Mastering The Long Run

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the RunDot podcast. Today we are talking about the long run. How long should your long run be? How often should you have a long run on the training calendar? How many miles does it have to be to be considered a long run in the first place? All that and more with coach Brady Hoover. Brady is an ACSM certified personal trainer and a 2 hour and 48 minute marathoner who has been coaching runners and triathletes since 2016. Now, I am not your usual host, Carrie Tollefson. At the time we are recording this episode, Carrie is on a plane heading home from New York City where she was on the microphone all weekend for the broadcast coverage of the New York City Marathon. So I am filling in for this episode while Carrie is up in the air flying back home to Minnesota from New York City. Brady, did you watch the New York City Marathon this weekend?

Brady Hoover: I did! What a, what a fantastic race. Both the women's and the men's was such a great race. My kids were into it. We were all into it. My wife was, you know, but the kids were into it. And that's. That warmed my heart.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. My wife is supportive of me watching that. She just doesn't understand why watching people running for two hours is interesting. And I'm like, it is, trust me, it's fascinating. So I turned it on with, I think, I think both the pro fields were about mile 18, 19. When I turned it on and watched the last, the last little bit and great races. Very cool hearing Carrie on the microphone live and I was like, hey, I know her. I know her really well. But anyway, for today's podcast, as always, we're going to start with our warm up question, settle into our main set conversation and then wind things down by having Coach Brady answer an audience question on the cooldown live of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: This is the RunDot podcast, the running show that brings you world class coaching with every conversation. Let's get started with today's warmup for.

Andrew Harley: Our warmup question today. Brady, while we are talking about long runs, I want to know both from you and our listeners, what is the longest you have ever run at one time or I guess worded differently? What's the furthest you've ever run in one time? How many miles or kilometers did you cover? What was your longest run?

Brady Hoover: So this may surprise you, Andrew. As many marathons as I've run, I have not gone past 26.2. But if you want to get technical, every year when I run the Boston Marathon, I usually run about 26.5 to 26.67, depending how well I can run those tangents with all those people out there. So I guess would you consider that an ultra. Because it's, you know, it did say on Garmin. I didn't go that far.

Andrew Harley: You're basically an ultra marathoner. That's what I'm hearing. Yeah. You're. You're basically full fledged in that world. Yeah, I, I get it. And that is getting super technical there, Brady. Super. That, that's, that's coach. Coach technical right there to include the, the non tangents of the course. But this answer for me, I have run 26.21 time and it was during the one Ironman I've done. I, I don't really feel like I really ran that 26.2 in a way that lets me count it as the longest run I've ever done. I did quite a bit of walking on that course. So for me, the longest training run I did leading up to that was around 17.5. We're gonna throw this question out to the RunDot podcast audience. So if you're watching us on YouTube or if you're watching us on Spotify, you can answer this question right in below in the comments on both of those. And if you're listening to us, go to the RunDot Facebook group. Go to the RunDot social media is. Find this question posted and brag on yourself. Let us know what is the farthest you personally have ever run. Let's go on to our main set where Coach Brady is going to talk to us all about the long run. Really excited to hear you as a coach. Really teach us what this is. Teach us how to execute these really well. And let's start with this, Brady. What is a long run? Is it just the longest workout of any particular week? Is it the longest workout of a training cycle? Or is it a certain duration or a mileage that makes a workout a long run?

Brady Hoover

This is a great, this is a great question. So it kind of has two answers. So it really depends what phase you're in. So on run. We have two different phases. We have our development phase and we have a race preparation phase. Long run by definition is, you know, it's, it's the longer run of the week. So you have a long run. Typically, most athletes will do their long runs on Saturday or Sunday on RunDot. That can be anywhere from 50 minutes to an hour 10, depending on the athlete you are. And it will kind of hover there, which if you look at your Workouts during the rest of the week, they're going to be around 40, anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes. If you're a newer runner, might, might see some 25 minute runs in there. So yeah, that, that long run is the longest run of the week and the intensity and what's prescribed in those long runs will differ depending on the training phase you're in. So if you're in the development phase, you're going to see that kind of, that longer run front loaded with some intervals. Generally they're going to be like zone 4 intervals so threshold, you could have some tempo repeats in there, zone three. But as you transition to your race preparation phase and you're getting ready for your 10k, 5k or sorry, 10k half marathon, marathon, whatever distance it may be, that long run is going to change where a lot of your race specific intervals are going to be in the second half of the long run. And the purpose of that long run is to then build endurance, aerobic strength and just time on feet. Um, hope that's a good answer for you, Andrew.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, so, so Brady. Correct. Correct me if I'm wrong or expound on any of this, but it, it sounds like we have some form of a long run in all of our training weeks. Right.

Just when, when you don't have a long race coming up, that long run might be a shorter long run. And when you are, when you do have a race coming up, those long runs get a little bit longer. So. So should we expect to see a longer run on the calendar in some form all throughout our season?

Brady Hoover: That is correct. Yeah. You'll always see a little bit longer of a run. So if you have no races on your calendar, you're following RunDot, you're in that development phase, which is, I call it the speed power phase where we like to talk about we're strong first before we go long or fast before far. And there's always that longer run. It's not called the long run, but you'll notice that the duration of that, that run is more than the other runs you see during the week. So budget a little extra time for that one. Even though it's not truly the long run that most athletes are talking about, but it is generally longer than the others.

Andrew Harley: I gotcha. So this next question, Brady, is, it's a very specific question and, and in, in the flow of like learning about the long run, I think this question is, would be best suited to come up later on in the episode. But I know this is a big question for a Lot of people. So we're going to hit it now toward the front. And I know you've heard this a lot. I've heard this a lot. Do we need to have completed the distance of our race in training? And so we just watched the New York City Marathon over the weekend. You and I both, Carrie was on the microphone. We watched Those runners run 26.2 miles. Do you feel like, as a coach, do you feel like a runner needs to run 26.2 in training before showing up to a marathon? Does a half marathoner need to go 13.1 in training before running their half marathon? Or is it just in our heads that we need to do that? We don't actually need to do that. What do you think?

Brady Hoover: So I think a lot of, a lot of more experienced runners know the answer to this question, that through experience. And I, I came in thinking this too. If I was going to race 26 miles, 26.2 miles, I wanted to go out for at least a 26 mile run. If I was doing half marathon, I wanted to get up to 13 miles. Right. Have covered that distance. I was wrong in my thinking. I've gotten smarter in my ways as I've, as I've gotten older and gotten more into running. I started running years and years ago as a soccer player and then, you know. Right, right. In college. I said, I gotta keep in shape. What should I do? I, I just picked up running and it came natural to me. And then, you know, that, that led to racing and then that led to the different distances and my first 13.1. And I said, I have to get up to that mileage. But no, we don't have to get up to that mileage. Reason being we have so much more volume in our weeks that the overall volume in our week is getting us. There's, it's getting us ready for the distance. Right. And we're usually training at a little bit higher of intensity than we'll be racing at. So we're gonna, we're gonna be more than ready to run that half marathon or marathon without going the full distance. How many miles does one need to run half marathon at 8 to 10 miles? And you're ready, as long as you're doing your other runs, you'll be more than ready. Marathon. I mean, I know I've worked with athletes that we've only got up to 16 miles, but it's all the weekly volume that they've done leading up to that, all the intensity that gets them ready for that marathon.

Andrew Harley: I mean, I mean, Brady too, I mean, just, I mean you're, you're a strength and conditioning specialist. I mean how, how, how much larger is the risk of injury if we try to go the full distance in training versus not right.

Brady Hoover: Um, it's, I mean it's significant. That's why we go with time based approach rather than mile based approach. And, and we'll cover this in more detail, but just kind of scratching the surface. The reason for that is, you know, after about 90 minutes for most athletes, maybe your age group elites, you know, top of your age groupers, but outside of them, your form starts to really deteriorate after 90 minutes. Some runners that are novices, very new to the sport, it's after an hour, right. They're mechanics. So as soon as your running form starts to change and deteriorate when the risk of injury goes up. So it's like how much is, you know, what is that? What's the pro and con? Right. The pro of going further. Right. I'm getting more aerobic fitness. It's, it's more marathon preparation, it's more stress in the body. But the con is my risk of injury is going up. So we need to be careful that we're, you know, providing and run does an excellent job at this, is providing just a little bit of progressive overload each week while decreasing after that on that fourth week, kind of deloading, allowing the body to absorb all that training.

Andrew Harley

Yeah, Brady, something on, on actually last week's episode of the RunDot podcast. Last week was episode four of the podcast we had coach Ryan Tibball on who I know you're good friends with. And Ryan talked to us about training for time versus training for distance and exactly what you're saying. Like he, he taught us why run. Most of the sessions are prescribed by time and not distance. And I, I remember the phrase I heard when I started as a chartered athlete was the. The body doesn't know how far it's gone. The body knows how long it's worked at what intensity. It knows time and intensity, doesn't know mileage. And so a really cool thing about RunDot is when you sign up for a marathon run is not preparing you to run 26.2 miles. When you sign up for a Half Marathon RunDot is not preparing you to run for 13.1 miles. RunDot is looking at how long you're going to be on course and it's training you to run for that amount of time. And so if it looks at it and says, oh you know, with your fitness, you're projected to finish a marathon at 4 hours and 45 minutes.

It's preparing you to run at a certain intensity for 4 hours and 45 minutes. How much ground you cover in that time is absolutely irrelevant. And that's kind of what you're. You're getting to here. Brady, in. In our. So. So we learned all about that on the podcast last week with Ryan Tibble. But why is this especially true for our long sessions, doing them by time and not focusing on the distance? Like a lot of runners want to know, man, I got to 22 miles before that marathon. I got the 23 miles before that marathon. I got to 26.2 miles before that marathon. Why is that distance irrelevant compared to the time, especially on a long run, Right.

Brady Hoover: As you mentioned, is that that time on feet. And as know coach Ryan had mentioned on the trial podcast, talking about the time, you know, versus mileage. The reason being like you said, and we'll dive into that is your body like, like Ryan said, like you just shared it doesn't know the difference between duration or. Sorry, that doesn't know the difference between what? The cardiovascular system doesn't know the difference between, you know, swimming, biking, running, hiking. It knows time and intensity. So that's why we. That's why RunDot prescribes very specific workouts. And each one has an objective time and intensity, the right intensity for the right duration to push for adaptations to get the desired outcome right. Let's take one of my favorite workouts, and I actually have this on Wednesday, is zone five intervals. Intervals. When I see that on my calendar, I get all giddy because I love that that the goal of that workout is to boost your V2 max. That's what it's designed to do. That's the pace you're running at 5k pace or slightly faster, depending the type of athlete you are in. It's only four minutes because it's a very aggressive pace. But it's four minutes is the prescription needed to put enough stress on the body to push for that adaptation to increase your VO2 max. And that what that is, what that is, I say VO2 max. That's the body's ability to utilize oxygen, convert it to energy and use it. So if you raise that ceiling, everything else comes up. Whereas you might have some zone four workout, zone four being threshold. Those have very specific durations and intensities you might notice. Another one that I like is cruise intervals. They only got one minute rest in between. They're six Minutes at zone four, athletes could have as many as one and as many as. I've had six or maybe even seven thrown at me in the past. And when. When do I see 7? It's usually when I'm getting ready for a half marathon. And that is my. A race. That is the big race that I want to peak for because we're building stamina, because we're going to race at just under that threshold pace or a subset of that threshold pace for the. For the race. And then when you get into the marathon and you're, you know, you're doing some zone three and some tempo work, a lot of those intervals are coming in the second half of your run. The reason being you're getting a lot of time on feet, your body is getting tired. And now with each long run, you get to simulate what it's going to be like in those later miles of the marathon we're going to. Marathon should feel great going through the half, right? It's mile 16, mile 18, mile 22. When the body really starts to break down. In your long runs, as they get longer, they're going to have you pushing intervals. Those intervals, even though they're zone three in the long run, they're going to be tough, tougher than if you were doing them in the first hour. Right. But the reason that they're there is so that the body can practice race effort, can experience that. So if you can do that in training. Well, now when you come to the marathon and you're tapered and you're fresh, because we're doing this under fatigue all the time throughout our training, if you can do those long runs and execute them correctly when you come to the marathon, it's gonna. Well, I'll say a piece of cake, but it's. It, you know, it's gonna be these. Marathon is right. It's all grueling after 18, and after 20, it's exponentially grueling. But, yeah, you.

Andrew Harley: You mentioned being a soccer player and, And I, I was a soccer player as well. Tennis in high school, college was my best sport. I was a decent soccer player and, and played that as my kind of team sport. I dabbled in. And I remember my soccer coach in high school. He was a big fan of. Especially early in the season when we were building up our conditioning. He was a big fan of just running us to death, right. With. With just run drills and sprints and all that kind of stuff and, and just take. Basically taking our legs from us in the first hour of practice and then in the last 30 minutes of practice, let's scrimmage. 30 minutes. And it was that practice of, of being late in a game and how good is your footwork, how good is your touch, how good is your, are your pat, are your passes? How, how well can you do all of that while fatigued? It was, it was the best way to practice that without playing a full on game. And it sounds kind of like that. The same thing. I've absolutely had run workouts where I pull up my workout. I know it's my long run of the week. RunDot gives me two hours and the first hour will be all zone two and then all of a sudden in the second hour, boom, there's some zone three and zone four intervals and you're like, oh, wait a second, so I gotta run the neighborhood for an hour and then I gotta turn on the jets and, and you know, those intervals might be challenging but much easier when your legs are fresh and all of a sudden you've been running for an hour, you got an hour on your feet and you gotta, you gotta up the ante and turn on the jets and hit the boost button and the NOS button or whatever and, and, and try to hit those zone three and, and zone four target paces. It can be challenging when in a training cycle will athletes start seeing workouts like that?

Brady Hoover: Right. So we mentioned earlier about the development phase of training and then the race preparation phase. So in run. You've got two different phases. So if you're doing a half marathon, marathon, I like to use those for example, because that's where we really see that those long runs really start to increase. It's when you enter that race preparation phase and that's going to be different for everybody. I'm running the Boston Marathon this spring and I've already put that in as my A race. Now when I look, okay, when am I long runs? When am I going to see those more traditional long runs where my intervals are late in the second half of my workout? My stamina phase or race preparation phase is only 12 weeks. So that's a 10 week build and a two week taper. And then I have the stamina needed to, to run a marathon at, you know, whatever that pace is. It's going to be different for everyone. It's a percentage of threshold pace and it all depends on, you know, time at intensity. Right. If I'm going to be on the course for under three hours, it's about 95% of my threshold, whereas someone's going to be on the course for four hours, it's going to be more like 91, 92%. Right. It's different because. And I was like picking med spray and I said, man, if you ran an open marathon, you know, what would you pace it at? You know, I'm curious, would, you know, 99 of your threshold, like, you're only out there for like two hours and eight minutes, right? And he gave me this long answer that, you know, in, in professional running, it's, you know, they start out easy and it's like, you know, surges where they're pushing zone five pace for a little bit and seeing who's trying to.

Andrew Harley: Drop each other, trying to whittle down that. That, you know, lead. Yeah, yeah.

Brady Hoover: Which we saw in New York. As soon as they went over the. Just before 16, you know, a group of one. One gentleman tipped off, took off because he wanted to see who was going to chase him, right. And they did let him go for a little while. So there's a lot of strategy. But he said if he was to actually race it, you know, his way without the surging, it would be about 90, 99%. I'm like, oh, that's my half marathon effort. Like, I can't imagine that it's mind blown. Right. Big learning experience there. So some athletes, depending on how long they're going to be on the course, right, we want to safely prepare them. So it could be anywhere from as little as 12 weeks to build stamina for that marathon to as much as, you know, 20, 24 weeks. It depends on the athlete, you know, are they male, female, how many years have they been running? How much stress can they hold, you know, withstand? Right? That's all the things that we're capturing in this training stress profile that's being very specific to the athlete and then everything that happens outside that. So here we are in the beginning of November. That means right now I'm in a development phase from now until about middle of January, where the focus my work is speed, power, speed, power. I want to get as fast as I can right now. Then I'm going to spend about 12 weeks getting ready for Boston. So the hard work that I do now is going to set me in a better position when it comes to Boston. So it's going to be different for each athlete.

Andrew Harley: So, Brady, we've talked a lot about just the training principles behind this, why we get long runs on the calendar, what the long run does for us in different cycles of training. But just let's get really practical on how to do These sessions, well just in and of themselves when I'm an athlete and I fire up my training and I, I see up, today's a long run, tomorrow's a long run. What practical tips do you give your athletes for executing a good workout when that long run comes around?

Brady Hoover: Great question, Andrew. So yeah, it depends on the duration of the workout over the long run. They'll generally start an hour, 10 minutes and they'll work on up to depending on what the athlete's racing. If it's a half marathon, a marathon. But I tell them once it's, once it's 90 minutes or longer, start treating it like you know, it's, it's almost like race day. So think about like what meal you want to have the night before. Have that. So if your long run is on say Saturday, well Friday comes around, you know, let's have that pre race meal. You know, it doesn't have to be as big as you're going to have on race day but you know, something around it so we can practice it, we can see how it digests. How many times we have to go to the bathroom in the morning? Do we have to go to the bathroom mid run? Oh it, this is becoming a pattern. We constantly have to go to the bathroom mid long run in the morning. Okay, maybe there's something in there that I need to switch that's just not agreeing with my GI system. So we want to find those things as early as possible because I say that my athletes long run is, is a chance to you know, practice as if it's race day. So that there's no, there's no guessing on race day. Right. It's, everything's tried and true. You're going in, you're confident, you've tried, you've practiced your fueling, you know, you're, you've taken your pre race meal a few times. So now when it comes to like long run day, let's hypothetically say now it's Saturday. I'm going to go out for my long run at 8am around 6am I want to have my long run meal or what my race morning meal is going to be. It doesn't have to be as big but.

Andrew Harley: Right.

Brady Hoover: But it's, it's again having some of those things that you're going to have on race morning. So now is a chance to kind of fine tune it, see what works for you. How do you feel during the run? I always like write down little notes on my RunDot workout so I know how did things go? So When I look back, okay, I'm going to go with this meal. This is what I had. Now I'll tell them. On runs that are 90 minutes or longer now, we want to start bringing in nutrition. We want to start bringing fueling as if it was race day. Athletes will sometimes say to me, well, I'm running so easy. I'm not running a lot of Zone 3 in this long run. Do I really need to gel every 30 minutes or to gel every 40 minutes? I feel like I can get to an hour and just take a gel an hour. Like I'm trying to save some money or, you know, I don't feel like I need these calories right now. And my response is, well, you're training the gut, and training the gut takes a long time. So that's why we, that's why I always emphasize, treat each long run like it was a race day. Because we're trying to train the gut. We might want to try different products. You know, the market is always changing on products out there, different electrolytes. So, you know, we'll get into electrolytes in a minute, but it's a chance to see what's going to work for you so that when you get to show up on race day, the body's seen it. It's not something that you haven't practiced. So you have a pretty good idea how it's gonna, you know, how it's gonna play out for you in that marathon. I like to say nothing new on race day.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I really like the, the mindset of treating those longer runs like the race day as just a rehearsal to try things and, and, you know, the, like, I, I, I'm not a morning person. I don't like getting up and working out in the morning. I'd rather, I'd rather do it in the afternoon once I've been awake for a while and had coffee and, and all that stuff. But yeah, when a long run comes around and it's longer and, and it's, you know, getting me ready for race day, doing that in the morning when the race is going to be happening, a lot of benefit, right? And just seeing how your body's responding coming off that dinner the night before, coming off of what you had for breakfast, coming off the way you're fueling. Talk to me a little bit, Brady, just on executing the, the pacing here, because we, you mentioned earlier, there's some long runs that are just, they're just going to be zone two because it's just part of building your stamina. And so we're just going to run for a certain amount of time in zone two. Sometimes they have some intervals thrown in different spots, sometimes in the back half, sometimes all throughout the session. Is there anything different we need to like, think about in terms of our pacing on the long run to execute these?

Brady Hoover: Well, that's, that's another great question. And we see this athlete come up in the com, this question come up in the community often that they, they're not sure if the athlete's not sure. Am I supposed to do this run by pace? Am I supposed to do it by heart rate? It is a long run and it says two hours. But am I supposed to do pace or am I supposed to do heart rate? And the easy answer to that is each workout, when you're looking at your workout calendar, has a little icon. It's either going to be a clock or a heart. So if you have only zone two and it has a clock that's being prescribed by pace, you want to run within your zone two pace. Now if it has a heart, which you can have long runs with both, either the heart icon or the clock icon. If it's heart, you want to stay within that zone two heart rate. Okay, so that means I even walk the hills because my heart rate gets up. Yeah, I gotta walk the hill before I go over my threshold because I'm trying to stay true to the training. Now with the long runs that have intervals prescribed, that is always going to have a clock. So that is a pace based workup. So you're going to be running zone two up until, you know, let's say it's a two hour run, maybe it's zone two for 75 minutes. Then your zone three intervals or your zone four intervals are going to start that zone two time is going to be done at pace. Sometimes I challenge myself and I go by heart rate. All depends on how I'm feeling that day. But the workout is going to tell you exactly what to do. And my athletes would kill me if I told them to run by heart rate and then do their intervals because, you know, sometimes their heart rate gets outside of zone two. And yeah, so it's, you know, that's what I do with my training. But, you know, either one perks when it comes to that. Yeah. And as long as you're not in zone one pace, you know, trying to keep.

Andrew Harley: In next week's episode, actually we have coach Elizabeth James coming on the show and she's going to talk to us about when to run by power, when to Run by pace, when to run by heart rate. Coach Brady gave you a little, a little taste there just for the. And which is fitting for, for the question that I asked. Something I personally have found is, works for me if, if I have a 45 minute heart rate, zone two run on RunDot and I go out and do it, I, I can flirt with that zone two, zone three line, right. And just long as I keep my heart rate in zone two, I'll kind of push the higher end of zone two for a run like that. But when it comes to these, like, I start off conservative, I start off well within zone two, I start off well under that line because that's the lowest your heart rate's ever going to be without stopping the walk, right? Not there's anything wrong with stopping the walk, but, but if I start at the out of the gate on a two hour run, 90 minute run, flirting with that line, I'm gonna inevitably go above that line at some point. And so you gotta, you start more concerted than you think you need because you want to get 90 minutes in two hours, in two and a half hours in and still be in the right zone. And still, you know, I feel like you're, you're going strong. So don't, don't feel like you have to be aggressive with those zones when you do hit these longer runs. The other thing, Brady, you can absolutely tack on anything here that you want to say as well. Something that really helps me because you're starting to talk about fueling, right? And so, and so for you, if the run is 90 minutes or longer, you're recommending your athletes fuel for those. Absolutely. Hear that? I love that. I, even if it's over an hour, you know, I'll just take a gel and some electrolyte capsules just to practice, right? To practice taking those, to practice having my body digest those while I'm moving. But something I found very challenging is once the runs get 90 minutes, two hours, two and a half hours, I can't carry everything that I need without feeling like I've got a grocery sack around my waist, right. And so what I do that really works for me is I kind of have these different loops from my house. And so like on the front stoop of our house, I kind of like stash a bunch of product and I'll stash like a couple like replenishes of water, replenishes of electrolyte and I'll go do a 45 minute loop that goes south from my house and returns home. I'll quickly, in 30 seconds or so, restock, and then I'll do a different loop maybe to the north of my house, and in 45 minutes, return, restock, and do a 30 minute. And so I kind of like change it up which direction I'm going. I change up the scenery. But I'm not trying to carry everything I need for one fell swoop. I'm kind of treating my front stoop as a. As an aid station, so to speak. So that's something that's really helped me execute these workouts really well.

Brady Hoover: Funny you mentioned that. I do the exact same thing.

Andrew Harley: Nice.

Brady Hoover: You know, I usually do multiple loops to, you know, mentally it breaks it down so it doesn't seem so daunting. But I'm an explorer. If I see like, I've got 2 hours and 45 minutes, I'm like, oh, we just recently moved to this new town. Gosh, what can I go explore? Right? And then I'm looking at. I'm looking for gas stations because I hate carrying. I. I have not found a running a good way to carry water. I've tried them all. The, you know, the double water bottle on the waist, the Nathan thing with the sideways water bottle hydration best works the best for me. I have a great one that I really, I. I use it loosely, that I like it. I still hate to run with it, but I do if I'm out. And, you know, we have a little place up on a lake in Maine that there is no place to get water, so I have to carry this. So I use it for that. But I'm usually planning my routes around water fountains that I know are in town or gas stations or supermarkets where I can get a quick bottle of water. I don't mind carrying my, you know, my gels because I'm not carrying too many of those. And then I do have to carry because there's. It's not always like, Maurten and UCan are not always offered on the course like the race I just did two weeks ago. So I found some shorts. Oh, I'll. I'll name drop it. It's a flip belt, short, has the two cell phone pockets on the side. But then it's also got this, this mesh thing around the waist where you can also stash things so you can distribute your gels more evenly if you have to carry them all. So, yeah.

Andrew Harley: How do you feel, Brady, about the location for long runs? Because there is more. More ground than cover. So. So we just talked about the concept of doing a location Close to home where you can plan loops, you know. And so for me, no matter what direction I go for my house, I'm going to be dealing with some rolling terrain all the way around. I'm a track junkie. I love doing run workouts at the track. I like the predictable, the predictable elevation I like, I'm very good at knowing what paces I've got to hit and I can just hold the same pace forever on a track. For some reason, some runners find the track boring. I like that mindless monotony of just lap, flap, lap, lap. I can just mentally check out and do my workout. I, I so and so even for long workouts, like there have been long runs where I'll go to a track and I'll just clap clock a million laps. I did find Brady when I did that 17 and a half mile run that I mentioned in the warm up that was at a track that was too long at a track that by the end I was sick of going in the same, the same little circle. Some folks might gravitate to a trail it they got some nice trails nearby for a long run. What are the dos and don'ts in your mind as a coach of, of the scenery here, the route planning here on where to execute our long run?

Brady Hoover: Yeah, great question. I always look like to look at the elevation profile of the course and the time that it's starting. You mentioned a couple of questions ago about, you know, doing your long runs early in the morning. You don't generally you, you wake up and you perform better in the afternoon. I perform better in the morning. The Boston Marathon is tricky because it's a 10am start and I'm not in love. 8am that's my sweet spot. 7am Yeah, I can, I can throw down. I've even done races that start at 6am I'm not quite woken up. So look at the time of day that your run is happening because there's different things that are going on in your circadian rhythm. So if the race is like the Boston Marathon, it starts at 10:00am well, it's kind of a late start. I want to do some of my long runs at that time to prepare myself for, you know, I feel differently in that long run. Whereas if I start at that long run at say 6am well by the time I get to my second half intervals, you know, that's, I'm at that sweet spot of like 7:38am My body is, I'm more, that's when I get my best work, my best quality of my workouts. Right. So think about that. And you know, when you're, when you're setting yourself up for success on your long runs is that time of day, it's important to do a few long runs at that specific time of day so that, you know, again, there's nothing to question. Right. If you normally go to the bathroom at noontime every day. Well, noontime you're running the Boston Marathon. Guess what? No. So you got to find some things that you might need to change so that doesn't happen when you're out there in the same token, looking at Horse Lake. Boston Hills are in the back half of the course. Right. Three miles of downhill, eight miles a flat, and then, you know, you get some rollers. And then when you get to 16, you've got, you know, hills from 16 to 21. I'm trying to plan my routes like that. Yeah, I live in Newburyport, Massachusetts, so it's, it's pretty flat around here. If I go right into West Newberry, it's rolling hills. So if I have a rolling hill kind of marathon course, that's where I'm going. I just ran the Bay State Marathon. That's flat and only has about 6, 600ft of elevation. So I was able to do loops in Newburyport where, you know, my elevation gain was like 30ft every mile. And then I can go into the town next to me, Amesbury. Amesbury’s got some serious hills. So I might do a 10 mile loop on, you know, flatter, you know, this is, I'm talking about the Boston Marathon training I'm doing soon. And then I'll go into Amesbury for, say I got an 18 mile run. I'm going to do a 10 mile loop in Newburyport on flat ground and I'll throw, make sure I get some good downhill sections in there. And then the last eight miles are going to Amesbury where I know I'm going to get some hills to kind of replicate what it's going to be like for Boston. Do you have to do that? No, because we're also doing zone four work, zone five work. So it is going to prepare those muscles for the hills. Right. RunDot's taking into account the elevation profile. So there's, you know, specific intervals that you'll be asked to run for that very reason. Because some people live in Florida and the only hill they have is running multiple loops over, over bridges. And I coach an athlete down there and that's what I have her do. Sometimes I say, I know this hour is Going to kill you because you don't like repetition. Like, I wouldn't mind it because I'm like you. I like to zone out. But, you know, that's a lot to ask to go over. But you, you know, I did want her to get some hill workout hill workouts in because of the course that she's getting ready for at the end of the month is going to have some serious clients.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I, my, my dad, my family's in Florida. I grew up in Florida. Now I'm in Dallas Fort Worth. But my dad can go for a 78 mile bike ride and his elevation gain will be 31ft. It's absolutely bonkers and I'm jealous of it because I, I don't do well on hills. But I love that, that notion, Brady, of thinking about what your next race is and if you don't have a race on the calendar for a little while. Right. Go explore, go change it up, go mix it up, go see some different stuff. But yeah, if you've got a race coming up, it's a really cool way to approach it. Do that long run in terrain that replicates your race. You'll be more ready for race day. Couple more questions, Brady, and we'll let you go for the day. You actually were on episode three of the RunDot podcast. You're back here for episode five. And on episode three we talked all about rotating your run shoes, how to build a proper run shoe rotation, what to look for in a, in a run shoe rotation. Why to have a run shoe rotation. That was a great conversation with you and Carrie. So people can definitely go listen to that for more run shoe goodness if they haven't already. So, so this one should be a cinch for you to answer because you've got that, you're in that run shoe mindset from just doing that one two weeks ago. But what attributes should we look for in a long run shoe?

Brady Hoover: Yeah. So good question. If you have that, that more than one shoe, a run shoe rotation is what we, you know, what I alluded to, it's good to have at least two pairs of shoes to alternate. Right. You're what I grab on the long run. What I suggest athletes grab on their long run is that more cushier, little bit heavier of a shoe that's going to absorb, you know, absorb the shock over long distances. Right. So your legs will feel a little bit better late in the, late in the run. Some runners may need, because their mechanics break down, they may need some stability shoes that have a stability mechanism. A Correctional mechanism in the shoe. Right. So that might be a shoe that you want to grab for you. And then as we get closer to the race, Andrew mentioned, I mentioned that I do multiple loops on the long runs. And one of the reasons being as I once I'm like four weeks out from my peak, I'm starting to do the second half of my run or the last 45 minutes in the run in the shoe that I'm going to race in. So I might have a 2 hour, 45 minute run and for 2 hours I'm running in my cushion shoe. In the last 45 minutes I'm running in the shoe that I'm going to race in. So I can remember how they handle. I can, I can. Because the mechanics will change a little bit in the shoe. So that's what I would recommend is you grab that cushier shoe. That's going to save the legs. And as you get closer to the race day when maybe when the intervals start, that's when you might want to think about switching the shoe mid run to get some miles in that shoe if you have not run it and running it often there. The shoes I'm talking about are super shoes. So I don't want to do too much mileage in them because they're expensive. Right. But I do want to remember how my mechanics work because they do change when I throw those shoes on.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah, great, great thoughts there. And I'll just say this. I was stubborn on this for a long time. I, I'm a light guy. I'm 138 pounds when I'm, I'm training. I'm 150 right now, but 138, 140 when I'm in race shape and training daily and going for fitness goals. And I was, I was getting ready for a half Iron Man Brady and so my, my long runs were getting to be 12 miles, 11 miles, 12 and a half miles. And at the time, and it's still one of my favorite shoes to date. But at the time I was doing almost all my running in the Skechers Razor 2 and the Skechers Razor 2. It's their hyperburst foam. It's a wonderful foam. It's not the most cushiony foam, it's very responsive foam. And the Razor 2 had some of it but not a ton of it. And so it was a very good speed day shoe interval day shoe threshold day shoe, even 5K, 10K, you know, without a carbon plate. It was a pretty good non Carbon plated race day shoe. And I. I just love that shoe so much. And in my head, like, oh, I know that cushiony shoes are helpful for long runs, but I'm a light guy. I love this shoe. I'll be fine. And I was fine during the actual workouts themselves. I could run 12, 12 and a half miles in that shoe and in the workout feel fine. But the next day, I noticed I would pay for it. My knees would be a little more sore. The bottoms of my feet would be a little more sore. And as soon as I kind of sucked it up and said, okay, yeah, Harley, you're. You're a light guy. Whatever, whatever. You could think whatever you want to about yourself, but it turns out your feet and your knees and your joints and your body is happier the next day. You return to training that much better the next day when you do, allow yourself to have a little bit more cushion, a little bit less aggressive, a little less responsive shoe for those training sessions. So I now have a healthier shoe rotation and more variety in my shoe rotation than I used to, especially at the age I am now. But anyway, I. That was a lesson I learned the hard way.

Brady Hoover: That's fair. Yeah, those are some great, great points right there. I. I made that mistake and I was stubborn. I. I ran in the Rebel threes, which we've talked about, and that's a lot like the very similar. If I could get my hands on the Rebel three. Man, this is my favorite running shoe. But, yeah, I would do long runs in that and it would feel great. Right? And I get to those pickups in the second half. Oh, great. You know, I'm doing it. I'm in this light response shoe. But then it was the next day when I was supposed to go out and do a zone two run. Oh, man, that zone two run was painful. Some days I would skip it, or I would just get on the treadmill and run because I couldn't handle the impact because, well, I was stubborn.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And, and on that note, Brady, this is a question I wanted to ask. So, so perfect segue here. These long run sessions, even with the right shoes, I mean, these do put more wear and tear on our bodies than shorter sessions. You can see it in the NTS score. When you see that NTS score on RunDot. That is normalized training stress. How much stress is this session putting on my body? The more time you're on your feet, the more stress you're putting on your body, potentially. So what do you tell your athletes in terms of Recovering from these sessions, I mean, do we need to do anything extra above and beyond a normal training session or is it just, just what do you think, what, what do you say when it comes to recovering from these sessions and making sure we're not picking up some sort of injury over time?

Brady Hoover: Yeah. So let's, let's say in a perfect world, right? A perfect world, there's time for it. I got a 5 minute 7 year old. I know. You got a little one too. In a perfect world, I finish my long run, the first thing I'll do is I'll leave a little time to foam roll and static. Stretch, granted, doesn't always happen because we're, you know, headed off to church, headed off to a soccer game, something like that. So it's like I got to jump in the shower and go. So if there is time for it, foam roll and stretch after. So foam rolling, you know, your muscles are going to get tight. They're going to be a lot of contractions taking place over, you know, multiple steps, multiple miles. So what a foam roller is going to do is it's going to help restore that muscle length back to its normal length, right? The muscles kind of tighten up. So think of like you're trying to bake cookies and you're rolling out that dough, right? That's what a foam roller is doing, the muscle. Once you do that, then you want to stretch to get that muscle back. You're going to recover better. If you leave time for this. Now that I'm 40, I notice a big difference between stretching and not stretching. Like later in the day, right. If I don't leave time for it. Also hydration. Hydration is super important.

Andrew Harley: Wow. Yeah, great point.

Brady Hoover: You need a ton of lactic acid, right? And by foam rolling and stretching, you're going to get some of that lactic acid out of the muscles and into the blue bloodstream. And how do we, how do we get rid of lactic acid so it doesn't pull back in our muscles? You know, it comes out in our urine. So staying hydrated after the long run, hydrating during your long runs, but staying very hydrated afterwards so that you can get that lactic acid out. Right. And I've noticed now that I'm older, on days that I'm not well hydrated after my runs, versus not using the bathroom every, you know, at least twice an hour, I'm stiffer the next day as a result. Because it's more lactic acid, it has a chance to pull, right? So I want to get that out also when I do a long run, I think, okay, I've just, I've just trained to eat and I want to reward myself with some pizza or something. That's unhealthy, says don't do that. That could be your meal tonight. But what you have after that long run, like your body is looking to repair. You just put it through a lot of stress. So I try to have like nutrient dense foods. I say I try to eat, to train after my long run. Right? Yeah, I want that pizza. I feel like I've earned it. I want that donut. But your body's gonna use a lot of what you give it after the long run. That's when it's, you know, it's trying to repair. So the healthier food you can give it afterwards, the better off you'll be. And then I'll have that, you know, pizza night will be. Pizza night's usually Sunday night after my long run. No, but I'm having my, you know, I call my big salad. I'm having that after my long run because it's got, you know, a lot of nutrients, fat soluble vitamins, water soluble vitamins. So I'm very intentional with what I put in my body after those long runs, you know. Cause I am trying to go out there and perform. But I do want to have those cheat meals as well. So hopefully that, you know, reaches the crowd. Yes, you can train to eat and you've earned it. But think about, you know, how your body's going to recover. You know, have that good meal first, then have that, you know, that thing that you first earned.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah, you definitely hit all the bases there. Right between giving us some, some things to think about actually taking care of our bodies and things to think about with the fueling and, and I love the point. I think a lot of people would miss that. The point of how much you hydrate after that session can affect how your body feels the next day. You need that water. Hydration is part of recovery. Last question. Brady. In our main set, I wanted to touch on this because I, I don't love the long stuff. There's definitely some folks out there that love the marathon, love Ironman, love going long, love the longer the session, the better. Please let me run 40 miles a day. I would love that. I am not that I like shorter stuff. My favorite race distances are half marathon, half ironman because it's. To me it's long enough to be challenging, but it's not, it's short enough that I can feel like I'm racing it. And once I've run for two hours, I don't enjoy anything after that. Once I've been on a bike for, for three hours, I don't enjoy being on the bike after three hours. And so I don't know if other people are listening, feel that way about their runs. But when I started training for longer stuff and I started seeing two and a half hour run, three hour run, five hour bike, six hour bike, those long sessions really intimidated me because it was a very foreign place for me to be. Give me the speed work, give me the speed work down at the track where I'm busting my lungs. I'm used to that, I like that. But the long stuff intimidated me, but just because it was foreign territory. So for athletes listening that maybe felt the way I felt or some form of it, you know, for some reason they're intimidated, they're scared, they're anxious when they see these longer sessions on the calendar. Just help us find the right mindset. How can we go to the track, go out our front door, go wherever we're going for these long sessions and feel mentally strong, feel ready to take on this session and just be in the right head space to have a great workout.

Brady Hoover: I like, I like this question. Yeah, this is, this is one that some athletes struggle with. And depending on my mindset, I struggle with it too. Oh my Gosh, I got two hours and 45 minutes. I'm gonna be out there for 20 miles. Like that is just so far. I don't even drive that far in a day usually. So, you know, I have no business running it, but I have to, right? It's part of the training.

Andrew Harley: Training.

Brady Hoover: You know, so if I'm in a good, I'm, I'm in my explorer mindset. Or if you're an explorer out there listening to this, you know, it's, it's exciting because you can, you can check out new, new spots in town, you can check out your surrounding towns and back roads and learn new routes from point A to B. If there's traffic, right? But then there's like, oh, you know, I'm gonna be, if I do this big loop, I could be 12 miles away from home. You know, what about if something happens, right? And I, you know, I have that mindset every once in a while. So then you can break it up into multiple loops, right? And that, that helps making fueling a little bit easier, as you mentioned, Andrew earlier, about, you know, like carrying stuff. So multiple loops would be my strategy where I have My, my regular run route when I have my, you know, my say, speedier run of the week, my hour run of the week, I have this route that I always do that I'm familiar with. Um, you know, so in my long run I might do a double or a double loop on the same, same route. Or I might go, you know, east is to the water. So I might go east and then I might go west, the second loop. So I might get 10 miles and then go 10 miles to the west just to break it up. So it's like, oh, I'm only at furthest away from home. I'm five miles away from home. I might even go shorter and do four different loops. So I might do a loop to the north, a loop, you know, loop to the north, east, southwest, you know, five miles. And the furthest I'm going to be away from home is two and a half miles. So something goes wrong, I'm, you know, not there and it's a chance to reset. Right. I get home and it, it makes it feel like it's not so daunting. Right. You know, because it's, it's roost that you're familiar with or it's like, oh, I wonder where. I've always wondered where that road in town goes to. And I've never wanted to put it on my run because, you know, when it's only a couple miles from my house, it's not long enough to do my one hour run. But a long run is a chance that I can sprinkle it in, check out that new route and I go, oh, I found a nice little back road that nobody knows about to get from point A to point B because I found it on foot. Right. It's a chance to explore. It just helps mentally break it down. So those are, those are my strategies. Eat out. And backs work well too. I'm definitely a looper. So like I've done loops where like my Strava looks like a four leaf clover. Right?

Andrew Harley: Yeah.

Brady Hoover: So it's will happen. You know, I, I don't feel like I've seen the same scenery. You know, sometimes I'll do my long runs in reverse, whereas I go to the waterfront in the second half. Right. When mentally it becomes challenging because I can get down to the waterfront. It's the mouth of the river that feeds into the ocean and there's all kinds of boat traffic and in the summertime there's tourists here.

So I can people watch and it kind of just stimulates the mindset and you know, When I'm in that pain cave and the high mileage where, you know, things are hurting and it's struggling to keep going, it just stimulates the mind and takes it off of, you know, how, how bad does this, is this really starting to hurt right now? So it, you know, I, I, you know, I can generally sense what my mindset's going to be that day, and that's the route I'm planning. Right. Um, so those are my best tips for you in making that seem not so daunting.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, two, two things that have helped me over time is, is one.

Brady Hoover: Have.

Andrew Harley: A friend join you, have a, have a buddy join you, a training partner join you, even if it's not for the whole duration. Right. If you're getting ready for a marathon and, and you've got a training buddy that's not getting ready for a marathon, but they can join you for, you know, seven of the miles. That's seven miles. You're not on your own at seven miles. You've got support, you've got someone to talk to, you've got someone to keep an eye on you. I, I've, I in particular have really appreciated that on my bike workouts, but my bike workouts got to be a hundred miles, eighty miles, ninety miles. Having somebody with you for even a portion of it really just had me feel safer and more comfortable and help pass the time quicker. The other thing for me that really helped with the runs is just giving myself permission to have a bad workout and just knowing, hey, that session tomorrow, this is the first time I'm ever going to have run 2 hours and 10 minutes, and it might not go perfect. I might not feel strong at the end. I might, I might mentally check out for, for a mile or two in between and fall off the, the pace. And then it, it might not go per, I might not feel perfectly. I, you know, I might feel, feel sore tonight and, and have a bad workout tomorrow because of it. But, but it was, it was giving myself the grace to say this. Not every single one is going to go perfect. You're adjusting to a new duration, you're adjusting to a new distance, and if it does go poorly because it was a new, a new, something new to you, you got another one next week. And you can, you can analyze why did, what, what happened that made this one go bad, and, and you have the opportunity to fix it next week or the week after that or the week after that. And, and hopefully by the time you get to race day, you're a little more acclimated to those long sessions. So just, just going with the mindset of, okay, I'm going to do my best, whatever happens is going to happen, and I'll try it again next week. That. That's something that really helped me along the way.

Brady Hoover: Yeah, that's one of my mantras. This is just training. This is just training. This is just training.

Andrew Harley: Sometimes it's supposed to be fun.

Brady Hoover: This cycle I've had, I was coaching my son's soccer team. So I wasn't in the pool the day before my long run. You know, I was doing a hard bike workout because it was short. And then I had a long run the next day, which, going into those workouts. So trash that There was times that I was. I was supposed to do intervals. And I'm like, I'm just going zone one today, because that is all my body can do. It's time on feet. I'm developing my aerobic system. That's okay. You know, at the, at the end of the day, even if his interval is prescribed, it's the zone two pace and that zone two heart rate that's going to get us, like completing the duration of the workouts is going to get us to that finish line and then the intensity is know how much quicker we can get there. Right. So I would just tell myself that sometimes it's like, it's okay to go zone two. It's okay to go zone one time on feet. There's still training benefits to that.

Andrew Harley: Yeah.

Brady Hoover: And, yeah, that's. Yeah, I share that with you. This is just training. This is just training.

Andrew Harley: All right, Brady, for our cool down, I've got a question from the audience for you to answer. And this is an from. From Alana from Minnesota. And she said, for someone who only does trail races, what are the best practices for pairing trail running and especially hill work with RunDot? The pace is set by my time trial done on a flat, ideal condition. Doesn't feel like it's going to be as realistic or more challenging or for more challenging and varied terrain. So. So, Brady, we have a lot of runners that, that race trail races, whether exclusively or on and off. What's. What's the. What's the answer here? What's the best way to kind of marry RunDot's precise training and training zones with somebody who's just on very, very terrain out on trails?

Brady Hoover: This is. This is such a great question. I've coached some trail runners and they've brought this same question up. And, you know, so I'll give you my Coach's response to this. I love this question. Want to do your time trials and some of your training runs on road, right? Because there's certain training adaptations that are happening. So you do this time trial on pavement and then you know you've got zone four workouts, zone five workouts that are being prescribed that are off of that benchmark, right? Because that is where your fitness is. And there's certain training adaptations that we're trying to achieve, as we talked about earlier from those workouts. So much time at a specific duration, specific intensity to push enough stress on the body to push for adaptations. Now when it comes to the long runs, yeah, you want to do all those on the trail. So if you're on RunDot and you're running four days a week, let's say maybe two of those runs are on trails, your long run and one of your easy runs, you want to go by effort based, right? You're looking at your heart rate and you know what your zone 4 heart rate is, right? My zone 4 heart rate is about 160. So if I'm out on a trail, there's beautiful trails right down the street for me. So I do this often. I know that I know what my heart rate needs to be, right. My pace could be, I could be. My threshold pace is, let's say it's a 6, 10 mile. I could be running 10 minute miles on the trails. But if my heart rate's at 160, I know the effort that I'm putting out is a threshold effort. So you don't harvest heart rate. Think about perceived effort. If you're doing intervals on the road, well, you know what zone four feels like. You know what zone five feels like. So that's the effort you're looking to put down when you're in the trails. Now, some of the trails are very technical, right? Because they could be trails, they could be gravel, they could be rooted, they could be boulders. I've invested in the stride power meter. A lot of the new Garmins today have native Garmin power. A lot of athletes don't even know they have run power on their watch. So, you know, if you got a newer watch, you know, look for it, Google it, see if it's on there. Right? Because then I can go out and I can go down to the track, I can do my 5k tests when I always do. And then on my upcoming workouts, I'm doing one zone four workout on the track, I'm doing one zone three workout on the track, one zone five workout on the track because I'm trying to find out what my average power is to hold that pace so that when I do go to the trail, I now know the power that it's going to take. I know if I want to do a 610 mile, that's 310 watts. So if I'm in the woods and I'm putting out 310 watts and my pace is 12 minute miles because I'm going up a 30, 30%. Great. I know the effort that I'm putting out is threshold. Same with the downhills. Right. I'm trying to match that as close as I can. The runner, the trail runner I coached, she didn't have a stride power meter. But I was looking at her data, she had a apple watch. Apple watch is grabbing run power. I was like, wow, okay, this is what we're going to do. So I gave her targets and it worked like a charm. And then when it came to pacing on the race, we just went by power instead of yeah, was. So I hope that helps answer this question.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I, I, I think it's really helpful. I, I have a cousin who exclusively does trail races. You know, especially loves the 50 mile to 100 mile stuff. And, and yeah, I follow him on Strava and a lot of his runs, I mean over half of his runs are just on pavement around town. Right. It's practical, it's out the front door. It's time on feet, it gets the training in, it's measurable. And then you obviously once or twice a week, he's getting out on trails as well. Well, because that's his jam, that's what he likes doing. So yeah, I love the pointing out that even if you're racing trails exclusively, you can, you can do a lot of your training, especially your intervals on pavement. The other thing I'll point out here, Brady, there's a TriDot Ambassador named David Pagan who is a officer in the U.S. Navy. And so a lot of his training isn't, you know, he's not always in a good spot to do his training and he was sharing with me, he views it that there's a principle in the military called commander's intent.

When you're out in the field, you might not have been told exactly what to do in every certain scenario, but if you, if you follow your commander's intent to the best of your ability, you'll likely make the best decision in the moment that you can. And he applies that to his try that training. Because if you're in this case, you're doing a run on a trail. Okay. You might have a workout where you're supposed to spend six minutes at a certain pace and, and okay, so on the trail, spend those same six minutes at what feels like that right intensity or by your, your power if you have it is the right intensity and come as close as you can, but fulfill the intent of the training session to the best of your ability in the scenario that you are. And if you do a, a session, a run out session on the trails and you score a 72 because you did it out on a trail and there was rolling terrain and you couldn't exactly hold the right paces but you tried, that's still a good score and you still probably came very close to optimizing the training session as if you were on, on sidewalk. So that's, that's one thing I would add, Brady, I guess is don't stress over the perfect score. If you're doing that session on the trail, know that, that a 60 or above is still a good score. You still did the training session to the best of your ability and your body can absorb a lot of those same the, the, the intended gain without you exactly nailing second by second. The, the proper interval is that. Does that make sense?

Brady Hoover: Yeah. Great point. So you've got, you know, we have great adjusted point pace but it doesn't work too great in the trails because.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah.

Brady Hoover: So this doesn't know that I'm going boulders. So then it's like you've got perceived effort number one. You know, if all technology fails, you've got heart rate so you can use your heart rate. You've got power so you have some alternatives to still do the right training. Right. And go out there and have fun on the trails.

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