we'll kick this off with a good old fashioned Dick swinging
competition. What are your fastest times over
like 5K10K. Do you know what Off my heart?
Half marathon. Marathon.
My most recent personal best which is in the marathon was I.
I ran a 242 in Seville, which was this year just gone.
That's probably my most up to date PB and then coming tracking
back into more into the summer. Last year I ran Cardiff 10K in
353550 which was a very proud moment of mine which I train
really hard for because I'm not the fastest runner over those
kind of shorter distances. 5 to 10K is definitely not my my
strong point and then 5K, which was again same summer was around
16 1/2 minutes. Half marathon is very, very, I
think the last half marathon I did was a couple of years ago
actually, which was Paris and I ran AI think it was like a 119,
but I believe I'd be I, I'd like to think I'm a lot quicker than
that now. My my my paces my my my.
Current PBS would suggest I'm around about 1:16 to 1:17.
I've got a lot of confusion with half marathon training at the
moment. I haven't trained properly for
1/2 marathon in a number of years, but recently that this
year I've gone right. I'm going to actually apply
myself and I'm, I'm getting confused because I've, I've had
one training plan. It was training four times a
week and it was mixing. I think there was a Sprint
session or long, sort of long hard intervals trying to get
your Max heart rate up. There was a tempo session.
There's a zone 2 for an hour and then the long run was a mix
between tempo and zone 2. And I was trying, I was trying
that. I was doing that for a number of
years and I just number of months or weeks or months and I
just wasn't seeing the progress that I wanted.
Now I've looked elsewhere and I'm now being told like 80%
should be zone 2. You should all like three of
those runs should just all be zone 2 and you just maybe have a
little interval session or something like that.
What's true? What's the right way to do it?
And how do we set up an effective half marathon plan, or
even a marathon plan to get the best time and actually see
progress? I think a lot.
There's a lot of it depends which is annoying.
I think there's a lot of there, there is a lot of it always
depends. It depends where you've come
from, you know, in terms of your training journey, what what
point you at, what have you done so far and exactly know in terms
of where are you going and how far away is your, is your half
marathon or, or your race. So yeah, I think when you take
that into consideration, then you can start mapping out what
what would what do we really need to a work on and how long
have we got to work on, you know, work with it.
I guess it like I said, if it depends if we've got say a good
20 weeks, I think it it would always it would always start
trying to create some sort of base build.
So where we actually getting you used to running and I would say
a majority of that would be easy running zone 2, we call it the.
Zone 2. So yeah, so before we move on,
look what, what we, when we say zone 2, what's, what are we
talking about there? What sort of heart rate?
So when we're looking at heart zone 2, I think we're looking at
a heart rate. I I like to use the the methods
gone up in my head. Not math.
Yeah, the math method, I like using the math method.
I think it's a really easy way of looking at it.
So where we're looking at 180 minus your age, and I think
that's a nice easy clean Zone 2 to look at.
I think like I said, unless we're looking at like kind of
lactate numbers or we're going into some sort of some testing
where we can actually find true Zone 2, I, I like to use that as
a nice simple measure to kind of use with that, with that runner.
Yeah. So if you're in your 40s then
you're you're looking about 140 beats per minute.
Exactly that, exactly that. And and a lot of the time, even
if I had a new runner, I probably wouldn't even use that,
that that particular method. All I'm going to be referring to
is easy conversational running, true ease, you know, 3 out of 10
effort and we know we're going to be in that kind of zone 2
ballpark. And along with that, I would
probably be implementing some sort of threshold or tempo
running one day a week or some hill hills where we're building
up some speed endurance neuromuscule.
We're going to get some benefits, some mechanic
mechanical benefits we're also going to get and it's going to
get a lot of bang for buck within within, within that short
period of time, especially for somebody who's only going to be
running say 4 times a week. And this is so this is the like
the initial few weeks of the plan I.
Would say so, yeah. So I say if just for example you
have 20 weeks, I would say we could use the first kind of 10
weeks of that 20 weeks to build a good base.
So half of it. Yeah.
So I think some lots of slow easy running, some threshold
work and some some some decent hill work.
So some decent hill sprints or controlled hill efforts over
those four days. And within that we've got your
long run as well. So you're you're running, we're
trying to run up to an hour plus.
Yeah. So how would you break those
four sessions down then? So I'd probably start off, if
we're looking at like a A7 day cycle, Monday's year, probably
day one's easy run easy, you know, 8 to 10K.
Day 2 is your, your, your, your threshold run or, and then
you're going into day three, which is again another easy run.
Day 4 is your easy run with your hills.
So you would stay say 45 minutes and then off the back of that 45
minutes we're doing say 6 to 830 second hill hill efforts.
And then on your, your, your 4th day Sunday run, which is
normally the case, especially if you come into easy RC, you're
doing your, your longer run, which is going to be going to be
around about an hour plus. And ideally by the end of that
base build, we've got you running maybe an hour and a half
to even 2 hours in that, in that, in that block, depending
on how you've progressed over that time.
Once we've done that kind of big base build, we're then going
into more specificity of the half marathon where we're going
to be touching on those to those, those higher, higher
velocities to kind of retract. I'll probably start implementing
some of some fast strides within, within those easy runs.
So kind of kind of going back a few weeks towards the end of
that base build, I'll probably get you to run 8 * 20 second
strides, which are kind of like 9095% effort of your all out
Sprint four rest and then we'll go again.
So you're, you're then starting to, to touch on those kind of
faster paces, getting your body to kind of get that quicker
turnover into, into legs. And as I said, going into that
more marathon specific phase, marathon 1/2 marathon block, we
then start looking at more of a specific structure of easy
running, VO2 or, you know, fast, faster interval running.
You're, you're keeping your threshold or tempo running in
there because you want to kind of look at that, you know, zone
3:00-ish marker, half marathon to marathon pace and then going
into your long runs. And then as you get closer to
your half marathon, those long runs are going to be, you're
going to be incorporating some half marathon specific work.
So it might be, for example, really, really simply if you're
going to do 10 miles or 16 kilometres, it could be that
the, the first third is at easy pace, conversational zone 2,
whatever you want to call it. The the middle third is going to
be at your half marathon or, you know, a round half marathon or
threshold pace, which, which normally lie in the same
category. And then the the, the last third
is going to be back into easy running.
So you're then kind of starting to introduce that half marathon
intensity within those sessions so that that runner is, is
getting used to being running at those, at those particular
paces. Yeah.
And how would you progress that then that on these long runs,
would you increase the distance or would you just increase the
time at which you're running at that half mile from pace?
There's lots of different sessions you could kind of
incorporate, I think. I think like most people
nowadays, they want novelty within their sessions, you know?
I think the, the you're trying to make it as interesting as
possible. I think I, I listened to a very
good podcast yesterday actually with Jacob in Good Britain and
he said the issue with a lot of runners these days, they're
always looking for like this new magical workout.
But if you look at his training, he knows what he's doing every
single week because it's the same thing.
So yeah, to answer your question, every week you could
potentially adapt the session you'd want to make it
progressive. So just say you are doing an 8
week half marathon block. You may want, you might start
that first Sunday, that first long run at at just an easy, an
easy hour, hour and a half. And then you're implementing
some intervals. So it might be 2 * 3 kilometres
at half marathon goal pace, and then next week it could be 3
times two KA half marathon pace. Or, you know, something a bit
longer and then ultimately getting up to say 3 * 5
kilometres at half marathon pace.
Right. And what say 2 weeks out simply?
Though very simple. Very simple examples, yeah.
So maybe like 2 weeks out, what where, where should you be with
that long run? What would that one look like?
The long 1-2 weeks out, I guess you're, I would probably say if
you look at three weeks out in terms of like looking at half
marathon slightly different in terms of the tapering, you don't
taper for as long when you're training for 1/2 marathon.
So I would like to, again, it's all very particular, specific to
whoever you're working with and how they've progressed over that
time. Just say they've had a fantastic
block and they're going really well.
You could take them up to two weeks out and that that could be
their peak, peak run it, it could be the week before, but
let's use two weeks out. Two weeks out, I would probably
look to do a half marathon or even around 19 kilometres
depending on their ability at kind of say 90 to 95% of half
marathon pace. So you'd get them to run a big
chunk of what they would do in their half marathon and get them
to run around that 9590 to 95% of their.
So just say you were looking for A1A90, a 90 minute half
marathon, just say their their gold pace is going to be around
about four, I think 415 minutes per kilometre.
I think that is for half marathon.
You'd probably get them to run like maybe 4:20 to 4:25.
South round that, yeah, it's. It's going to be it's it should
be sub threshold. You know, you're looking at a
sub threshold effort where they can.
It's feeling comfortably hard. You know, it's, I always like to
to to use threshold in terms of a feel is you like you, you
could talk, but you don't quite want to talk.
But I we've, we've spoken, we've given a lot of heart rate
training terminology there. Can you explain what each one
means? So you've got zone 2, threshold,
tempo, sub threshold, Max VO2. Explain it to a 15 year old.
Like what? What do those represent?
They're all looking at percentages of heart rate.
So in terms of if you take a, a, a runner or a client, you're
looking at their their Max percentage heart rate, their Max
heart rate, so be it say 200. You would then look at those
zones within percentage ranges and then to attach those zones
to those percentage heart rates. So I think like I said, I think
zone 2 if if we're looking at like RPE model or feel, I would
say like an easy run is going to be about a three out of 10.
We want it to be genuinely easy. We'll be able to hold full
conversation full, have full conversational sentences like
we're kind of having here when you're getting into like
marathon pace, which is kind of ultimately Zone 3, we're looking
at like I would say that kind of six to seven out of 10.
And then we'll be looking at those higher intensities or
those high velocities like VO2. We're looking at like, yeah,
it's going to be 8 to 7 to 8 out of 10, you know, hard, you know,
hard efforts where we're not going to be able to speak or,
you know, very short. Yes.
No. Yeah, it's the horrible stuff,
the. Horrible stuff.
And then when you're kind of in that, that upper echelon of
zone, zone four or five, we're not going to be wanting to say
much at all. So you know, you're looking at
the RP out RP, you know, 9, even 10 out of 10.
And when we look at it, an RPE model, especially when we're
looking at threshold, which is very like trendy right now when
we're talking about like double threshold training, which the
Norwegians are very big on, we always want to look at these,
these, these efforts and, and, and feel like we could probably
do one more Rep after. So if you've got like a session
and you're doing, I don't know, say 5 * 6 minutes at threshold,
we, we want to kind of then once we've finished that session, we
want to feel like we could probably do one more.
And you, you're pretty much bang on there.
And look, it's, it's very easily said than done to kind of give
you these effort guides and give these RPS.
It's about practice. What?
What, what does your training look like at the moment then?
Because obviously you've got your goals, you've got your
races you're coming up for, How are you structuring your plans?
In terms of my, my overall week, in terms of you look at a seven
day cycle, Monday is normally a an hour easy again downward to
prescribe hour easy, 3 out of 10.
Tuesday would be some sort of fast high intensity interval
where we're using specific kind of I guess effort zones.
So normally around about six to seven out of 10.
And that could look like anything like 10 * 3 minutes or
12 * 3 minutes, 15 * 3 minutes. It could even be some something
shorter, 10 * 90 seconds. And or it could also look like
some structure where we're we're starting off a bit longer and
then we're progressing into some faster, faster intervals,
something like 2 * 8 minutes all the way down to 5 * 3 minutes.
So it could be some sort of pyramid structure like that.
And then Wednesday would again be another hour, hour and 10
easy. Same on Thursday again, hour,
hour and 10 easy. And then Friday is your, your
longer kind of, I say you'd say longer threshold tempo session.
So where you're doing some longer intervals, more of a
longer sustained controlled effort.
So it might be like around half marathon, marathon effort or
marathon pace. And that's going to be looking
like that could be anything from 4 * 10 minutes, 3 * 8.
It could be again structured in a way where you're doing say 5
kilometres temp or threshold and then we're going into some hills
again, very depending on what phase you are in your in your in
your training cycle. I'm out of marathon training
now. I'm out of training in general,
if for anything specific. But we have got the idea of now
going into some faster stuff going into summer where you're
going to get a lot more 5 KS and 10 KS.
Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not the fastest runner.
So there's definitely a big, a big work on for me and I, it's
something I really want to aim to get faster AT and a better
AT. Beg your pardon?
And I want to try to strive to get close to that 16 minute mark
for, for a 5K. So we definitely will be looking
at getting those more 5K specific sessions in the bag.
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's nuts.
Like I don't, I can't see because I do a 5K in like 24
minutes. I can't see how I could even
possibly shave 8 minutes off. It's incredible.
I mean, so I'm a, I'm a heavy set bloke.
That's what I think that's putting it nicely.
I'm carrying a bit more around midriff.
And are you? Looking good, thank.
You very much. Thank you very much.
I was wondering, like, have you got any advice for heavier
runners because you know, whether you're carrying more
muscle or you're just bigger, bigger in general, maybe a bit
more flat. It's, it's a bit more taxing on
the body. I I certainly find that when I'm
racing my mates and I'm 20 kilos heavier than them and they're
proud that they beaten me and I'm like, yeah, well put a
weighted vest on. Maybe I might beat you.
Have you got any advice for weighted runners other than just
lose weight, you big bastard? Like is there any any ways we
could adapt training or any what are the best ways to train if
you're a heavier runner? I think in terms of like
specificity to to some kind of archetype of person in terms of
their their body body size or or their weight.
I think the, the some low hanging fruit would be, again,
it depends where they are, They're running journey.
You know, if they're a big person and they they haven't run
much, we want to scale right things down and make, make
things really, really quite easy for them to kind of slowly get
to the point where they can run continuous for 20 minutes.
So that might be getting on on some sort of run walk programme
where they say running for two minutes, walking for walking for
one, and then slowly building that tolerance up where they get
they're adapting to this particular stimulus that come
yourself, who's a a rugby player, ex rugby player, you
know, playing at that heavier set, you could probably handle a
bit more volume because you've, you know, your body is a little
bit more resilient to that impact.
Whereas again, we would kind of have to have to bring things up
slowly. But I think some like real low
hanging fruit in terms of that kind of the compounding is what
can we do outside of running to prepare us for that is like
things like bounding jumping, some like drop jumps where
we're, we're just training that kind of that impact.
I think again, some low hanging fruit in terms of what we can
put on our feet is some like good cushioned shoes.
If, if, if you are a heavier person and you find that running
over a longer period of time is, is kind of creating some, some
unwanted fatigue. And we can think we can kind of
create, create a create an environment where we're
softening. That is we can put you in some
more cushioned shoes if you haven't done so already.
I think these things are quite easily done, but ultimately I
think it's, it's all about adaptation.
You know, these bigger guys who who I've seen cups to club,
they've just built up a tolerance over time from the
guys I've worked with. It's just from controlled
progression over time, you know, and, and, and keeping things
simple and keeping things consistent and.
Because I think, I think you're right.
It's you don't want to cause yourself a mischief because like
you don't want to tendonitis to flare up or anything or do your
knees in. You've got to build it up over
time. And that, that seems to be the
best way because if you're injured, then you're out for two
weeks then. So obviously I've got, I've got
actually a race in two weeks time.
It's a half marathon. What would be my best sort of
nutritional plan because nutrition and hydration is an
important aspect of these races. I think Joe Wicks recently came
out and said that you don't need to eat and you don't need to
drink on a marathon. And I was like, you clearly have
never done a marathon then like like or, or you've maybe done it
as zone 2 or something, or like really like, because you
certainly do. I think that's races can be won
and lost without a proper nutrition or hydration.
Certainly hydration. Have you ever bonked?
Yeah, for sure. Oh yeah, for sure.
I mean, like when I was riding a lot.
I mean, bonking on a bike is probably one of the worst things
you could possibly do, but I've definitely bonked in both
cycling circles and running circles for sure.
I. Just have to clarify, bonking is
when you run out of water. You're dehydrated.
What what would be my best nutritional plan for 1/2
marathon though? Over the next two weeks.
On race day, right? I know everyone here hates
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via the link down below. Now let's get back to the
episode. On race, beg your pardon.
So I think let's go back a a day, say a day or so, sorry, in
terms of especially, I mean half marathon, marathon, I wouldn't
say you necessarily need to carb load for 1/2 marathon.
I think we'd look at half marathon a little bit, a bit
like a respectfully for, for a faster person, it's going to be
relatively similar to a 10K. But for somebody who's, who's
running for more than say an hour and a half for two hours,
it's obviously it's going to be a bit of a different, a
different show to a 10K race. So I think the night before
we're getting a good day of good carbs.
We're trying to fill those carbohydrates stores.
So we're trying to fill up our glycogen stores where we're,
we're prepared to, to use those, those glycogen stores.
So heavy carbohydrates, heavy carbohydrates, heavy on
carbohydrates, shall I say, beg your pardon.
The morning of your half marathon, you want to be getting
your first meal in, I would probably advise at least two
hours before you, you're, you're on the start line.
And again, that meal is going to be relatively heavy and
carbohydrates, something you've eaten probably I'd like to think
before and what you've done on a regular basis, be it some some
porridge, bagels, jam, honey, all the all that good stuff.
It's not the time to be experimenting with stuff with
new food. No, no, we're not going like
full English breakfast either. And we're not going here bacon
butty. Well, we actually need bacon
butty. I guess it's not too bad.
But yeah, you want to be staying away from anything too fatty.
So once you've done you've had your breakfast, obviously you're
going to maybe sip on some electrolytes or just some water.
I think anything obviously, just keep keeping yourself hydrated.
And then between your breakfast and your half marathon, you
could be sipping on a carbohydrate drink or leukozade
or something like that. Some, some along those along
those lines. And I would probably say from an
hour, hour out from your, your half marathon start, we could be
having like a banana or a cereal bar.
Just again, keep those kind of glycogen stores topped up.
And then personally, I like to, I like to have a gel 5 minutes
on 5 minutes before start. So I'll have a gel on, on, on,
on the, on the start line. And I probably wouldn't then
wouldn't have a gel throughout my half marathon.
That being said, I'd probably advise anybody who's going to be
running for longer than say an hour and a half to try and get a
gel in during that, at least one gel in in that that that time
they're going to be running. If I'm, if, if anybody's going
to be running kind of two, two hours plus you could probably
see them running longer than 2 1/2 hours, maybe get getting 222
gels in over that over the course of that that half
marathon. But yeah, we're definitely
looking to fuel for performance in these aspects.
And we would like to think that we, we're, we're, we're
implementing something that we've done before and we're not
like you, like you suggested not doing anything too new on, on
race day. So you've got plenty of time to
practice on your long runs, maybe this sort of.
Fuelling I definitely so I get all my guys to try to implement
whatever they're going to be drinking and eating on race
morning the the morning of their long runs even to the point
maybe later on in the latter stages of their half marathon or
marathon marathon training in particular is even the days
before. So even starting to introduce
that kind of heavier carbs, heavier, heavier carb load in
the in that kind of Friday, Saturday build.
And what that's going to do is going to be starting to train
the gut to actually absorb, take on and absorb these these these
carbs. I think the biggest mistake a
lot of people make is they get to race morning and as you said
earlier, is that they're doing something that they have never
done before, which is all great practice.
You know, they're getting lots of good carbohydrates in, but
what they might be doing is eating that.
It's not, it's not a more calories thing, it's a more
carbohydrate. So even if you're looking at
your daily allowance of food, whatever, if you are measuring
that, just say we on average eat 2500 calories, we're still
staying to the same calorie count, but we're we're obviously
just increasing that carbohydrate load through
throughout those calories. So people can either do a is eat
lots of carbs and obviously it's too many carbs where they're
going over on their calories and they're kind of almost kind of
overloading, overloading, Yeah. Eating, eating too much food on
race morning. And yeah, they're putting
themselves in a bit of mischief where they're doing something
that they've they've never done before.
So yeah. Just do what?
Yeah, plenty of carbs. Keep it simple.
Plenty of carbs try and I would say like you like like we've
suggested not doing anything. We've not not doing anything
we've not done before before race day.
Yeah, take advantage of it. Carbs are the best foods anyway.
Like they do all the best foods and.
I think it's, it's particularly what type of carbs we're eating
as well. I think trying to keep them nice
and simple so, and, and low in fibre.
So anything like white rice, white bread, orange juice, you
know, bananas are great. Trying to keep the, the fibre on
the lower end. So we're not we're not kind of
doing anything we shouldn't during race day.
Not encouraging any sort of accidents.
I see what you're saying. So you, you, you founded and run
a run club. Easy run club.
DRC Yeah, that's it. DRC why do you think running
clubs seem to have exploded at the moment?
Ultimately it's, it's the want for community, It's the want for
that, for that tribe to, to, to run together, to almost have
that shared suffering. And, and I mean that in the, in
the nicest way, I don't mean that as in like we're you're in
pain, but and that could be in lots of different levels.
It could be, it couldn't be emotional, it could be physical.
It could, you know, in terms of like running is hard, you know,
and, or, or doing a workout is hard.
And there's something about sharing that with somebody and
yeah. Shoulder to shoulder with
someone. That's it.
Yeah, that's it. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's
going through that. And, and when we go through
something like that together, it brings a connection that we we
may have not experienced before. And I think that's what running
clubs are doing at the moment is, is giving the opportunity
for people to find their people and, and like minded individuals
who, again, like I said, might be going through some similar
heartaches. They might be, you know, going
through some similar difficulties in life, be it
wanting to get better at running, wanting to do a half
marathon, but quite, don't quite know what to do.
And they want to share, you know, they want the, the, the
accountabilities to something or someone.
And run clubs are offering that. I think in terms of like what
EZR Sebrings, I look at it as 3 pillars really.
It's, it's movement, connection and, and growth.
And, and I think with those three things, things in mind,
it's they play 3 very, very powerful parts in why I think
the run club has been so successful.
Absolutely. I think my wife actually goes.
Oh, really? Nice.
Track sessions because I know she does track sessions on a
Wednesday. Is it like with?
Yes, that's it. She goes there.
We are amazing, amazing. But that's.
What I've seen like it is about the community, it is about the
core, because I think as a community we have, we, we've got
a first for this, like we've as humans, we've got first for
connection. We're both rugby men, previous
rugby men. And I think we maybe took it for
granted back then because it was just what we knew.
Part of being in a rugby team was part of being a team and
having people next to you. And I think there's, especially
when you, you start to come out of your 20s and things like that
drop off, you know, rugby teams or sports teams, you, you people
can end up becoming a bit isolated.
And you've seen the erosion of communities around your local,
local areas. You know, pubs aren't pubs
anymore really, you know, like they're not members clubs or
they're, they, they seem to these places where people used
to congregate and become a community or these local
community halls and stuff. They're, you know, falling down
and stuff. So I think there's a thirst for
belonging. I know, I certainly know that is
because that's one thing that I valued or missed when I left the
rugby club. And this is what you bring in.
You bring in something, you come around, you know good values,
health and fitness, and you're building a team.
And that's so important to bring people in who who feel safe that
they're going to go to a run club and they know they're
they're not potentially going to be the slowest one there and
they're going to they're going to be left behind.
Exactly. Tommy, where can people find
you? Where can people follow you?
Easy. I see we have your best is to
come on our Instagram and you can give us a direct message
where I will reply to you and I'll, I'll bring you into the
into the group and within that group, you'll get all your
running updates where we run every Wednesday at Letcliff
track at 6:00 PM where we'll do some sort of structured track
session for all abilities. So we have group sessions,
grouped abilities from Group A down to Group C, where they're
all run by group, group leaders or pace leaders.
And then on Sunday we have a Sunday club run which is set
from different locations all around Cardiff.
Again, all updates are in the WhatsApp group and on Strava,
all easy RC. And you can contact me on
Instagram, which is Tommy Biz Bunnell, and you can answer.
I can answer any questions if you have them.
Thank you very much, Tommy. Appreciate you my man.
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