 We almost wish for some snow to cover the ice, cause I'm, until, oh, ooh. And upward. Oh, there they are, there they are. Get a little more light on them. Ooh, let's rock and roll, okay. Here we go. To the mountains, to the mountains. Well, more like the foothills, foothills. Why would you look outside yourself when you've had all of the world inside? One, two, three, four. Yeah, your heart is a sun, and it shines. As it opens. Yeah, your heart is a sun. There they are, all right. Let's rock and roll. We're getting some vertical today, some baby vertical, but we're getting vertical today. The runner's knee is, oh, it just feels amazing. It actually, I wouldn't even call it runner's knee anymore. It just said it's normal. It's back to normal. So, we're taking out the Skechers, speed, go, speed trail, hypers with that hyperburst midsole. Let's, let's lace it up here. The sun, and it shines, says it opens. Yeah, your heart is a sun, and it shines. As it opens. Well, your heart is a sun, and it shines. Does it open? Yeah, your bones are the earth, and they sing with the mountains. Well, your bones are the earth, and they sing with the mountains. Yeah, your bones are the earth, and they sing with the mountains. Well, your bones are the earth, and they sing. Look outside yourself, inside. Why would you look outside yourself when you... Oh, right. I haven't done vertical, like, you know, decent vertical. I think since November, it might have been Argentina, honestly. So this is crazy, amazing to be back out here. I kind of forgot, though, that the snow, it hasn't snowed in Denver for about a month, but as you can see behind me, it's, there's still quite a bit of snow up here more than I expected, and, yes, it has turned to ice. So I'm watching my footing, and just absorbing the beauty, and just going vertical. Oh, it's just so good to be back. So all right, we're doing well. About halfway, it's rolling. Look outside yourself when you bear all of the world inside. You know you can feel it. Almost went down. Whoa, it's icy. Definitely, it's one of those situations where you almost wish for some snow to cover the ice, because I've, until, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Don't worry, I've fallen before. As long as you're not going crazy fast, you're probably, you're not going to hurt yourself too bad, too bad. Okay, dirt. Oh. Having fun. Say, why would you look outside yourself when you have all of the world inside? Why would you look outside yourself when you have all of the world inside? Skechers go run speed trail hypers. I don't know, we'll see. I'm gonna get you my thoughts on these shoes in a second video, publishing later today, but, and I'll get you the stats for the run back at the house, back at the studio, and at the end of the day, the legs were a little tired. They were a little tired after about six miles, since this is my first really vertical run in a long, long time. So there they are, nice and muddy now. That classic red dirt color from the Colorado dirt out here. Oh my goodness, we're back at the studio and I'm just in a little bit of shock, everyone, that I was able to go get some vertical gain today this quickly after the runner's knee. Now I've been doing a lot of work in the gym, the PT work and the jumping and all the plyometrics work and so I felt confident that I could go do this. But frankly, I'm just ever grateful that I was able to get back out on the trails, out into the fresh air and yes, integrate, begin to integrate vertical gain into my marathon training for the Hamburg Marathon on April 19th. So today's run, eight miles, about 13 kilometers, 1800 feet of vertical gain and there it is on your screen in meters. So nothing crazy, put us all the day back into the vertical gain sphere of training and about averaging about 11 minutes a mile out there, just kind of cruising. Now what is the end goal? All right, you always gotta remember the end goal and work your way backwards. So the end goal is a flat road marathon in Europe in about 12 weeks approximately. So integrating vertical gain, if you wanna call it hill running, mountain running, however you wanna phrase it, I'm gonna say vertical gain. That is part of my strategy moving forward for staying healthy, okay? Let me explain a little bit. The Amsterdam Marathon was amazing. It was fun, it was fast, it was flat, but leading up to the Amsterdam Marathon last fall, I was still doing quite a bit of vertical gain. I was running 14ers here in Colorado, 14,000 foot mountains and the reason why was because I was walking the line between mountain racing and road racing, okay? I had qualified, yeah, I had just qualified for the World Mountain Running Championships and so I knew that I still needed to continue to seek out vertical gain in my training while trying to prepare for a flat, fast road marathon. But I will say that lessons learned, we're always learning, right? You always gotta be learning as a runner. So lessons learned going into Amsterdam in retrospect, maybe I would have dropped back a little bit more off of the vertical gain bandwagon in September and early October before I went over to Amsterdam to race. Also, I'm a big proponent of going into high altitudes to seek out and to recruit those red blood cells. So red blood cells, they're flowing through our body and they help deliver oxygen to our muscles, the more red blood cells we have. So when you do high altitude training, that's why the elite marathon runners train at high altitude. That's why the Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate because they live and train at 8,000 feet above sea level. That's one of the reasons they dominate is they live and train at 8,000 feet above sea level. So I'm a big fan of vertical gain, of getting up into high altitude. However, going into Hamburg, I'm gonna walk the line better and not seek out as much mountain running. And so when you're out there on the trails, you're firing and you're using your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, your bones in different ways, it gets different angles and different torque that you're putting into your body that I think is a good way to actually stay healthy. I know it's weird because you'd think running in the mountains is harder, but actually it's a way to trigger the different muscle groups in your body that you wouldn't normally use when you're training down here on the roads in the flats. So my strategy for Hamburg is two to three trail and or mountain runs per month. It's hard for me to say that. So basically every other week, go up to the mountains for an easy day and that's another nice thing about vertical gain in your marathon training. It slows you down. It's like a reset button. It allows your body just to reset a little bit and have an easy day out there on the trails, not to mention the soft surface that you're running on rather than the hard surface of concrete or pavement in a lot of urban cities. All right, does that make sense? So that is my approach. That's my game plan for vertical gain in my marathon training block is to still have it. I'm still gonna have it in the training block, but I'm gonna reduce it a pretty good amount from let's say before I was getting ready for Amsterdam. And in New York to a certain extent, but the races were so close together. So it's still important, just rain it in a little bit, rain it in in order to stay healthy, at least as always, that is the goal, right? Arrive at the starting line as fit as possible, as fresh as possible and as healthy as possible, okay? And that question of the day, do you plan out your vertical gain in your training blocks? Meaning, we talk a lot about our volume, we talk a lot about interval training, threshold running, but do you actually plan out how many vertical feet or meters you want to accomplish in a given week? And whether it's for a marathon or not, whatever it is, just let us know. Do you actually plan it out and think about it ahead of time, all right? Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoyed returning to the mountains a little bit. It was a throwback for me to get the cameras up there and film for all of you. I totally, I loved it. I just loved it, but I'm not gonna do it every, I'm not gonna do it too, too much in leading into Hamburg because I know I just gotta rain in that vertical gain until the summertime, getting ready for Pike's Peak. So all right everyone, thanks for being here. Thanks for watching as always. We're gonna toss it back on the right to a vlog that's all about uphill running technique in case you're interested in learning more about my approach to improving my running form on the uphill, so that'll be on the right. And then on the left, yesterday's vlog, all about my six tips for getting ready for marathon racing. All right everyone, see beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.