Helllooooo cheeky friends! Today we are breaking down the different kind of runs we do, why we do a variety and how to do them well.
We then discuss the idea of belonging to a wide variety of run groups in our No Stupid Questions segment brought to you by KICRUN and finish it off with a (moderately) BIG announcement.
👉 End of Season 1 Survey link here!
Big thank you to the wonderful Gary Howard from Run Crew (Phoebe's coach) for helping us with this episode.
If you want to support the show, please follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on social media: Instagram, Tiktok, Cheeky Run Club Strava community, plus Phoebe's Strava and Anna's Strava.
Music produced by Hugh Raper
Logo design by Michael Cotellessa
Thank you for listening!
Helllooooo cheeky friends! Today we are breaking down the different kind of runs we do, why we do a variety and how to do them well.
We then discuss the idea of belonging to a wide variety of run groups in our No Stupid Questions segment brought to you by KICRUN and finish it off with a (moderately) BIG announcement.
👉 End of Season 1 Survey link here!
Big thank you to the wonderful Gary Howard from Run Crew (Phoebe's coach) for helping us with this episode.
If you want to support the show, please follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on social media: Instagram, Tiktok, Cheeky Run Club Strava community, plus Phoebe's Strava and Anna's Strava.
Music produced by Hugh Raper
Logo design by Michael Cotellessa
Thank you for listening!
Cheeky Run Club recognizes that every day we live, work, and run on Aboriginal land. Welcome to episode nine of Cheeky Run Club, the social running podcast and community for your everyday amateur runner.
Phoebe:Hello, Anna.
Anna:hello, Cheeky listeners.
Phoebe:Today we are chatting about the fundamentals of a training week. So basically what are the different kinds of runs? Why are each of them important and our best tips for how to do them well? This is the kind of thing that people have been asking us since we very first started the podcast and we consulted heavily with my coach Gary from RunCrew to give our answers a little bit more credibility. We
Anna:We have learned so much while researching this. and to be honest, I feel like, pre researching this episode, I just didn't know
Phoebe:Anything when
Anna:when it came to actual, running terminology.
Phoebe:know, I can't believe, I mean, I use these terms all the
Anna:Yeah, same, like, I thought I understood, but
Phoebe:definitely been the episode that I've learned the most easily in the, like, everything I was researching, I was like. True,
Anna:Oh, oh,
Phoebe:Yeah, good to know.
Anna:We want to unpack and share our knowledge and deeper understanding of the different types of runs and why we do them, and how to incorporate them into your week, to generally make the biggest difference to actually help you get fitter, enjoy running, and our favorite Not get injured. Not get injured. Ah! Um, we're
Phoebe:we're then going to get stuck into our No Stupid Questions segment, brought to you by Kickrun, and introduce you to our weekly weapon, who does not know that they will be getting a call. We also have a few very special announcements, because we're reaching the end of season one,
Anna:months. I know. Uh, but first, let's
Phoebe:but first, let's kick off with our no talk runs of the week. And uh, give me your best
Anna:me your best, Ron. I start with worst. I want
Phoebe:with worst. Yeah, I do, because I want to finish on a high. Oh! Yeah.
Anna:trying to
Phoebe:I'm trying to come, you know, mix things up a little bit.
Anna:notes. Keep everyone on their toes.
Phoebe:The most exciting part of the podcast. Will they start with best or worst job? That's
Anna:That's what everyone thinks on a Monday morning. Now, what are they going to start
Phoebe:to start? I just can't wait to listen.
Anna:My best run of the week, I got to go out to Mildura, commonly known as Mill Vegas.
Phoebe:Ga. I don't
Anna:No,
Phoebe:don't
Anna:think so. It's sort of on the border of three States. It's almost on the border of South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. So one of my husband, Dave's
Phoebe:Wow! He's finally been promoted from partner to husband. Oh
Anna:Oh gosh, that felt
Phoebe:close one.
Anna:Anyway, one of my husband Dave's best friends, Tom. He's from there. so, we, went up for the weekend. We were on the river, which was cool. I learned how to water ski it's six days later and my forearm have been so sore. It was kind of funny at the start because I could barely use a knife and fork to actually cut through my food. But then after a couple of days, it was actually just how dangerous at one point. Yeah, it was dangerous. Yeah, I was riding to work. Just popped on the bike, didn't think twice, and then went to try and use my brakes. And I just have no grip or strength left, so I was like, ah, I know, anyway, back to the best run. So Saturday morning, we went for a long run and was joined by Dave, Tom
Phoebe:and
Anna:one of the cheeky celebrities you'd call her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Peachy, young Peachy.
Phoebe:young peachy,
Anna:It was so nice running along the river there. And I just love running in new places. I feel like it's just such a good way to explore, your surroundings. And then, yeah, finish off with a nice brunch afterwards. It was a treat. What about you?
Phoebe:nice. Uh, my best run was the session that I did on Thursday last week with my friend Ayrton. We, it was a longer session, one of those ones that like, I kind of saw it coming up in my program and I was like, oh gosh, that's a bit of a, like a bit longer than what I've been doing. And I was a bit like, oh, how's it going to go? And then I was like, oh yeah, yeah, it was three 15 minute efforts with five minute
Anna:in between.
Phoebe:in between. Mmm, that's long. Um, and so we, we decided to like start out like just a little bit more conservatively and, and build into it a little bit. And also I'd been like struggling a little bit with that sore calf that I mentioned a few times. I was like, oh, I'll just see how it goes. But it warmed up really well. And It was, we did this like really good loop. cause it was such a long session, we're like, we may as well get out and do a proper loop. Ran down along the bay. It was a really windless morning, which was really nice. And yeah, we were just like, running felt really good. And then the best part was we were finishing coming back along the river, kind of near the tan and there's been some like water ski. Oh
Anna:Oh, you're Moomba.
Phoebe:Yes. moba. And that's
Anna:my goal for next year. Um, as
Phoebe:we were running, it was still, it was probably like 7 a. m. at this point. So it's still like kind of dark and, you know, not many people about, but they must have been testing the speakers and they started blasting like pump up music. And we were in like the
Anna:Oh my gosh, that is
Phoebe:and it felt like we're like finishing a race or something, but like, come on, like pushing through. And it was just like such good atmosphere. And I was like, this is, they couldn't have timed it
Anna:Yeah,
Phoebe:Yeah. So that was my,
Anna:That's so good. How is the baby cow? Can you give us a little update?
Phoebe:The baby cow. The calf!
Anna:Yeah.
Phoebe:was like, excuse me? What did you
Anna:Your face then. Want to take this outside?
Phoebe:a, are they calling me a baby cow? Um, yeah, it's pretty good. It feels really good in sessions. And it feels fine when I'm not running, like I don't have any pain. It's just in my, it's in my easy runs, and specifically in my warm ups, that I'm getting nerve pain. So, I did a session a few days ago, and I felt really good, but I decided, okay, for the rest of this week, I'm just gonna I'm going to try and get on top of this. Cause it's been like kind of flaring up here and there for a few weeks and it goes away, then it's back and I'm like, let's just kick this. So since then, I've just, I rested yesterday and then today I just did 30 easy minutes, another watchlist run,
Anna:course
Phoebe:That was nice. And yeah, I, I don't think I'll do my long run this weekend. I think I'll just keep resting it and see if that does the trick.
Anna:Yep. Fingers crossed.
Phoebe:crossed. Well, one thing
Anna:wow. Um. As if that wasn't
Phoebe:It was
Anna:we're going back to Milvegas. It was this.
Phoebe:no one
Anna:a Sunday morning, so no one else wanted to join after they'd already run on the Saturday, which is completely fair enough. It was going to be a little bit too tricky to drive into town and try to run from there. So I ran my 8ks along the Sturt Highway, like on the side of the highway and it was proper sort of dirt, prickles, like quite long grass and just a straight line. Um, no shade. It was hot. not like that run you
Phoebe:it, it just
Anna:believe, a long run. you get that from them? highway. So I made sure that I was I wasn't running like near the road at all. I was like way off to the sort of like farm fence line, in the long grass. So I was probably like 20 meters from the road at all times. A bit of a slog, but I think as well, cause it was the, it was the dirt that's like quite soft and then, you know. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, yeah, it actually, it was like almost sand like, but still nice. Definitely recommend going to Mildura running Um, how, what was your worst run?
Phoebe:Well, for my worst run, I was going to give a general, anti kudos to the heat. Those of you just, it deserves it. Melbourne weather, just like it's, summer's done and yet now we've, we had just had our hottest four days was like, you know, 38. degrees every day and didn't really get down below like 30 degrees some nights. So there's just literally no escaping the heat
Anna:And just no cool breeze either.
Phoebe:cool hot breeze hot breeze and what I really don't like about is how dry the heat is. I just it's so I love the humidity I find it really jarring when I'm running and I'm not sweaty because obviously the sweat must just evaporate straight away when it's dry. Whereas when it's humid, you get that accumulation of,
Anna:Yeah, that's
Phoebe:but it's like a cue to me. It's like reinforcing that I am, yes, you are working hard. You're sweaty. Yeah. And so, I mean, kudos to everyone who lives in like Queensland or warm parts of the world and runs every day. I am, I've well and truly lost my heat conditioning from, that I had from growing up in warm humid places. I feel like now I'm just like, anytime it's above 20 degrees, it feels too hot. I think you probably, if you're running in that heat every day, you'd probably get so fit. It'd be so good for you, but
Anna:It's
Phoebe:You feel exhausted, like it saps you. Whereas when you're running in cool weather, I don't know, you can bounce
Anna:yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. okay, so our main topic this week is the breakdown of a training week. We're going to go through the core components of a training week, um, including recovery runs, long runs, sessions.
Phoebe:For those of you wondering, wait, what about the sports bra episode that there is so much hype around? Uh, we have delayed that to, it'll be the final episode of season one, so that will be coming out next week. It's a biggie. We must have had, do you reckon, I reckon we had like 200 questions
Anna:Yeah, there were so many and we really want to do it well. so apologies, but yes. But, yes.
Phoebe:our decision is final. So as Anna said, we'll be talking about easy or recovery runs. We'll be talking about sessions and we'll be talking about long runs. And for each of those different types of runs, what we set out to understand and now to impart to you listeners is what are they like? What is the definition of, you know, one of these kinds of runs? Why are each of them important? So what's the point of doing a session, doing a long run, doing an easy run? What's the purpose of them? And then we thought of some tips for how, how to do each of them well.
Anna:Yeah.
Phoebe:And then we'll finish off with a few broader, like, how do you fit them all together? Basically like the cadence of a training week style questions. Yeah.
Anna:yeah, how to piece the puzzle together. I think that's an interesting question given that so many, people run two to three times a week, others run seven. So yeah, it'll be interesting to sort of dive into that to see which sessions you should like maybe skip one week. Um, and which sessions are more important to
Phoebe:should sort Some advice that Gary gave us, which we thought was really amazing is the importance of building. this into your recent training. so he said, renovate the house you have, was how he framed it. So it's so important to consider what you're doing at the moment and then how to slowly change it into what you think is maybe a better weekly cadence or weekly rhythm, rather than don't like next week, go out and like start running multiple sessions or long runs or whatever that looks like, like a slow, slow build and a slow change. Yeah.
Anna:So easy runs. It's easy slash recovery runs.
Phoebe:are they, Anna?
Anna:So they are the runs that we've spoken about quite often that are at a conversational pace. Um, and if you gauge your effort levels on a scale of one to 10, you can. probably about like a three or four. I often say to people that an easy run should be a run in which you can walk straight into the coffee shop
Phoebe:after and
Anna:order a cup of coffee. The distance is less important, but they are likely to be your shortest runs of the week.
Phoebe:Nice button.
Anna:They also give us a platform to support speed sessions and long runs. So I like to think of them as a bit of a topper or like a bit of a filler. Yeah.
Phoebe:Yep.
Anna:So why are they important and what is the point of doing them?
Phoebe:them? Yeah, this is so, again, something I never really questioned. I was just like, oh, an easy run, you just do them. But I hadn't really thought, like, what is the actual benefit of an easy run? So, there's a few factors that we want to talk about here. one is that They assist with recovery. so it can feel counterintuitive sometimes to run if you're feeling a bit sore or tired, but often easy runs actually what help consolidate your other runs it's a really safe way to spend more time running.
Anna:Yeah, I often find in easy recovery runs the, for the first part, I feel shocking and it just feels like such a slug and I'm really tired and I kind of think, what is the point of doing this? But often by the end, I start to feel a little bit better. So quite often I,
Phoebe:go
Anna:Go into it being like, I'm doing this run to make myself feel better by the end.
Phoebe:by the end. If all your runs are long or hard, then you'll get injured. So it's just, most of your runs have to be easy
Anna:easy running. Yeah. Also, it's a way to be social. it's more meditative, easier to listen to a podcast or something there's quite a lot of enjoyment in easy running. Yeah.
Phoebe:Yeah. I think people, you can think of them as a safe way to accumulate mileage. And what we mean by that is people often think about the average kind of amount of kilometers that they run a week and then I, one proxy for fitness is to look at like how many kilometers are you running a week basically. And so if you want to safely increase the number of kilometers that you run per week, a lot of those kilometers, you're going to have to be jogging pretty
Anna:Yeah. I think the trap as well is that some people, because they want to run faster, they think to run faster. They should just always run fast. But I feel like to achieve that sustainable and like long term success, and the way to go about it is to introduce
Phoebe:to introduce these easy runs. I thought this was really interesting, have you heard people say before the term like junk miles or junk running? Yeah, I'd heard people say junk running before and I was always like, oh, That's obviously sounds like something bad. When people say junk running, they mean just like extra kilometers that you might for no reason, like you might tack them on to the end of your session or extend your long run or run into work but Gary was saying actually they're really clever.
Anna:way
Phoebe:to safely just add to your mileage. He said, beware the expert who scoffs at easy running as junk
Anna:running.
Phoebe:So that, yeah, made me feel a bit better
Anna:Yeah. Can you give me some tips on how to do a easy run
Phoebe:Yes, so for each of these, Anna and I sat down and thought about like, what have we learned about these different kinds of runs that help us do these runs better? And we got Gary's thoughts as well. So something that you'll hear people talk about a lot with easy runs is zone two running or keeping your heart rate low. I have to say I actually didn't know what zone two, I knew conceptually it meant easy, but I didn't know like, what does that actually mean? and it's quite a complex, I'm not going to go through, it's not a complex formula, but it's to do with your, max heart rate and your base heart rate, and it's 60 to 70 percent of your max minus your base, it's like a, it's a proper kind of equation. Basically, you can find charts online that tell you probably for your age, this will roughly be your zone two. And the whole idea is that it's an incredibly sustainable pace. Like you can just run it, without getting out, you know, you feel like you could hold it for a long time,
Anna:you feel like you could hold it for a long time. Acknowledge if it works for you, amazing. Sometimes I think with that kind of stuff, cause we've both run for so long and I didn't know what a zone two was before, having researching this episode, I almost think it's over complicating things too much. Like running in a sense is it's quite simple. And I feel like when you introduce all these different zones and that kind of thing, It's as easy as, well, an easy run should be, you can run, you can talk, if that means that you sometimes walk as well, that's completely fine, but I feel like there's almost sometimes, so much overthinking that happens where it's just like just find your flow as Gary said yeah and you're running rhythm your form and breathing and just go with it and have a smile.
Phoebe:I think
Anna:think people end up
Phoebe:I think people, it's because it's a setting on your garment and you can have it so the screen just shows you what zone you're in. And so it's an easy way for them without thinking about pace or whatever. It's literally, that's another good thing about it is I do like that it's linked to your heart rate, not your pace. Because sometimes if you're feeling rubbish, your heart rate will be higher
Anna:heart rate will
Phoebe:or whatever.
Anna:Um,
Phoebe:the other good tip here is thinking about time rather than distance. So for my easy runs, especially, I'll never have a distance that I need to hit. It's always a time that I'm running for. So that's just an, just a mentally, you're thinking less about your pace and how far you're running. It's just like get out and run for this amount of time. It honestly doesn't matter what pace you're doing. It's just that time.
Anna:Yeah. Yep.
Phoebe:Anna, explain to me, what is a session?
Anna:Good, great question. Sessions, generally speaking, are harder runs than easy runs. There are all different kinds of sessions, and the main focus of them is to try and get a little bit faster, so the three main types of sessions that we're going to go over are, uh, Tempo's slash, uh, Thresholds?
Phoebe:that blew my mind. still
Anna:are a little bit unsure what the
Phoebe:between, yeah, a tempo and a threshold. Everyone has like their own definitions. There's no agreed upon definition online. Some coaches use tempo, some use threshold. Almost interchangeably sometimes as a sense of different things. I think we're going to loop them into the same bucket for the purpose of this
Anna:same bucket for the purpose of this conversation. Yeah, definitely. So, uh, yeah, these, the tempo thresholds, they're sort of a longer, continuous effort. a lot of the time these sessions, they're hard just because of the buildup that you have over the course of the session. At the beginning, it's generally speaking, shouldn't feel that hard, but as your legs start to fatigue towards the end, even though you're not ramping up the pace at all, you'll start to get more tired and your heart rate will increase. For example, like this morning it was a long one for me. It was a 30 minute tempo. I do it off heart rate because as Phoebe. Just mentioned, sometimes you, can feel really good and then other times you feel really bad. So choose to go off heart rate rather than pace.
Phoebe:heart rate are you aiming for, for a tempo session?
Anna:Around like one 65. Yeah. Um, but it differs between people. And like this I felt pretty rubbish from the get go and, did the session at 165, but it just means that next week or last week, if I did the same session and my pace might've been faster, but I'm still working at the same rate. It's not a race. I think that's the key thing to remember in like tempo thresholds, you're not actually racing.
Phoebe:doing a time
Anna:No, you're trying to build.
Phoebe:Longer endurance, yeah. Love it. That's tempo slash threshold. The other two kind of sessions we're going to touch on are fartlek and intervals. Fartlek is it's a general term for the kind of session where you alternate efforts with what's often called floats and floats are, Generally a little bit faster than an easy jog pace. So you pull it back a little bit, from your effort pace, which may be more like a seven or an eight out of 10 back to a five, five out of 10, five or six where you're cruising a little bit, but you're not fully taking the foot off the
Anna:Yeah. Or if sometimes the effort is harder or longer, then you'll just go back to the jog rather than a float. But again, I guess similar to the tempo threshold in the sense that it's a continuous run, the main difference is you've got that real
Phoebe:real time. Speed variation, yeah, yeah. So, an example of that, I did on Tuesday, a fartlek, which was basically, going up and down between 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute, 2 minute, 1 minute efforts, with 1 minute floats in between. And then doing that twice. So each effort got a little bit longer, so you're varying your pace during each of those efforts, but then there's the floats, the same float in between each of them.
Anna:So I think that's when pacing comes into it in the sense that you don't want to go all out at the beginning because then by the sort of like second or third. time around. you're not having that change of pace, whereas I feel like it's really important in Fartlegs to go out a little bit more conservatively, just to ensure that for the whole session, you're actually still noticing that change in
Phoebe:You can get those
Anna:the effort and the recovery.
Phoebe:Yeah, what I like about Fartlegs is that you're very like mentally engaged because you have to be really focusing. Whereas like sometimes a long tempo threshold, I just like sink into whatever pace you're going. You can kind of switch off, which is nice as well. Like variety is good. and so finally tell us about intervals, Anna.
Anna:So intervals, uh, harder efforts with recovery time, which might be standing, jogging or walking. A classic example of this is one kilometer repeats so you might do a kilometer quite hard and then you'll have 90 second standing and a lot of the time the intervals. Um and then obviously having the recovery, which is like stationary or jogging really slowly, to make sure that we actually recover in time to be able to do the next repeat at that higher
Phoebe:recover time to be able to do the next generally, if you're not training for anything, then mix it up, do a bunch of these. They're each going to give you different things. They're going to keep it interesting keep you feeling fitter and less likely of getting injured. And then if you're training for a specific, race distance, then you try and get a training plan that takes that into account because it'll give you sessions that are specific to training for that sort of, race.
Anna:So for example, for me, I do two sessions a week, one of them is always a tempo threshold session and the other interchanges between a fart like and intervals.
Phoebe:And so give us some tips on how to do sessions well.
Anna:One that I don't think I mastered. If this morning is anything to
Phoebe:with. But
Anna:I think that is because I didn't warm up properly. so yeah, I feel like
Phoebe:I, my,
Anna:good warm A good warm up for me is doing my activations before I run.
Phoebe:Did you do them this morning?
Anna:I did. Yep. Yep. Yep. Tick.
Phoebe:Tick. Um,
Anna:and then yeah, jogging slowly for like 10 to 20 minutes, depending on where you're at in your running journey your surroundings, the weather logistics, if you're meeting up with people. Where I fell short this morning, I think the importance of it, is quite often overlooked, is doing drills and strides,, instead of going straight from a warm up jog into a session. I just feel like, for me, it takes me a while to get moving, so I was halfway through the session before I actually felt like I was properly warmed up. Whereas by doing those five minutes of drills and, run throughs, you're starting to get your legs moving, and take them over and also just waking up some muscles and that you don't necessarily use when you're just jogging.
Phoebe:What is a stride?
Anna:This is my definition of a stride. Yeah. I would say it's like an effort that you build into. It's probably like 80 meters ish. 60 to a hundred meters, depending on where you are. And you build into it. So the start of it quite often is slow just cause you're trying to get things moving. And then in the last 20 or 30 meters, you're really exerting yourself. And the reason to do them is to warm up and wake those muscles up that you haven't already used. Quite often as well, they're good to do at the end of easy runs. They actually make you feel, even though you're running. hard. They actually make you feel a lot better It's really important to think about location. There's nothing
Phoebe:tips for how to do sessions well? Yeah, I think that can really impact the enjoyment of your session and the
Anna:I think that can really impact the enjoyment of your session and the quality of it. All you have to do is like focus on your actual running. Another quote that I love that you said to me, I think it would have been like a year ago or so, Focus on running well, not fast. And whenever I get tired, I always think just focus on running well, not fast. So it's like relax, Check back in with your
Phoebe:back in
Anna:like quite often you end up going a little bit
Phoebe:quite often you end up going a little bit faster. You know, sometimes those first efforts feel so hard and you're kind of like running really fast and you don't feel like quite with it. But the first effort, few efforts, just focus on, focus on thinking about your running form, focus on feeling really comfortable. Um, and yeah, like you said, you'll end up running faster, but just in a way that like feels more manageable.
Anna:yeah, exactly. Build into it.
Phoebe:Actually think, like, big lesson I would say for me for sessions. I, it's only over the last few years I've been, like, regularly doing sessions as part of a plan. And I think what took me ages to get into the headspace of, I don't know if you still do this ever, is like, thinking that I have to be improving every single
Anna:session.
Phoebe:It's like, especially when you first get into sessions, you do get into an amazing rhythm of, like, every week you're feeling better, you're feeling faster, you're hitting better. Yeah, yeah. But that is like absolutely not sustainable and getting out of the headspace of like every session has to be, if you've done that session before, you need to be doing it faster. This time has, it's so important because otherwise you just kill yourself every single
Anna:Yeah. Because she's
Phoebe:which is not, not quite the idea.
Anna:No, and also, less sustainable. You don't always need to be running PBs or anything, but it's just the consistency. So it's like, every single one that you do, you get under your belt. It's gonna make you, better in the long run.
Phoebe:Yeah, that's a great way to frame it.
Anna:all right. Possibly our favorite type of run.
Phoebe:Possibly, we might discuss that. We'll
Anna:it. Long runs. When we talk about long runs, we're speaking the longest run of the week A widely varying duration and distance depending on your fitness level, race distances, and also just how you're feeling. How fast, uh, we meant to do them and
Phoebe:how long
Anna:should they be in relation to the rest of our runs?
Phoebe:The pace of the long run will vary. It often is a little bit harder than your easy. It shouldn't, it probably won't feel easy. Mostly because you're running for such a long time. But I would say, the pace you're running is closer to your easy pace. Sometimes depending on the run and what's maybe in your program, you might pick up a little bit and finish a little bit faster, or you might be just trying to hold a steady pace. In terms of what percentage of your total kilometers of the week, I also just think this really varies,
Anna:Yeah, I feel like it's completely individual because some people might incorporate a long run into their program, but they might only be running twice a week. So that's obviously going to be very different to people running like six or seven times a week.
Phoebe:And the purpose of doing them and why they're important is these are probably the most important runs to increase your actual aerobic fitness. So you do get a lot of your aerobic gains after you've been running for, say, 50, 60 minutes. It's that time after that that you actually start gaining a lot of that kind of fitness. And I even notice in my program, as soon as my long runs start ramping up, that's when the rest of my runs start feeling a bit easier and a bit, like if I'm doing, if I build up to starting to do a two hour long run, then my one hour run during the week will feel so much easier. And the longer those long runs get, the other ones start to feel like a fair bit easier.
Anna:the
Phoebe:I've got
Anna:to feel like a fair bit easier. Um, Oh yeah. long, long runs. They are still long, but in terms of,
Phoebe:training for a marathon, it's
Anna:exactly. Like normally my long runs are at 90 minutes or something, but they're obviously going to have to ramp up before training for a marathon. And that kind of terrifies me because as much as I love them, they're quite
Phoebe:daunting. Yeah, this is, I'm just going to quote Gary here, which is forgetting any fitness gains. Nothing compares to the euphoric runner's high in the later stages of a long run when I'm fit. And I completely agree. There is no feeling like when
Anna:you do
Phoebe:get on a roll and you're so warmed up and you feel so comfortable, like they're, yeah. They, they're really fun. I think the key is to be doing them with a group. If you're doing, training for a marathon, you're doing proper long runs, if you're doing those by yourself, then that
Anna:is They're hard, yeah. Even if you can get someone to join in for, a couple of kilometres. Like I did last weekend, actually. The others joined in just for a couple of kilometres, through the middle. It puts a pep in your step. Makes a world
Phoebe:a world of difference. Yeah. Yeah. of your tips for how to do a long
Anna:run well? I would say prepare. I think eating beforehand is my number one thing that is a must do before a long run. So fitting all of these runs together is obviously going to look different for each individual. Just depending on how many times a week you run, what you're aiming for, et cetera. But pretty much it's critical to do a mix of all of that above.
Phoebe:something that, I thought was really interesting was to think often we think about our load in terms of seven days, like a week, how much we're running in a week. Whereas, Gary was saying he tends to think more in terms of 14 days for absorption. You might be doing one long run a week, but maybe one of those, a fortnight is like a really long run a week. a much longer run where you're like really pushing for, to increase your fitness. And then the other one is just like a bit of a longer run, but you're not finding it that hard. Yeah. So I thought that was quite interesting. Like we think of in terms of weeks just because that's how we work, but actually in terms of how our body works, 14 days is
Anna:is probably better. Yeah,
Phoebe:So that was a lot of different content, basically just to summarize three different kinds of runs, easy runs, sessions, long runs, make sure you're getting a really good mix of these throughout your week. Yep. Nice.
Anna:Love it. Favorite segment of the week. Our weekly weapon. So we are about to call someone who unknown to them. Hopefully they actually pick up our phone
Phoebe:call. I do know
Anna:Yeah. I do know them. He is my brother in law. And just to give a little bit of context, when I first met Tom. He didn't run at all. In fact, I remember during COVID, he bought a treadmill that had, it was a two in one. It was a treadmill that also had a massage chair in it. And he didn't actually use the treadmill side of it. I don't think he used it once, but he used the
Phoebe:back of the
Anna:chair. The front of the treadmill was like the back of the massage chair. Um, anyway, so yeah, like was. Couldn't even, like, he bought a treadmill and still didn't run. Like, he just didn't enjoy it whatsoever. and that was only a few years ago. And then now he is running a few times a week, him and his gorgeous partner, Ellie, quite often run together. He started a little like boys pre work run club and now instead of going for beers with his friends, we'll go for a run and then go for a beer. And yeah, so when he started he couldn't run a kilometre and now he's like consistently running 10 kilometres. So hopefully we're about to talk to Tom. It'd be funny if he saw my name and screamed my
Phoebe:hmmm.
Anna:Hi, you've called Tom Helling.
Phoebe:Oh. Should we leave him a message and say?
Anna:Yeah.
Phoebe:Congratulations!
Anna:You are our Weekly Weapon!
Phoebe:Tom! We just wanted to call and
Anna:hello wanted to call and let you know that you are Cheeky Run Club's Weekly Weapon of this week and we want you to keep up the good work and keep doing those hot laps around the turn in South Yarrow. All right. So our no stupid questions segment today is brought to you by kick run. Have you ever told yourself I'm not a runner? Well, you're in good company. Most women start running by
Phoebe:KickRun is here to help you overcome these mental barriers, as it has done for thousands before you.
Anna:In just eight weeks, Kickfun will help you run towards your goal of 3, 5, 10
Phoebe:kilometres. They are also sponsoring our No Stupid Questions segment to help us help you on your running journey.
Anna:running journey. Alright, first question is from Alex. People often say run slow to run fast. Why is that? Run slow to run fast.
Phoebe:Uh, we thought this was a pertinent question to answer today, considering we were talking about easy runs and the benefit of easy runs. So two points we wanted to touch on here. One is that, as we said, If you want to get faster, you obviously need a variety of different runs, and you want to be slowly increasing the overall amount you're running each week. However, the only way to sustainably do that is for the majority of your running to be easy runs, where you're not putting a lot of stress on your body, you're slowly increasing your fitness, and you're recovering from them pretty much immediately.
Anna:Yeah, and when people ask, like, why do you run slow, what's the point? If I'm just running two or three times a week, why don't I just go out and run hard? I often think it's for longevity, I think over the course of a 10, 12 week period, you're more likely to keep going back and doing them. And also you're still getting the time on your legs and those muscle adaptations without risking, injury.
Phoebe:I feel like a tale as old as time is people, and I think we're seeing this a lot with some of our listeners who have been writing in. People are loving getting into running. They start running more. They're like going out and having a good hit out every run. And it's almost like just as you start really enjoying it. Bam, you get injured. And then next thing, like you fall off the bandwagon and you stop running for a while. And so one of the key ways to avoid that is most of your runs should be, easy runs. Our next question is from listener Holly and it is, what is your favorite session? Um,
Anna:I quite like a fartlek session, when you're feeling good, because I like having that change of pace, but I enjoy, continuously running more than stopping and starting. And I think it's because when I stop, then I kind of open up. Then I overthink,
Phoebe:overthink.
Anna:and then I'm like, Oh my gosh,
Phoebe:do it again. Like,
Anna:That's going to be really hard. Maybe as well, because often the intensity is like that little bit more, I like feeling like you're in that flow, and can, yeah, control that change of pace a little bit. better.
Phoebe:I'm like, so similar to you. I like a continuous, run I actually love the session that I did on Thursday. I love that kind of session, like longer, more sustained efforts. I love sometimes doing, sometimes I'll have 2k reps with say, 500 meter jogs in between. I feel like 2k is such a nice distance because, You can really settle into the flow of it. You warm up and then, yeah, I like a jog recovery as well. I don't like stopping and standing. Even though you recover more counterintuitively running is way harder when you stop and stand, because you push yourself way harder in the reps because you know, you're just stopping at the end of it and you feel more pressure on it to be fast. Whereas if you're just jogging recovery, it's just all a little bit smoother.
Anna:All right. Our last and bonus question is from listener Melanie. Can you be part of multiple run clubs or do you have to be part of only one?
Phoebe:or do you be part of only one? I think it's a shame that it even has to be a question, because in my mind it's you should obviously be able to run with whoever you want, whenever you want, and mix it up. But I do know that some people feel some sort of loyalty and pressure to run with just the one. I think, different cities seem to have different, like cultural norms around this in Sydney. A lot of the running groups, are paid. You're coached by a running group. So you tend to run with them because your coach is there but in Melbourne, it's a real free for all. Like there are different. groups all over Melbourne doing sessions, but at each session, there might be people that are coached by like 30 different coaches. Like it doesn't, and everyone's kind of just doing their own thing. I wish that was more cross run
Anna:clubs. Yeah, 100 percent cause I often feel like, as the umbrella, I feel like running is the club. Like anyone can be in the club, but the club is running and then within that there are so many different groups and depending on your work hours or other commitments, location, yeah, I love the idea of just being like, Oh, you know what? Mondays and Wednesdays suit me better this
Phoebe:Mm. So
Anna:I'm going to go and run with this group the next week be like, Tuesdays and Fridays work for me better. So I'm going to go and run with this group. Because I feel like at the end of the day, we're all doing the same thing to achieve the same goal, which is improve, be consistent, enjoy, and meet new people. And I just, I love the idea of running as the whole, being bigger than just these smaller run groups.
Phoebe:Okay, so this is a special announcement, uh, which is, this is pretty wild, but we are already at episode nine, which means we only have one episode left of season one. I know,
Anna:one. I know,
Phoebe:I know, honestly.
Anna:We'll then be taking a three week break to reflect on the first season, what worked, what didn't, and how we can make this pod even better. Although, we also may be dropping some cheeky little bonus episodes in our
Phoebe:little bonus episodes in our little break. Um, so we'll have
Anna:so we'll have to subscribe.
Phoebe:Um,
Anna:We have a cheeky little announcement and that is the cheeky community survey
Phoebe:Yeah, so to help set us up for Season 2, we are going to send out, we'll include it in the show notes, we'll post it all over our socials, we're going to send out a survey for our cheeky listeners. We're
Anna:still kind of gobsmacked and so appreciative by how many people seem to enjoy listening to us bang on about running. And we want to get to know you a little bit better. We want to understand who you are, how you run, why you listen, and how we can make better content for you next season.
Phoebe:So we promise it won't take more than five minutes to fill out and excitingly to give you some more incentive to fill it out. We've partnered with the team at Up There Athletics and they are putting together some cheeky prize packs that we will draw at random from the submissions. So if you want, you can pop in your email and you'll go in the draw to win some brand new gear from arguably the best running store in Australia. What do you reckon? Yeah.
Anna:reckon? A hundred
Phoebe:hundred percent.
Anna:Best running store teams up with best podcast. A
Phoebe:Huge. A huge partnership. Partnership we've all been waiting
Anna:Phoebe mentioned before, we'll include the link in the show notes and we will be spamming you all. So can't wait to read all of your feedback. Have you got anything else for me today?
Phoebe:anything else for me today? No, no more surprise segments.
Anna:you have any surprise segments for us today? Put it on the desk. Let me know
Phoebe:this is where it is.
Anna:this is your responsibility
Phoebe:eye on it. Yeah.
Anna:Um, as always, you could like or subscribe to wherever, to us, wherever you listen to your podcasts, to us, to Phoebe and Dana.
Phoebe:And follow along, as always, follow along on social media, Instagram, Tok Tok, Astro, Tok.
Anna:Toc! Toc Toc! That's how good we are at Tik Tok! Toc Toc! Oh my
Phoebe:That shows, yeah, that speaks volumes. But also, our Strava group hit a thousand
Anna:know, over a thousand!
Phoebe:It's all our amazing tips.
Anna:Yeah, yeah, which is so cool. It's so inspiring to seeing everyone's runs. So if you are on Strava and aren't yet in the cheeky run club community group, please join, we'd love to see your runs and we can't wait to be back in your ears next week with the biggest, the best,
Phoebe:Yes. Talking about the biggest topic, which is sports brows. Yeah. Absolutely
Anna:Yeah, we can't wait to be in your ears next week. Have a great weekend. Week? Oh no.
Phoebe:Have a great
Anna:Have a great week. Bye!
Phoebe:it's Monday, Emma. Have Yeah, you've been getting out and about
Anna:oh, know. Just getting
Phoebe:Out of the city, getting some country air. She's a country girl, Arana. At heart. At
Anna:a heart. Yeah, I was gonna say, you can take the, you get the girl outta the country, but you can't take the country outta the girl. But that would didn you
Phoebe:you grow up in Albert
Anna:Yeah, that would suggest that I grew up in the country.
Phoebe:Oh, he missed, he's really missed his shot there. We'll see, he might, he might give us a call back, uh, in the next little while, in which case we can still include it. Yeah. Otherwise,
Anna:it. Otherwise, well done Tom. That's it. Okay, yep,
Phoebe:full name released. Actually,
Anna:Actually, yeah, maybe I shouldn't do that.
Phoebe:say that. It'll be alright.
Anna:You don't know how
Phoebe:the hell this is. they are crazy. Um,