 Yeah, I'm sore everywhere everyone. I'm sore all over hamstrings quads calves oh yeah ladies and gentlemen we're sore Dom's is hit oh my goodness we are very very sore but we're gonna get through this putting on some blue rub before my for my run today oh man I'm gonna get through but I'm not sure how yes we're gonna talk about running easy so that we can race fast I've talked about this topic before but it's been it's been almost a year I do believe I'll have to put on my long socks our work our work is not done folks our work is not done get a little core working stretch little push-up action yeah I'm sore everywhere everyone I'm sore all over hamstrings quads calves for the most part all right here we go got my recovery mix gonna mix it up right now it's Amsterdam time as I posted on Strava all eyes look to Amsterdam now it's like that is the next uh and not just for me not just for me a lot of you out there watching are also racing Amsterdam congrats on your training get it done we're almost there and good evening everyone all right drinking my hot turmeric tea out in the studio it's cold out here got my hoodie on and we're gonna dive into the topic here in a minute about why I train slow in order to race fast and so we'll dive into that in a second my legs are feeling a little better not a lot better but a little better after an epsom salt bath and then saw the massage therapist so but it's uh everyone you know the you know the drill by now and by the way I'm tired so I didn't prepare for talking in the studio tonight sometimes I take like you know 10 15 minutes to write out bullet points I'm so tired I didn't do that so if I sound a little jumbled in my thoughts that is why but I'll do my best to uh to still get the information out there to you that I want to okay so today's run um so I'm walking this line in racing and in training grateful that I qualified for those world mountain running championships but frankly wasn't sure it was going to happen like I was confident but I wasn't positive and then we've got Amsterdam on the horizon so um my legs are very sore from the race I'm grateful I went to New Hampshire and raced but I'm sore but I need to do a few more key workouts in order to uh arrive at the starting line in Amsterdam as fit as possible as fresh as possible and injury free okay so today's run no joke 22 miles okay at 740 a mile in the nike zoom fly threes it actually felt pretty easy very controlled um which I'm grateful for but I'm just um and there it is on your screen in kilometers I'm just walking this line and so I I wouldn't usually train through sore legs like this just so you know I'm doing it because of Amsterdam and because I want to get a couple more just good solid long run efforts in before I catch an airplane next week to go to Vienna so anyway just mention in that real quick okay why I train slow in order to race fast I'm not going to get into too much of the science just a little bit uh basically as runners we run aerobically and anaerobically aerobically is where we typically train okay anaerobic is when you start going into oxygen debt like when you're doing interval training or when you're running up a mountain and you're breathing really deep um that is now anaerobic you know oh my goodness and I'm not going to get into heart rate stuff right now but it's it's basically where you're breathing really really hard which is important for shorter distances especially and longer a little bit for the marathon but uh especially for 10k and below so 5k one mile 800 absolutely like that's where most 800 meter uh runners will really hone in their skills is running in that anaerobic state because their race their 800 meter race it's like an all-out sprint and you hold it for as long as you you okay it's not an all-out sprint but it's really you're really walking that line as close as possible um so for me here's the deal I um and the reason I'm bringing this topic up today which I haven't brought it up in a year um and the reason I'm bringing it up today it's probably a top three question that I receive on Strava basically it goes like this someone will type below a slow easy day so for me what is an easy day a slower day whatever phrase you want to use is it's usually um I consider it definitely nine minutes uh nine minutes a mile to 10 minutes a mile um but a lot of people will start commenting when they see that on Strava and they'll be like Seth why are you running why are you running so slow you can run a 15 minute 5k what's going on and so the first answer to why I train slow in order to race fast is this when you're training at a high volume and pretty high intensity you're so tired like right now as I'm standing here you're so tired there's frankly no other option but to run slow on easy days and recovery days and that's like the non scientific answer that's the emotional answer I'm telling you when you get to that point and you I bet there's many of you out there who have experienced that and maybe you're getting ready for a marathon for me it's definitely when I get above 90 miles a week um maybe a hunt but definitely 90 my anything below 90 I usually feel okay but like anything above 90 like it's like oh oh this is this is serious and so the easy days must be so easy silly easy in order to simply survive so that I can come back the next day and run whether it's a tempo day a long run a threshold day whatever the case may be so that's the non scientific answer to that is why I run so slow on my recovery days all right now on the flip side more I guess more a little more of the scientific I'm not going to go into too much science but um basically our bodies and you many of you already know this but when you're running hard running intervals running mountains your muscles like right now my muscles are broken down they are the the soreness the the doms the delayed onset muscle soreness that came today that's the little fibers in my muscles that are slight tears ever so slight tears that are barking at me and saying Seth you just put me through a lot and now you need to recover okay so when you're out there and you're thinking about okay I want to go hard today the next day should be easy why because your muscles are literally rebuilding right before your very eyes and if you don't let them rebuild over time you can dig yourself into a hole okay in your training sometimes it's called OTS or overtraining syndrome okay okay now hopefully that last point made sense um I'm going to jump into another point my last point real quick uh but anyway again if my thoughts are not completely clear it's just because I'm tired okay here we go when we want to race fast we need to train fast we need to do fast workouts um the shorter the distances especially marathon yes uh ultra marathons not quite as important uh half marathons yes but especially like anything below 5k in order for me to be able to race fast I need to make sure my workouts are fast and that I'm doing the threshold run like I did last week nine miles at 515 per mile the only reason the only and my goal pace in Amsterdam is definitely 518 518 519 and below per mile that's the goal pace that I I need I want to hit and I need to hit so I had a huge boost of confidence when I was at altitude I was able to hold 515 a mile on dirt at altitude with no competition but the only reason I was able to do that was because I ran slow easy silly slow the day before and I recovered and my legs I think I haven't looked yet I'll have to go back and look I think it was even two days before I started a little mini I'm not going to say taper but a freshener a little couple days of freshness in order to get ready for that threshold run and I will do the same next week when I do my last threshold before Amsterdam on Wednesday so I and so if I were if I would have run let's say seven minutes a mile last Tuesday what if I would have then only been able to run 520 a mile in the threshold last week because my legs were not as fresh the next day and they felt a little tired a little off then I would not have got received as great an aerobic stimulus in that threshold run bordering that anaerobic that anaerobic line for me at 515 a mile well maybe I would have only been able to hold 522 a mile I don't know so hopefully this is making sense but if I run easy it allows me to run harder in certain workouts which I believe allows me to run harder and faster in a race does that make sense oh man that was a long roundabout way I probably could have just said those 10 words right there and just call the blog there but that is what I'm talking about when I run 845 a mile 9 minutes a mile sometimes I'll even drop it down to yes 10 minutes a mile you've seen it on Strava if you follow me on Strava you know I can do that every now and then and with that said everyone I got to go to bed question of the day do how how do you approach your easy days like yeah let's not even talk about threshold let's not talk about hard days let's just talk about easy days like what's your mental state how fast do you run what shoes do you run in so let's talk all about easy days down below in the comments and maybe some newer runners who haven't heard of this concept before of like easy days easy hard days hard maybe you can go learn some things down below in the comments as well I love you guys thanks for being there thanks for watching i'm gonna throw it back to some other uh easy day discussions on the right and the left some old blogs for you to check out if you have time I appreciate you being there thanks for watching all right signing off see beauty work hard and love each other see you tomorrow