt L five. They definitely felt like medium pace, but when I went back and checked how fast I was going, it was not the same as the back end of the workout. That's really strong.
Speaker 1:That's really funny that you say that, because I noticed the same thing in my workout today.
Speaker 1:I did half mile repeats at L five. L five is level five. So what is effort based training? It's basically rating how hard your run feels on a scale of one to 10. And if you want more information about effort based training, I'm actually hosting a free class all about effort based training. I'm going to teach you what it is, why it's important and how to incorporate it into your plan. So that training if you're listening to this, when it goes live is next week, which is October 2nd and 3rd, but if you're listening to this, after that I might be offering a class similar to that sometime in the future. So head over to the website realliferunnerscom forward slash class to sign up for that If you want more information about that. But going back to what we were just talking about, I noticed that my first two reps I was doing half mile repeats at a medium effort level and my first two reps were about 30 seconds slower than my last three, Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just took a little bit longer to get your body going.
Speaker 1:And I felt the same, like you said, it felt the right pace and I don't worry about what the pace is.
Speaker 2:I have not worried about it trying to hit the exact pace on effort based training for a long time. Every once in a while, especially if it's the afternoon this I find it more in the morning when I wake up and have to get myself going, those first couple reps take a little bit before I'm up to my normal speeds.
Speaker 1:Another thing I'll notice too, is that after that first mile of warm up, I usually like to stop and do a little bit of mobility and stretching to get my body ready for my workout, which I didn't used to have to do either. So that's another adjustment that I've made.
Speaker 2:I put more mobility in before I even head out the door. I got a band out and I'm doing some hip mobility before even head out the door. That I definitely did not have to do back in my 20s.
Speaker 1:Right and so, and that's okay, and these are the adjustments that we're talking about. Sometimes you just have to do things a little differently. You might have to add some things in, you might need to take some things away, and that's all part of the process. That's all part of the fun, because if you are someone that wants to keep running in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, you're going to have to make some adjustments, and that's all part of the process.
Speaker 2:Yes. So get an elastic band and help work on some mobility drills. I feel like those are just going to keep coming up a little bit more and more for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Is there anything else you want to say about effort-based training?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that the effort-based training to relate it back to that whole idea of stress and rest making sure that you don't think that an effort is a time on the clock A lot of people know that they're like, oh no, I go by effort and my L five means nine minutes per mile. My L five means a 10 minute mile, a six minute mile, whatever it is they're like, that's what my L five is. That's not effort-based training. That's putting your efforts and trying to tie them to an exact number on a watch. What we're saying is efforts. Efforts are what they are on that particular day. So if you're going uphill, downhill, you didn't sleep well the night before You're, you are not fully recovered from the last workout, but you're still going to try and get this one in because the today's the day that it fits on the schedule. Well, sometimes the efforts and the paces don't match the way that you're used to having them match.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's okay, and sometimes you might need to add in more walking breaks. Sometimes there might be runs, if you're trying to keep an L two, an easy pace on a given run, where you might want to do a run, walk, and isn't that better than not being able to run at all?
Speaker 2:100%.
Speaker 1:Right, like some people get really mad about the fact that they have quote unquote have to walk or feel like they need to walk during a run and they think that that means something negative about them. But I think it's a great strategy for you to prolong the time that you're able to run, both that day and also for years and years and years of your life, because, if given the option, would you rather run straight through and end your running career in five years or less, or would you rather adopt a run walk method and be able to run for the next 20?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'll take the 20. Yeah, and it can be a little frustrating because that's a. It's going to be a big change right now, but if you think on the long term it's, it's far less of a change. It's a lot less of a change to go to a run walk than to go to not running at all.
Speaker 1:And people think that a run walk is automatically going to mean I'm going to get slower, and it doesn't necessarily have to mean that. There's a lot of people that can maintain the same pace using a run walk program, or even improve their pace using a run walk program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all depends on where you're at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, please share it with a friend, share it on social media and if you haven't yet, please leave us a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify so that we can reach more runners and help more people to run their life. And, as always, thank you for being here. This has been the real life runners podcast, episode number 326. Now get out there and run your life.