 Guys, look at family party. Everyone's everyone's home. Yeah. But what it said about the two hour run now as you've probably figured figured out my training definitely emphasizes aerobic steady state training way more than anaerobic or interval training, especially for a marathon. If I was getting ready for a 10 K or a 5 K or even to like a half marathon, I'd be training quite a bit differently. As far as adding more speed, but for a marathon, I'm going for that aerobic steady state training often. Why? Because I am trying to increase the volume of blood that my heart can pump and the speed at which that blood can be pumped and delivered throughout my body. That is the that is really the goal of all of these two plus hour runs. There you have it the two hour run. That is the principle. One of the principles that I trained by and sure enough on today's run like right at mile 15 basically like I glance at my watch. We're just about to break through two hours and my legs were starting to bark at me. I think part of it was running through the snow for 16 miles. Like my legs are not ready for that, but that's all right. And so two hour runs. It's critical. And yes, it does connect to my approach, my training approach for the middle distance runs that I'll explain in full at the studio. Hope you're having a great day. The art of the middle distance run. But before we get into that, I want to give a shout out to a couple comments from yesterday's blog and who remembers the comment of the week. That was pro. I probably stopped doing that about six months ago basically because the comments just exploded in a good way, meaning there's so many. I just can't go through all of them. So therefore I want to every now and then pepper in some of the best comments. So here we go from Rick yesterday. He says, honestly, Seth, you have been a big reason why I get out the door and run during the winter. Thank you, Rick. I try to watch one of your videos or another video about running to get me up and going. Yes, Rick, I love it. That is the power of YouTube. Also from Kim down in Silverton, Colorado, he says, I live in a beautiful area, so motivation is easy for him. Yesterday at negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit, I had an awesome eight mile run enjoying the white covered mountains and softer due to the snow surfaces. Also at the age of 61, I appreciate every single run. Kim, I love your attitude. That is awesome. So anyway, I won't read the entire thing, but Kim, thank you so much for your comments and for answering the questions of the day. Everyone, I know, I know you're putting in work and effort and time into these answers for the question of the day. I don't just ask any question of the day for the heck of it. The idea is to bring as much value as possible through these daily vlogs, not only through what I'm saying, like right now, but down below in the comments. So that is the goal. All right, today's run 16 miles. Oh boy, about 740 miles. So right in that steezy range it was. So there it is on your screening kilometers. And yes, oh, there they are. And there it is over there. The Hoka Speed Goat 4 is the shoe of the day. First run in this shoe. I'll get you my thoughts sooner rather than later. I don't know if it'll be later today or not, but bottom line, by the end of the run today, my legs were barking at me like, I think it was the wind and then fighting the snow for 16 miles. And of course, it's the longest run yet of this training block. So the legs are just getting used to that two hour window, which I love, which I love. Now, as you already saw in that clip about the two hour runs, a little bit of the science behind it. I, my approach, my context is I try to sneak in. Yes, sneak in as many two hour plus runs in a training block basically as possible. Obviously keeping it within, within reason, but that is a big, that is very high on my priority list, especially for the marathon. If I was getting ready for a 10K, it would be different. I would be emphasizing more so, not exclusively getting ready, getting rid of the two hour plus run, but I'd be emphasizing a little bit more so the interval training. And yeah, the interval training. Okay, now what is a middle distance run? How is it different than the long run? Okay, so middle distance for me falls into that 14 to 18 mile window. 14 to 8, and there it is on your screening kilometers. So you might think, wow Seth, that kind of sounds like a long run to me. And I get it. It's approaching a long run for sure. But in a marathon training block that 20 to 20, right when you're hitting that wall, right? Right when your legs are barking at you in the actual race. If you can do that 20 to 22 mile long run twice, but preferably three or four times in your training block, that is the long run, the middle distance run as we just learned with a two hour threshold. If you can push through that, frankly, I'm not, okay, I gotta watch what I say, but in my mind for me as often as possible while obviously respecting the body. Okay, respecting the legs, the muscles, the tendon, the ligaments, the bones, and realizing like our aerobic engine is gonna develop quicker than the rest of our body as far as adapting to the pounding, to the higher volume. So that is why once a week at least, preferably twice a week, in addition to the long run, I try to squeeze in these middle distance runs that 14 to 18 mile window and ideally pushing through that two hour window. But I get it, I totally get it. Oh yeah, one last point. If you're getting ready for a 5K and you're in high school, in my opinion, unless you're like, I don't know, I think rarely do you need to approach that two hour window. Anyway, I got a lot of thoughts on that. Maybe I'll talk about that in another vlog. But another point is I get it. You are busy, you are working full time, but one idea I had as I was out there pounding ground today, I was like, gosh, how could this be applied to the broader audience? And the only idea I could come up with is, and listen, if you're a teacher, if you're a doctor, it's probably not gonna work. It's probably not gonna, but if your work schedule is flexible enough, go in, talk to your boss, and again, depends totally on your job. But maybe you could tell your boss like, listen, boss, I will come in at 7 a.m. and I'll work till 11 a.m. and then boss, I'm gonna be kind of MIA until, let's see, 11 a.m. till 1.30, because why? You gotta get dressed, you gotta get undressed, you gotta, you know, you gotta maybe take a quick shower. So let's say you're gonna go out and run for two hours during your lunch break. But then you have to come in and that's where the sacrifice comes in, but you're gonna come into work an hour early because listen, I get it. Doing a two hour run before work, it's hard, especially in the winter when it's cold and it's freezing out. So anyway, that was one idea I had, like maybe your boss would be willing to let you have a longer lunch break, knock out that middle distance run, and then you just have to, you know, you have to come into work earlier or maybe leave work, or maybe come into half hour earlier and leave a half hour earlier. I don't know. Just an idea that I had on the run. And one more, I think, point on the middle distance runs is that they set you up mentally for confidence for the long run. And the long runs set you up for confidence for the race. So it's like a stair, it's like going up steps, okay? Going up steps. Middle did, well, really easy days, very low mileage, low volume early in the training block. Oh, middle distance day, another step. Okay, okay, this hurts like today. It kinda hurts, but I know next week when I do the middle distance run, I know it'll be easier. And then, oh, now let's say for me personally, 14 days from now, oh, we're starting to dabble in 20 mile long runs, I have the confidence to bump it up to that 20 mile threshold and eventually 21 and 22 mile threshold so that for the long run, I'm just like, this is not easy, but it's like I have the confidence to go out and do it, okay? Sound good? Now, I did not do this today, but one last point that I'm gonna integrate soon, probably two weeks from now, is pickups. So the last two miles, maybe the last three miles of a middle distance day, which for me will eventually climb to 18 miles. So the last mile, 15 to mile 18, I'm gonna do a pickup, meaning I'm gonna pick up the pace from seven minutes a mile down to 630 a mile, okay? So that is one of my goals, just to train myself to finish the race strong. Okay, you come in, Mama. Pause. We're having a family party. Guys, look at family party. Everyone's home. Yeah. Does that feel good? Does that look good? Yeah, is that fun? Yeah. It's like the special, she's looking at the medals right now. Hot, hot, hot. Okay, chow-chow. Okay, oh my God. Michael just tripped over the light. Hold on. Okay. And we're back. Okay, question of the day. I've definitely asked this a while ago, but how do you integrate when you're busy? I get it. You are busy. How do you integrate those long runs? And yes, now maybe middle distance runs into your life. Creativity, thinking outside the box. Okay, well, quick side story is that there was a guy in New York City, and he was a very successful businessman. He would run from, his office was in Manhattan. He would run from Manhattan. I don't know if it was to LaGuardia or if it was to JFK. I know JFK is further, but anyway, he would run 100 miles a week with a very successful businessman commuting to the airport a lot. And I, it was just, I heard his story on a podcast once and it just inspired me to think outside the box with getting that training in the door. Okay, everyone, that's it for today. I'm going to call it. I got to go inside, get the, get the dinner going with the family. And we love you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. I know, listen, some days I can, I can spice it up a little bit with a filming. Some days I can't. So today we'll just keep it a mellow, keep it a mellow everyone. We're going to toss it back on the right, of course, to the two hour long, two hour vlog where I talk about the science behind this idea of getting your runs past that two hour mark. So that'll be on the right and then on the left, the long run vlog, the long run blog. That'll be on the left. All right, everyone. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. See beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.