 Ah, see ya, maffitone, maffitone, maffitone, that is what we're talking about today in case you've never heard of this training philosophy, ideology. It's spelled M-A-F-F-E-T-O-N-E, and I'm just going to put it out there upfront right now. I've never trained in this way, okay? But out of all the training plans that I am asked about, the one that I'm asked about the most is this one, the maffitone, hopefully I'm saying it right, the maffitone training plan. So also, it's crazy, but one year ago, I think it was November 2nd, 2018, I published a blog, Upper Right Hand Corner, titled Why I Run Slow in Order to Race Fast. A lot of people, I think, benefited from that blog. Keep in mind, I'm going to play you a clip from it here in a second. Sorry, the audio isn't great because I didn't have a great audio setup back then, and I was standing a little too close to the camera. Anyway, roll the clip. I am a firm, firm believer in running ridiculously slow so your body can fully recover. I'm talking resetting to 100% or at least 95% and above before you begin your next hard effort in a workout. That's right, there you go. I've talked about this similar topic of why I run slow in order to race fast, but believe or not, it's a different reason for why the maffitone training plan really encourages people to train at slower paces. And so, by the end of this blog today, hopefully I don't ruffle too many feathers. And with these mobility exercises, I'm not going to do them every day of the week. That'll be too much. But I'm planning on four to five days a week. I'm just going to feel it out. But right now, just based on how the hip is feeling today, it's feeling much, much better. It's crazy. So this is good. This is called like the hort, and you keep your other knee on the ground. There you go. Perfect. And then you kick back like a horse. This is working on mobility for our hips, our hip flexor, got to work that hip flexor. I think Joseph's building something out there, working on strengthening the ankles. Another day. I don't know if the USA bag is going to work. Oh, that feels good. Hey, buddy. Everyone, I'm switching back to the Ikea bag. I just, uh, I need easier access to all this gear, Michael. Just not working on zipping, zipping. See ya. Hey, mama's, mama's from Chicago, so she's got the bowls in her. Yeah, you put them in there. Good job. All right. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Family's asleep. I've got my tea. I'm going to rock and roll on the Maffitone vlog. So I just posted my run today in the New Balance 1080 V10s. I'll talk about these in a separate video soon. But I titled today's run on Strava Maffitone vlog tomorrow and the comments are rolling in. I'll see if I can pull up one or two here and people are excited. Let's see one from Peter. Wow. Really looking forward to that. Let's see. Darren says stride over math. Let's see. Anyway. Awesome initiative on this, waiting eagerly set. So I hope I don't disappoint in my thoughts. And I hope I'm doing it right. Am I? I mean, based on filmaffitone.com is where I'm pulling all of the information, which looks like it's the main hub of this training methodology, filmaffitone.com. The 180, let me just double check my math here, 180 minus 34. I am 34 years old. Right, everyone. It's 146. Today's run was 10 miles, 16 kilometers. I average like 655 a mile or I think it was like 415, well, 415 per kilometer. And my average heart rate was 142. I used the Polar Vantage V. How accurate was it today? I don't know. But bottom line, I know chest heart rates are more accurate. I know that, but I don't own one because I don't train by heart rate. But anyway, that was today's run and here we go. Let me pull up my thoughts and my notes on Maffitone real quick. And actually, you know what? I'm going to read from his website. MAF, math is kind of the short way to say it, emphasizes the importance that the majority of exercise over time should occur at a lower or submaximal intensity. That's kind of ambiguous language. But this helps promote long-term health, manage stress, and prevent injury, develop the aerobic system, improve fat burning, and improve endurance performance. Lower intensity exercise also includes warming up, cooling down, and easy training slash recovery days. Now, here we go. And just bear with me, bear with me. What are my thoughts on the Maffitone, the math training methodology, is that to a certain extent, it sounds very similar to some original Lidiard literature. Arthur Lidiard was a coach from the 50s and 60s from New Zealand and really started to emphasize back then the importance of building the aerobic engine first, which I've talked about in that vlog, right? I'm a big, big proponent of developing one's aerobic engine before adding intervals or higher intensity or anaerobic training to your regimen. What I'm not seeing on the Maff website and based on what other people are sharing on YouTube and on all over the place in their running blogs, triathlon blogs, is that Maff, basically, from what I understand, is that it's emphasizing this low intensity training almost exclusively and correct me if I'm wrong. Again, I have never trained this way, but almost exclusively in this lower heart rate zone. Whatever your zone might be. That is where I would deviate quite a bit, actually a lot, from what Dr. Philip Maffitone is teaching. I am a huge proponent of low intensity training, especially on recovery days. If you've been following me for a long time, you know my easy days are I try to keep them slower than nine minutes a mile for me. A lot of people have questioned me on that on Strava and some people just couldn't believe I was running that slow, but I have to recover so that I can go out and run harder. Actually, we've talked about this. Where I would deviate quite a bit from the Maff method is that I think you need to stress your anaerobic system in training if you plan to stress your anaerobic system in racing. Now, depending on the distance, for example, in a marathon, you got to walk that line. I walked it a little too close and actually I walked over the line in Amsterdam, but for like a 5K or a 10K or even frankly a little bit of the half marathon. If you want a PR, it's not even what I believe, it's really I think proven now through science that you've got to go hard in your training, maybe not as much as some coaches have done as of late, but I would say, oh my goodness. I would say six to 10 times in a training block where you're going anaerobic, depending on the distance where you're going anaerobic. So also real quick, the Maff MAF method is perfect for couch to 5K, couch to 10K or if you never run in your life, if you're a former volleyball player or golfer and you now want to pick up running, I think this is actually brilliant to keep your intensity of training low for three months at the minimum, six months, 12 months, two years if you can be that patient and just build that aerobic base first before you begin to introduce faster pace running like tempo runs, threshold runs, interval training. And one more point on the Maff Atone training method and I hope I'm making sense here, but I think it can be actually pretty, I don't want to say detrimental but just not good for your neuromuscular system. If you want to race fast, I'm sorry, recruiting those fast twitch muscle fibers in your legs, you've got to go fast in your training and more than, I would argue more than just doing strides on a football field. You know, four strides back and forth twice a week is not going to cut it. And I'm actually figuring this out right now, getting ready for Houston. I'm taking the strength of the mountain training and I'm going to try and transfer that strength to turnover and fast twitch muscle fibers. And the Maff method, based on what I've read on his website, there's just not really an emphasis at all at higher intensity running. And now who knows, maybe he's talking about swimming or cycling in a different way, like I don't know, but I didn't see anything that led me to believe that runners training this way are working on turnover. I love the, I love turnover. I love it. I think turnover, you hear me talking about it quite a bit. I think that smooth as butter, that rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. I think that turnover and just finding that stride where you're just locked in and it's almost effortless at higher speeds is just so, so nice to find as a runner. And when you're running, for me, it would probably be like 845, I'll just call it nine minutes a mile. If I was running at a really, really low heart rate, anyway, I just, I struggle with that portion of the lack of neuromuscular discussion on the film Maffetone.com website. And now listen, if you have more information, trust me, post it down below in the comments. I will do my best to read those comments and maybe I'm overlooking something, but don't forget that part of training. And so in conclusion, real concise here. I think this is perfect for building an aerobic base if you're coming off the couch or maybe you ran back in high school and now you're 40 years old and you're like, you know what, I'm going to train for my first marathon. I think this is brilliant for three months, six months, you know, maybe even 12 months. But then eventually you got to, you got to get going. You got to get going. And I think the elite runners around the world, no one, like no elite runner really does this exclusively. And I think there's some runners who dabble in math and then add in little things here and there. So it's, like with anything, it's a balance. So anyway, I think it's a good foundational way to train, okay, laying that foundation good work, but there's a lot, lot more to building that pyramid and hitting that peak. Okay. All right. I hope that made sense. Question of the day. Who has trained really sticking to the, and I know I didn't cover everything with math just so you know, there's a lot to it. With brain, with nutrition, with all sorts of stuff, but I just don't have time. Question of the day. Who has had success training in the maffitone training methodology? Like really you dove into it and it actually really worked for you or the opposite? Who tried it and it just didn't work like it wasn't, it didn't work in your future racing. So both sides of the coin, let us know down in the comments. I'll be curious. I hope I did it justice. But again, feel free to correct me because I have never trained, I've never done this training regimen and I don't think I ever would either just because I like variation in my training. So love you all. All right. Tossing it back to heart rate or feel training vlog from about, oh man, maybe nine months ago now on the right and on the left, we're going to toss it back to workouts for marathon training ideas. All right. There you go everyone. Thanks for being there. See beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.