348: The 4 Ingredients for Running Consistency and Actually Making Progress

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This is the Real Life Runners Podcast, episode number 348, Moving the Needle, consistency with the things that actually matter.

Angie: 0:31

What's up, runners? Welcome to the show today. We're talking all about how to move the needle. So how to start seeing and making some actual progress and you're running and what you need to do to actually start Seeing that progress that you want because we all know that consistency is the key for long term progress But how do we get consistent and what things are the most important for us to be consistent with so today? We want to talk about the Four ingredients that will lead to consistency because it's not motivation. So many runners make the mistake of thinking that they need to feel motivated in order for them to be consistent and motivation is a feeling. And like all feelings, it comes and goes. So in order to be consistent with the things that are actually going to make Our help us make progress with our running. We cannot rely on motivation unless you want to just be burnt out and frustrated and inconsistent all the time. So today let's talk about those four key ingredients for actually being consistent and consistent. That will actually help you move the needle and see progress.

Kevin: 1:39

I love this concept of trying to figure out what is it that we need to do to move the needle. Because at first take, people might go a little too narrow and be like, well, we need to make sure that we're strength training twice a week. And that is, that is too narrow of a thing. It's true though. It is definitely true. And make sure we like, should one of our runs be a little bit longer? And maybe, probably, probably is the answer to that guy. But that's not where we're going. The key here is, how do you get as consistent as possible? And so these are the ways to make sure that you have the most consistency because that is what will move the needle the most in the long term.

Angie: 2:13

Right. And so we're kind of taking more of the big picture view versus the very specific minutiae of details because those details can vary from person to person. So we want you to be able to take what we give you in the podcast today and apply it to your life and your situation because That's how it's actually going to make a difference. So we're going to talk about these four main ingredients that every runner needs in order to be consistent and see progress in their running. So the first one is a structured and adaptable plan. And we talked about this. Last week, a lot in the podcast, we, we talked about the importance of having that smart adaptable plan, because that's what helps set you up for success. If your plan is too flexible, where you're just missing workouts all the time, or if it's too rigid, where if you miss one workout, you freak out and you think that the whole plan is. up in smoke, that can be a problem. Okay, that leads to a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lack of progress because we are putting either too rigid of boundaries around ourselves or we're being all loosey goosey and just letting ourselves do whatever we feel like on any given day. And either way, both of those situations are not going to lead to that long term consistency and progress that we're looking

Kevin: 3:28

for. Right. But you do need some structure because the structure makes sure that you are actually checking the boxes towards whatever your current goal is. And this is why we're going bigger than then specifically, what do you need to do on each goal? Because there's so many different goals you could have. So the boxes that you should be checking, you know how many times a week you should be checking the box kind of varies depending on it. Your current state, like where, where are you at in your, your current training and what goal you're heading towards. But the structured plan does at least line up some of these boxes for you to say, all right, I've knocked these out over the week. I've knocked these out every couple of weeks. It is heading you towards a goal with some overall laid out plan there. The adaptability says, all right, we have some structure, but there's also real life that needs to be taken into account. Like there is more on my schedule than simply eating, training, and sleeping. I was listening to a different podcast and the podcaster had had a professional athlete. Living with him for like a week because they were doing like altitude training. And so they were with him for, for several days in a row. And that's all they had on their schedule every day. He goes, it's really weird to live with somebody whose entire daily schedule is simply eating, training, and

Angie: 4:41

sleeping. That is so strange. I do not know how I would deal with that. Like, I wonder if it's different for males and females too. Like, I wonder if there is a difference in elite male runners and elite female runners with what they put into their

Kevin: 4:56

day. I mean, yeah, but ultimately you schedule everything around those three tasks. And then everything else gets scheduled in around it.

Angie: 5:05

Absolutely. But like, I can see a male, especially like a young 20 something elite runner, literally just doing those three things and then just laying around the rest of the time. Yeah, laying around the time. Whereas I think that, and this is my female bias, I guess, like a female, I don't see doing that. Like a female would probably be reading or doing laundry or like doing some other things, like nothing crazy, right? Cause those are still the biggest three priorities, but probably doing some other things. Whereas I can see the men taking time to just lay around. Sure.

Kevin: 5:36

I mean, I think that depends on your season also. Perhaps age and gender both, both lie into this thing. Yeah,

5:43

but,

Angie: 5:43

and it's funny because I think that because you're not like that at all. You know, so like, I don't want you guys like that are listening to this podcast to think that I have that bias because Kevin just lays around all

Kevin: 5:54

day. How many loads of laundry did I need to do over the weekend for this to not come up? You are so

Angie: 5:59

helpful. So let me just. put that out there because it is definitely not based on my own personal experience with the male in this household.

Kevin: 6:06

Kevin is an unlaundered slob. That is what everybody has taken

Angie: 6:10

away from here. Definitely not. Kevin actually does the majority of the laundry in our house, which I very much appreciate. All

Kevin: 6:16

right. But you need to have some adaptability because Most of us, but everybody listening here is going to have a lot more on their schedule than eat, train, and sleep. And while you'd love to say those are the three highest priorities, eat, train, and sleep, there's going to be other things that come up. So adaptations work within your overall structure to allow you to try to check off As many of the boxes as possible will giving yourself some wiggle room being like, well, I missed that box where, where can I re put it in later in the week or do I need to put it in later in the week? Yeah. So it's

Angie: 6:48

important for us to have both a structure and have that plan laid out. Like I know that there's a lot of people out there that say, well, I don't put things into my calendar. I don't make a plan because. The plan's going to go off the rails anyway. So what's the point of structuring things and what's the point of having a plan if I'm just going to not follow the plan in general? And the answer is, well, that's part of the problem that you're having is that by rejecting the idea of a plan, you're already setting yourself up at a disadvantage. And while it's true that yes, life is going to happen when you are just trying to go, you know, fly by the seat of your pants and make it up. All as you go, then it's going to be much harder for you to actually get to the destination that you're going to, that you're trying to get to. So I like to think of this as like going on a road trip. So I think about Google Maps. Versus MapQuest. You guys remember MapQuest back in the 90s? And, I mean, that's probably early 2000s also, right? That's how I got to Florida. That's how you got to Florida, yeah. When you drove across the country from California. So that I could

Kevin: 7:54

do your

Angie: 7:55

laundry. Yes. Because that's exactly what you were doing when I was in grad school. Yep. Just doing my laundry. No, I

Kevin: 8:02

was predominantly defrosting the air conditioner in that house you lived in. Oh my

Angie: 8:05

gosh, that air conditioning froze over so many times. But yes. So. Back in the 90s and the early 2000s, we had MapQuest and essentially what you would do is you would put this and even before that, you would have to go to the AAA and get the maps, right? Didn't you use those also? I

Kevin: 8:24

had maps. Yes, I had multiple state maps.

Angie: 8:26

Yeah, you had a lot of those. too, right? And you just get the static maps. MapQuest was like a step in the right direction where it started to give you some of those turn by turns, but now we have Google Maps. And Google Maps gives us real time turn by turn information and also re routes us, re routes us, route or route, route. Yes. reroutes us when things kind of don't go as planned, right? So would you rather have a Rand McNally map or an old MapQuest printout that gives you your turn by turn? But I mean, you probably all had this experience. I know we have, I definitely have where. You're following MapQuest, and then all of a sudden there's a road closure, and you're like, well, what do I do now? I don't know what to do from here, and then you're just stuck.

Kevin: 9:14

And that's the glory of the Google rerouting you. Like, even if there's not a road closure, you just randomly hang a left turn. It's going to know that you just changed, and it's going to then find, based off of where you just randomly turned to, what is the best thing. And this is how you need to be adaptable with your plan. Something comes up, and you need to be able to reroute, or root, your plan, whereas MapQuest, if you miss a step, It still has the same next step, even if you're no longer on that road. So, making sure that you have some, some stability to it, some structure to it of you still know where you're starting, you still have the destination, there are still roads that you're traveling on, there's some, some barriers, some windows there, some, uh, bumpers on the side of your lane, if you will, and But ultimately, you can kind of change the steps along the way. MapQuest, you printed it out and you were good to go. Like, if I had to get off of 5 or 10 or whatever the heck I drove across I

Angie: 10:09

think you drove across 10.

Kevin: 10:11

I drove down 5 and then drove across 10. That's how that worked. But

Angie: 10:14

that's the thing, is like, with MapQuest, all of a sudden, if you take a wrong turn, or if the Turn on your printout is not what's actually happening in real life. You really don't know what to do and a lot of times training plans can be this way as well, which leads us into number two. The second thing that you need for long term consistency and progress in your running is expert guidance. And yes, I use the word expert for a reason because so many times I see people. Asking unqualified people on the Internet for advice when I don't know if you guys are in different running groups on Facebook or on different places on the Internet. If I know Facebook is a big place where. There's a lot of these running groups like the running motivation group, and there's a lot of people that post their daily runs, and there's so many questions that I see and people are putting out kind of specific like technical questions out there is like, Hey, can anybody help me with this? And it's a very specific thing or me as a physical therapist, reading these questions that people have about aches and pains and injuries and what they should do about it. And then just. The barrage of comments that come in and I just shake my head so many times because I'm like, well, that's terrible advice and that's awful advice. And if you did that, that would make the injury 10 times worse. And people don't know. So they're just putting out advice or, you know, putting out a question and asking for advice, but they have no idea what the qualifications are of the person that's even answering their question. And so I. Like, can't stand some of those groups sometimes because they are just a recipe for disaster for so many runners.

Kevin: 11:58

Yeah, I mean, those have got to drive you particularly nuts. But I have a, it aches here on the outside of my hip and you're thinking to yourself, well, that maybe ice or maybe the verge of a stress fracture. So no, without actually seeing you, I don't know what the advice is. And people are telling very specific things of this is exactly what's wrong with you. Maybe. Or maybe not, or maybe that person is guessing because they had a similar pain on their own hip three years ago, and this is what they recall happening.

Angie: 12:27

Right, and I mean, I even get these questions on, like, on Instagram and Facebook. Like, people will DM me with very, very long stories and novels asking for advice. And granted, hopefully, if you're following me, if you're listening to the podcast and you're following us on Instagram, you realize that I actually am an expert and am very, very qualified. to give out guidance when it comes to how to get better as a runner, when it comes to injury, running injuries, being that I have 17 years of experience as a physical therapist and have helped thousands of runners do this. So yes, I am what I would consider an expert in this field. And so people reaching out to me for. Help and for advice is a little bit different, but sometimes there's people, I mean, also understand that I can't give out that kind of advice when I don't really know you. And when I don't really know the situation and all the details, that would be very irresponsible of me to just give out advice willy nilly. The other thing I see a lot of people doing is spending hours researching. What they need to do right, but they don't understand the quality of the source of the information that they're obtaining and as we all probably know by now, there's a lot of information on the Internet lot and a lot of it. It is complete junk information. Some of it is very, very good information. There's a ton of amazing sources out there. There's tons of great content that you can find to help you become a better runner. There's also a ton of really, really bad advice and really crappy content out there.

Kevin: 14:05

Right, and you kinda are not sure exactly what you're getting. You might find two pieces of information that seem like they're coming from solid reputable sources that disagree with each other also, so how do you know which one you're supposed to go to? Yes. Ultimately then you just keep digging down the rabbit hole, and now you're trying to find more experts, which side, which side of the argument can I find more experts on, and then should I lean for that one? And the answer is still probably maybe because you are an individual. So you need to figure out what's actually going to work for you. Try one of the things, but knowing, like having the interaction with an expert as you go through and try and figure out how to deal with whatever issue is coming up for you is the best plan. Try something. That an expert actually recommends, and then continue to follow up with that same expert as opposed to like popping something on Reddit, getting an answer, and then popping back on Reddit and getting an answer from a completely different person. Like that's not necessarily going to be your best call.

Angie: 15:06

That's where it becomes really, really confusing for people. Cause like, even if you say, Oh no, this person's a physical therapist, we're just going to stick with this example. Cause that's me. Right? So you, there are so many different types of physical therapists out there, and there are All different levels of knowledge and experience and recommendations and physical therapists. A lot of us have similar levels of training. Some of them are different, right? Some, some physical therapists out there have bachelor's degrees. Some have master's degrees. Some have doctorate degrees. Some have been trained in different countries with different. laws of practice. Some are allowed to do things that other places are not allowed to do. So one physical therapist is very different than any other physical therapist. And if you follow multiple, I follow a bunch of different PTs on Instagram. Some of them are out there saying, you know, we need to be doing X, Y, Z. And then the other. PT is saying, don't ever do X, Y, Z. You need to be doing ABC. So technically these two people are both experts. They, they're both physical therapists. They both have medical background. So how do you know who to listen to and who to follow?

Kevin: 16:16

But I think that if you stick with somebody who you feel confident in and they're telling you to do X, Y, Z, and you continue staying with that person and you can stay in actual contact with that person. So that is your guide. And X, Y, Z doesn't work if that, if that expert is expert enough, they should understand that ABC might work if X, Y, Z

Angie: 16:40

doesn't. Absolutely. And that, that's what I think defines more of the expert. It's not just the years of experience. It's having this deeper knowledge and understanding, and then the ability to apply that knowledge to different situations because experts should understand that they're. Is so much nuance involved, especially when treating and helping runners because what works for one person does not work for everyone and might not work for you. So if you're just following some runner on Instagram that got a weekend certification and calls themselves a running coach and they're like, yeah, I ran a BQ and I can help you do the same. Just do exactly what I did, but they're 22 years old or 25 years old and they're single and they have no kids and no family and no respect. responsibility and you are a 55 year old female with a full time job, a husband, uh, three children, one that's still in high school, a couple that are in college, and all of a sudden you're taking care of your aging parent now, that's a very different life. So what works for the 25 year old influencer. On Instagram is likely not going to be the same exact thing that works for you, but an expert is going to understand the nuance there and be able to take the concepts and the underlying information and say, okay, yeah, there's some really good things here and there's some basic principles of training that are very important. How do we apply that now to the 25 year old influencer and to the 55 year olds? Uh, you know, full time wife and mother and daughter that's also trying to train for half marathon. There are principles that can carry over, but need to be applied differently.

Kevin: 18:19

Yes. You know, one of the biggest differences between those two people. He's not doing laundry as we covered earlier in the episode. That is our primary difference between you're 25 year old influencer. No, that was a she too. Oh no. You made that, I made that one male. Oh, in my head,

Angie: 18:33

she was a female.

Kevin: 18:34

I think you said he, so really hormonal differences is one of your big things. And you've got an excellent metaphor here before we go into the next one, where I want to kind of continue diving into that whole, um, Um, you know, gender differences is also going to come into, into effect here. So hit it, hit up your metaphor here because it continues beautifully with

Angie: 18:52

your, your road trip with my Google Maps metaphor. So, you know, going back to Google Maps before we talked about the importance of having that turn by turn and reroutable plan. Now when I look at, when I think about expert guidance to me, this would be the difference between using Google Maps, which has. Um, you know, how many cars out on the road, thousands of cars, like driving around at all time, taking tons of pictures based on a lot of different evidence of like, what roads are open, what roads are closed, like these, it's curating information in real time from like other drivers on the road that are talking about accidents and all these other things, right? Google maps, I would say is, is based on some expert stuff. Yes, there's some, you know, real people that are putting some information in there too, but, um, you know. To me, when I think about expert guidance, it's Google Maps, the difference between using Google Maps versus just stopping at the local gas station, hoping that someone there can help you because

Kevin: 19:51

someone there might be able to help. Totally. Just like you could Google the answer to your whatever your running question is, and you might come up with a phenomenal answer. Absolutely. Or you might come up with complete garbage. Exactly. Like this is the thing is, Maybe go into the local gas station. They tell you, all right, when you head down the road here, you actually can't turn right because there's a construction that just started this morning and Google maps might not know it yet. Okay. And so they will be able to route you in, in a very local area. The guy at the local gas station might be able to answer. He might be, but assuming he speaks English, right. But also as, as soon as it starts leaving that very precise area. Local gas station helper might be completely worthless because they might know the few blocks, the few mile radius around that gas station. But once you start moving out, Google Maps is the expert in a much broader range. And they're going to be able to take and apply all sorts of useful information and give it all back to you. Exactly.

Angie: 20:52

So, number three. The third ingredient that you need for long term consistency and success is evidence based programs. Okay? Again. Evidence matters. Science matters. Research matters. But it's not the be all end all. That's why it's evidence based. It's not only evidence and only do what's supported in the research because running and coaching, it's a science and an art. There's a lot of important things that we need to know from science, but we also have to be able to interpret the science. And that's why it's evidence based. A lot of research studies that are done. That's why For endurance athletes. We're doing more on there's they're doing more on runners. Now. I shouldn't say we're doing more but researchers are doing a lot more on runners now But a lot of the information that we have comes from actually studying cyclists in the past So, how can we take the information from these types of studies and apply them to runners? That's why it's evidence based and not evidence only types of things, right? But It's really important for us to understand what the, some of that science and the research and the why behind what it is that we're doing, what it is that we're, you know, our coach or our plan are telling us to do, because sometimes again, we follow these fitness pros online, following pro runners, like these runners know what they're doing, right. Or these fitness influencers, like they seem like they know what they're doing, but if we're following all of these different. Coaches or runners at once, they might all be doing different things. And again, that can lead back into that confusion, that wasting time, that wasting energy. over training. And that's why it's so important to have that evidence based approach as the starting point and then being able to adjust from there.

Kevin: 22:38

Right. I think this is one of the issues why AI does not make great training plans yet. It has a lot of the science. It literally knows all of the science because it's AI. It has all the information simultaneously at once, but Like you said, a lot of the, the endurance based information is coming from cycling. A lot of the running information, even when it's pure running studies being done, is based off of elite male athletes between the age of like 22 and 28. And that's great, but how does that apply to all of us? Like, does it even apply to all of us? What is important and looking at these studies and being like, Oh, well, the takeaway from that study is this tiny little detail. Oh, I need to make sure that I increase my VO two max. My threshold level needs to be at exactly this thing. Something about lactate, something or other, but I should

Angie: 23:29

definitely prick my finger and find

Kevin: 23:30

out. They might come up with continuous lactate monitors this year. You just strap onto your arm. Who knows? So, um, All of this may or may not become as as useful to us as real runners The key here is being able to take the really big broad lessons From science and be able to create the foundation of a training plan not just be like, I don't know It's a new runner Let's try this and see if it works. Like you should have the foundation of these are the overall guiding principles that runner after runner has proven again and again, whether it came from science, from running back science or cycling back science or swimming, like whatever it is, the endurance community has decided that these are the best plans. As the foundation, and then when you're trying to get into some smaller details, having that, let's that scientific approach of try this thing and see how it works for an individual athlete. And this is why I mean,

Angie: 24:28

that's literally the scientific method, right? Like this form a hypothesis and then test it out.

Kevin: 24:33

This is why this, this kind of, uh, overall thing here of, of using the evidence and the previous one of having expert guidance really work hand in hand is you need to know how they're going to go together. So that if you. take the scientific approach of see how this see how this works and maybe it doesn't come up with the results that you want then being able to check in with an expert to see if it actually works and oh wait it didn't now what do I do and and being able to adjust and correct along the way right and

Angie: 25:07

that's where it becomes that science and an art and also Using the scientific method. That's what we're going for here, right? We form a hypothesis of like, okay, let's take some of the stuff that the science is telling us that the research is telling us that these decades and decades of pro athletes and recreational athletes are telling us as a good starting point, and then we figure out, okay. Where do I go from here? How do I need to adjust it to make it better for me? Right. And that's where it becomes that like, kind of try it out and see, and then you try something, this is what we tell our runners to do all the time when, when they're training for longer races and they need to figure out their fueling situation. Right. The answer is okay. Here are some of the things that. Work for a lot of people. There's a lot of different options. There's a lot of different brands. There's a lot of different flavors. There is choose. There's gels. There are things that you can add to your drink, so it's just liquid. There's a lot of different things that you can try, and all of them have good research. And all of them work for a lot of different people out there, but which one's going to work best for you. And that's where that trial and error scientific method comes in. I mean,

Kevin: 26:17

it even goes kind of more, more scientific than that of going from brand to brand and what, like, like how you're putting the calories in is how many calories do you need to be putting in? A lot of the research right now is suggesting that the number is higher than we used to think. Like that, that putting more calories in as you run is actually a much better plan. And that this might be. The cause for some of these huge breakthrough running performances and cycling performances because people are just putting more fuel in the fire as they're running, like the whole idea of bonking at mile 20 in a marathon might go away if you just keep feeding yourself enough, but that is a trial because some, some athletes are burning higher than others and they literally can process the food or whatever the calorie form is in their stomachs better than others. And some people, there's an upper limit before their GI just doesn't process it, it's processed anymore and they get huge, massive upset stomachs, right?

Angie: 27:13

But there's a difference between testing out different carbohydrates sources that because carbohydrates have been scientifically proven to be our body's preferred energy source during endurance. Events right during athletic endeavors. So there's a difference between you know, okay, I'm going to test out different carbohydrate sources versus you know what? I think I'm going to eat a chicken breast or a steak during my marathon. I heard protein was good for me too. So like let's try that out like. That doesn't have any science to back it up. I'm sure there's somebody out there that probably does, right? Like now on social media, there's probably someone that only eats meat and then trains for ridiculous races or

Kevin: 27:54

something. If you're running super, super long, that you should get some protein over the course, but no one's suggesting that you chew down a steak in the middle of your race, which would be comical to watch people try and break two hours while eating a steak.

Angie: 28:05

Yeah, there is actually evidence that protein is a good thing, but it's in certain amount, right? Like again. Follow following the evidence using that as a baseline and then testing it based, you know, it's like starting at step 10. Like in this case, you know, sometimes we say, well, you don't want to skip steps along the way. In this case, when you're basing your training on evidence and on science, it does allow you to skip some of those steps because you don't have to do all of the trial and error because there are already tons of people that have done it before you, right? You're not starting at square run one. You're starting way ahead of the game because we get to it. Reap the benefits of the decades and decades of science and trial and error that have occurred before us. What

Kevin: 28:46

is that? Einstein on the shoulders of giants or something to that effect? I think that's Einstein. Yeah. I don't know if it's Einstein, but I've heard that saying before. We can assume that Einstein is quoted to it somewhere on the internet. Or Ben Franklin maybe. Possibly Ben Franklin. I think it was Einstein. Yeah. Or Socrates. I don't think on that one. All right. So

Angie: 29:04

let's, let's talk about, you know, let's go back to Google maps because when I think about evidence based programs, Google maps has been curated over with so much evidence, so many photos, so many data points. I mean, so many satellites, you know, up, up in the. In the ether, in the, you know, in the, uh, not the universe, the space, space, right? Yes. That'd be

Kevin: 29:29

now or the ether. I like the

Angie: 29:31

ethers, right? Um, so there's a lot of data points and data is evidence. So Google maps is based on a lot of evidence versus those hand drawn maps that our cartographers made from the 1500s when they still thought that the earth was flat, right? Like, which one would you rather use to guide? Your next voyage across the ocean.

Kevin: 29:53

Right. Hold on. You were able to come up with the word cartographer, but you couldn't remember the word space, so you went with ether. I just don't,

Angie: 30:01

I mean, don't try to understand my brain. You, you've been with me now for over 20 years. You probably. I've gotten gotten over that. I

Kevin: 30:07

definitely don't. But you could take these maps from the 1500s and use that as your starting point, okay? If you want to see just like what step are we going from, we don't need to go back to that map. Like we don't need the original hand drawn maps from centuries ago to be like They're cool to put up like

Angie: 30:24

on your wall now.

Kevin: 30:25

Sure, but that's not where you're going to be like, all right, well here's my starting point and now from here I guess I'm going to have to figure out the rest. Yeah. You don't.

Angie: 30:34

Or like a pirate map, a

Kevin: 30:35

treasure map. Sure. But you could go a step further. Like we said, you could go to AAA and grab the actual like hard copy maps and, and have that be your starting point. Or you could go a step further and actually just type in your starting and ending point into your phone. We keep going with Google Maps, but there's all sorts of options. And, and you can Google Maps is so

Angie: 30:54

much better than Apple Maps. I'm sorry. But what about Waze?

Kevin: 30:57

Yeah, well, Google Maps bought them. Oh, did they? Yeah. Oh, I thought they were totally different still. No. Alright, so. I mean, it is still its own app, but It's its own app, but it's owned by Google? Yeah. Great. Um, but do you remember when Google Maps started? It would direct you to the wrong places a lot more often. Oh,

Angie: 31:11

it's way more

Kevin: 31:12

accurate now. Because it continues fixing itself because it keeps

Angie: 31:16

getting more and more evidence and data points Yes,

Kevin: 31:18

and the more evidence you can put it something the further along you can essentially put your starting point, right? And so yes having evidence, but evidence that also is willing to change its mind Like if you get new evidence of like well Your best path to get from point A to B was to take these roads What now they've put in a new road that is just a straight line like You don't want to take the old route because there's new evidence. There literally is a new path. Take the diagonal. Your dad loves the

Angie: 31:45

diagonal cruiser. Yeah. Out out in California. Whenever I drive with your dad, I'm like, where are we going? Because I have this very internal like GPS sense. And I'm like, this doesn't feel right. What is happening

Kevin: 31:57

right now? Why are we not driving east west? And my dad is on the

Angie: 32:00

diagonal. I know. Right. But, but that's the thing, right? And why does this matter when it comes to moving the needle and consistency? Well, it's probably pretty obvious that if you're starting ahead of the game, you don't have to make all of the mistakes and training errors that other people have had to make because you're starting off with a smarter and better foundation, right? A better starting point for you to start training or for you to, you know, um, just. Go out and run or do the things that you want to do and get stronger and, you know, strength training and like running, like all these things are all based in evidence. And this is something that we consider to be super important inside our coaching program. Like we're constantly reading books and research studies and other things to try to update and stay on top of some of these. Um, new trends like there's so many different trends that come out, right? And a lot of them, they come and then they go because they're really not worth anything. So if you are someone that's constantly jumping on these trends, like the diet trends are a perfect example of this, right? Like say, say you were low carb or free, you were fat free in the nineties, right? And then you went into the low carb and now you're on a high, and then you went to high fat and now you're on high protein. Like all of these different things. May work for a certain amount of time, but if you're constantly changing things up, then maybe, you know, your consistency. It starts to wane or like from some people, I don't know, I mean, maybe it can be a good thing to jump from plan to plan. I don't like for, for dieting. I'm kind of like rethinking my metaphor right now as we're going here, but you kind of get the idea. All

Kevin: 33:40

of those new plans came into existence and they gained popularity because they were rooted in evidence. Right. Are they going to work for everybody? No. No. And that's why you need to have the expert guiding you along the way to be able to look at like your particular lifestyle. Like you tried to check and see if like a keto diet was going to work better for you. Yeah, I tried it out. Uh huh. And then you tried to run and you realized that running was awful. Yeah, it was terrible because the body generally prefers to go with a carbohydrate based source of fuel. Right. And

Angie: 34:11

there's lots of people out there that will tell you, tell me that I just didn't it. Do it long enough and I didn't wait until my body was in a fat adapted state and blah blah blah blah blah and Ultimately came down to well that I don't want to do this, right? Like this doesn't make sense for my real life. Like this is not something that I want to wait around to maybe Uh, work out for me, like it just wasn't making sense with my lifestyle, the things that I wanted to do.

Kevin: 34:35

So are you going to start doing shots of ketones now so you can just pop straight into ketosis? No. Only if we start advertising

Angie: 34:40

them. No. Um, and that's why we don't have advertisers on the podcast. All right. Number four. Okay. The fourth ingredient that you need for long term success to actually move the needle and actually help you be consistent is accountability. And the best thing, one of the best ways you can create accountability is by. Being a part of a community. Okay. And so many runners think that running is a solo sport. And so they go out and they run, they do their three miles, their five mile run by themselves, they come home, they shower, they go to work. And while they might gain some Personal benefits from it and have that feeling of accomplishment and pride if no one else in their life Understands them if no one else in their life supports them. It's gonna be very hard to continue and I know that we had Someone one of our old clients and it was a really sad situation in my opinion other people might Disagree with me, but she loved running, absolutely loved it. But her husband didn't like that she was a runner. And so every time she would go out and run, she was facing resistance from her husband. And that's a really hard place to be. Like if you are constantly feeling like, yeah, like this is causing a conflict between me and the most important person in my life, it's, it's not going to be long before. Something has to give like one of those things have has to give or some understanding has to be reached in some way

Kevin: 36:10

Right. And I mean, you went to all the way to resistance, but if you don't at least have some support of the people around you, it's going to be difficult to maintain that consistency of living this sort of monastic running life of I can have running be a complete solo activity over here. It's like a silo. Yeah. And. It's separate from the rest of my life, but it's not separate from the rest of your life. The stresses that come in your life affect running. The stresses from running are going to affect your life. So to pretend that you can do running as a complete solo activity and have no interaction with all the rest of your life is setting yourself up to be too rigid. Like you've lost the flexibility that we talked about at the beginning because Having a support system builds in a little bit of flexibility. It provides accountability. You can work with the people around you and be like, I need a little extra support here. Because my, my run didn't work this morning, can I make it work this afternoon? I've had that conversation with you of I was not able to get in my run this morning because we were up too late last Night, and I needed to make sure I got enough sleep because you know eat sleep train. That's the three priorities Only three things only three things they put it on a t

Angie: 37:21

shirt, too. That's how you know I have

Kevin: 37:23

the shirt and says laundry at the bottom and it's crossed out But you you talk with the other people in your life and see if you can gain some extra support And by relying on that help from the people around you, you're like, it just, it creates an extra level of accountability when you know people around you are helping you try to achieve whatever goals you have put out

Angie: 37:44

there. Right. Like it's exactly what happened with us last night. You had some work that you needed to do. And so you looked at me and you said, Hey, can you make dinner? Like I need to sit down and get this work done. Can you make dinner? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I can definitely do that. We are each other's support system, and you support me in so many different ways. Um, so you have to ask yourself, who is on this journey with you? You know, how do you build in that accountability for yourself? And some of the ways that we build in accountability are the things we've already talked about. Having a plan, scheduling your workouts, making time for those things, setting up, uh, rewards for yourself. That's another big thing of, like, ways to help hold yourself accountable. Um, but. Thinking about who is on your team, who is a part of your support system is a really important thing to help keep you consistent. You know, when I know when Kevin and I, um, train and we kind of talk to each other like, Hey, did you get, how was your run today? And it's like, Oh, I didn't do it. Like, do you really want to be giving? Somebody in your life that answer all the time, right? Like just knowing that that person is going to ask you that question. A lot of times is enough to get you out the door. Cause you're like, oh, I don't want to tell them that I missed another workout. Yeah.

Kevin: 38:56

I mean, we ask each other that. Every single day basically was how was your workout today, whether it's a run or a lifting day or whatever it is. Hey, how was your workout today? And answering didn't do one. It gets old if that is the answer day upon day upon day.

Angie: 39:13

Exactly. And so, you know, one thing when, when I think about support system, I think that, you know, your 100 mile race in December was a huge example of this, right? Because you You've told us multiple times that you couldn't have done that without us. So Kevin, yeah, he's the one that ran 100 miles. I did not run one mile of his 100 miles. He still had to run every single one of those miles by himself. Well, not by himself, but he had to run them all, right? But we were there. Supporting him, cheering him on, getting him snacks, refilling his water bottle, doing everything else that he needed so that he could continue on that journey.

Kevin: 39:53

I think if our kid was older, you would have run at least a mile of that race with if she could drive it, if she could drive

Angie: 39:58

some. Well, I made her run instead, and she was not happy about that. She was not happy

Kevin: 40:02

about that at all. Um, but she also filmed some along the way and gave me a slurpee. So, it was all good. There was so much support from that. But, I mean, you talk about just like the direct support right there of you guys in a car along the way. But there were eight stations along the way of complete strangers who were helping me, which is amazing. There were people at the beginning who were just pointing which direction to turn. It was, it wasn't even Google maps. There was no phone happening at that point. There was just a person at every turn that I hit in the dark of the morning, telling me which way to go. Like the support system was there throughout the entire run. And that's all together. What got me to the finish line. Yeah. And

Angie: 40:40

I think about support system a lot when. Um, I think about our cross country team too, because if you talk to those kids on our team, there are some of them that like running. Most of them, by the time they graduate are pretty good with running. Like some of them is still not their favorite thing to do, but the reason that they come back. Year after year and the reason that they come to practice every single day is yes, they want to become better runners They want to get faster. But if you ask them, what do most of them like the most? It's their teammates. It's their friends It's the community. It's being together I mean we last year Kevin opened up his classroom and You had kids in there like on from the cross country team as soon as the bell rang just hanging out before practice started

Kevin: 41:24

Yes a practice start the School bell rings at 235 and practice starts at 315 because we're allowed to have time to like meet with students afterwards if we need to, you know, meet with a kid or whatever. They would be in there by 240 and then they would hang out until 3. Then they would all leave. Go change and come back at like 3. 05. And so there was like this small window where I didn't have people, but there was no running happening. I wasn't really even doing anything with them. I was over at my desk or I was working with kids who had come to ask me questions about math, and they're all in there just hanging out with each other because that's what they wanted to do. And the team gives them this environment in which It's cool to just come in and hang out and chat with each other afterwards,

Angie: 42:07

right? And if there was ever somebody missing, we would ask them, Hey, you guys know where so and so is. And most of the time they knew what was going on with what they knew why that person was missing. Even though that person didn't come tell us like they were supposed to, even though they, they did not always, sometimes they forget to come tell us, especially if they were sick and they went home early, like, oh, they, you know, weren't feeling well in third period. And so they went home early. Okay, great. But it's that accountability. Like they knew what was going on with each other. They knew they had each other's backs and. Every now and then we get somebody on the team that maybe doesn't fit in as well, like overall, we have an extremely welcoming and wonderful team, but sometimes there are people that kind of like stand off to the side and don't engage as much with the team, and those people oftentimes end up kind of falling off the radar and not coming back the next year because they didn't make those same connections with the people on the team. And that's why people and your support system and your community is so important when it comes to long term consistency and accountability.

Kevin: 43:10

Right. Because you aren't a silo. Like, having the people around you really does help you get to there, especially when you look at a longer timeline. Like, maybe that whole idea of we can move faster solo, but we can move farther as a group, that is totally true. You can reach greater levels of success in life and in running when you surround yourself with a strong

Angie: 43:35

support system. Yeah, but I think a lot of times you can go faster with a group too. Like, I know when I do my solo, speed workouts. When I have a friend that's there and my friend is pushing just as hard as I am, we push each other. Like sometimes there might be times I might let myself off the hook and just kind of pull back a little bit. And when you're when you've got other people there and you're training together in a group, it can get you faster. Also, this is very true. So yeah, so those are the four ingredients that you need to move the needle to stay consistent. Okay. Number one, smart, adaptable plan. Number two, expert guidance. Number three, evidence based programs and the scientific method. And number four, accountability and community. Okay. And those are the four pillars that we built the academy on. So if you're interested in getting all four of those pillars and getting All of the plans, all of the coaching and the support and the guidance and the accountability and the science based evidence based programs that are actually going to help you improve your strength, improve your mobility, improve your running form. The Academy is actually open this week for enrollment, so you can head over to realliferunners. com forward slash Academy and get all the details there about. You know what it is, what it includes. Get all the details that you need over realliferunners. com forward slash academy. Um, we, doors are open from until February 29th. So actually that's the day that this podcast gets released. So hopefully you're listening to that, to listening to this on Thursday. Um, and if not, make sure you get on the waiting list because when we'd close the doors on Thursday, it will turn over to the waiting list. So put your name on that waiting list so that you know, the next time that we open the doors as well. So, as always guys, thank you for spending your time with us. If this was helpful, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or share it on social media. Share it with your friends. Let us help some more people to improve their consistency and help move the needle so that they can run stronger and be active into all the decades of their lives. And as always, this has been the Real Life Runners Podcast, episode number 348. Now get out there and run your life.