Ask the Coach

10th September: Should You Make Up for Missed Training Sessions?

 21st August: How to Choose a Strength Trainer That’s Right For You

7th August: When Should you go All Out in Training? and The 10% Myth

31st July: Setting Goal Race Paces and How That Relates to Training

17th July 2020: Musings on Running Form

  • Breathing
  • Impact
  • The “right” way
  • Footwear
  • Injury prevention

14th July 2020: All About Time Trials

11th June 2020: Do You Expend More Energy Walking or Running 5k?

You can play around with this calorie counter!

29th May 2020: Treadmills and Other Running Surfaces

8th May 2020: Why it’s important to get a correct diagnosis

1st May 2020: Must knows about cold weather running

17th April 2020:
Walking is great for not going stir crazy and great for marathon training!

3rd April 2020: Training Without Racing, and a Look at Stride Length

20th March 2020: In Brief: COVID-19 and Running

13th March 2020: Negative Splitting as a Race Strategy

06th March 2020: How to Use Pacers Wisely

 

28th February 2020: To Fuel or Not To Fuel on Training Runs

21st February 2020: A little more on strength training

PS – you have four quadriceps muscles – it’s only the Rectus Femoris that attaches onto the pelvis

PPS – just to make it a bit clearer about working one side at a time. If you work both sides at once you can favour one side over the other. If you’re doing a squat for example, and your right leg is stronger than your left, you can use more power from your right leg throughout the movement. This will maintain the uneven nature of the strength in your legs. However, if you do a single leg squat, you are working only one leg at a time. That leg is not getting any help from the other leg. If you do have one side stronger than the other, work your weaker side first. When you do the stronger side, only do the same number of repetitions, with the same weight as you did on your weaker side. You’re aiming to remove strength imbalances with resistance training, as well as get stronger overall.

14th February 2020: How much training do you need to do on trails for a trail event?

06th February 2020: Should you ever run flat out?

 

23rd January 2020: Why it’s harder to run in hot weather

Here’s the slushie exercise pre-cooling protocol

  • For every kg of body weight, consume 7.5gms of slushy. This should be consumed in the 25 minutes prior to 5 mins before exercise. Start slurping 30 mins before exercise and finish 5 mins before you start to run.
  • Take the slushie in at an even rate – 1.5 gms of slushie for each kg of body weight every 5 minutes.
  • This seems like quite a lot of slushie to slurp – around half a litre for a 60gk person, so it’s not something you’d want to try before a race without lots of practice in training.
  • Apart from brain freeze, another downside is the caloric value of slushies. The study used a 5% carbohydrate/water mix for their ice slurry. 500gms of slurry would be 25 grams of carbohydrate, or approximately 100 calories. Not sure what the caloric value of a slushie from your local servo is, but you can bet your bottom dollar it’s at least equal to that.
  •  You can of course just crush plain ice if you want to avoid the sugar.

Ice Blocks instead of slushies?

I’m guessing that a lemonade Icey Pole (or 6) would also do the trick. Icey Poles are around 75 gms each, so you’d need to munch through around 6 in 25 minutes to cool yourself. That is total brain freeze territory.

17th January 2020: A Bit More on Cadence, and the Pitfalls of Using Race Time Predictors

(not really related, I know!)

A bit more on uphill running

3rd January 2020: Should I Increase my Cadence to Run Faster?

The article I referred to

19th December: How Often Should You Run?

12th Dec 2019: Trail Running For Beginners

00:40 Safety

01:45 SSSnakes

04:00 Be in the moment, and focus [look 2-3m ahead of you, not 2-3 feet, as I say in the audio]

04:25 Start gradually. How and why

06:30 Coping with trail hills – up and down

08:20 Use your arms for balance

09:15 Trail etiquette

10:25 A bit on equipment

You might not look quite like this to start with 🙂

 

05th Dec 2019: Getting Cross Training Working For You

(the last on cross training for a while)

 

00:30 Start cross training in the off season so it can be included in your program closer to your race

01:30 Cross training to help increase your running mileage down the track

02:35 Adding in strength training in the off season

04:15 Don’t overdo cross training

04:30 How much cross training in the off season?

05:10 Cross training during the base phase?

06:45 Cross training in the race specific phase

08:00 You need to be good at your cross training of choice

10:15 Summing up

27th November 2019: Does swimming make you hungry?

Have you noticed you’re ravenous after a swim? Ever wondered if it’s just your imagination? Turns out it’s not!

 

00:30 Is it because you burn more calories to keep your warm in cold water?

01:45 Water temperature effects appetite, but not the amount of calories you burn

02:15 Swimming in cold water increases post exercise food consumption by 44%

02:35 Cycling in warm water can decrease post exercise appetite

03:00 Why water temperature plays a role in post swim appetite

03:45 How to avoid over eating after swimming

 

20th November 2019: Could you use a life coach?

This week we speak to Georgia Bamber about just what it is a life coach does, and we get a few tips on starting to make positive changes in your life.

 

00:35 Who can life coaching help?

02:00 The nuts and bolts of what a life coach does

03:30 Getting a new perspective on life

04:50 What’s the difference between a psychologist and a life coach?

06:40 The advantage of having a psychology degree if you’re a life coach

08:10 Is life coaching a hard workout?

09:00 How do you know what to focus on with people?

10:20 Case study

14:15 What motivates you to be a life coach?

15:00 Can you step us through the process of life coaching?

16:00 Clarity, motivation, blocks, mindset, plan

19:10 The first thing you can do if you want to make some changes

21:00 Working with Georgia – grab your free Life Audit Workbook, or free Discovery Call

 

Georgia Bamber is a success and transformation coach who helps people make positive changes to reach their goals in their personal and professional lives.

She teaches the tools and strategies needed to make change happen, how to develop a success mindset and gain killer confidence.

Georgia has a diverse academic, professional and personal background from which she draws in her coaching and teaching. She is a graduate of Cornell University, has an MBA from City University London, a Masters in Counselling Psychology from Monash University, is a certified Life Coach and is certified in Plant- Based Nutrition (Cornell University).

Georgia runs a thriving coaching practice, is a freelance writer and a speaker.

She is also a wife and mother of two teenage boys, is an ultra- runner and ironman, as well as a plant-based lifestyle advocate. So she knows just what it is like to do the juggle between mother, entrepreneur and maintaining a healthy mind and body.

 

 

13th November 2019: When You Should Schedule Resistance Training

 

5th November 2019: What Do You Mean By Undulating Terrain?

This week we look at the different types of terrain you might have prescribed in your training program-what it looks like on a Strava profile, and why differentiate.

00:30 When is flat terrain useful?

02:10 Flat terrain for faster running, faster reaction time, and for feeling your legs turning over quickly

02:50 Corners will slow you down

04:30 Flat to undulating terrain profile

05:10 Undulating terrain is great training for a hilly race

07:00 Working on your mental strength – hard hill running during a run

07:40 Hilly terrain profile

08:30 Explosive hill sprints for neuromuscular development and great Stroke Volume

09:30 Longer hills repeats for running specific strength and VO2 max development

09:50 Hills for lower impact workouts

10:20 Hill repeats for mental toughness

11:00 Variety is the spice of life 🙂

 

30th October 2019: Rowing, Stair Climbing and the Elliptical Trainer as Cross Training

 

00:30 Rowing

02:45 Elliptical trainer

3:35 Stair climber

4:10 Grab your kid’s scooter

5:10 Mixing it up

This is a pretty good explanation of the rowing stroke – watch it before you jump on the rower – just to make sure you’re protecting your back.

This is a good description of the best body position on the stair climber.

22nd October 2019: Mindset-Using the Compounding Effect

This week we take a look at how micro actions can have a big impact on your life.

1:00 How the compacting effect works with your training

3:40. Using the compounding effect for non-training life stuff

4:10 Improve 1% a day and see big results

5:55 The significance of regular positive actions

 

8th October 2019: Cycling as Cross Training

 

1st October 2019: Swimming as Cross Training

 

24th September 2019: Trail Training as Cross Training

 

 

19th September 2019: Glycogen, and why we need to refuel on the run

11th September 2019: Long Term Planning

What sort of training should you do straight after a big race?

How far ahead should you be planning your running?

Should you always train for the same distance?

7th September 2019: Sydney Marathon Training

Richard talks specifically about his Sydney Marathon preparation

00:25 – Running career highlights
01:30 – Coaching career highlights
02:38- City to Surf PB
03:00 – Running a marathon by mistake
03:50 – Other marathons
05:00 – 20 years in a nutshell
05:50 – Injury prevention
08:30 – Fund raising
09:30 – Why a 9 month lead in to the marathon?
10:15 – Mileage and intensity
12:50 – Cross training
15:00 – General nutrition
17:05 – Training run nutrition
19:00 – Race day breakfast and race nutrition
22:05 – Avoiding loo stops
23:00 – Training surfaces
24:10 – Using a GPS vs training and racing on feel
26:35 – Race plan
29:10 – How to prevent blowing up

27th Aug 2019

Getting Faster as You Get Older

 

20th Aug 2019

Neuromuscular Training

What is it and how can it make you a faster runner?

 

13th Aug 2019

Slightly changing race tactics can have a big impact on your result

We take a look at one runner’s City2Surf results year on year, and see how she ran the race differently to get a faster time.

01:20 – know your strengths so you can plan how to run the race, taking the terrain of the course into account.

04:10 – using the splits on the race website to analyse your results

05:50 – improve your race ranking as you move further into the race

06:50 – changing the way you run a race takes practice and a few other things besides

8th Aug 2019

City2Surf Edition (Part 2)

In this edition of Ask the Coach, I look at how you can estimate an appropriate pace to run up not only Heartbreak Hill, but the 2 big hills before that – the hill up William St into the tunnel, and the hill out of Rushcutters Bay past Edgecliff station.

Here’s a link to the spreadsheet I refer to in the video

6th Aug 2019

City2Surf Edition (Part 1)

00:10 Weather Forecast

00:45 Staying warm before the start

01:30 Avoid road markings

1:45 Warming up

2:20 Positioning yourself in your start group

3:00 Shortest possible route

4:10 When should you walk?

4:40 Steepest bits of heart break hill

5:45 The hills after heart break hill

6:50 The last km

23rd July 2019

Runners’ Toenails

How do you get black toenails: 00:10
Melanoma: 01:00
DIY drainage: 02:00 – Not such a pleasant shot, so close your eyes if you’re squeamish
Fungal infection: 02:35
Electrolyte imbalance: 03:00
Getting a good fit with your shoes: 04:00
Laceing: 5:50
Heel lock lacing: 6:15

16th July 2019

Fun Runs, and Where to Start

Which City2Surf start group?  – 00:20
Where to position yourself at the start in a fun run – 03:00
Using a GPS for pacing – 05:30

9th July 2019

The benefits of trail running

July 3rd 2019

Alcohol and performance

June 25th 2019

What’s the point of hill sprints?

NOTE I MENTION 60-90 MINUTE HILL REPEATS – CLEARLY I MEANT 60-90 SECONDS!!!

June 18th 2019

This week we look at how to cope with a windy day!

 

June 12th 2019

Train your body to refuel during a race

More information

Research Paper

June 4th 2019

Why does my GPS device often show I have run further than the race distance?

May 28th 2019

How much protein and carbohydrate do you need when you’re training?

This is a very individual thing. Some people thrive on protein, but my feeling is more thrive on carbs when they’re doing a lot of running. You’ll need between 1.2-1.6gms of protein per kg of body weight per day, and the rest of your calories should come from carbohydrates and good fats

Listen to the audio and download the PDFFuelling pre during and post workout with some suggestions for fuelling before, during and after a long run.

May 21st 2019

Rating of Perceived Exertion – What does it sound like to run at 3/10, 5/10 7/10 and full pelt

In today’s episode, Kirsten gives a demo of the talk test, and how that relates to levels of effort on the Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE)

Make sure you listen to part 2 to hear what she sounds like after a 3k time trail- level on the RPE about 110/10

May 21st Part 2 (9/10 effort)


May 15th 2019

How does running slower help?

In this episode, Richard addresses this question from Theresa.

“If I have a pace in mind that I want to achieve at the City2Surf, how does running slower help? I always thought that one would run at the desired pace and increase distance each week but I think you mentioned this doesn’t really work?


Ask the Coach May 8th 2019

What to do about hot feet

Wh5at you should do when you miss training

In this week’s edition of ask the coach we look at hot feet, hot spots and blister prevention, and adjusting your training program when you miss training.

00:38 Hot feet

1:15 Shoes and how they should fit

1:50 Socks

2:40 Hot spots and blisters

4:00 Missed training – when you miss one session in a week

5:04. Missing 2 sessions in a week

5:13 Adjusting your program if you have 3-4 runs/week and one, or no speed sessions

6:25 Adjusting your program if you have 4-5 sessions a week and 2 speed sessions

7:56 What to do if you miss 3 or more sessions – even a whole week (3-4 session/week program)

8:40 What to do if you miss 3 or more sessions – even a whole week (5 session/week, 2 speed session program)

9:05 What to do if you miss 3 or more sessions – even a whole week ( 6 or mores sessions/week, 2 speed session program)


Ask the Coach May 3rd 2019

1:00 – Rating of Perceived Exertion

1:22 – 3/10 intensity

2:27 – pace guides for easy running

3:46-5/10 and 7/10 efforts

4:27- surface and terrain

6:33 – terrain

7:18-biggest training mistake

7:50 – walking segments