454: The Hidden Weeds Sabotaging Your Running

In this episode, we share a real-life story about our dog coming back from the backyard completely covered in sticky weeds—and how it’s the perfect analogy for what so many runners are experiencing.

So often, we think progress comes from doing more—more miles, more strength, more data, more plans. But in reality, it’s the weeds—the things that don’t belong—that are quietly holding you back.

We define weeds as anything that drains your time, energy, recovery, or mental bandwidth. They tend to creep in unnoticed and spread over time—especially when life gets busy and stress is high (which makes this even more important for runners over 40).

In this episode, we walk through some of the most common weeds we see:

• Focusing on small details instead of the big rocks
• Constantly switching training plans
• Running most of your runs in that medium-hard “gray zone”
• Doing strength work that isn’t actually supporting your running
• Getting overwhelmed by watch data and metrics
• Letting negative thoughts turn into limiting beliefs

We also talk about how to start identifying your own weeds, why consistency matters more than complexity, and how to begin clearing them out—one at a time.

Because the truth is, your breakthrough might not come from adding more…

It might come from finally letting something go.

10:53 After 40 Recovery Reality

12:49 ACSM Strength Guidelines

16:43 Ask What to Remove

19:03 Weed One Obsessing Details

23:55 Weed Two Plan Hopping

24:32 Weed Three Gray Zone Running

28:35 Plateau Weed Warning

29:52 Random Strength Mistakes

31:48 Balance Load and Intensity

33:54 Data Overload Trap

37:28 Negative Beliefs Root

51:21 Pulling Weeds Action Plan

54:44 Training With Intention

Join the 30 Day Running Reset and get a plan that will help you build a strong and injury-proof body by combining running and strength training in a way that actually works for runners like you.

Gain access to my new secret podcast, Unbreakable: The Runner's Guide To Injury-Proofing Your Body After 40. Click here: https://www.realliferunners.com/secret

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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.

Transcript

Kevin 0:00

Welcome back to the Real Life Runners podcast, episode 454. So the other day, I let our dog out for just a few minutes and he came back covered in sticky weeds, and it just got me thinking. What are the weeds that we have in our training? So we're talking today about pulling the weeds, what's actually slowing down your running process'cause sometimes removing the things that are not supposed to be there is going to help you out more than adding anything in. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about weeds because who's never had a dog covered in weeds before?

Angie 1:02

we had not had a dog covered in weeds until the family decided that we should have a dog, and the dog goes in the backyard and lo and behold, it's a dog covered in weeds.

Kevin 1:10

Oh, there you go. even our last dog and I don't know. I'm actually curious about this'cause we've only had poodles, so our last dog was a miniature poodle. This one is a standard poodle. and poodles have a different kind of fur than other dogs. So I'm curious how many dogs, I feel like this, the weeds that we have are very sticky, so I feel like these would stick to any kind of dog.

Speaker 2 1:30

They stick to everything seriously. There's little and tiny and they just,

Kevin 1:33

and there's two different kinds that stick really bad. there's the little sticky ones and there's those hitchhiker ones that are like flatter.

Speaker 2 1:39

The hitchhiker ones stick to shoes, but these things stick to anything. Yeah.'cause they're not like velcroy, like the hitchhiker. But they're actually sticky, which makes them terrible to try to get rid

Kevin 1:49

of. Oh, they're terrible. And they, because then they leave like a sticky residue on your fingers too when you try to get'em out.

Speaker 2 1:53

Yeah. My hands were a mess.

Kevin 1:55

So the other day I wanted to go do some work and it was so nice. Like the weather has been so beautiful in the morning here in Florida and it was around 60 degrees, low sixties. And so I got back from our walk and with the dog, my, my walk with the dog. And we came back in the house and I had to dry off his paws'cause his paws were all wet from the dew of the, in the morning grass. And I was looking out in my backyard and thinking, I would love to go do my. Journaling out there.'cause I start my Mondays with what I call CEO hour and I go back over what I did last week and what I have to do this week and plan out the week ahead and look back and see what's working, what's not working, all that good stuff. And I'm like, I would love to do this outside. And I stood there looking out of the glass lighting door. And thinking to myself, should I bring the dog with me or not? Because I just wiped his paws off. He's dry now. I really don't feel like doing that again. And against my better judgment, I was like, yeah, but he's a dog. Like he's gonna love being out here too, and he's gonna wanna be out here with me if I'm out here. So I let the dog out. And so I sat down on our chase lounge out there and started, opened up my, my, planner. Started writing, and I mean within two minutes the dog came back over to me'cause he of course found a ball and wanted to play fetch. And I just looked at him and he was covered in sticky weeds. They were all over his snout, like his mouth, his face, they were all over, all over his legs. And I just like. My heart just sank.'cause I was just like, oh, you've gotta be kidding me. Like I have just created so much more work for myself because I knew that I had to pick all of these weeds out of his fur and he doesn't like when I do that. So he was going to be fighting me on this. And so then I was gonna have to try to cajole him with treats and other things, and I was gonna have to brush him. And so he would just got filthy. So I was just like, I'm just gonna ignore it for a while. And so I tried to, so I finished like my writing. Exercise and was about to, it was like, alright, I just gotta get this guy inside. So I go in. Meanwhile, this whole time he was trying to play fetch with me too, so I was throwing the ball. So he was getting dirtier and so I was wearing a white long sleeve T-shirt. Oh God. And so he kept bringing the ball back over to me to play fetch and my sleeve of my shirt just kept getting dirtier and dirtier every single time. He came over and I was just like, you've gotta be kidding. I bring'em back inside and I start to pick out the sticky weeds. Now there's sticky weeds. I'm trying to brush them out. There's sticky weeds all over the floor, and then there's dirt all over the floor because he was in the dirt in the backyard too. So now there's this huge mess. So not only did I have to. Pull all these weeds out of his fur, which he did not enjoy, and neither did I. Now, I had to go get the vacuum and make sure he didn't step on the sticky weeds and get them back in his fur. So I had to then vacuum that whole area. And of course, the vacuum died because our girls didn't plug it back in, or whoever used the vacuum last didn't plug the vacuum back in. But I was able to vacuum up most of the dirt and the sticky weeds. And then I was just annoyed, right? So all of this process that was supposed to be this lovely morning of me enjoying the 62 degree weather and like doing my weekly planning, just became this huge process of annoyance because it created so much more work than was necessary.

Speaker 2 5:13

Which leads to this episode Yes. Of how to get rid of the dog in your life. Oh, is that not that nuts?

Kevin 5:20

Sorry, heaven. It's

Speaker 2 5:20

a different episode.

Kevin 5:21

How dare you look down at him right now. Look at that face. Oh,

Speaker 2 5:24

I know.

Kevin 5:25

He's so cute.

Speaker 2 5:26

All right, so I. Am busy tea, educating America's youth and

Kevin 5:30

while all this is happening,

Speaker 2 5:31

all this is happening. I'm completely oblivious to all of this. Yeah. And then I get a text, somewhere along the

Kevin 5:36

morning. Oh yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. I forgot about the

Speaker 2 5:38

text. Yeah. I get a message that just says something to the effect of,

Kevin 5:42

oh, I'll pull it up and we

Speaker 2 5:42

read it. We need to do something about the weeds in the backyard. it didn't go into the details. It didn't have how long you were taking.

Kevin 5:49

oh, it didn't it?

Speaker 2 5:50

I don't think

Kevin 5:51

so. I said, okay, here, I'm gonna read it. We have to figure out a solution for the weeds in the backyard. Jasper is covered after two minutes. yeah.

Speaker 2 5:58

And so I am like, okay. He says, I know the answer to the weeds in the backyard.'cause I then asked you which one it was.'cause there's two,

Kevin 6:05

right? Which weed.

Speaker 2 6:06

Major things,

Kevin 6:06

teeny sticky weeds or the bigger hitchhiker.

Speaker 2 6:08

Yeah. Yeah. Because if it's the little ones, those ones are trickier to take care of. Yeah. And so then I came,

Kevin 6:14

of course, those, the little ones.

Speaker 2 6:14

Yeah. So then I came home and the fix is That you literally have to go in and find all of the little weeds and actually rip them outta the backyard.

Kevin 6:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:22

you can't just be like, oh, throw some, weed killer over the top of it. they're too small and there's more than just these guys in the backyard. You have to go in and rip them all out, they'll just keep coming back. And so that was the solution to it? Yeah, that was the, we have to do something. the something is I have to go in the backyard and get on hands and knees and tear them all out.

Kevin 6:41

And that is proof that I have an amazing husband because I also know that was the solution and I did not want to do that.

Speaker 2 6:47

That's, I think that's why the text was, we have to, do we have to do something about this?

Kevin 6:52

Yes. We have to figure out a solution.

Speaker 2 6:54

Yeah, you had the solution. Your solution was texting me that we have to figure out a solution, I think was the plan.

Kevin 7:00

Oh, you are the best, Kevin. yeah. So then Kevin came home that day and spent at least an hour in the backyard picking all of those sticky weeds out of the backyard so that we can at least let the dog out. Because I'm like, I can't even let him out because as soon as I let him out, I know. This isn't just oh, I'm gonna go out and go to the bathroom. He's gonna come back covered in weeds and that I just don't even wanna do that. So that made me think about where are the weeds in our training, because I love relating. Life to running. And so that's what we're doing. And so the weeds, when I think about what are weeds, like weeds, are things that don't belong there, things that are unwanted. Things that take up space, right? if you think about just weeds in a garden, they're just taking up space. These are also things that steal resources from the things that you actually want. So if you have a garden, maybe it's vegetables, maybe it's fruit, maybe it's flowers, the weeds are. Making the whole garden uglier for the most part, and they're taking nice resources that could be feeding your flowers or the things that you actually want, and they're feeding the weeds instead. And they're also things that create more problems later. As evidenced by my very long intro to this episode

Speaker 2 8:12

and the ultimate solution to it, which. if we had taken care of the weeds very early Then it would not have been as big of a problem later.

Kevin 8:19

True.

Speaker 2 8:20

that's the thing is yeah, sometimes the weeds spread without you noticing, which is a metaphor. We'll keep going as podcast guest,

Kevin 8:26

I think I'm really happy about this metaphor.'cause I think that this is a real one that all of us can relate to.

Speaker 2 8:31

So literally she sends me this message that we need to do something about the weeds and then as I'm thinking like, okay, I have to go home and tear all the weeds outta the backyard. I'm also thinking and. She's going to make an outline. Our podcast this week is a hundred percent going to be pulling the weeds out of your training plan.

Kevin 8:48

I'm, I am so impressed that you realized that was also going to be a podcast topic.

Speaker 2 8:53

Oh, no. That was a hundred percent that was going to be the answer. I'm like, I'm not sure exactly the details to it, but pulling the weeds is going to be the topic of our podcast.

Kevin 9:00

Yeah. So weeds, when we think about weeds in our training, these are not just harmless extras. They actually take energy away from the things that you actually want to grow. They take your space, they take your brain power, they take your time, your energy, your mental bandwidth, your recovery capacity. Because if you're spending time picking weeds, and this is the thing too, is you might not even realize it's a weed, and this is some of the weeds. The sticky weeds I was talking about. You definitely know those are weeds, but we have some weeds in our grass that actually look pretty, that actually have flowers, but they are still weeds. And so you might not even realize that some of these things are weeds. They can be disguised sometimes also.

Speaker 2 9:42

okay, so without getting too much into the weeds on this one, I feel like this is the appropriate phrase there. this goes back to a story when our younger one was real little. And I was pulling weeds outta the front yard and I had this giant pile of weeds and they're the ones that come up and make this little cute white flower at the top of it.

Kevin 9:59

The white ones or the purple ones.'cause the little purple ones are so cute

Speaker 2 10:02

too. No little white ones. So I was ripping all these, the purple ones are almost like wild flowers. But the little white ones are clearly weeds. they just have a little tiny white flower at the top of it. So I'm ripping all these out and our little one comes out and goes, dad, what are you doing? I said, I have to rip all these weeds out. And she goes, they don't look like weeds. Those look like flowers. Aw. And so there's

Kevin 10:21

sweet girl

Speaker 2 10:22

sometimes, and this is where this is nuance. It's not like we'll just rip out the stuff that's bad. There's stuff that might be a weed for one person that is a flower for somebody else. Ooh. I saw it as a, I like where we're going with all this. I get rid of. She saw it as, yeah, that's a flower. Why don't we just leave those there? And that's going to play out as we keep going. As we discussed the weeds that you may have in your life.

Kevin 10:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:44

Those may be beneficial for other people. They may have been beneficial for you earlier.

Kevin 10:49

Oh, in

Speaker 2 10:49

your life.

Kevin 10:50

Yes.

Speaker 2 10:50

And now they're a weed. It's

Kevin 10:52

so good, and I think that this idea matters even more after 40, which most of us I think, listening to this podcast typically are, maybe you're in your thirties, but as we get older, like these things matter more because you don't have unlimited recovery. We don't recover the same way that we used to when we were in our twenties and thirties. You definitely don't have unlimited time. Like we have more and more demands on our time than ever before it seems and your nervous system matters a heck of a lot more. Your nervous system is always in control no matter how old you are, but taking care of your nervous system becomes even more important as you get older because. We don't have the same hormones that we had when we were younger that were buffering stress and doing some of the job for us. So after 40, it's not just about what you add to your training, it's about removing the things that don't belong there or that aren't serving you anymore.

Speaker 2 11:47

which a hundred percent happens to runners all the time. If you go through any, you're following any runner people online, you're gonna see new things that they're gonna tell you is the best. Oh, you have to make sure you put this in your plan. You have to make sure you're doing this every week. And if you follow several different running accounts, you're gonna end up with 45 different things. Oh my gosh. That all have to go into your week.

Kevin 12:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 12:10

And so that's a lot of stuff.

Kevin 12:12

Don't fall for it. Spoiler alert.

Speaker 2 12:15

They, some of them are gonna be beneficial, but all of them are not. Yeah. You because you physically can't do all of'em. It's just too much. And so many runners are like, but I could add this in and this seems to be beneficial. And there's probably studies that show that it's beneficial. And you're like, it is, but not. If that's like the 24th stress that you're putting into your week, then it's just additional stress. And ultimately that's gonna be too much at some point. It is the figurative ca straw that breaks the camel's back. Yeah. And leads to injury, burnout, frustration, anger, plateau, all the things At some point it's too much.

Kevin 12:45

Yeah, exactly. And I think that a really good example of this happened in social media last week. So the A CSM, the American College of Sports Medicine just released their new guidelines on strength training. And so this was blowing up at least on my feed in my algorithm. I don't know how many of you all saw this or not, but

Speaker 2 13:01

I saw it because you shared it to me.

Kevin 13:02

literally it was like every single person I follow was talking about the new A CSM guidelines and. You could get into the weeds of the A CSM guidelines, and you could get into some of these details about oh, in order to build strength, you need, to work 10 se actually that was the hypertrophy guidelines, but like to build strength, you should be, over. 70% of your one rep max, and to build hypertrophy you need to be doing 10 sets per muscle group per week, blah, blah, blah. there's, so there were, over 80% of your one rep max, there is some details that you could get into. And I think that some people want to jump into those details without realizing the overarching recommendation that the a CM put out there was, which was strength training works. Okay. that's the main recommendation is that. Everybody needs to be strength training. Everybody needs to be doing some sort of resistance training in all forms of resistance training work. It doesn't matter if you're using weights, if you're using bands, it doesn't matter if you're using low reps or high reps or heavyweights or lightweights. All of it works. And then there's ways that we can make things better. There's ways that we can optimize things, but for the majority of the population. You just need to strength train and you need to lift heavy enough or do enough reps that you're getting that muscle close to failure that feels hard and challenging. that is some of the, those are some of the best takeaways from. The A CSM guidelines is that you have to be strength training and you have like the strength training needs to be challenging. So whether you add challenge through the weight, the resistance, the number of repetitions, like there's lots of ways that you can add challenge to your strength training, and if you are already. Strength training continuously and consistently multiple times per week, and you want to optimize because you have specific strength goals, then that might be a weed you wanna get into. But for the majority of people, those are just unnecessary details.

Speaker 2 15:06

Yeah. The diagram, they had a bunch of numbers on it. Some of the big part was be consistent.

Kevin 15:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:11

that was one of the big,

Kevin 15:12

consistency was like the number one thing.

Speaker 2 15:14

Like it was big. I think it said it multiple times on the,

Kevin 15:16

it depends on which graphic you're looking at.

Speaker 2 15:18

The one graphic that you showed me It said it multiple times on that graphic and it had a few bullet points that had numbers in it. And if I was really excited about strength training, I would start reading the numbers like

Kevin 15:27

me.

Speaker 2 15:29

If you gimme a diagram on that about running and different effort levels and percent of your VV O2 max, all this stuff, I'd be so excited.

Kevin 15:38

But the majority of the strength of the recommendations for endurance training is go do it.

Speaker 2 15:43

Go run.

Kevin 15:43

Yeah. Go run three times per week.

Speaker 2 15:45

Yeah. So that's the thing, is it really depends on where you are. Right? And if you don't find it exciting to dive into the details. You probably don't need to.

Kevin 15:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:54

Like just doing the thing. And the same with, endurance training or strength training. Sometimes it, with endurance training's a little different. Sometimes it should be difficult with strength training, most of the time it should be very difficult so that you feel a challenge. Otherwise, you're not gonna get much benefits

Kevin 16:10

unless you're training for a race. Sure. So that's gonna be a caveat because you don't want your strength training to be taking away resources from your endurance training if you're training for a race.

Speaker 2 16:19

Okay, good call.

Kevin 16:20

Yeah. So it depends. the whole idea here again, is thinking about too mu too many of the details. I think people try to get into too many of the details without. Thinking about the big picture. And so really what we wanna do in today's episode is instead of thinking about more things to add to your training, because Lord knows you guys get enough of that, if you have anything related to running or fitness in your social media feed. And this is one of the things that I both like, love and hate about social media because there's a lot of really great information depending on who you're following. But it can very quickly get very overwhelming, right? And so instead of thinking about, okay, what are all the things I need to add in? for today, I would love for you to ask the question, what shouldn't be here at all? What are the weeds that needs to, that I need to pull from my training? Maybe it's also from your life, from your lifestyle that's affecting the way that your body's responding to training too, because you are not just a runner, like you are a runner and maybe you're a mother, maybe you're a wife, maybe you're a husband, maybe you're a brother or a sister or a daughter, like you have so many other. Roles and identities that you have in your life, and those other areas can also be contributing to the amount of stress and the way that your body's responding to training. So sometimes your next breakthrough does not come from just adding something in new, it comes from pulling out what's in your way. Go ahead.

Speaker 2 17:43

I was just saying we've got some options, some suggestions of weeds that may be showing up. Just some thoughts.

Kevin 17:48

Yeah. So here are some of our thoughts of what could be a possible weed in your training. Take'em or leave'em. Some of these might apply to you, some of them might not, and we might not have gotten all the ones that maybe you can think of. So we would love to hear from you. If you guys wanna reach out on social media, we would love to hear some of the weeds that you came out with or. If you're listening to this, episode on Spotify, you can leave a comment under this episode, like a specifically, episode, specific comments. It's a really cool thing that Spotify has, we'd love to hear any other ideas that you guys have,

Speaker 2 18:19

or if you vehemently disagree, if you think that one of these weeds, it's malarkey, that's actually super important. Do you like that malarkey?

Kevin 18:25

Malarkey,

Speaker 2 18:25

yeah. Then feel free to also comment that no. That's super important to my life because that it might be,

Kevin 18:31

yeah. Wait, let me just. Pull Kevin out of like the 1870s for a second

Speaker 2 18:35

malarkey. That's

Kevin 18:36

1950s,

Speaker 2 18:37

I don't know,

Kevin 18:38

1920s.

Speaker 2 18:38

I use that word on a regular basis.

Kevin 18:40

18 hundreds.

Speaker 2 18:41

Thank you.

Kevin 18:42

at least we grew up in the 19 hundreds, so there you go. Alright. The first one is a general one. That I already touched on, which is obsessing over the 1% instead of the big rock. So it's obsessing over those small details if you're not already consistent with some of the big things that actually make a bigger difference. So in the nutrition world, there's very, I feel like we're seeing this very much with what's happening in our political system with, the food, like the Make America Healthy again, movement when we're targeting. Food dies in seed oils and being obsessed with those tiny details, or if we're obsessing over the exact macros or the grams of, every single specific macro that we wanna have or supplements like the, gosh, there are so many supplements. Which supplements should I be taking right now? But you're not getting. Enough calories into your body to support your training. Those other things don't matter, right? if you are just not eating enough and you are not fueling your body enough. Those other things don't matter. If you're obsessing over food dyes and seed oils. But you're not getting in the protein and you're not getting in the vegetables and the fruits to support your tree and the carbohydrates. I think that sometimes these little details, now don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of all artificial coloring. I'm not a fan of artificial sweeteners and all of these things, and I also realize that is a very small percentage based on, of what is actually contributing to problems with our health. Then. Some of the other major issues like maha, the MAHA movement could really be focusing on a lot of other things like food accessibility and providing enough calories and enough. Whole Foods to people that can't afford it versus trying to focus on these tiny little things first.

Speaker 2 20:33

It's

Kevin 20:33

first

Speaker 2 20:35

Sure.

Kevin 20:35

the main focus, right? Like

Speaker 2 20:37

it's very difficult to overhaul the entire food system across America and provide fresh foods to places where it's not

Kevin 20:46

totally,

Speaker 2 20:46

it's a lot easier,

Kevin 20:47

especially when.

Speaker 2 20:48

To make a decree to large companies. Remove that single ingredient.

Kevin 20:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 20:52

Because it seems like you're accomplishing something and that's a lot of what obsessing over the 1% is. Yeah. In your training plan,

Kevin 20:58

it feels productive.

Speaker 2 20:58

It feels very productive. Yeah. If you're like, oh man, I'm doing mile repeats this week. Do I need to do those at, Eight 30 or at 8 25. It doesn't matter. Yeah. that's obsessing over the single ingredient in the snack food that you've got. if the snack food is made up of 45 ingredients and all of them are artificial, that one might not be the issue. Maybe have an apple. That might be the difference. Like there are tiny things that need to obsess over. It's just, it's too much obsession. It's too much focus on the teeny tiny details.

Kevin 21:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:28

If you

21:29

that

Kevin 21:29

don't actually move a needle,

Speaker 2 21:30

they don't. Yeah. Because the difference between running mile repeats at 8 25 and eight 30 is irrelevant. Yeah. And maybe this week the answer was 8 25, but next week stress is higher and the same effort level is 8 45. And that's the thing is your body doesn't actually know what number you're running. It just knows how hard it's Right.

Kevin 21:49

And. Please also re remember that all of these things that we're gonna be talking about are also not sweeping generalizations. People might say, what about allergies to food dyes? Or, these food dyes can really help, add to A DHD and all these different other mental disorders. So these are not sweeping disorder. This is not like a sweeping generalization because. I agree. I think that food dyes can affect some people differently than other people. I think that some people definitely can have allergies or increase sensitivities to these things, and for those people it might be a big rock where removing that food die or that additive. Really makes a big deal like gluten, for example. Sure. so if you are someone that has celiac disease, removing gluten from your diet is a great idea because your body can't tolerate gluten. But for the majority of the population that don't have celiac disease, gluten is not actually an issue. But there's a lot of people out there that will tell you that gluten is the devil. no matter if you have a celiac or gluten sensitivity or anything, eating gluten is a bad thing for you. And there's people that have just decided to cut gluten out of their diet because someone told them to,

Speaker 2 22:57

right? And so then you cut gluten outta your diet and in all likelihood, you've cut out a whole lot of carbs out of your diet. Which,

Kevin 23:02

and then you might not be fueling yourself properly.

Speaker 2 23:03

That was my next step. Yeah. I'm like, you probably cut too many calories out of your diet, whatever it is that you cut, you probably cut too many calories. You're not putting enough fuel into your fire, and you're like, oh, I've cut all these things. I should be doing better, but I'm, I feel tired all the time. What's'cause you're just not eating.

Kevin 23:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2 23:17

If you're

Kevin 23:18

just not eating enough.

Speaker 2 23:18

If you restrict too many things, you end up just not eating because there's not enough things that you allow yourself to eat. So that's, I don't know. That's my overview on that one.

Kevin 23:26

Alright. The second one would, that second weed that we thought of would be constantly plan hopping. And we talked about this a lot. Last week on our Shiny Object syndrome episode. So if you haven't listened to that, go check that out. But this looks like a new plan every few weeks, a new app, a new coach, a new system, and this is what GE keeps you stuck in, like just getting more information or information and then implementing information, implementing, but never actually integrating and making this a piece of your life in a sustainable way.

Speaker 2 23:58

And if you want more on that one, go back and listen to last week's episode. We really dove a lot into that one.

Kevin 24:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:03

All right. Third weed running.

Kevin 24:05

I think this is one of your favorites, right?

Speaker 2 24:07

On the list. It's a list running everything at a medium hard effort.

Kevin 24:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:11

Running everything. Somewhere between a five and seven out of 10. And this

Kevin 24:16

five-ish,

Speaker 2 24:17

yeah. Ish.

Kevin 24:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:18

it's exactly right. Yeah. It's the five ish. This is one that. Could at some point have been a beautiful flower in your garden. But may have.

Kevin 24:26

Yeah. If you were a new runner.

Speaker 2 24:28

Yeah.

Kevin 24:28

This is a beautiful flower.

Speaker 2 24:29

And if you are a very low mileage runner, there's still a place for this. Yeah. But if everything is five to seven and you've been doing this for year upon year, there's gonna be an issue. This is now completely turned into a weed. It. You're ultimately just putting yourself in a plateau. It feels productive.'cause you're going out there and pushing, but you're never pushing that hard. So you're losing top end speed and you're never recovering, so you're losing a lot of the big aerobic adaptations. it's just, it's this gray area. Yeah. That is not working for you, but it used to work. And that's why it's one that people are like, Ooh, should I pull that? I think it might be a flower. Nope. It's weed.

Kevin 25:07

Yeah. And sometimes people are like, oh, maybe I should just push a little harder. that's where because at some point it will stop working. Depending on what you're doing, depending on how long you've been running, maybe you're upping your training at some point this is likely going to stop working for you. You're gonna start getting injured, you're gonna start feeling more tired, you're, your pace is gonna start slowing down. Things are gonna start happening. And you might think to yourself, oh, I'm just not pushing hard enough.

Speaker 2 25:30

Yes. Which is like looking at the garden, being like, I don't see the weeds. Okay, My parallel to literally what's happening in the backyard is the sticky weed. Stays low to the ground and it doesn't, the ground doesn't really grow up high. It just kinda spreads wide.

Kevin 25:44

It does. Yep.

Speaker 2 25:45

And we also have clover growing in the backyard. Not crazy clover. Little tiny ones that also are pretty and stay low to the ground and give really bright green ground cover.

Kevin 25:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:55

And they look nice. I'm a fan of those. The, oh no, they're great. The problem is that these two things grow together. And so trying to separate them out and be like, which is good and which is bad, and do I need to take all this out? It gets tough because. For the longest time, you're like, oh, I don't have any problem. I just keep improving. And the weed spreads a little bit farther. You're like, no. If I just push a little bit harder, I'll get some more adaptations. And it works at first. And the weed spreads farther. And now you have your entire plan built around medium paced running. You're tired all the time, and you've been on a plateau for a while. And the only way to overcome this is to completely blow up that weed. Like you've gotta get rid of all of your medium stuff and maybe. M definite. Maybe sometime down the road you could bring that back in, in some form, but at first you're just gonna need to get rid of that. This becomes what,

Kevin 26:45

so does that mean you have to get rid of the cute clovers too? Is that, what, is that your analogy here?

Speaker 2 26:51

So I tried to keep some of the cute clovers. Okay. But I had to get rid of a lot of them. Yeah.'cause there was no way of getting the other weed out Yeah. Without taking out a bunch of the clover, which was sad.

Kevin 26:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2 26:59

but. At some point you may be able to bring back in some of the medium running, especially if you really like it. But at first you're gonna need to get rid of it. You're gonna need to go much easier and harder. So you can actually work on the high end and you can actually really build up a sizable aerobic base. Yeah. While you're still able to recover.

Kevin 27:18

Yes. And that feels scary for a lot of people. And I wanna say that, I don't think that. Pulling weeds is necessarily a scary thing, but it can feel very scary if you decide to go all in and be like, okay, I actually have to polarize my training. I have to slow down the majority of my runs. Like when we have told so many clients that in our years of coaching. So many people have resistance to that idea and to that philosophy, because it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that if you want to get slower, you have to do the majority of your runs.

Speaker 2 27:51

If you wanna get faster.

Kevin 27:51

Sorry. Yes. If you wanna get faster, thank you. You have to do the majority of your runs slower. It just doesn't make sense. So it can be scary, just Possibly, having just dirt in the backyard is not a desirable thing as well. you're gonna have to kill some clover and your yard's gonna look like crap for a while because it's going to not have any green on it. But that's what needs to happen in order to get rid of the weeds.

Speaker 2 28:14

That's what happens if you're like, no, this. The problem is when you have part of your training plan that you let become all of your training plan, when it stops working, you don't have a training plan anymore, and you have to get rid of all of it. When the weeds completely take over the backyard, you have to rip everything out and start over, and it's big and it's drastic and it's uncomfortable. And the problem is that. Weeds without the dog back there. The grass, the backyard could look green. It's just gonna be covered in stickiness. Yeah. But you wouldn't notice it until the dog makes it clear and obvious. Yeah. You may not have noticed that running a bunch of your runs in Medium was not actually moving you forward until you put 40 candles on the cake and now suddenly you've been on this plateau for a while. And you're like, oh shoot, that's a weed. Like it's, you needed something to draw attention. The poodle walking around in the backyard, covering back in sticky weed, draws the attention to the problem.

Kevin 29:08

Yes, for sure. All right, so the fourth weed we thought about was random strength training and no. Integration of your running and your strength training together. So this looks like doing random hit classes, random YouTube workouts. Maybe you're signed up and you go to a bootcamp style gym and it's strength that is not aligned with running. And I see this so often with my runners because what happens is they hear that they need to be strength training. So they decide to join a gym, or they decide to join these fitness classes, these group fitness classes, and. Overall, like if you're not a runner, those group fitness classes can be great. But when you combine them with running, a lot of times what I see is that people are just adding more on top of what they're already doing. So they're already going out and they're running three or four times a week, and now they're adding these fitness classes are, which, especially if they're a hit style class or they're designed to, to get your heart rate up, a lot of times they can just make people more tired and break the body down more. and that like more so than the actual good that it's doing them

Speaker 2 30:18

right. And like it is possible. And this one, I think we just lose the metaphor on this one. It's possible that these classes are a good way to start your strength training.

Kevin 30:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:28

If you're doing no strength, they can be, if you're doing no strength training, at some point you're gonna have to figure out where and how do I put strength training into my schedule? Yep. And that may be some trial and error. Because maybe you go and you lift weights and you quickly fall off because you don't have the consistency with that. Maybe these classes are a way that you can maintain consistency of strength training, but you need to figure out how you're going to combine it with your running. You need. There's probably gonna be some trial and error.

Kevin 30:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:56

Which I, like I said, I think we lose the weeding metaphor on this one. But you've gotta figure out how to make the strength actually align with your running. How do they come together?

Kevin 31:04

and part of that means that you might have to cut back on your running for a short period of time while you introduce that strength training, because that's the thing that a lot of runners are not willing to do. It's one of the most important things that you need to do if you start to introduce regular strength training into your routine, because what you have to remember is that. It's not just your running that matters, it's your overall training load and your strength training plays a big role in that. Like the overall load on your body. That's what your body has to recover from. And your body has a limited amount of resources and a limited amount of recovery. And so if you're just adding more on top of what you're already doing, you're asking your body to recover from things that it doesn't have the resources for. And so you might need to also add in, some additional sleep and some additional. Nutritions, but we're not talking about adding right now. We're talking about removing. So removing a little bit of running in order to fit in the proper strength training might be necessary for a short period of time.

Speaker 2 32:02

that's what I had to do when I was putting in a bunch more strength training. I. I did not ramp mileage up, but then even as I started putting some mileage back, I kept a lot of my intensity out of a week because I was gaining a lot more intensity from what I was lifting. And I, my body is capable of doing a whole lot of really easy running. It's when you start trying to put the strength training and the higher intensity speed sessions into it, that it just became too much for me. Some people, their limiter is on that. Volume to me, where my volume is at right now is not overkill as long as I don't put too much fast running into it.

Kevin 32:38

yeah. So it's the amount of intensity that you're putting into your plan. Yeah, because strength would fall into that more intense category, and so you can't put more intense strength and intense running into the mix. That kind of goes back to the training pyramid that I teach to our clients as well.

Speaker 2 32:53

Yeah. most people can. In general, add more easy running to their plan. Yeah, up to a point. Up to a point. As long as you have the time. As

Kevin 33:02

long as it's easy. Like

Speaker 2 33:02

truly easy running. Yeah. Most people can add truly easy running to, to their plan. Okay.

Kevin 33:07

The next weed that I think that a lot of us fall into is data tracking and data overload. So we have watches, metrics, recovery scores. There's all of this data that we have now, and some of that data can be helpful and I think that some of it is a weed and a lot of it can be weeds. A lot of times we can be so obsessed with the numbers and paces would fall into this as well, right? The exact paces and exact distances that the numbers and the data. And constantly checking in to see how your body's doing, instead of just feeling how your body's doing.

Speaker 2 33:48

Constantly checking in to see how your body's doing.

Kevin 33:50

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:50

Is actually a wonderful thing. Constantly checking your watch. So it can tell you how your body's doing. Is definitely a weed.

Kevin 33:58

Yeah, because more data doesn't always mean more clarity. Sometimes it can mean more confusion because we have all these numbers and then we think that we have to do something with these numbers, or we have to make decisions based on these numbers. And for most of us, that's just not the case for elite athletes. Yes, some of these numbers are extremely helpful and can help guide you, but for the majority of us, it's better in a way, I think, to just. Check in with yourself, reconnect to your body and actually figure out what your body is trying to tell you.

Speaker 2 34:31

Yeah. They've tried to do studies on this of Can you measure all these metrics in the morning and design a perfect training plan?

Kevin 34:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:37

And then they compared it to a group of people that they just asked them, how do you feel?

Kevin 34:42

Yes. I

Speaker 2 34:42

love

Kevin 34:42

the study.

Speaker 2 34:43

they got up and were eating breakfast, and they're like, how do you feel? And they designed the training plan based off of how do you feel? And they had to give themselves a score from like one to five. Yeah. How do you feel? And they didn't. Then they designed the train plan off of that, and that group did better. They were actually listening to themselves.

Kevin 34:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:58

Because listening to yourselves then allows you to do better workouts and race better and perform better. Yeah. Because you're more keyed into your body. By looking at all the data on a watch

Kevin 35:09

or, and those are like non tangibles too.

Speaker 2 35:10

Yeah.

Kevin 35:11

Like understanding how your body feels and how you are able to adjust mid-race and push or pull back or do what you need to do. Like those are intangible skills

Speaker 2 35:20

because every race is ultimately a matter of trying to figure out how much fuel do I have left before the finish line. And. Knowing how quickly you're burning fuel is really important. And if you like, the watch can't tell you that. You actually have to feel like, how much juice do I actually have left before I'm gonna run out? Can I make it to the finish line? Can I pick up the pace? Do I need to slow the pace down? You have to actually have some feel for that inside of your body.

Kevin 35:49

And so if we're constantly dependent on the numbers to tell us how we're doing, then for some people that can really hold you back because maybe the watch is telling you something and you actually feel better than that. And for other people, the watch is going to be more generous and tell you that you're able to do something that maybe your body's not ready for. And so I think you, we can get into trouble both directions.

Speaker 2 36:09

Yeah. this comes up every year when the Chicago Marathon comes around because GPS just doesn't work. For the first several miles of it. As you're running through like downtown, and I'm sure there's other races that doesn't work, the more twists and turns inside of race, the less your GPS is gonna be at all accurate on it. Yeah.'cause it's just, it's not hitting the turns the same way that you are actually hitting the turns. So data does not always mean clarity. Sometimes data just means data.

Kevin 36:32

exactly. And then. I would argue one of the biggest weeds that all of us deal with, and maybe it's not it's not just one weed, so I shouldn't say maybe it's the biggest, but it's definitely the most spread, the one that spreads the most. There's all these little. Weeds that we need to be aware of and start to pick out are negative thought patterns, because these are the internal weeds. It's these little thoughts that cross your mind and individually they're usually not that big of a deal. oh, I'm getting slower. Or oh, that wasn't a very good run today, but so individual thoughts. Aren't always problematic because our brain is wired for negativity. So negative thoughts are not actually a problem. But the problem is when we group those thoughts and those negative thoughts start to become beliefs and we start to believe that there's something wrong with us and with then in order to start to break down those negative beliefs, and this is the tricky thing about beliefs is that. We don't realize that they're beliefs. We just think that they're facts. this is just a fact. I'm getting slower. I should be further along. I need to fix this. Something's wrong with me, like something's wrong with my training. there's all these different things and individually, there's lots of little thoughts that added up to group into this belief, and then that belief becomes something that we just accept as truth and as fact and. When we start, when we realize that when we find the big weed, which I'm gonna call the belief, we can then start to break down that big weed into the little weeds. Because there's always, if you break down a belief, there's lots of little thoughts underneath it. And those weeds. Can be some of the most damaging because the way that you think about yourself, the way that you think about what's possible for you, the way that you think about your training is going to determine what is actually possible. It's going to determine the effort that you put in. It's gonna determine how you feel about your training, and then that's going to determine the results that you get. Because if you're feeling frustrated, if you're feeling disappointed, if you're feeling. Hopeless about your training, that's going to affect your actions and how you show up. And for some people that might lead to inconsistency, that might lead you to not doing as much. And then of course, the results that you have are not going to be the results that you want because you're not being consistent and you're not putting in the work. And for other people, having those same feelings might lead them to overcompensate and do more work, which again, is also not going to lead to the results because you're gonna be. Pushing too hard, doing too much, and you're likely gonna end up burnt out or injured. So either way, the result that you get. Is a result of the way that you're thinking and feeling?

Speaker 2 39:16

Yeah. this is probably the most nefarious of weeds because

Kevin 39:19

it's Oh no, it's the trickiest one.

Speaker 2 39:20

it's everywhere. And you think that you've got it taken care of. Yeah. and then it pops up again. Because you never got to the actual root, the

Kevin 39:27

root

Speaker 2 39:27

of the damn

Kevin 39:27

weed.

Speaker 2 39:28

You just get. Picking things we've got, among other things, we have dandelions back there and you go to pick one, and as you pick it, the little poof thing goes, you're like, that's gonna be a, those

Kevin 39:39

are seeds

Speaker 2 39:39

that's gonna be a problem in about two weeks. Yeah. but. It's the same thing that happens with these beliefs. You're like, oh, this little thought comes up. Yeah. And I can dismiss that thought. It's like the whack-a-mole game where you're like, oh, a little pop, little thought popped up. I just bop it and it goes away. no, the game is still playing. It's just gonna pop up somewhere else. Yeah. Until you actually figure out what that belief is at this, or

Kevin 40:01

until you run outta money. Sure.

Speaker 2 40:03

but this one a lot of times comes back to ego. Should I share that story from the other day? Oh

Kevin 40:07

yeah. If you want to.

Speaker 2 40:08

that's,

Kevin 40:08

I would love to hear your thoughts on it.'cause we never really talked about it that much.

Speaker 2 40:11

Yeah. We tried to avoid talking about that one.

Kevin 40:13

I know you, so Kevin will tell you the story and then I'll just tell you. So after this happened, the thing he's gonna tell you about, he came in and I said. So do you wanna talk about it or do you just wanna apologize and move on? And he goes, apologize and move on. And I was like, oh, you are. So your daughter's father, like this is our oldest daughter especially, the younger one is getting to that sometimes too, but the oldest daughter just wants to like, apologize and move on. We don't have to talk about anything

Speaker 2 40:40

to be fair. I apologized and was ready to move on before you asked the question. I did come back in and apologize. That was how I opened.

Kevin 40:48

That's true. You did come back in and apologize and then I had to ask the question.

Speaker 2 40:54

Yes, you did. Yeah. so I was out strength training in the garage.

Kevin 40:58

I couldn't find him. I was wondering where he was, and so I went looking for him.

Speaker 2 41:01

I had quietly slipped out to strength training in the garage. Did

Kevin 41:04

not tell me that he was doing

Speaker 2 41:05

this hashtag getting jacked. and so

Kevin 41:07

in my jacked era,

Speaker 2 41:09

in my jacked era, yes, that's a sign that I'm getting big, bulky, and manly is I'm naming things after Taylor Swift. That's usually a good sign.

Kevin 41:17

no, that's just a sign. You have a teenage daughter,

Speaker 2 41:19

hashtag girl,

Kevin 41:19

dad. It's teenage daughters.

Speaker 2 41:20

so

Kevin 41:21

well, one that is a ultimate swifty,

Speaker 2 41:23

so I'm out there lifting and doing my thing. And it was not a great lift for me. I was tired and I was having weird thoughts as I'm lifting that, like I was flashing back to lifting in college, which I think was the origin of when I really started not liking. Lifting at all.'cause I enjoyed through high school'cause I would go to the gym with my dad and lift, or I'd lift with the rest of the cross country team. I enjoyed that. I got to college and suddenly I was very anti'cause I didn't like lifting with the team.

Kevin 41:52

because you didn't like lifting with the other athletes, the other teams that were in there,

Speaker 2 41:56

I didn't like I, you're right. I didn't mind lifting with cross-country team. I didn't like lifting with the hockey team.

Kevin 42:01

Hockey players,

Speaker 2 42:01

Who were also in there.

Kevin 42:02

Exactly.

Speaker 2 42:03

That was a That's true. so I'm out there doing my thing and I get this like weird mental flashback to lifting, very vivid flashback to lifting in the gym in That's so wild. In wild. I know. It's super weird. So I'm trying to process this. Angie comes out and finds me lifting and I go to, do, I forget tricep pull downs. Yeah. And. Angie corrects my form.

Kevin 42:25

Okay. But ti time out. It b before I even corrected the form, so you were, we were talking and I was like, oh, what do you, what's next? Or whatever. And you're like, oh, I'm doing triceps.

Speaker 2 42:35

Oh.'cause I was doing step up at

42:36

the

Speaker 2 42:36

time.

Kevin 42:36

Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I just did triceps yesterday and you had the tricep bar all set up. And I was like, you know what? The craziest thing to me is about tricep push downs is how different it feels with the bar versus the rope. You were like, really? and I said, yes. Have you ever tried it? Like the bar is easier, like the rope is for some reason so much harder. The same weight feels harder with the rope. I was like, here, try it. So you were on board, you're like, okay,

Speaker 2 43:03

sure. Because the weed had popped up of. Weird flashback to college and I bopped it and or pulled it out and it was gone. Yeah. And then I was doing step up and they were not going as well as they were just a few months ago. And so I was annoyed that step ups were not going very well. And so I. I, I'm like, I managed to get through step ups, not going well. sure, you're not at the same place you were a couple months ago. You're building up strength. You had a workout this morning, your legs are tired. So I had justified and ripped out all the little tiny weeds. And so then, sure, I was open to let's compare the bar versus the rope. So I go to start pulling the bar down and. The doctor who knows way more about strength training than I do, than I know or want to know comes over to correct my form because my form was poor and she was simply trying to help me. Everything about what she did was simply trying to help, and it wasn't like you even came in and were like, you're doing that wrong. You were, you just you simply said something to the effect of Pull your shoulders back.

Kevin 44:08

That was the only sentence I said, pull your shoulders back. Four words. Yeah,

Speaker 2 44:11

pull. Which

Kevin 44:12

four words. That's all I said.

Speaker 2 44:14

But what I heard was, you suck. What are you doing? Everything you're doing is terrible and you should stop I, or something to that effect. Yeah. I, I let go of the weight. I'm like, all right, that's it. I'm done with this. I'm done lifting

Kevin 44:32

and in like an angry voice. And Kevin does not get angry. Kevin very rarely has an angry voice. Like he's annoyed. He gets I can tell when something's off with him, but you like sounded angry.

Speaker 2 44:44

And I was. I was done. I was. But you had no idea, that I had already been out in the garage at ripping weeks.

Kevin 44:51

I had no idea how long you were even in the garage. I didn't know where you were. I just went looking for you.

Speaker 2 44:56

Because I prefer to lift in secret.

Kevin 44:58

Yeah, he's the closet lifter.

Speaker 2 45:02

And it turns out that the reason why I lived in secret is because anybody else being there is a massive hit to my ego. Because I feel like I should be stronger. I feel like I should be lifting more. I feel like Step Up should be going smoother. Heaven forbid Angie lifts something that is more than I lift, that's gonna be a massive hit to my ego. So I don't want to lift together. I would like to just secretively lift in the garage, preferably in the dark, is really what I want. And Angie came out and tried to fix my form, so that,

Kevin 45:34

but that's not, that wasn't the point of me even going out there. No,

Speaker 2 45:36

you were making sure I wasn't lost. I think.

Kevin 45:38

Yeah. I was just trying to find you and then I was like, oh, this is like a funny thing that I've noticed.

Speaker 2 45:42

Yep. I have not used the rope since. so I snap at her and. And then I came back in and I apologized, and we You

Kevin 45:48

did. And that was the first thing he saw when he walked in.

Speaker 2 45:50

And we did not dive into this, but the answer, I, because we talked a little bit when we were walking the dog later. And you pointed out that you think that this was ego related without trying to open up a lengthy conversation. You, you pointed it out and just kinda let it float. Which puts it into my head and that I'm gonna think about that more. and you're right, like it's a. Every lift session, basically the momentum that I need to start it is saying it's gonna be okay that this doesn't go as well as you want it to. And that's a big hill that I have to climb just to go into the garage.

Kevin 46:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2 46:23

So it's tricky to me. And I can go out and run for hours in silence without music and people are like, that's insane, but. In the gym? No, with the music needs to go on immediately because I need some things that are distracting me from what is actually taking place. And I think that's how some people run.

Kevin 46:39

And some like intense music sometimes for you too. Yes. Does like very, like I did not know that. Like Christian hard metal rock existed.

Speaker 2 46:48

Yeah. No, it's a genre.

Kevin 46:49

I did not know this at all.

Speaker 2 46:51

Yeah. Spotify will play it for you.

Kevin 46:53

Played a song for me. I'm like, what is, what am I listening to? I don't like heavy metal anyway. that's just not my thing. And I, so the combination of heavy metal in Christian just didn't make sense in my head. I, it was a major disconnect for me.

Speaker 2 47:08

it worked for him for a little while. it's losing, its, yeah. Its ability. Right now I think I need. I need sillier stuff.

Kevin 47:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2 47:15

So I have a plan moving forward of new music choice. So we'll see how that goes. Curious,

Kevin 47:19

maybe

Speaker 2 47:19

we check in next week and see how it goes,

Kevin 47:21

but this is the point of how these negative thought patterns create so much extra, like it create. Your negative thought patterns around strength training create so much resistance that you have to then overcome, which takes so much energy away from you just actually strength training. So like how much heavier could you lift if you just didn't have those thoughts there?

Speaker 2 47:44

Yes, a hundred percent.

Kevin 47:45

and same thing for our running. for you it's lifting. For some people that, that are listening to this, it might be running like you just hating and dreading. That speed work that's on your plan is taking so much of your energy. So if you just remove that thought and that hatred of the item. How much energy would you have to actually go do that thing?

Speaker 2 48:06

Very specific to me.

Kevin 48:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:08

People have the same thought on running that I have on lifting. And I have the same thought that pops up on running also, but it's, I'm not lifting enough, I'm not strong enough. And because of that, I, ironically, I can't lift more weight. Because

Kevin 48:23

it is so ironic,

Speaker 2 48:24

I'm using so much energy to try and overcome the thought of I'm not strong enough to do this, that I don't have the energy to put any extra weight on the bar. Yeah. And lift it. People are doing the same thing. I'm not fast enough to do this. And therefore they're, they don't have enough energy to go faster.

Kevin 48:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:41

Oh. I'm,

Kevin 48:42

it's kinda like rain on your wedding day.

Speaker 2 48:44

I'm not, yes.

Kevin 48:46

Or a free ride.

Speaker 2 48:47

It is.

Kevin 48:48

And you've already paid

Speaker 2 48:49

It is ironic, except this one's actually ironic. not just sucky, which I think is actually the name of that song. But yeah, so it's the energy that you're wasting that you could be using to do the thing that you're using completely. Just trying to deal with the thoughts about not being capable of doing thing, not being good enough to do anything. Not being fast enough, strong enough, capable, whatever the thing, all the thoughts. If you just push those to the side, if you could rip the actual root of that weed out and say, I am fricking awesome.

Kevin 49:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 49:21

Now I'm gonna go do this thing as best as I can. Because the way I do it is awesome for me.

Kevin 49:27

Heck yeah.

Speaker 2 49:28

Then you can go do the thing to the best of your ability.

Kevin 49:30

Yeah. we've gotta pull the thought weeds, Yeah. and that's honestly, I think the number one limiting factor for. Pretty much everybody in their training.

Speaker 2 49:39

And calories.

Kevin 49:41

And calories, not enough calories.

Speaker 2 49:43

I coach high school kids so often the issue is not

Kevin 49:47

enough calories, especially female ones.

Speaker 2 49:48

Yeah, I know.

Kevin 49:49

Yeah. So as you can imagine. The cost of leaving these weeds. If you don't go out and you find these weeds and address them and pick them, you're going to likely end up slower progress, more fatigue, more frustration, less confidence, wasted time. all of this goes back to exactly what we were just talking about with these. Thought patterns. And it also goes back to the original dog story. Like of how much time, effort, frustration, time that I wasted, annoyance, right? Just because of all the darn weeds that I had to pull out of the dog's fur. So the weeds and the weeds in our yard, they don't just sit there, they spread. And if we aren't. Starting to become more aware of the weeds that we have in our training, especially in our thoughts. They will spread and they will become more prevalent until they start to take over.

Speaker 2 50:40

and that's the issue is you, the very first weed we talked about is focusing on the 1% as. All your weeds start spreading The big rocks don't have room anymore. Yeah. Because your life is just covered in weeds. So you, you have so much stress that you can't even take care of the biggest things that need to get taken care of because the biggest things are now just weeds.

Kevin 51:03

Yeah. if you've ever been to like. A ruins, like the ruins of a castle or something like that. You can see where like certain areas have gotten overgrown, you can't even see what was underneath them. Yeah. Anymore. Like it's pretty crazy. So what do we need to do? The first step is always awareness, and hopefully just listening to this podcast has maybe put at least I, one light bulb in your head of oh shoot, like that's something that I do. Or, oh shoot, that's an area that I can look at. So step one is awareness. What are you spending the most energy on right now? That's the first thing to ask yourself, and then. Number two would be, is this what I wanna be spending my energy on? So identify those big rocks, running. Are you doing most of your runs at an easy pace? Are you strength training consistently two to three times per week? Are you doing mobility work to make your, make sure that your body's moving properly? Are you giving yourself enough recovery and make and being able to recover in between, especially those harder sessions? And are you just being consistent with all of those things? Because those are the biggest needle movers. Those are the biggest drivers of your progress. And then. Figure out, okay, where am I spending the most time? Is it a part of one of these rocks? Like show? Is that something that I wanna be spending my time on? Is it this something that's helping these things to grow? is it something that's improving my running, improving my strength, improving my mobility, improving my recovery? Or is it just taking time, energy, and effort away from them? And then. Start to remove them, and I really encourage all of you to start to look at your thoughts. And I know that's one of the scariest places that we. Like for us to look. And that's why a lot of people run because they don't wanna look at their thoughts. So they're just like, I'm just gonna run and then I don't have to think about anything a

Speaker 2 52:45

hundred miles.

Kevin 52:46

But really start to look at, those things and then start to pick them, start to remove them. You don't have to replace them with anything. Now, sometimes you just need space. Sometimes you just need to remove those things that are sucking out your resources so that you can have space for the things that actually

Speaker 2 53:06

matter.

Kevin 53:07

And that's what training with Intention is all about. It's making sure that you are. Building a strong foundation first in, in that training pyramid that we talk about, which is mobility, motor control, and easy running, making sure that is dialed in before you start to add strength and speed and intensity and power and all of those things. It's making sure that you take those big things, the big rocks. And actually integrate them into who you are and integrate them into your training so that you don't have to think about these things anymore. Like they just become a part of who you are and what you do. if you're not integrated, then you're spending a lot of wasted energy on just. Implementing or gain, trying to gain more information. And it also looks like regulating your nervous system, teaching your nervous system, that it's safe for you to do the training. It's safe for you to actually sleep and recover because training with intention looks like. Not adding more necessarily, but clearing out what's in your way. Because so many of us have things that are just in the way, myself included. Like I'm always finding things that I'm like, oh, that's not starving me, and that's also taking up a lot of energy. So I would just invite you after this episode to think about, what is one weed in your training right now? And what would happen if you removed it this week? Maybe you just test it out. Maybe you just test out that whole idea of I suck at strength training. And just go in and do it like Kevin said, and say, you know what? I'm just gonna do this thing and I'm gonna be good at this and this is what's good for me right now. And if you need help, that's what we're here for. We have our membership that is here to help guide you. If so, if you want help identifying your weeds and building a plan that actually works with your body, this is exactly what we do. Inside the team we can help you. And we have our weekly live coaching calls where you can talk to us about what's going on and we can help find some of those weeds.'cause sometimes it's hard to see on your own and sometimes when another person comes in and can see that we have a clearer picture of what can actually be happening because sometimes we're just too close to it. I know for me that is definitely true. Sometimes I'm too close to the problem to actually see the problem and when I have a really good friend or someone that comes in that can just see so clearly, Angie, what are you talking about? look at this thing right here. And it's oh my gosh, how did I not see that before? That's what we do. That is the whole like benefit of coaches. That's'cause coaches can see things that we can't. So if you want help, if you want guidance, go check it out. Real life runners.com/team. If you're someone that wants help rebuilding that strong running foundation, I would suggest that you start with a 30 day running reset. You get that free when you join the team. You have access to all of our programs when you join the membership. or if you are someone that just wants just that 30 day program, you can purchase that separately as well. So you can find that over@realliferunners.com slash reset. So figure out what program is right for you. If you're not sure, then send me an email and ask, we're ha, we're here to, to guide you. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it for you to share this episode to leave us a review, leave us a comment, so that we know that this helped you, because that's why we do this every single week. alright guys, this has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 454. And if you're wondering why the end of the podcast was me and Kevin disappeared, it's because our dog decided to go crazy. And so he's playing with the dog right now. sometimes that's just what needs to happen. So get out there and run your life.