u/anotherindycarblog

In the past few weeks, we’ve gotten geared up, learned how to ignore heart rate as a beginner and started working on speed with some strides. How do we fuel it all? With so many options on the market, where does a beginner runner start to decide how and what works for them? 

As usual, I’m in camp keep it simple. Sports nutrition begins in the kitchen. Making sure you are eating balanced meals that contain real food while avoiding processed food is a great place to start. Running and ultra running require large amounts of energy and if the food fueling your muscles is low quality or junky, you should expect low quality and junky results. 

Garbage in, garbage out. 

If you are eating a well rounded diet, you shouldn’t have a bunch of excess calories floating around in your system and it is probably time to think about fueling the work. Some coaches will put a time limited factor on the choice about fueling a run or not. 

Most coaches use the rule of 60. No nutrition needed unless you are moving for 60 minutes. While this works on paper, it neglects the slowest and fastest runners out there. A 15 minute mile and an 8 minute mile put very different stresses on the body. This is why I look at total effort and distance along with total running time. 

Faster athletes will, as a necessity need more sports nutrition. That doesn't mean a beginner can completely ignore it though! Runs progress to 5+ miles pretty quickly once one gets through a couch to 5k into a weekly repeating running program. Whether that 5 miles take you 40 minutes or an hour, this is a good distance to start thinking about extra calories. 

The phrase ‘sports nutrition’ often conjures images of gels, powders and expensive drinks that are a cause of stress for beginner athletes. The first aspect of choosing your nutrition is making sure its made of real sugar. A calorie free sports drink is simply helping with electrolytes and not energy. At all. 

Premade sports drinks are a great place to start. Gatorade and Powerade have been making sports nutrition products for decades and have settled on a great mix for beginner athletes. Full disclosure, Gatorade powder is my main source of athletic calories! 

Cyclists love living off of gas station candy such as Swedish fish and gummy worms. Anything with full sugar ingredients will be good enough. Don’t fall into the sports marketing trap. For a beginner, all sugar is largely the same so go cheep and easy for your first foray into performance nutrition. 

I like to recommend 40-60 grams of carbs per hour for athletes starting their sports nutrition journey. This is more than enough to turbo charge your system, but not enough to stress your gut. That isn’t to say you will completely avoid gastric distress. Starting your workout well hydrated and having enough water on board to digest your sugar is important to keeping a happy stomach. 

Now that your mileage is increasing and you need some additional calorie support, keep it simple and start with accessible sugars. 

We’ve gone over how to get out the door and how to add a bit of speed, but being an ultramarathon group now is a great time to look at basic gear to get you going. The overwhelming majority of ultramarathon races take place in off-road locations. Although the majority of training might happen on-road, knowing what will be different on raceday will make a big difference. 

The biggest difference between training on-road and competing off-road will be your choice of footwear. Of course you can use whatever you’ve been training in, but trail shoes will differ from their road counterparts in a few key ways. 

Road shoes often have a very flat outsole to maximize traction on smooth road. These compliant outsoles are often paired with soft and thick cushioning to reduce impact as much as possible. They also feature much higher average stack heights. This is another attempt to reduce the impact transfer from the road into the runner. 

Off-road shoes have deep lugged soles to increase traction on the loose and changeable soft surface. The midsoles are also firmer to increase side-to-side stability and compliance. Off-road shoes also have a tougher midsole to decrease the sensation or even pain of stepping on pointy rocks and uneven branches. Some models even have ‘rockplates’ added to the midsole to improve underfoot protection. 

The differences between road and trail shoes go beyond the soles; the uppers are quite different as well. Road shoes usually prioritize weight and breathability. Trail shoes are constructed with durability and protection in mind with weight a secondary factor. Trail shoes can often also have a reinforced toe guard to protect you when you kick rocks and sticks. 

Shoes aside, if we’re really talking about running an ultra and not just training on the trails, a pack of some kind is a must. Although the aid stations might not be far in distance, it can take some time to get to the next one so being semi-self sufficient is important. Ultra venues can be pretty far from civilization so having the ability to carry a bit of water, nutrition and first aid is never a bad idea during an event that can take 10+ hours. 

Finally, poles are a really good idea. The off-road nature of ultra racing often means steep hills and something akin to power hiking instead of straight up ruining. Having something comfortable to lean on and help take a bit of pressure off fatigued legs and joints can be a lifesaver late in the race. Plus, if you have a pack you can store and carry them much easier when you don’t need them. 

I often encourage athletes to get what is in their price range as accessibility is an important facet to endurance athletics. However, this is one place I think spending a bit more to get a lighter set of composite poles can really make a difference. We take about 2,000 steps a mile and you have to swing your arms each time. Saving a few ounces in the poles can mean hundreds of calories saved over the course of an ultra distance event. 

These three things: trail shoes, a light pack and a set of poles will allow most athletes to attack any ultra event they have their eye on. Knowing the nuanced differences between road and trail running can make an athlete’s first experience in the woods much more positive! 

Whether you are running ultra-marathons, 5ks or triathlons, one of the first things an advancing beginner runner always asks is how do I get faster? Seemingly an innocent question, this query can open quite the can of worms into zones, VO2 max metrics, pacing and weekly load just to name a few. As you have probably figured out by now, I’m into keeping it simple. Let’s dive into the first steps of running faster. 

Once a runner has moved past a couch to 5k get to run plan and has established a consistent weekly mileage of ‘just run’, It’s time to spice up their training week. The first thing I add to a novice runner schedule are strides. These are short accelerations that are intended to improve your running form, build speed and stimulate your fast twitch muscle fibers without imparting much fatigue. 

Strides are a great way to start adding up tempo running stress without causing too much muscle damage; almost no metabolic waste is created if executed correctly. A limiter for beginner runners is the weak neuromuscular connection between the brain and the large running muscles in the legs. By running strides, a novice runner can start to improve this brain and working muscle connection. 

To execute a stride, take 5-7 seconds accelerating to a higher speed, spending 3-5 seconds there and taking an additional 10+ seconds to decelerate to your normal easy running pace. The total time from start to finish should be no longer than 30 seconds. You shouldn’t be taking more than 10 or so steps at near maximum velocity or 80-90% of your maximum all out effort. Cool down for a minute or two and repeat the process.

Remember, the goal is to spend a short amount of time at a FAST pace, if you can only execute one or two that’s ok! We all have to start somewhere, and 2 is a great place to start. It’s ok to walk or even take standing rest in between. The goal is to run fast, and if you recover well you can run the next interval faster! 

Sustained intervals for a beginner runner will be a recipe for disaster. Often they only have 2 sustained speeds: running and not running. A stride with walking rest will give a beginner endurance athlete a chance to run fast, build neuromuscular pathways and increase internally varied tempos all while giving themselves a chance to recover. 

Make no mistake, strides are an important part of the training plan for all runners at all levels. Every single one of my personal running clients has strides every week on the plan. These are an indispensable part of a runners program and an excellent way for a beginner runner to explore paces faster than ‘just run’. 

Earlier this week I saw a post on another subreddit asking about the replacement interval of a pair of very worn shoes. The poster noted that they had been running in these shoes for over a year, but the uppers looked good. However, the soles were trashed and the poster thought they were running with bad form and hurting their shoes. 

I asked about their replacement interval for their running shoes. They responded that they usually replace their running shoes when the uppers start to wear through. The poster noted regular injures and niggles throughout their running career.

Today’s high tech shoes are built with robust soles and next generation foams to protect the runner and increase energy return to levels never seen before in everyday running footwear. Respecting the lifecycle of that foam may reduce your chances of injury. 

The general rule of thumb, is the more dense the foam and rubber sole, the better lifespan a shoe will have. One would think that thicker foam would lead to longer life, but the most cushioned shoes from brands like Hoka and Nike often reserve their softest foam for this line of shoe. These will have a large stack height but very compliant, shorter lifespan foam and rubber. Carbon-plated super shoes will last even fewer miles. 

Your basic everyday trainer will likely last an average sized athlete 300 - 500 miles. Overall weight, running style, frequency of use and running surface will all affect the lifespan of any one shoe. Rougher surfaces and poor weather probably affect the lifespan of shoes the most. 

For an athlete who runs 20 miles a week and wears their shoes out at 400 miles, they will need more than 2 pair of shoes a year to account for all of their running. To prevent the stressful situation of ‘running out of miles’ on your shoes before one has the chance to buy new ones, a rotation of at least 2 shoes can be very helpful. 

New runners on a couch to 5k style program will take more than a year to mileage out a pair of shoes. I am only talking to established runners who have fallen into a consistent week over week running schedule.

A robust pair of shoes set aside for your weekend long run and a snappier pair for your 2 or 3 weekly training runs is an excellent place to start. I like using different brands to give your foot a different footbed to run in regularly. This can improve foot adaptability and add another layer of long term injury prevention.  

Different stack heights, heel-to-toe drops, foam densities and rubber patterns can alter your foot strike and loading patterns while you run. This slightly redistributes stress and repetitive pounding to different muscles and tendons instead of grinding the same tissue every single run. 

Finally, modern foams take time to bounce back after being run in. Some foams can take as long as 48 hours to fully decompress. A shoe rotation will not only spread the running mileage between shoes, it can also make them last slightly longer by allowing them to fully rebound between each run.

A multi-shoe rotation is a luxury, but in many runners’ situations become a necessity sooner than later. Treat yourself. You deserve more than one pair of trainers to do the work in. 

As we start to become more and more consistent with running, it’s inevitable that little aches and pains will show up. No amount of preparation will prevent all pains, niggles or injuries so the goal is to create a consistent and repeatable routine to get ahead of as much tightness and soreness that comes with running.

The first thing to know is when to stop. Sharp stabbing pain is a good indication that something is amiss and no more running should be done until the root cause is handled.

Great, so what does that mean? Prevention. And prevention can be done with a few simple rules and even fewer tools that you can use at home to help maintain a healthy body for running. 

First, the old image of runners completing static stretches before running is no longer considered to be the best practice. This actually decreases tendon stiffness and neuromuscular power, things we do not want before a run. The first thing a runner should be doing is a simple 5 minutes of brisk walking to increase your core body temperature, Muscle temperature and localized blood flow. 

After you feel warmed up, do some dynamic stretching such as leg swings, walking lunges, butt kicks and high knees. Once you are feeling more advanced you can add additional movements such as A skips, B skips and striders. In future installments, we will discuss these movements and how they relate to running.

Once you get done with your run, that is the time for static stretching. The goal is to prevent the worked muscles from tightening and carrying extra tension between runs. This tightening is often the root cause of early knee pain. A tight muscle will pull the other muscles near it as well as connective tissue. This pulling can easily cause knee tracking issues and lead to pain and eventual dysfunction.

The other two tools in my arsenal are a foam roller and a trigger point ball. You can use a tennis ball or lacrosse ball as a stand-in for a trigger point ball. The goal with these tools is to find knots or tense areas of your muscles and press them flat in an attempt to get the knot to relax and release. Ideally, it should not be negatively painful to roll your muscles on a foam roller. Experiencing a bit of pain in relation to releasing muscle tension is ok. 

If rolling brings you pain, that is an indication that you might be experiencing deeper damage and should move away from that area as it heals. Prodding and probing already inflamed areas can cause even more damage and inflammation. Do not look at the foam roller as a tool to heal, look at it as a tool to prevent. 

Take care of yourself. Running is more than ‘just run’ especially if you want to chase any kind of longevity in the sport. Be patient with yourself and don’t wait too long to respond to aches and pains; creating a daily remediation system for yourself will help you stay healthy! 

Hey guys, I’m in Indianapolis and every Wednesday at 6pm we do CX hot laps and pickup races at Major Taylor Velodrome. No cost. No waiver, just come and smash.

The course is half of the UCI doubleheader the facility hosts in October. If you’re in central Indiana come out this afternoon and play in the dirt!

So you want to run. You do some googling and read about zone 2 training; run easy to race fast. “That’s exactly what I want! I want to run fast eventually!” You say to yourself. It seems so easy. 

With new information in hand, you strap your shoes on and say to yourself “this time is going to be different now that I know how to train.” You run at what you perceive as easy and your heart rate shoots up. You slow down until you are at basically a speed walk and your heart rate stabilizes in zone 2. Frustrated, you head home wondering what went wrong this time.

Unfortunately, the literal millions of words written about zone 2 training are rarely written directly to sedentary beginners. So how do we avoid the zone 2 trap for new runners and get out the door and do some running that feels like we’re moving forward? 

From a physiological perspective, the most important piece of advice for all new beginner runners is to ignore their zones and just run. This allows them to settle into a repeatable pace that also feels like running. For new runners, their true zone 2 is more like a speed walk or very awkwardly slow jog and that just doesn’t feel good for most people. 

For the beginner runner, consistency and increasing motivation is the goal. As running becomes more habitual and fitness starts to slowly increase, your zones will make themselves apparent. Beginner athletes rely more heavily on carbohydrate metabolism and deeper neuromuscular recruitment at slower running paces because the mitochondrial network that is the backbone of aerobic fat-burning is underdeveloped.

Running in this tempo and threshold range is taxing on the nervous system and the tendons and ligaments. But because there is a lot of rest built into a beginner runners schedule there is plenty of time to recover from these near threshold efforts. Over time, as a runner builds mileage and adds more days of running, this threshold heavy schedule becomes untenable and now the runner is in a place where slowing down on easy days and dialing in their zone 2 pace becomes very important.

Once you are able to move past a couch to 5k style walk/run program and are thinking about how to run intervals or adding days, exploring true zone 2 running will become more important. The ability to even express your zones will be a precursor to worrying about dialing in your zone two pace. Until then, just run and have a blast! 

Last week, we talked about breathing patterns and why they are important to safe and sustained running. That was a great conversation, but is still leaves the question of why. Why does breathing increase with speed, and should I be focusing my energy on the inhalation or exhalation side of breathing? 

Answering that question will probably change your perception on what is actually happening during respiration. Most of us are probably under the assumption that breathing rate increases because of an increased need for oxygen. In fact, our lungs are over-engineered for gas exchange; we are able to fully oxygenate our blood at rest. 

As you work harder, it is true that you must deliver more oxygen rich blood to the working muscles. This is why your heart rate proportionally increases and breathing is able to stay stable and comfortable in zone two. As you work harder, your breathing becomes heavier and quicker. As you move closer and closer to your maximal work load that breathing rate can almost turn into panicked panting.

Here’s the thing. That panicked panting isn’t because you need more oxygen. It’s because you have excess waste your body is desperate to breathe off. There are free protons released from the molecular energy cycle your cells use to provide energy to your working muscles.

These protons increase the acidity of your blood. As the acidity increases, your body uses its bicarbonate buffering system to capture the free protons and convert them into water and carbon dioxide gas. This carbon dioxide created through chemical buffering is in addition to what is produced through normal cellular respiration. 

With two sources of carbon dioxide dumping into your blood, the overwhelming job of respiration is to get the junk out! When we are panting during heavy exercise our bodies are not short on oxygen, they are working over time to get rid of carbon dioxide.

Because of the increased waste load in the bloodstream, it will improve your running if you focus on strong and forceful exhales while working above your threshold. Being mindful that the increased rate of respiration is mainly due to waste will help you stay calmer and more focused when your body is ratcheting up the panic and pain. 

Cycle breathing is a powerful technique that improves running efficiency, enhances mental focus, and helps decrease the chances of injury. Many beginner runners naturally fall into a 2-step inhale, 2-step exhale pattern. While this feels intuitive, it causes the runner to always exhale on the same leg. This creates an imbalance, as the side of the body used during exhalation experiences more loading than the non-exhale side.

Over time, this uneven stress can contribute to injury. To address this, I encourage all runners no matter their skill level to adopt cycle breathing. With consistent practice, cycle breathing will become second nature within a few weeks. You’ll run more efficiently, reduce your injury risk, and gain valuable feedback about your effort all by simply changing the way you breathe.

How:

1. Start with the 3:2 Pattern

– Inhale deeply over 3 steps and then exhale fully over 2 steps.

– This pattern alternates the leg you exhale on with each cycle, distributing the load more evenly across your body.

2. Progress to the 2:1 Pattern for High Effort Runs

– As your intensity increases, shift to a 2:1 breathing pattern: inhale over 1 step and exhale over 2 steps.

– Keeping the exhale phase at 2 steps in both patterns makes the transition between them smooth and intuitive.

3. Add 1:1:1:2 for Full Maximal Output Efforts

– If you need more air during maximal output efforts, shift to the 1:1:1:2 pattern.

– Inhale, exhale, inhale and finally exhale over 2 steps to link all 3 breathing patterns.

Why

1. Injury Prevention.

– Alternating exhalation between legs reduces repetitive stress on one side of the body.

– Improved Efficiency. Aligning your breathing with your stride encourages smoother, more consistent oxygen delivery.

– Effort Feedback. Your breathing pattern naturally reflects your effort level. A 3:2 pattern aligns with aerobic endurance zones, while the 2:1 pattern indicates higher intensity. 1:1:1:2 indicates maximal effort.

Tips:

– Practice in Zone 2. Start at an easy, conversational pace in the endurance zone. Most of your running will fall here, making the 3:2 pattern your primary focus.

– Use Breathing as Feedback. If you feel the need to shift to the 2:1 pattern, it’s a sign you’re moving into higher effort zones.

– Be Patient. At first, you’ll need to count your steps and focus on syncing your breath with your stride. If it feels awkward, slow down, reset, and try again.

During the cold months, Athletes are often confined to the treadmill with headphones to blast the boredom away. This is the most challenging environment to develop their cycle breathing patterns. It is often best to wait until you can get outside without headphones so you can pay more attention on your biomechanics. It will take a few weeks or even a few month to really ingrain this strategy into your running. After a full season of outdoor cycle breathing, heading back inside on the treadmill and executing your new skill will be second nature.

Take the time to invest in your health and running longevity now. Even if you feel awkward, out of step and out of rhythm, keep practicing. This will be a skill that will keep you healthier, it will also allow you to race and train more accurately without outside aids such as pace and heart rate.

Hello everyone! My name is Eric Hall and I am a professional running, cycling, and triathlon coach and the resident endurance guru here at r/KstrideTrailRunning! 

My goal is to post weekly articles about training, racing, recovery, gear and life outside of endurance athletics. If you have any topic you would like covered, comment and I’ll add it to the list! 

I was born and raised in the American Midwest so summers spent running through the woods, Saturdays at the pool and biking everywhere were how I spent my formative years. I was active enough, but as soon as I was able to drive I started eating poorly and smoking and didn’t look back for over a decade. 

By the time I was 30, I realized this wasn’t what I wanted. I quit smoking, lost nearly 100 pounds and dedicated myself to the science of endurance sport. My day job was detail oriented and science based so the transition into coaching felt natural. The next ten years were spent learning how to coach, and how to communicate. 

In my own athletic career triathlon was my chosen sport. I eventually qualified to represent the US at international competition at an amateur level. When I’m not racing on the road, I’m getting dirty in the woods. Trail running, mountain biking and off-road triathlon have become cornerstones of my yearly racing schedule. 

The endurance community has given so much to me and I strive to give back as much as I can. 

Locally, volunteering at an aid station for ultra running is one of my favorite activities. This fall my wife and I will be making espressos deep in the woods for caffeine deprived athletes! I also serve on the board of directors for a kids triathlon organization aimed at make the sport more accessible for kids of all ages. 

In another life I was a credentialed media member for the IndyCar Series and was the North American editor for a Europe based racing magazine. That is why my username is what it is! 

I’m so excited to get going with this community and see what we can build. Remember, no question is too small. It’s better to ask what you think are 1000 silly questions than to make a single silly mistake in training or racing. 

See you on the trail!