The 6 Phases of Running A Marathon

Carrie Tollefson: It's a really fun episode that we have for you today. Our team has talked it over and identified what we believe to be the six phases of running a marathon. We'll discuss each phase, learning what to focus on and what to be aware of for each section of the race. And I'm joined today by coach David Levine, head coach of the LA Road Runners. Coach David has been coaching runners and triathletes for close to 20 years and is the co author of the Complete Idiot's Guide to Marathon Training. And he has over 30 marathon finishes himself and he's run two Ironman competitions. So just a wealth of knowledge right here today. And we are so happy to help you or have you on the show. David, Wait, you're holding up three. You've done three Ironman?

David Levine: Yeah, I did. Well, two different races. Coeur d' Alene twice back in the day when I was an Ironman and then Wisconsin.

Carrie Tollefson: Oh my gosh. Okay, so he's a three time Ironman. Excuse me. How are you doing, David? It's in the middle of winter here.

David Levine: It's an honor to be on with an Olympian and a great talk show host who is promoting marathoning as yourself. I love it.

Carrie Tollefson: Oh, well, we're thrilled to have you. You're gonna give us all kinds of insight and talk a little bit about LA and all that stuff, but I wanna, you know, first and foremost introduce myself as you kind of help me do already. My name's Carrie Tolofson. I'm an Olympian, broadcaster, and your guide to the world of RunDot. We treat the show like any good workout. We'll start with the warmup question, which we're going to get to soon. We'll settle into our main set conversation, then wind things down by having our coaches answer an audience question from the cooldown. So let's get after it. As I like to say, this is.

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

Warmup Question

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, so warm up question. This one's a good one. David, I want to know what shoe model that's long been retired or discontinued you would like to bring back.

David Levine: You know, you guys sent me these questions in advance, I have to confess. And I really thought about this one and I thought, God, what shoe model would it. I want to show you something. I grabbed this. I've always been of an Asics person, and I grabbed the shoe. Look at the bottom of this, like plastic. It's. It's not A pliable shoe. It has no springiness to it. It's not a responsive shoe. It's just a rock. And Asics makes great shoes. It's one of. It's the sponsor, head sponsor of the LA marathon we love. I've always gotten Asics shoes even though I wasn't being paid by them or whatever. You know, the answer to your question, none of them. I really, I swear to you, I love the modern shoes. I like the lightweight. I love the sponginess of it. Some shoes are a little too spongy for me, you know, a little too bouncy. I need a little more control. I can't. I don't. I'm sorry, I fail on this question. I would not bring back any of them. I really wouldn't. I. Yeah, yeah, okay. I'm sorry.

Carrie Tollefson: That's kind of what I was thinking too. I'm like, you know, I remember like the Boston or. Cause I was an Adidas gal. So I remember the Rotterdams, I think they were. But they were so thin and I actually wore as big of a flat. That's what we used to call them racing flats because we wanted them as flat as possible. Basically. I used to wear the heaviest one that was almost to the point of being a trainer. And in my response I was like, do we wanna go back to the early 2000 and basically run in shoes where we all got stress fractures and we could only run two marathons a year because of the equipment we were in and the way our bodies broke down? So I'm not sure we wanna go back.

David Levine: Yeah, yeah. I once heard Dina Castor on a podcast or whatever say that she probably could have broken her own record had she had a modern day shoe, you know, and she's an ASICS person, so the carbon fiber plate and the. All that. So I'm with you.

Carrie Tollefson: We don't necessarily need to go back for all. I mean, I like to go back, but I don't know if I need to go back for technology, that's for sure.

David Levine: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: But we want to hear from the audience. We definitely want to open this question up to the audience and we're going to ask this question on all of our run. Social media accounts as well. So what shoe would you bring back? Back? Maybe they won't want to bring anything back either.

Announcer: Let's go.

David's First Marathon

Carrie Tollefson: So before we break down the marathon, I want to hear about your first encounter with the distance. Like running 26.2 miles is definitely a journey. Most of us can remember that. That first one. But you've done this for over 30 years. You've been a runner for over 30 years. So tell us a little bit about your first marathon and how'd it go for you?

David Levine: Well, you know, I'll tell you my first marathon. This is a horrible story, but maybe some people will be able to benefit from this. My first marathon was a total dnf. I had the flu. I had been over training. I really could not stand up. And I thought, geez, if I could just make it to the shower, I'd wake myself up. I get to the starting line. I was so motivated, I was so excited by this event, this thing that I was about to do. And I got to the shower and I'm sitting on the floor of the shower, just, I cannot stand up. I thought, all right, if I can just get into bed and warm up a little bit, I'll be able to get to the starting line. Anyway, I woke up like two, three hours later. I turn on the TV set from my remote and I watched the start of the LA marathon. And then it was like three months later. I did my first race in San Diego, the second rock and roll marathon. And that was exciting. I loved that, every minute of it. I was very cheerful and I crossed the finish line, you know, but yeah, and that was just a great moment that I really almost didn't want to end, even though I was exhausted and. Yeah, and then I've gone on from there. But yeah, that was actually my first marathon experience was total sick, lying in bed, not being able to stand up.

Carrie Tollefson: I mean, I think a lot of us have gone through those moments, right? I mean, it's just, it's hard to get to the start line when you're doing, you know, 12, 16 week programs and like to nail it on that one day. It happens a lot of times. A lot of people have great success with it, but it really is hard to get that one day right and one day perfect. And so I think that's why we all can. Like, it's probably why you've been a runner for 30 years. We continually try to be better than we were yesterday. Not only time wise, but just like handling the distance and knowing how to mentally challenge it and just do all the fun stuff that comes with running. Right. If we were awesome the first day we did it, we probably wouldn't be coming back for 30 years.

David Levine: I, I can definitely say my second marathon was a PR. I, you know, I mean, I finished it, you know, so what the heck? That's so awesome. Yeah, yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: Do you want to. Do you want to break down this marathon?

David Levine: Okay, let's do it.

Carrie Tollefson: Let's do it. Let's break down marathon.

Phase 1: Early Adrenaline Miles (Miles 1-3)

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, so phase one of running a marathon, those early miles we're going to call the early adrenaline miles. So that's like miles one through three. How do you coach, how do you tell somebody to tackle those? Because I most. I think the only three marathons I've done, I think I've screwed it up every single time in the early miles. It's so. It's so exciting to get off that line and to get going.

David Levine: Yeah. I think in general, the key to the first three miles, you know, major city races, you're talking Chicago, New York, 50,000 of your best friends are showing up in the starting line. There is a sense that we humans have, that we can feel stress, we can feel energy from all these, you know, thousands of people, 22,000 more at the LA Marathon starting line. It's just massive. And we have helicopters flying overhead and people with balloons and cheering. And then the race begins in this blaring music. In la, it's I love LA, just blaring over the speakers. We used to have Muhammad Ali standing at the starting line honking the horn, saying, the start you would run by Muhammad Ali, which is the most exciting. You cannot even imagine this man who could barely even stand up, thrilled to be there, just smiling and waving at all the people that are starting the LA Marathon. Back in his day, he did it for years. The thing I can say, and right out of the bat, LA Marathon, Dodger Stadium parking lot, you go up a hill, the only thing I can tell people is listen. Your breathing, as your breathing rate increases, that means your heart rate is increasing. That means your consumption of glycogen, that limited reservoir that you use at higher heart rate, is being consumed more quickly. And if you use too much glycogen too quickly, you hit the wall, you're walking, you're whatever. You're really not going to be as fast as you ever could be had you not gone out that fast and listened to your breathing. So in general, just hold back, especially on the early hills of the LA Marathon, which is where all the big hills are. Look at where your elevation chart takes you in a race. If your big hills are toward the end of the race. Well, you know, maybe it would be okay to start out just below marathon race pace or even at marathon race pace. But what happens with the LA Marathon can be indicative of a lot of races. I don't Want to go on too much. We'll be here for hours. But what happens is you get this little third of a mile uphill, which is kind of a significant thing, getting out of the bowl of the Dodger Stadium, and you get your heart rate up way too high. And then you kind of go down to sunset and you got this nice downhill glide for about a mile and a half. But people are screaming out, use the downhill, use the downhill. So your heart rate's already too high. You're now flying down the street toward Chung Taon and your heart rate is still way too high. So you're at about like mile two and you've just gone all that distance utilizing way too much glycogen. The average, this is important. I think the average non pro athlete has about 80 to 90 minutes. And I'll get into this a little later in our discussion where we talk about the end of the marathon. In any marathon, have about 80, 90 minutes of glycogen at what you might call a lactate threshold or a little above like half marathon race pace, where you're going a little bit faster than what you might normally want to do. And the, the pro athletes may have about two hours worth of glycogen. So if they're only going like 2, 5, even 2, 10 for a marathon, they can just take their first mile and a half slow and then they can just burn it all out the rest of the way. But for most of us, we need to keep it slow early on because those first two miles of the LA marathon, when their heart rates were too high, if they're at a 10 minute per mile average pace, I use that number because it's a simple rounded number. They've just gone about 20 minutes burning out. If you have 80, 90 minutes, you've used just almost a quarter of your glycogen in the first two miles of your race, you're headed toward disaster. I don't mean to be. Yes, I do mean to be dramatic, but just to hit the hammer on the head, you know, you really need to be careful in the beginning couple miles of a race, especially in la. The first six miles are the key to the LA Marathon because that's where the big hills are. You use too much glycogen too early going up those hills, you're in trouble. And you're only. You got 20 miles left to go.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, I think that's the big thing. Yeah, just make sure you are paying attention to that. And I think you nailed it too. Like it's not Just the LA marathon that we're talking about, when you have an elevation chart, when you have all these different ways to sort of study your marathon and even prep in your training, you gotta know how to adjust. And LA can be warm, it can be cool, it can be rainy, it's kind of a funny time of year. There's all kinds of different things. So you have to understand too if it's warm, if there's any humidity and you spike your heart rate, your body temperature goes up in those first three miles. It's a tough, it's a tough thing to get everything to calm down for the next 23 miles. So you have to pay attention early on.

Phase 2: Settling In (Miles 3-12)

Carrie Tollefson: Phase two is kind of a longer one. You guys are calling it settling in and it's from miles 3 to 12. That's a long ways to just settle in. But we really have to.

David Levine: Yeah, basically pro athletes talk about negative split, right? And the negative split is the idea that you go a little high, lower heart rate early on. So example, if you are a pro athlete and you know, 80, 90 minutes, that's, you know, way twice that is way longer than your normal race as a pro athlete. So pro athlete would talk about the first half being a little slower than the second half the race. Negative split meaning less time, right? So the idea is, generally speaking, the first half of your race is going to be a little slower. Maybe they would do like if you're a real serious world class athlete, maybe like the first half would be like a 102, 103, something like that. The second half would be like a 58, 57 minute kind of second half. Well, we non pro athletes, like I said, don't have two hours. We have 80, 90 minutes. We're going over three hours. There's, you know, forget the midway point for the negative split. Try and calculate where you are with 80, especially for a beginner, calculate the math before you begin where you have about 80 to 90 minutes to the finish line, right? So you want a negative split, you want to maintain glycogen as long as you can. You want to take in more carbohydrate. We do that in the form of gels. Boy, I could go on and on about this stuff. Anyway, we want to take in as much carbohydrate as we can. The average non pro athlete can take in probably like 65, 66 grams of carbohydrates per hour. Now a small petite woman or a man may not be able to consume that much. Remember when you were a kid, you Ate a box of cookies and it made you sick, you started feeling nauseous. It's the same thing when you take in too many gels, too much carbohydrate, you'll start feeling nauseous. It's the same thing. So you can only take so much in and you're probably depleting more than what you're capable of taking in through the course of the marathon. So the key is to keep your first, I want to say more than half for our non pro athletes, more than half. A little bit slower than the latter part of the race. The people who I know who have, who have PRs personal records, life fastest races are able to speed up the last several miles of the race. You know, from mile, like depending on your pace, 16 or 20 or 22, depending on your average pace. With 80 to 90 minutes left to go. If you can take in enough carbohydrate, keep your heart rate low enough that you're not consuming too much carbohydrate too early, that's where you have your fastest race. It's not pushing yourself every minute of the race. Your first half is. You're gonna gut it through and push yourself. No, no, no, no, no. You're gonna end up walking. Which mo. A lot, a lot of people do. You'll end up seeing people just. And I'm not talking power walkers. We have walkers that walk the whole marathon. But they don't look like our walkers. They're just like the walking dead. They're out of glycogen. They're out of that sugar that your body needs at higher heart rate. The higher your heart rate goes, which it will, it'll increase and increase and increase throughout the marathon. The more glycogen you consume, the less fat you consume. Right, right now, sitting here, we are consuming some glycogen and maybe more fat. As your heart rate increases, you're consuming more and more glycogen, less and less fat. Fat. I don't care if you're the skinniest Kenyan in the planet. Fat is an abundant resource for fuel, all of humans. And carbohydrate is a limited resource. More at high heart rate. Keep your heart rate low. Keep consuming as much as you can, up to like, yeah, 50, 60 grams, depending on your size. And if you feel great with 80 to 90 minutes left to go, screw the pace group, forget your friends, just go for it. That's where you're going to have your fastest race. That's where you're going to feel best at the finish line. And we'll talk more about that when we get to the finish line. But there you go. That's your. The first half your race, or the first 80. The first. Excuse me. Major portion of your race sets you up for fastest race you can ever do.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah.

David Levine: It's not the end.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. That second phase is really like making sure that you're honing in on your carbohydrates, making sure you're getting your fueling, like getting that pacing in and really kind of like we're calling it settling in to the marathon.

David Levine: Right.

Phase 3: The Middle Miles (Miles 12-14)

Carrie Tollefson: Awesome. Okay, the next phase. Phase three of running a marathon. The middle miles. Miles 12 through 14. Now, this is only two miles. Well, I guess technically it's 12, 13 and 14, but that's not. That's not many miles to have a whole phase of. So what. What's so important of that, those middle miles right there?

David Levine: Well, taking an assessment of where you're at, really. Also, you know something? I find most races have a banner where you're at, like 13.1. Where. Or just a little sign that says Half Marathon. It might even be where most races will have, like a little runner across the street where they'll record your chip time at the half marathon points. Take a moment for celebration. Damn it. You've just run a half marathon. Most people on the planet can't run a mile. What you've just done in 13.1 miles, half marathon, it's extraordinary. Yes. You need to keep in mind carbohydrate, mineral depletion, hydration, all those things, all those resources, bodily resources. But, you know, take a moment to just say, damn, I did this, you know, and say hello to a friend or something.

Carrie Tollefson: High five.

David Levine: You know. Yeah. You know, also take in the environment around you. Around mile 12, 13 and the LA Marathon, there's some great views of the mountains and stuff. There's an element of you're running through West Hollywood and the drag queen, Pom Pom people are just the best. The energy of the crowd in West Hollywood, once you hit Beverly Hills, it's all just like silence. It's just really bizarre going from West Hollywood to Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills. It is so strange and different running through those two different. But anyway, that's where you're at around the halfway point. Yeah. Get excited about it. You just did a half marathon. Darn it.

Carrie Tollefson: Well, I like how you kind of think of it, because I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, I'm only halfway, you know, and you have a positive twist. On it. Like, yeah, not many people run the half marathon and you're, you're on your way to running the marathon. But you know, celebrate this moment and hopefully you're pretty close to that target pace.

David Levine: Or a little slower than that target pace early on depending on the elevation changes and the race that you're doing. LA happens to have the big hills at the beginning, so it's absolutely going to be a negative split. Some races have more hills at the end that that. So it becomes a little different. Yeah. I have always said a single negative thought can kill you. And what I mean by that, and I've heard this from pro athletes, they started thinking, oh damn, I'm tired. I'm like whatever. And boom. Their energy just drops.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah.

David Levine: You know, I don't mean dead kill you, but kills your enthusiasm, kills your adrenaline, kills your energy levels. A single negative thought can kill you during a race, especially if you're a pro athlete. Yeah. Which I'm sure you could probably relate to.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. I mean even today I was doing a little treadmill workout and I was like, you know, I was doing like 1, 2, 3, 321 minutes. It wasn't 1, 2, 3 miles, 3, 2, 1 miles. I just did a quick little fart like and I was thinking to myself, like, what was my mind going through when I was running? I was just running 6 minute pace for those intervals today and I used to run things at four minute pace. I mean really, I would do, you know, four hundreds at four minute pace. I would do some six hundreds at four minute pace, like crazy fast. And I'm, I thought to myself today I need to switch that mental, you know, stud on again. Like, come on, this is not that hard. I know I'm in the dungeon of my basement while it's single digits out here in Minnesota right now, but get going again, girl. Like you can do this stuff. So I think I would tell myself in those middle miles the same thing. Get going, girl. You can do it.

David Levine: Yeah. Yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay.

David Levine: I confess. I was complaining about.

Carrie Tollefson: Oh yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

David Levine: I was complaining about the weather here the last two days, which I will not tell you what it was, but don't. Yeah, we have. Anything can become a negative thing. I mean. Yeah, but okay, we're moving on I guess.

Phase 4: The Back Half (Miles 14-20)

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. The next thing, phase four of running a marathon, the back half of this, like what even happens in those miles? I think a lot of people even forget what happens between mile 14 and 20. There is, there's so many mental games going on. There's A lot of distraction. I feel like, at least when I ran my marathons, I was trying to figure out how to just not think about actually what was happening to my body. Because you can. You can start to feel it, but you. You're confused a little bit. It's like, am I getting tired? Do I still feel really good? I know I still have a long ways to go. Like, am I taking enough? Did I already take enough? Did I not like all the things that start to come into play? And it's an important part of the race. So what do you think about from miles 14 to 20?

David Levine: I once heard a study, and they did a study on all distances of running, from a hundred meters to ultramarathons, whatever. And they found that the third quarter, which is what we're talking about, mile 14 to 20, whatever, the third quarter of any distance race is always the slowest, right? Even the sprinter is kind of switching from creatine phosphate to glycogen or whatever. The more of each, I'm not going to explain that. But even the sprinter, the third quarter of 100 meters is a little bit slower. Certainly the third quarter of a marathon. Yeah, you're right. You start getting lost in thought. You're thinking of other things. You're slowing down without really thinking about it because you're not as focused. There is a benefit to following somebody. There is a benefit that's to being around people who are very positive or energized. Music can help this kind of thing. I once had a runner back years ago when I was. It's got to be like 25 years ago when I was a pace leader and this one runner was running with headset on, big headset. And every so often, he would just zoom past the group, and then we would catch up to him and zoom past the group. And I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with this guy because he always kept burning out on every. This is just training. And I couldn't. One day it occurred to me, because he was always. Week after week, he was doing the same thing. Burning out didn't keep up with the group. At the end, I finally said to him, as you zoom by me, I said, great song, huh? And he said, yeah, I love it. And I realized, oh, my God, you.

Carrie Tollefson: That's what he's doing.

David Levine: He's killing himself with the music. Having said that, yes, music can really help you. It can energize you. It can give you that uplifting feeling, talking to people. If you're capable of Talking can give you an uplifting thing as long as you're not with somebody who's complaining. But be careful it doesn't zoom you ahead too far and burn you out, you know?

Carrie Tollefson: Sure.

David Levine: I remember one day running with a group down an alleyway, and someone said out loud, you know, my knee's starting to hurt. We were like, mile 18 of a 20 miler or something like that, and my knee's starting to hurt. Someone else, my hip is starting to hurt. And as they said this, my knees started to hurt. I never had this. My hips started to hurt. And somebody else, my. My back has started. My back started hurting. And I finally said, okay, wait a minute. Here's what you do. And this. This may help people through even the latter part of your race. But I said, I. I had talked to a yogi, you know, the guy with the turban, the real deal, a guy who was a runner who taught transcendental meditation. And I said to him, I said, it can counting your steps when you run, can that be a form of meditation? He says, yeah, absolutely. Anything that has a rhythm to it and a nonsensical, pointless element to it, you know, transcendental meditation, you. You have this. This mantra that as means absolutely nothing. Awahu, wagwan, whatever it is. And he said, counting could do the same thing, and it can maintain rhythm. Right. So what I would do when I was really tired on the third quarter, even toward the end, is I would count my steps. Like, not every step, because you go nuts, but like every one, two, three, every fourth step or every other step, doesn't matter. I'd count to 100. You could count to 10. It really is meaningless. I found at my stride length, because I tend to be a little taller at my stride length. I would go 100 steps and I'd be another mile. So that's pretty simple. It maintained my rhythm, and I would get through the third quarter of the marathon. And then there's the last part of the marathon, which we can talk about in a moment. But hopefully that alone. Music, talking to people who are positive, not aching and pain. Oh, my God, I feel horrible. I'll tell you one other story before we move on to the next. My wife did her first marathon, and she got to mile 13, the halfway point, and she felt awful. She had hit the wall. She had gone way too fast. She had no clue what she was doing. And she vowed she would never, ever, ever, ever do this thing ever again. Never will she do a marathon. That's it. She's Done. She basically ran, walked to the finish line because, you know, you do blood sugar, you know, you're taking carbs, blood sugar will become glycogen. So you can run a little bit because you have a little of that, then you burn out and then you're walking and running away. Anyway, she got to the finish line. Well, I gotta tell you, March 8th, in less than five weeks will be her 120th marathon.

Carrie Tollefson: Oh, my gosh.

David Levine: Yeah. So, you know, if you totally screw it up, give it another chance, you know, even if you're dying out there at miles 14 to 20, even with the rest of it to go as she was, she lost her running cap. She had no idea where it went, just a train wreck. And so, yeah, when you learn a little something about how to do the race and training, it can become so much more enjoyable. Inspiring, I think is the word. Inspirational. So there you go.

Carrie Tollefson: That's amazing. 120 and her first one. She was never going to do it again.

David Levine: Yeah, I love it. You know, when you mention how many I've done, it's like, big deal, you know?

Carrie Tollefson: I know.

David Levine: Compared to the lady I live with, you know?

Carrie Tollefson: Yep, yep. Charlie, my husband's done 10 times the amount I have as well, and he won't let me, you know, forget it. Although I do own the fastest and the in the house now for a long time. My first marathon, I missed his PR and so he liked to tell everyone how much faster he was than me. But I got him, so at least I have that. He's got way more than me, but at least I have that. Okay, so that was phase four.

David Levine: You were the middle.

Carrie Tollefson: I am a middleman. I am. Yeah. But when you do commentary for the marathon, I kind of think you need to run one to know how to commentate on it. So I've done a few. I'll do another one, I'll do another one.

Phase 5: Pushing Through The Wall (Miles 20-25)

Carrie Tollefson: Let's talk about phase five. So we just went through phase four, which was the back half of the marathon. The back half of this is what you're calling it, miles 14 through 20. Now phase five is pushing through the wall. Miles 20 through 25. And a lot of times at mile 20, like here at the Twin Cities Marathon, they actually have like a blow up wall. So like you're getting through it, you're like, oh, it's starting, it's gonna hurt. And then also, I don't know if you've ever run Twin Cities, but that's where the hills start for us. So we're pretty flat until we get to mile 20, and then you really start to climb. So we have it pretty tough there. So. Yeah, let's talk about miles 20 through 25.

David Levine: I've never done Twin Cities. I hear it's an amazing marathon. Well worth doing. But yeah, I hear like, the biggest hill on the course is like right around 20, 21 or something like that. It is, yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: It's right there.

David Levine: And people loathe that hill. They should get city hall to just shave it down.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Get rid of goes and then it. And it's not. It's. Well, I guess it's probably about a half mile or so. I'm. Maybe even more. It might be a mile, but you go and then you got to go again, and then it's real gradual on summit. So there's. Yeah, people get pretty ticked off those last few miles of the race.

David Levine: Well, look at Boston. Is kind of the same with the Newton Hills. You know, Heartbreak Hill being the latter, I think it's about a half mile also. Serious uphill, you know. Yeah. You never know what you're going to get. So the latter part is really more than anything. Like I talked about the beginning throughout the course of your race, you're setting yourself up for the end. I often ask people what I think of as a trick question. And the trick question is, where do you hit the wall? And the answer is usually like, mile 20, 21. Now, here's some science. The average sized person, grant you, they're big football players and they're very petite people. The average size person maybe like around £150, something like that. Whatever. The average sized person can consume about 2,000 calories. Right. Because you're always using resources from food for energy. You do this, you're using resource for food. Just moving, right. 2,000 calories, pretty much max. The average size person consumes about 100 calories per mile. Doesn't matter how fast or slow you're going. If you're slower, you're taking more time to get there. If you're faster, you're at higher intensity. Right. So the average person consumes about 100 calories per mile. Do the math. 2,000 calories divided by 100 calories per mile. That's 20 miles. Right. So if you take in nothing, you could assume even if you have a low enough heart rate to maintain, you know, utilize more fat than carbs, you know, you're still pretty much going to hit the wall by mile 20. Right. 20, 21. Somewhere around there. Just math. I mean, there's so much mathematics to this. It is a science. I mean we love the passion, we love the. It's 95% mental, you just gotta gut through it. But you know, there really is a science to this. There is a mathematical equation where, where how you do this, you know, so if you can take in that for average sized person, if you can take in about 50, 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour. I gave a lecture the other day, here it is. Listen to this. This is interesting. Pro ultra marathoners were able to go faster even though they were not considered to be the fastest on the course. They were able to win an ultramarathon in two cases because they were able to take in more carbohydrate, more carbohydrate than what would normally get us nauseous. So here's one. Western states hundred mile race, old traditional race, started with a guy whose horse was lame and he said, I'm going to run this. What the hell? Because there's a horse race and now it's just a bunch of people running it because this lunatic said I'm going to run it, my horse is lame, I can't. Anyway. Western States 100 mile Ultramarathon guy named Caleb Olson turned in the second fastest course record, second fastest 15,540 foot climbs on this race. At any rate, he was able to consume a 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrate per hour. 80 to 100. Now think about this. A box of cookies. Excuse me, three cookies. Three Oreo cookies is 21.6 grams of carbohydrate. So 80 to 90. You're talking about a lot of cookies, right?

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah.

David Levine: In terms of sugar. All right, I hope this is interesting, you guys.

Carrie Tollefson: I know it is interesting. Another woman, Ruth Cross, talking about Oreos is always interesting.

David Levine: By the way, eating solids is not necessarily doable on a marathon because you know, you, you, you're, you, you're. This is fascinating to me at least. Your body diverts blood away from your stomach to your arms and legs that you're using. You need the blood flow for, so your stomach is not as efficient. So if you ate something solid like an Oreo cookie, you'd probably, most of us would probably have stomach distress because your stomach wasn't as efficient because all the blood was going to your arms and legs. So that's why we do gels, that's why we do sport. Drink all that. Anyway, I find that amazing that your body can just do that because your subconscious brain says divert. We need it because you know, some monster is chasing us and we need to run fast. So divert, you know, we want to live, obviously that's human growth, whatever. Anyway, women named Ruth Croft, the ultra trail Dumont Blanc, obviously in Europe she was able to consume 120 grams of. Per hour. Per hour. 120 grams of, of carbohydrate per hour. A box of Oreos is 156.66 grams of carbohydrate. So she's consuming almost a box of Oreo cookies equivalent, not cookies, obviously not solids per hour for a hundred mile race. And she won the race. You've won the race. So if you can consume, obviously if you start getting nauseous, you know, you can only do so much. But if you can consume a reasonable amount of carbohydrate. If on a, especially on a warm day where you need to take in, think about how many minerals you may need. Sodium, especially if you don't have sodium. If you run low on sodium, you're not going to be able to absorb the hydration that you're taking in. You may, I know this is disgusting, I apologize. But you may see someone throwing up water at the finish line right after they stopped. It's because they were not able to absorb water. They're sodium depleted. They need like a sodium pill or something. Eat a salty burrito or a pretzel or something. It's easy to get sodium in. But their stomach, their subconscious mind was saying get rid of this water sloshing in my stomach and it comes out. But they need sodium to absorb that hydration. So really there are several different resources that your body needs, including hydration. There are a lot of people that say, well, don't drink too much because the reason is, is because drinking water or any liquid will deplete mineral resources that go into your sodium. Your potassium, well, that goes into your urine in a form you can't use. Or you also sweat out all those minerals. Right. But don't drink too much. Well, I say, well if the problem is you're becoming sodium depleted, which also impacts your neurological function. You know, there are people, there are a couple different reasons why people cramp, especially later in a race. One is fatigue. Like Tim Noakes from, I think it's South Africa again or Australia. I think he's from Australia, New Zealand. One of anyway came up with the.

Carrie Tollefson: You're talking about.

David Levine: Yeah, sports, Ph.D. in, in exercise physiology there. Wrote a big book, the Lore of Running. One of those big early tombs, 900 page guy, Ph.D. anyway, he came up with the idea that fatigue will also cause cramping, maybe later in the race because you know your muscles are tired for that. You could do some strength training or more strength training, as long as you're not getting too tight. And in your training cycle that would enable you to go through that fatigue phase toward the end of your, your race, the last few miles of your race. But in addition to that, minerals such as sodium, potassium, the big ones, lack of them can also cause cramping, right? So if you're depleting, if you're, if you're depleting your sodium potassium, all these electrolytes, those are the minerals, sodium, potassium, also called electrolytes. Electrolytes are neurological function where you'll think something. Then you send these minerals with the signal of your brain down your nerve to your muscle, which we call the motor nerve. The nerve and the muscle are called the motor nerve into your muscle and your muscle says, okay, do this right and you will do that because of this electrolytic signal that you use minerals to send, right? So if you're low toward the end of your race on these minerals, that's why we do sports drink. That's why we do gels with minerals in them. That's why we take, on a hot day, take mineral pills. You know, if it's going up into the 80s, oh my God, take in mineral pills. You're going to sweat it out because it's warmer, your body wants to cool, cool itself off with sweat. Your heart rate is immediately going to be a little elevated. So you need to take your race a little slower on an 80 degree day. Even our official pace. Leaders of the LA Marathon. We are essentially the LA Marathon. We just happen to be the training group for the LA Marathon. We are owned by the same people. Anyway, all these things need to be taken into consideration before you even begin your race to help you get through the last few miles. So when I say that the question is a trick question, where do you hit the wall? The trick element of it is that if you think through all of these things before your race and plan them out and even execute them during your race, you don't have to hit the wall. That doesn't need to be a part of your race. Yes, it will get more difficult toward the end. The last few miles you can take in gels or pills that have caffeine in them. And that caffeine will make your brain, your subconscious brain, think you have way more resources like glycogen carbs than you really do. And I remember one race I took in, I think it was probably about 150 milligrams of caffeine in the last, like, I don't know, six miles of the LA Marathon. And I crossed that finish line and I did not want to stop. I was just slime. This was a blast. I mean, yeah, I was drugged on caffeine, but, you know, and toward that end, again, the discussion of plan it out in advance. If you're going to do caffeine in your race, I recommend more toward the end than the beginning. You don't want to start out too fast. You get all excited with adrenaline and that caffeine spikes adrenaline even more. At any rate, wean yourself off of caffeine like three to four weeks before your marathon, right? So that the effects, the impact of caffeine during a race will really be felt. Now, don't do it cold turkey, because it is a drug and you will go through withdrawal symptoms, right? You'll get jittery, you'll get headaches, you know, a half a cup less a day, a quarter cup less a day. If you really do a lot of coffee, there are some real benefits I'm hearing from coffee. Nothing wrong with that. But slowly wean yourself off of caffeine like three, four weeks before the race. So when race day comes, you'll really feel the benefits. Also, wean yourself off alcohol. You know, for those of you like, hey, let's have a few beers, we're celebrating the race. Alcohol is a diuretic. You don't want to start your race dehydrated. So the end of your race is not just based on where you start, but even before that, even before you start your race, you're setting yourself up for the end of your race, for a great race or just whatever happens. Like my wife's first race, she's learned a few things.

Phase 6: The Home Stretch (Miles 25-26.2)

Carrie Tollefson: Well, she has the wealth of knowledge with you there, too, as well. So let's talk about that last little home stretch, then. Miles 25 through 26.2. Don't forget the 0.2 people, because that definitely is a fun stretch, but it can be long. So talk about the sixth phase of running a marathon, which is the home stretch.

David Levine: By the way. You mentioned something about my wife having me. You know, ever since we got married, that's when she stopped listening to me. And I think that's very common. That was it. That was. And that was the lesson. She had a PR or qualified for Boston, or, you know, we got married. No more Listening to David. But anyway. But I don't think that's true. Well, I will debate that another time. But to the last mile of the race. You know, oftentimes people are the most fatigued. The last mile of the race. You can use imagery to help get you through a race. I once heard somebody, Psychologist, Psychiatrist. Psychiatrist. A psychologist, talking about sports, you know, endurance sports. I think he was talking about triathlon specifically, but it's the same idea. And he said that there was a woman who. A triathlete who was really burning out and she was leading the run. Of course, the run is the last element of the triathlon and she was leading the run, but she was really slowing down and they were starting to catch up to her. And suddenly, for no reason at all, she raised her arms out to the side like a bird, right? And people had, what the hell is wrong with this woman? She's running with her arms out to the side. And she later explained that she imagined herself and people saw this. She imagined herself flying and floating through the air. And suddenly what looked like a heavy kind of run, you know, plodding kind of run, looked more effortless and less weighted. And she sped up. It was all from imaging, imagining herself as a bird flying. You know, I've heard the same concept. If you're running near an ocean, use the energy of the surf, you know, as part of your being. You're imagining you're gaining energy from the surf or from the sun or from whatever's around you. Just imagery alone can spike your adrenaline levels and give you energy. Imagining. I'll tell you a funny story in a second, but imagine yourself winning the LA Marathon or a major city marathon or whatever it is. The screaming, the yelling, the calling out your name, crossing the finish line first. You know, if I was winning a marathon, I would think I was lost because there was no one in front of me. I must have taken a wrong turn, you know. But I'll tell you a funny story. And it's such a thing, thrill. And if you can imagine this, it really will energize you. And that's imagining winning the race, right? You are winning, they're cheering for you and you alone. Even though that's totally untrue. One year I have this little badge that is an all access badge. I can go anywhere around the alley marathon. And I had to get from outside the finish line to inside the finish line, really, just to help set up an awning. Lucy, our coordinator, my counterpart part, who is absolutely amazing and does wonderful things, I couldn't live without her. In fact, I owe her an email. Anyway, I thought, well, I got to get to where she's at quickly. Why not run the finish line? Because I was wearing shorts at the time and running shoes, Asics, everything, you know. So I looked the part, and I took off my sweatshirt, I put it at our little water table outside the finish line, and I started running two blocks. Right? Now, no one had finished the marathon yet, right? No one had run the finish line. And there's me running the finish line. So these people who were. They put the tears just standing on the side of the road waiting for something. My God, when is my cousin gonna get here? Or whatever it was, see me running by. I had no bib number on, but I had this little badge that's flapping around, you know? And it's obvious my form is not like a canyon. You know what I'm saying? I do not look like someone who's gonna make. This is not that long ago. I do not look like someone who's gonna be winning the Los Angeles Marathon. And suddenly I start hearing people applauding. And I'm looking around, I'm like, what the hell? They're all looking at me, and they're screaming, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger. And they're yelling and screaming and cheering, and I'm crossing the finish line, and the volunteers are all there doing this kind of thing, and they're now screaming, Yay. Good for you. And I know what it's like to win the LA marathon. I ran two blocks, but that was such a thrill so far. If you can imagine that, just imagine that. Watch a video of the finish line of Boston or whatever it is. It's such a thrill watching it on video. You put that in your head. And I'll tell you something else that really works. When you really start getting fatigued, have an idea in your back pocket, an emotional idea. For example. We humans are not as complex in our neurological thought processes as we would like to think. In other words, when you have an emotion, you stimulate the same kind of drugs in your brain naturally that you do from any other emotion. For example, when you're really sad, you're stimulating dopamine, which makes you more alert. You're stimulating adrenaline, which gives you energy. You go to a movie theater, it doesn't matter whether you're sobbing in tears, where they're laughing hysterically, where you're seeing a horror movie, you know, whatever the emotion is, the subconscious response neurologically is the same outpouring of stimulation, right? So if you, in the back of your head, I call it your back pocket, have an idea, whatever it is, it could be something that brings you to tears. It could be something, a scene from a movie that makes you laugh hysterically. It could be something that enrages you. Damn it. That guy next to me just called me a name. Which could be totally fake, but he just called me a name. I'm going to kick that guy's ass to the finish line. Your adrenaline is spiked. Your dopamine, you're more clear, you're more focused. You can use this any portion of the race and suddenly you're sprinting that finish line. No matter how tired you are. Your arms come up a little higher, your mechanics can change, your knees come a little higher. You're suddenly going faster than you were before. You're not aware of any aches or pains suddenly anymore. Because that adrenaline is going to get you through the same way. Drinking a lot of caffeine will spike your adrenaline again. But this is more cerebral concept, something you can put in your back pocket emotionally. An idea before the race. Something that really gets you the individual someone. When you were like growing up, that boyfriend you loved so much and he just was mean and he broke up with me, that jerk. Oh my God, that's him next to me. Maybe fake, total fake. My God, that's him next to me. Oh man, you're going to kick his ass.

Carrie Tollefson: So you went from being positive at the halfway mark to now just like all in negativity, going to crush whatever you need to do to get to this finish line.

David Levine: Any kind of emotion you can drum up. There is a 10 foot bear with big claws and fangs chasing you. I love it down the street. Any emotion makes you feel that, go for it.

Celebrating The Finish

Carrie Tollefson: Well then I want to know what you actually do to celebrate your finish then at the very end. You've done so many of these already, coached so many of your athletes. What do you say? What's the best way to celebrate this whole feat that you just did?

David Levine: Great. I gotta tell you, I have the honor and I really do think of it as an honor to stand at the finish line of the LA marathon. This will become my sixth time doing it. And on the clock, forget the hours in the morning, I get there before the race begins on the clock. I'm there till like 12 plus hours of the race on the clock right from when it began. So it's a long day for me. But throughout the day I watch about over 22,000 people cross the finish line. And I have never been in a theater or any place of my life where I see the extremes of emotion. I mean, tears coming down people's faces. I see people laughing hysterically. I see people hugging each other and crying. I see people enraged looking at their watches. Right. Which I think is honestly the wrong way to think about a finish line, you know, even if you don't have a PR. Even if you had a slower race than what you wanted, you know, oh, my God.

Carrie Tollefson: Just for a second. You'll be mad for a second. And then you got 24 hours to get over it. That's what I always say.

David Levine: Right, Right. What I always did is I would. Because it's the first thing that occurs when you cross the finish line. You walk a few seconds, you recover, your head clears a little bit, and you think about what happens. But I always.

You walk up to the people with the medals and I always bow my head, which is probably an obnoxious thing to do, is make them put the thing over my head, you know, like I'm the king of England or something like that. But it makes me feel really, really proud that I just did this. When someone puts a medal over my head and I feel that cloth go around my neck, you know, and there's something about that that just feels so great that I did this. And I can think of nothing in most people's lives that says I finished something more than you cross a finish line. You cross a finish line with a specific time, you get a medal saying, I finished this task. Right. And in a lot of races, you even get. Now it's electronic. You get a digital copy. You even get a certificate of the time it took you to finish this thing, the miles that you ran, 26.2, and that you finished it. You know, most people sit at work and they're doing, you know, more and more. It never ends. There's no finish to what we mostly do. I don't care if it's raising children the rest of your life, they will be your child. You will always be worried about them. There will be no end to this process of child raising. Same thing with work. There's always one more thing, one more sale, one more contract, one more whatever it is, the finish line of a marathon. It's really a finish. And you can say, damn, I did that.

Cooldown Question

Carrie Tollefson: We have one more question for you, and that is the cool down question. And it's a question from the audience. Are you ready for it?

David Levine: Probably not, but go ahead.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, well, let's Hear from Greg. Greg wrote in and he said, I've done some run events before but never won with pace groups. My first ever marathon with pace groups is coming up and I'm wondering if it's best to join the group closest to my target finishing time, which is 4:30. Or is it better to go on my own since I am more used to doing that and you already kind of talked a little bit about the benefits of chasing someone. So what do you think? Be with the pace group or go at it alone?

David Levine: I would argue both. You know, even pace groups take hills. Everybody has a different ability. You know, it's an odd thing. I'd like to see a study on it. There's no science in this. I find that women seem to go up hills more efficiently than men. I know that sounds weird. I don't know why that is, but I just see that in training that where there's a big hill, women seem to get ahead of the group before the men. You know, at any rate, even with a group. So when you're going up a hill during a race, listen to your breathing. If the group is getting a little ahead of you, that's fine. Eventually you'll catch up to them or not. You know, it's really about you, the individual and your specific ability. This is where you're at in your training executed on race day. But so there is that. On the other hand, we all gain energy from being in like a cluster. We are. Human beings are pack animals. We tend to want to run. We benefit from running in a pack. We feel more safe by being in a pack, by being. And the more the people around you, you know, in that group, the more exciting it can be. The, the more you have you draft off of them. You'll note Ilyad Kipchoge, when he did the two hour thing, had people in front of him and he was kind of in the middle of this triangle. They were all drafting, you know, he was drafting off of them. Right. They were kind of breaking the air. You gain a little bit from that being especially in the middle of the group or even the back of the group. So there are real benefits to being in a group and also a pace leader if it's your first time. Generally speaking, ask a pace leader what their game plan is and if their game plan is something like, well, we're going to put more money in the bank early on, meaning we're going to go out fast. Don't do that, don't follow that person. Or like I said, if they're going up the hill a little faster than you. That may be part of their game plan for that's good for them and good for most of the people in that group. Maybe, and maybe not as good for you. So it's all you know within. See how you feel, listen to your breathing. There are benefits to a group and drawbacks.

Outro

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