Nick Hancock: Strength Training for Ultrarunners, CCC Recap & Building Maximum Mileage Coaching Success

Transcript

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Hello and welcome.

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If this is your first time with us, thanks for stopping by.

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You are listening to Choose to Endure, the show dedicated to the non-elite runners, where we share stories, interviews, gear and training tips specific to the tail-end heroes of the Ultra Universe.

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If you haven't had a moment to do so yet, please consider heading over to your favorite podcast app hit, follow, rate the show and, if you're getting something of value, leave a review and let others know.

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My name's Richard Gleave.

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I have been running ultras now since 2017.

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I've taken on and finished numerous ultra distances, all the way up through 220 miles, and I am unashamedly a member of the back of the pack, just like many of you.

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Now, today, I am thrilled to welcome a fellow UK inhabitant, mr Nick Hancock, to the show.

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Nick is a UK athletics licensed and UESCA ultra running certified coach who's transformed his passion for running into a career, helping countless athletes improve their performance through tailored training plans.

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With a background in competitive racing and a focus on balancing strength training with running, nick brings a wealth of knowledge to our discussion today, where we're planning to dive into the what, why, when and how of strength training for slower ultra runners.

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So join us as we are about to get into it right after this.

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Discover raw, inspiring stories from runners who've been right where you are.

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This is the.

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Choose to Endure Ultra Running Podcast with your host.

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He's English, not Australian Richard Gleave.

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Nick, welcome to the show, my friend.

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Thank you so much for sparing a little time to talk to us today.

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How are you doing?

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And, more importantly, I think I would be a bit remiss if I didn't ask how the weather was over there right now.

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Yeah, Hi Rich, how are you doing?

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Thank you for having me on the podcast.

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It's been pretty grim.

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I will tell you, the weather has been awful.

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I mean, I actually got quite lucky on my long run today.

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I managed to squeeze in 18 miles in between torrential and I mean torrential downpours.

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It has not stopped for two weeks.

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I'd say it's been pretty bad.

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Well, that sounds about right.

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Since I'm heading back over there in a couple of weeks, it probably will start raining like crazy, but I'm okay with that.

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Where we're coming from, it's super hot, so I'm looking forward to a bit of rain, but maybe not quite that much, I must admit.

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At the time of recording this podcast.

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I'm just getting packed to head out to Colorado actually tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to some sunshine over there.

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Fantastic.

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Well, we'll be trading.

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I'll pass you by, I'll give you a wave in the airport as we cross paths.

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Very good, all right.

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So strength training, nick.

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Most of us probably know we should be doing it, or perhaps should be doing more of it, but maybe we should start this particular discussion by going over the reason why first.

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So can you give us kind of the breakdown of the importance of incorporating strength training into any ultra runners routine, really, but especially if it makes a difference for back of the pack runners like us?

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yeah, absolutely, and you know, I think you know strength training is not something for you know that just the elites do, because you know they can fit it into their training.

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It's not something that's you know, I call myself a competitive ultra runner.

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I guess I do tend to find myself at the more front end of the of the pack, but I coach people at all ends of the pack and I always say I actually think that I actually think that back of the pack runners have more to be gained from doing strength training than perhaps an elite, because they're out there for longer.

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They need more strength, they need their muscles to be able to cope with the demands of being out there for longer.

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So that's kind of one of the first things that I would say straight away is that I think, yeah, I think somebody who is spending more time out there could just do with that ability to endure the demands of ultra running, and certainly strength training is one of the most effective ways of doing that.

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The other thing that we hope to gain from strength training it's not 100% certain that strength training does actually prevent injury.

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Strength training does actually prevent injury and I think that's a word I always use really carefully that preventing injury is.

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Injury is always, always multifactorial.

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So strength training isn't going to stop you from getting injured.

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But before everybody runs to cancel their gym memberships, you know, we hope that it does do that.

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You know, I I actually always have this saying and it's from a book and I can never remember what the author is but um, weak things break, um.

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So you know, if we can be stronger, then we are ultimately going to certainly help prevent injury.

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We're not going to prevent it, help prevent injury.

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So you know, that's one of the things that we we hear most often about.

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Why should I do strength training?

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It's we we tend to hear that it is because we want to prevent injury.

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However, some of the other things that you're going to gain from it are, you know, like I've already sort of touched on, you're going to gain more strength in your muscles and more muscular endurance through that sort of even just if I just spoke from an anecdotal personal basis n of one basis, ever since I started doing more strength training and really sort of doing the right strength training, I definitely don't feel the same aches and pains that I used to before I started doing strength training, particularly towards the back end of races.

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You know when, when you are starting to break down, you are starting to get tired.

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You know your form starting to collapse.

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I don't get that as much now, particularly things like the aching glutes or, in the ultra marathon context, the you know, particularly the really hilly ones or the mountainous ones.

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My quads don't get as smashed up as they used to.

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Yeah, the big turning point for me was actually when I got Achilles tendonitis.

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That was sort of a big one, the big turning point for when I really started knuckling down on my strength training, because any physio is actually any good physio worth their salt is going to give you rehab through the means of strength training.

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Any physio is actually any good physio worth their salt is going to give you rehab through the means of strength training.

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And it was sort of from there that I really started making sure I was.

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I was doing my strength training on a on a weekly basis and, touch wood, I haven't become injured since.

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But I would also say I've become.

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I've become faster through it and in an ultra marathon context, faster because I'm able to keep moving for longer, just more consistent.

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Yeah, yeah, particularly.

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You know, as I say, when things start to break down, you know form is better, I'm able to keep upright better, I'm not sort of dragging myself for long.

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So yeah, and you know just from the clients I work with, that is quite often, one of the biggest things that they will say is that they just felt stronger.

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That work with that is quite often one of the biggest things that they will say is that they just felt stronger.

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That word I felt stronger.

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I felt strong through the race.

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It's because they do not just strength work, but they do the right strength work yeah, and we'll get into that in a minute.

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One of the other things I postulate for strength training too is a reason to put it in is more so I and this is really just again n of one me, but I but I feel like it helps with recovery too.

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I mean, I think you know anecdotally I tend to recover faster since I've been doing the strength training.

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Is that just me, or is that something we could throw out there as well?

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No, absolutely.

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I know we're going to probably talk about this a bit later on, but after my attempt at CCC, I was back running two days later.

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Oh man, yeah, and again it is.

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You know, it's because I felt fit and strong yeah and and that you're right, I do.

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You know I I recover much quicker.

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I see my athletes that I coach recover much quicker.

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You know, they're sort of usually back to some semblance of normal running within a week or two.

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Yeah, depending on the length of the ultra that they've done, which, quite honestly, I don't think most of them would if they didn't do strength training.

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So, yeah, I'd 100 agree with you there now, one of the reasons when we bring up strength training in our in the pub chat that we have going on within our ultra running space out here, one of the reasons that I hear a lot for potentially not having done any or as much strength training is that, hey, I just don't have time to fit strength training in among all the running that I'm doing.

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So do you have any thoughts on how we can sort of effectively integrate some level of strength training into what is presumably already a busy schedule in life?

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Should we be making room for it, or can we fit it in in some other ways as we're going, so as not to impact the running training itself?

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Yeah, no, there are some ways.

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I mean, I tend to say that everybody's schedule is different.

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So if you're running let's say you're running seven days a week you could quite happily drop one of those runs and fit a good, proper strength session in, you know, without it affecting your running.

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In fact, I think it would probably improve your running purely because you're building that strength, which is another part of the reason why we need, as runners, to do strength training is because you know we get a lot of muscular endurance from just going out and doing the running.

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I know I can probably hear the people screaming at the, you know, at their headphones right now saying, oh, yeah, but you know, just go and do some hill running.

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Yes, hill running does build running specific strength, but it builds strength only to a certain point.

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We need to be lifting heavy weights ideally to build strength, because that's what us runners are missing in the grand scheme.

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So, yeah, it would depend on someone's schedule.

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I would say, in the very, very rare occasions I've coached people who don't do strength training which is very, very rare now I mean I'm talking unicorn rare I had one guy who could only run three days a week.

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He just had a crazy job.

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He's a lead pharmacist for a hospital.

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Lots of hours, lots of time on his feet and also if he did any more running his wife would probably kill him.

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So family commitments basically.

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So he could only run three days a week and there was no other opportunity whatsoever to get a strength training session in, because it would mean cannibalizing one of those runs which he was an ultra runner and we were.

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Actually we were working towards a 148 mile canal race which he completed.

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in fact he was about sort of middle, as in the in the finishes, 70 dnf rate 150 mile canal race I mean there's nothing worse than running on a dead straight flat canal yeah, I mean yeah mean yeah, Was that the Grand Union?

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It's one of those series of races.

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It's the Kennet and Avon Canal, okay.

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Yeah, yeah, tough mental challenge that one as much as physical.

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Yeah, huge, especially when he ran pretty much past his house at about 110 miles oh.

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Oh.

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Hopefully somebody was standing outside with a pork pie as he ran by.

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I don't know yeah.

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But he finished the race and he's one of the rare people I would say okay, yeah, we can't cannibalize anymore as you're running, because already we're having to be quite, quite creative, quite efficient with what it is we're doing with his running.

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So in the times where he could do some strength training, it was in his house, it was with bands or a couple of kettlebells that he had.

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Yeah, and we would keep it to pretty short sessions three or four times a week, and when I say short, I'm talking like 10 minutes tops, because you know it was kind of well, I'll just do something quickly in my lunch hour or before the kids go to bed, or after the kids have gone to bed, whatever it might be.

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You know to be quite time efficient, so there are things like that that you can do yeah, I think people when they hear strength training, they obviously their mind goes to okay, I need to.

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First of all, I need a gym, I need to go to the gym, I need to spend an hour in the gym lifting, you know, doing whatever.

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But I do think there and I do sort of sort of a similar thing, I do like 20 minutes in the morning when nobody else is up and I just have some, some dumbbells, and you know, there's stuff you can do with that.

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That, I think, is still a reasonably good strength training, but it's just fitting it in around around time that you already have, or making a short amount of time I think, the point being that I don't think you have to feel like you've got to go to the gym for an hour and find that space just to get some benefit from strength training.

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No, not at all.

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I mean, I would say that having something like a gym or a home gym or squat, rack and barbell, that kind of thing, is the most ideal scenario.

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But even then we're not talking about I.

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I actually, you know, I say to my athletes if, if I've given them, if I've given them a strength session or, you know, if it's before I've started coaching somebody or just generally chatting with somebody, if they're doing more than about 40 minutes 30 to 40 minutes of strength training at any one time, then they're doing too much.

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Because the thing with strength training is that it's it's very demanding on the central nervous system and it can take quite a lot to recover from.

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If you do too much of it like if you do your strength session, and then for the next three days you're suffering from huge doms, you know, delayed onset, muscle soreness, and I think you know, I think everybody in the world has, uh, you know who's tried some sort of fitness program or something that's had bombs at some point in their life?

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You know how debilitating that can be.

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So yeah, I always say that if you've gone to that point where you need that much recovery, you've done way too much, and it.

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It surprises people when I say, well, so okay, what would a strength session look like?

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You know, for most of my athletes and for me, I generally do two sets of each exercise because that's you know.

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You print off any strength training program from the internet and everything is like three sets of 15, for example, three sets of 12.

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So that's kind of getting into the realms of what bodybuilders need to do to be able to build muscle.

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We're getting into that hypertrophy muscle growth range of things.

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Actually, what we need to be doing because we want to develop strength is actually ideally more weight, less repetitions and not too many sets so that you end up having to do, you know, spend three days recovering from it and then that impacting on the quality of your running.

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So for me, a typical sort of strength session for me or one of my athletes would be two sets of five to six repetitions per exercise and we might be talking six exercises that target, depending on where you are in your strength training plan.

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Exercises that target depend on where you are in your strength training plan, but it'll be things like squats, deadlifts, bench press, rows and overhead press and those are your five compound movements.

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Those are kind of the five big movements that a bench press, for example.

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A bench press is not a chest exercise, it's actually a full body exercise when it's done properly.

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Squats, it's not leg day, squats are whole body.

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In fact, you stand to gain more core strength from doing proper squats than you would do from doing a hundred crunches.

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Interesting, yeah, and so how often should we be looking to incorporate these five core sessions, or five core exercises, I should say, into sessions in your weekly training plan?

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I think you mentioned like maybe a couple of times per week.

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Is that ideal?

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Should we be doing more?

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ideally a couple.

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I wouldn't do any more.

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Don't really see any need to do any more, for for the most part anyway, I mean, I think if you are in a, in a period where you're, let's say, your a race is nine months away, then maybe you could spend six weeks doing three or four strength sessions a week if you really really wanted to, if you really wanted to sort of put yourself through that kind of structured training program.

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But you know, for for most people 90 of people, I'd say, you know, who like even like me you know I don't ever really do more than two sessions a week because my race calendar is pretty full yeah my a race isn't nine months away.

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I've got races pretty much every month, so you know they might not be all the a races, but I certainly don't want to be spending four days in the gym.

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So two a week is for me the sweet spot.

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And those five exercises would be split between the two so, for example, you wouldn't want to do your squats and deadlifts on the same day because they're two big exercises.

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That would be a challenge.

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Yeah, that's quite a lot for your central nervous system.

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So I I tend to separate squats and deadlifts out.

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I tend to separate bench press and overhead press out, so they're on two separate days pack.

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Does that change the narrative at all?

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Or in the instance where we're going long let's say we're doing 200 miles or a 72-hour race or something where you're going to be out for a ridiculous amount of time does that change the narrative at all?

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Or is it still?

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No, it's pretty standard.

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This is the stuff you should be doing.

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Yeah, those five exercises are kind of your base.

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You then it depends on, as you get closer to your race you should get more specific, and they're not the only exercises I use.

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I'm just talking about those should be in your program because they are full body, compound exercises that, like I said, squats are not leg day, deadlifts are not back day.

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They are full body exercises that benefit your entire central nervous system, your entire posterior chain.

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You know, you name it.

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It's, it's there to support, support you particularly.

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You know something like a squat, because of the demand on the whole body as soon as you get towards, you know, start getting towards the end of your race.

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That's where your squats come in, because you, you've, you've built a strong body all over.

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Yeah, it, uh it really helps with your posture.

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So, but then there's other things.

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You know you want to think about unilateral exercises.

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So, uh, unilateral meaning single, so single leg stuff, and you might want to do single leg, single leg split squats, single leg deadlifts, single leg glute bridges.

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There's a whole raft, raft of exercises out there that are going to support you on race day, and not forgetting your upper body as well, and not just supporting on race day, but supporting your training in general.

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Yeah, I think upper body is something that people miss, because I feel like running is a whole body activity, right, 100%.

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And so don't sleep, as they say, don't sleep on the on the upper body, at least in some part.

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And you know, especially for bigger races where there's required gear and you know the weight starts to build up a bit, yeah, when you put all that in your pack and you start running, I mean you're going to need a bit of a bit of something to to help kind of offset that as well, I would imagine.

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Yeah, 100%.

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We all have for the most part, we all have two arms.

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Our arms are a big part of the running gait, so why wouldn't you train them?

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Why wouldn't you train your upper body to?

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You know, it's no good having a strong lower body if your upper body isn't strong enough to support it.

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So, yeah, it's hugely important to uh to do that.

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Absolutely.

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Now, nick, are there with with the folks you've trained over over the years or you know people that you've run into.

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Are there some common mistakes maybe that we should look to avoid, especially when, if we're going to start strength training, if we're just moving into it, you know, what would you see as some common mistakes that we make aside from, maybe, just as we talked about doing too much, especially too soon, I would imagine, with the DOMS and so on, affecting the rest of your running.

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But are there any other mistakes you've seen people make?

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Yeah, a hundred percent.

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So following, uh, doing, follow along strength programs on youtube?

00:20:50.590 --> 00:21:04.071
Oh yeah, that is a mistake, because 99.9 of the time it's somebody with, with, with a couple of dumbbells that probably weigh like two kilos, and it's not strength work at all.

00:21:04.071 --> 00:21:06.159
It doesn't even resemble strength work.

00:21:06.159 --> 00:21:11.653
You know, I talked about using heavy weights and obviously that is all relevant.

00:21:11.653 --> 00:21:20.945
I can squat 140 kilos, but I've got athletes I coach that can squat 30 kilos because that's heavy for them and then they build from there.

00:21:20.945 --> 00:21:23.228
So heavy should be relative to you.

00:21:23.228 --> 00:21:31.808
Heavy doesn't mean that you need to go and start throwing 45-pound plates on every bar that you come across.

00:21:31.848 --> 00:21:48.001
So, uh, I lost my train of thought there yeah, common mistakes, we're going for common mistakes um, yeah, so the the thing with youtube videos is that they will tend to be not enough weight and then kind of leading on to the sort of.

00:21:48.001 --> 00:21:53.448
The next common mistake that people make is is doing too many repetitions.

00:21:53.448 --> 00:22:04.981
Okay, yeah, interesting the sort of the, the logical trade of thought that people have is okay.

00:22:04.981 --> 00:22:07.880
So I'm going to be running and I'm going to do tens of thousands of steps when I do my run or my race.

00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:14.272
So therefore I should do loads and loads and loads and loads of lunges, or loads and loads and loads and loads of lunges, or loads and loads and loads and loads of squats, because that's going to.

00:22:14.272 --> 00:22:16.301
You know, I need that muscular endurance.

00:22:16.301 --> 00:22:21.778
You can't really build that kind of muscular endurance in the gym.

00:22:21.778 --> 00:22:24.731
You can build muscular endurance, but not that kind of muscular endurance.

00:22:24.731 --> 00:22:28.805
The muscular endurance that we're looking to build in the gym is through strength.

00:22:29.747 --> 00:22:47.421
And the other thing that doing too many reps is a mistake is that when we are training for our races, we are constantly looking to manage fatigue, right, you know where we don't want to run too much because we need to be able to recover.

00:22:48.282 --> 00:22:53.902
If you are then adding in loads of repetitions with not much weight, you're just adding to that fatigue.

00:22:53.902 --> 00:23:01.609
When you lift heavy weight for smaller amounts of repetitions, you you don't build that kind of fatigue.

00:23:01.609 --> 00:23:22.730
You do put pressure on the central nervous system, but not you don't add so much to the fatigue with short, smaller amounts of repetitions, because you're getting the thing when, when you do lots of repetitions for it to when it starts feeling heavy, you've probably already done 10, 15, 20, 30 repetitions which didn't really do much.

00:23:22.730 --> 00:23:35.349
If you add enough weight, enough weight to maybe lift five repetitions and leave one or two in reserve, you're pretty much straight away getting into the heavy lifting and that's um.

00:23:35.349 --> 00:23:44.662
That's probably the biggest mistake I see people making is is assuming that because we're doing lots of running, you need to do lots of repetitions and you don't.

00:23:44.662 --> 00:23:51.833
You do lots of repetitions when you go out running okay, so so do less, less reps, heavier weight yeah.

00:23:51.853 --> 00:23:55.871
Perfect, and I kind of touched on it earlier Don't spend too long doing it.

00:23:55.871 --> 00:23:57.357
If you're, if you're doing.

00:23:57.357 --> 00:24:02.824
You know, if you're in the gym for longer than 30, 40 minutes doing your strength training, you've probably done too much.

00:24:03.847 --> 00:24:04.329
Interesting.

00:24:04.329 --> 00:24:18.359
Yeah Now, and I think we you might've touched on this as well, but I wanted to ask whether strength training as a program, as part of our running, would evolve from, let's say, an off-season through peak training.

00:24:18.359 --> 00:24:20.608
But also, what about taper?

00:24:20.608 --> 00:24:33.303
How should I be approaching, or should I be doing any strength training as I taper into final week, two weeks, whatever it is before my race, final week two weeks or whatever it is before my race?

00:24:33.303 --> 00:24:37.471
Should I be ditching strength training at that, or do I keep it and instead kind of pull down on on the volume?

00:24:37.471 --> 00:24:39.901
Where does strength training fit into?

00:24:39.901 --> 00:24:43.894
Kind of off-season, the peak training and then particularly the taper?

00:24:45.017 --> 00:24:45.258
yeah.

00:24:45.258 --> 00:24:47.903
So I touched on the off-season part earlier.

00:24:47.903 --> 00:24:55.127
Somebody is having you having a true off-season where they've got plenty of time to build that play base.

00:24:55.127 --> 00:25:08.826
Then they could probably be doing maybe three or four strength sessions with some lighter weight, more repetitions, probably less running, because maybe you want to build some additional muscle before you then go into.

00:25:08.826 --> 00:25:11.573
You know, doing your heavier stuff, you start running more.

00:25:11.573 --> 00:25:15.207
More muscle will will translate into better strength.

00:25:15.207 --> 00:25:22.132
The closer you get to race day, the more specific you want to be getting with your strength training.

00:25:22.132 --> 00:25:25.240
So and progressing your strength training as well.

00:25:25.320 --> 00:25:36.965
So you know, if you've been been doing single leg split squats, for example, you know, change that up to single leg split squat, squat with your foot in a trx band.

00:25:36.965 --> 00:25:39.152
There's so many variations that we could go through.

00:25:39.152 --> 00:25:42.230
Um, you know, I won't, uh, won't dwell on that too much.

00:25:42.230 --> 00:25:50.770
And then when you do get into the taper, very similar to your running is you should reduce the volume but keep the intensity.

00:25:50.770 --> 00:25:52.760
Okay, so we do that with our running.

00:25:52.760 --> 00:25:58.843
We we should be keeping, we should be reducing the volume as we go into taper, but you can keep the intensity.

00:25:58.843 --> 00:26:07.468
So if you've been doing race pace practice, you would continue to do race pace practice right up until a few days before the race.

00:26:07.468 --> 00:26:08.451
You would just do less of it.

00:26:08.451 --> 00:26:11.042
And it's exactly the same with strength training.

00:26:11.042 --> 00:26:18.015
If you've been, if you've been squatting 50 kilos in the last couple of weeks, then keep it at 50 kilos.

00:26:18.015 --> 00:26:20.065
But instead of doing two sets, do one set.

00:26:20.846 --> 00:26:23.251
Gotcha Okay, perfect, I like it.

00:26:23.251 --> 00:26:32.211
Yeah, I think it's one of those questions that if you asked your running friends you'd get a whole bunch of different answers, especially as you move into taper, taper, what to do with your strength training.

00:26:32.211 --> 00:26:33.876
So, yeah, pretty interesting.

00:26:33.876 --> 00:26:36.104
Just kind of mirror your running.

00:26:36.104 --> 00:26:40.442
I think most of us know what we should be doing from a running perspective with with the volume there.

00:26:40.442 --> 00:26:42.909
So, uh, yeah, okay interesting one.

00:26:43.089 --> 00:27:11.703
One thing I would, um, maybe do, which actually I probably do with most of my athletes is so let's say somebody's doing two strength sessions in a week and obviously race day is usually a Saturday, I would do the first strength session of the week with just one set per exercise, as I said, drop that volume down, and then perhaps the second strength session that let's say that strength session might have been on the Thursday or Friday in their normal week.

00:27:11.703 --> 00:27:16.642
Then in that case I would cut that strength session out and say don't do any strength that day.

00:27:17.343 --> 00:27:27.962
You know, use that extra time to go and get a pre-race massage or have a hot bath or, yeah, good sleep, you know, sleep some more, particularly if it's a long ultra where you you know you need sleep.

00:27:27.962 --> 00:27:29.906
Just spend that week getting extra sleep.

00:27:30.367 --> 00:27:45.749
We know we can bank sleep, so get the extra sleep, and so you mentioned the different days of training there and this is purely a well, it's a question that's come up a couple of times as I've been out running with people and we get into talking about stuff as you do on a trail.

00:27:45.749 --> 00:27:59.413
But from a strength perspective, is there benefit from doing strength and running the same day, or would you say we should be doing strength training kind of on an off day from running?

00:27:59.413 --> 00:28:10.827
Can we maximize running if we add it with strength, or should we be separating the two to allow for some recovery time in between, to allow?

00:28:10.969 --> 00:28:12.998
for some recovery time in between?

00:28:15.660 --> 00:28:26.310
Yeah, this question has been going round and round and round in running circles and strength circles and concurrent training circles for many, many years and I still don't think there's a definitive answer to this.

00:28:26.310 --> 00:28:28.406
Well, what would you advise?

00:28:28.406 --> 00:28:41.489
So the science says that the most optimal way would be to keep your hard days hard and your easy days easy.

00:28:41.489 --> 00:28:59.992
I tend to find that doing if I've got a session as in a running you know, hard running session and a strength session on the same day programs I find that's too much.

00:29:00.554 --> 00:29:00.794
Yeah.

00:29:01.320 --> 00:29:14.661
So I prefer to split them and do strength training on on an easy day, where the the total intensity of that day is then therefore reduced.

00:29:14.661 --> 00:29:23.002
I tend to find that works better for me and I tend to find that, on the whole, works better for the athletes that I coach.

00:29:23.002 --> 00:29:26.230
And the athletes I coach are people with busy lives.

00:29:26.230 --> 00:29:31.025
Busy jobs tend to be sort of 30 to 60 years of age.

00:29:31.484 --> 00:29:31.746
Yeah.

00:29:32.326 --> 00:29:56.261
I definitely think some of the younger folks can handle it, no problem, but you know what, for me and most of my clients, particularly when you've got a hard running session and a strength session and then you've got work and kids and chores to do, it's just too much.

00:29:56.261 --> 00:29:57.970
So do you know and this is the thing I always kind of come back to?

00:29:57.970 --> 00:29:58.211
The science.

00:29:58.211 --> 00:29:59.175
Yeah, the science says this.

00:29:59.175 --> 00:30:06.109
The science says that the science is generally done on 25 year old sub elite male athletes.

00:30:06.109 --> 00:30:18.931
I'm not a 25 year old sub elite male athlete, and neither are probably all of the people listening to this podcast, or you know the kind of people that I work with in my coaching business.

00:30:18.931 --> 00:30:24.311
So so yeah, sometimes the science can move to one side, should we say?

00:30:24.820 --> 00:30:29.502
No, I agree a hundred percent, and I think, to some degree too, there's this element of listen to your body.

00:30:29.502 --> 00:30:53.741
Right, you know you better than anyone, and so if you are trying to do strength training on the same day that you're, you know, maybe you do strength in the morning and you run in the evening, or vice versa, whatever it is, if you're trying that and it's not working, like it's really impacting your ability to perform one or other of those as you're supposed to per your plan, then I would say change it and and try again.

00:30:53.741 --> 00:31:04.323
But I think it's that for me, you've got to listen to your body a little bit, and if you are able to do that, great, and the moment you're not, I would say it's probably time to look at changing it perhaps.

00:31:04.323 --> 00:31:06.327
But, um, yeah, 100.

00:31:06.929 --> 00:31:12.549
It's always going to be down to the individual and and you know what some people can't do strength and run on the same day.

00:31:12.549 --> 00:31:18.727
It's if you've got a one hour run and then we're talking about going into the gym, for you know, half hour, 40 minutes.

00:31:18.727 --> 00:31:20.672
Some people don't have that midweek.

00:31:20.672 --> 00:31:30.009
Yeah, you know, they've got work, they've got kids, they've got stuff to do, so you've got no choice but to do a hard run and then your strength training the next day.

00:31:30.009 --> 00:31:31.673
I would always try and keep it that way around.

00:31:31.673 --> 00:31:34.368
You know our priority here is running Right.

00:31:34.368 --> 00:31:38.632
So try and run first and then do your strength training later.

00:31:38.632 --> 00:31:48.779
If you're doing that on the same day, then get your run in, and if you are going to do your strength training close to your run, do it straight after.

00:31:49.040 --> 00:32:08.031
If you're not going to do it close, give it at least six to eight hours, let those muscles recover, get some recovery and yeah, now, you talked about going to the gym, and as did I a couple of times, but there's a lot of folks out there, especially the the demographics of the podcast here and, and to some degree, a lot of ultra running.

00:32:08.093 --> 00:32:11.789
It is, as you've kind of alluded to, like the 30 to 60.

00:32:11.789 --> 00:32:17.599
And, yeah, there's a few people either side of that, but that's generally where we land with the ultra running group.

00:32:17.599 --> 00:32:28.373
So there may well be a few folks on the higher end of that who might feel intimidated by strength training, especially if you're going to the gym where you've got all those big dudes who are 20 years old, grunting a lot and dropping weights.

00:32:28.373 --> 00:32:32.209
Do you have any thoughts about where should those folks start?

00:32:32.209 --> 00:32:43.223
Is it okay to start at home with some resistance bands that we talked about earlier and some of the body weight stuff and then kind of work up to dumbbells and whatever else you want to do or like?

00:32:43.223 --> 00:32:43.704
Where would that?

00:32:43.744 --> 00:32:47.001
where would those folks start yeah, no, you do not need to get to a gym.

00:32:47.001 --> 00:32:56.086
That is the ideal scenario because, first of all, range of equipment is better, the weight available is better as you start to progress.

00:32:56.086 --> 00:33:06.181
But if you didn't want to go to the gym or you didn't have access to one or cost, you know there's so many reasons why not to and that's, that's totally fine.

00:33:06.181 --> 00:33:10.808
I actually have a guy who I coach lives in the middle of nowhere in Scotland.

00:33:10.808 --> 00:33:13.594
He also doesn't have a garage at home.

00:33:13.594 --> 00:33:17.250
You know he's not able to set up a squat rack and that kind of thing.

00:33:17.359 --> 00:33:21.806
So there's some great stuff out there nowadays, great equipment available out there.

00:33:21.806 --> 00:33:23.965
Um, certainly in the UK and I'm sure in the U S.

00:33:23.965 --> 00:33:25.806
Uh, you guys have got them over there.

00:33:25.806 --> 00:33:50.079
But there are adjustable dumbbells where all you do is you turn the dial on the end of the dumbbell and it'll I mean, we've got dumbbells here that range I'm thinking in pounds, you know anything from sort of four pounds all the way up to 80 pounds, wow, and it's just one set of dumbbells, yeah, and all you do is turn the dial, you pick them up and it'll be the weight that you've selected.

00:33:50.079 --> 00:33:52.308
So they're super space-saving.

00:33:52.308 --> 00:33:59.268
They're not super cheap, but they're not super expensive either, and you can get so much done with just a pair of dumbbells.

00:33:59.749 --> 00:33:59.929
Yeah.

00:34:00.570 --> 00:34:01.292
So much done.

00:34:01.292 --> 00:34:04.849
You know a couple of kettlebells pretty easy to pick up, you know.

00:34:04.849 --> 00:34:09.032
Go on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or you know whatever.

00:34:09.032 --> 00:34:13.280
You know Garasail, whatever you know, somebody's going to have some kettlebells.

00:34:13.280 --> 00:34:15.507
There's some great stuff you can do with kettlebells as well.

00:34:15.507 --> 00:34:18.628
So plenty, plenty that can be done.

00:34:18.628 --> 00:34:28.791
I do tend to say to people unless you are really really really starting from ground zero, then don't do body weight.

00:34:29.653 --> 00:34:36.090
For the most part Okay, because you're getting body weight for the most part Okay, because you're getting body weight done through your running anyway.

00:34:36.090 --> 00:34:49.809
Body weight will only really build strength to a very limited point and usually body weight is kind of sort of phase one, maybe phase two in a rehab program.

00:34:49.809 --> 00:34:58.833
That's kind of where, from a physiotherapist, if you get injured, that's where a physiotherapist will start you out is kind of body weight stuff.

00:34:58.833 --> 00:35:05.193
When we're talking about getting strong, then we need to be adding resistance, right.

00:35:05.193 --> 00:35:11.431
So I tend to say, for the most part, body weight isn't really going to help much.

00:35:12.313 --> 00:35:12.813
Very good.

00:35:12.813 --> 00:35:26.512
Now, nick, talking of resistance, perhaps I did want to let folks know that Nick here has just got back and is probably in recovery at this point, to kind of link to our previous conversation there.

00:35:26.512 --> 00:35:31.476
From UTMB, from the CCC, is what your race was out there, nick.

00:35:31.559 --> 00:35:59.880
So I really did want to make space in the chat here to ask you about that and to kind of because I know certainly over here UTMB is as big as it is, I'm sure, in Europe and everybody looks to I want to go do UTMB and so I think, prior to coming on air, I was just saying I think people kind of sometimes overlook CCC and maybe even OCC as a place to start and kind of get your feet wet in alpine running on the technical terrain over there.

00:35:59.880 --> 00:36:14.003
So if I can ask, and if you have a few minutes to talk about your CCC experience, what made you choose that race and how did that fit into your overall racing goals and how is the?

00:36:14.003 --> 00:36:17.115
Well, maybe we'll get to how it went first and then I'll ask how your?

00:36:17.155 --> 00:36:20.704
recovery is going yeah, sure, yeah, you said I'm in recovery.

00:36:20.704 --> 00:36:26.072
No, I mean I, I I loved it to start.

00:36:26.072 --> 00:36:27.420
Let's just get that out there.

00:36:27.420 --> 00:36:28.963
What a what an event.

00:36:28.963 --> 00:36:33.112
And I know utmb have had their shortcomings.

00:36:33.112 --> 00:36:36.728
They've made some mistakes over, particularly over 2023.

00:36:36.728 --> 00:36:47.722
Yeah, the dacha sponsorship was not very good for the environmentalists out there, firing corinne malcolm who's you know kind of the voice of utmb commentary.

00:36:47.722 --> 00:36:49.045
That was not very good.

00:36:49.146 --> 00:36:58.052
And then obviously, the the Whistler saga yes, that was pretty big on this side of the pond it was it was pretty, pretty big here too, so yeah, yeah, gary.

00:36:58.119 --> 00:37:00.367
Robbins is a very well-loved figure.

00:37:00.367 --> 00:37:03.880
So you know they've they've made some mistakes and and I kind of get that.

00:37:03.880 --> 00:37:07.791
But a lot of people don't like the whole UTMB pyramid scheme of.

00:37:07.791 --> 00:37:11.268
You know, you have to do a qualifying race and it is expensive.

00:37:11.268 --> 00:37:24.505
Let's, let's not beat about the bush, but in terms of the race organization, in terms of the community out there, the, the buzz just awesome.

00:37:24.786 --> 00:37:39.567
I would highly recommend anybody going through said UTMB pyramid scheme to get there, cause it was, it was absolutely incredible and France is just fantastic and the scenery you just don't think you can beat it really.

00:37:39.567 --> 00:37:41.490
But yeah, what a race.

00:37:41.490 --> 00:37:55.331
I mean, particularly for people coming from from your side of the pond and I I know quite a few American coaches and athletes that say the same thing is that the ascents and descents are very steep.

00:37:55.331 --> 00:38:02.072
I don't think you kind of have that steepness for the most part of the races that go on in the US.

00:38:02.072 --> 00:38:16.853
The kit requirements is definitely a big change, because a lot of races in the US you don't really need poles, or in fact, some of them, them, you're not even allowed poles, right, right, absolutely the mandatory kit requirements aren't very stringent.

00:38:16.914 --> 00:38:27.422
But over in europe our mandatory kit requirements are a bit over the top, if I'm honest, particularly at ccc where they called, you know, utmb.

00:38:27.422 --> 00:38:43.793
In fact, the whole whole week they called the hot kit was needed because it was pretty warm so you had to have additional bottles but you still had to carry thermal bottoms, thermal top, waterproof top, waterproof bottoms.

00:38:43.793 --> 00:38:47.442
So yeah, the kit is is pretty, pretty crazy really.

00:38:47.442 --> 00:38:50.427
But aside from that, an amazing race.

00:38:50.427 --> 00:38:58.315
I personally I started a little bit far back so I had to quite a bit of working my way through the field to do.

00:38:58.335 --> 00:39:04.192
I think I must have started somewhere because I I'd done a big race already in the uk at the end of july.

00:39:04.192 --> 00:39:08.771
So I probably still had a little bit of fatigue in my legs from that, or certainly thought I would.

00:39:08.771 --> 00:39:13.931
So I thought I'll just go in, enjoy the experience and not worry too much about where I place.

00:39:13.931 --> 00:39:19.425
But my racing head came on and I I think I'm the competitive edge kicked in.

00:39:19.425 --> 00:39:27.534
Huh, huh, yeah, I think I made my way from something like 2000th up to about 340th at one point.

00:39:27.534 --> 00:39:27.914
Wow.

00:39:28.536 --> 00:39:29.436
That's a huge jump.

00:39:29.436 --> 00:39:31.628
Well, first of all, that's a huge amount of people in a race.

00:39:31.628 --> 00:39:32.342
I don't know that.

00:39:32.342 --> 00:39:36.375
There are many, if any, races here that are that many people in a race.

00:39:36.896 --> 00:39:40.686
Yeah, but that's a big jump, but here, like Western States, what it's like?

00:39:40.686 --> 00:39:42.630
350 people yeah.

00:39:45.519 --> 00:39:45.701
I mean UT.

00:39:45.701 --> 00:39:46.605
You know, like western states, what it's like.

00:39:46.605 --> 00:39:47.588
350 people, yeah, I mean utmb.

00:39:47.588 --> 00:39:48.231
Yeah, at least four times that.

00:39:48.231 --> 00:39:48.934
I mean that's just insane to even.

00:39:48.934 --> 00:39:59.260
I mean obviously I've watched it on tv, but just to think about being there in the midst of that, with all that you know, with all the streets and the people hanging out the windows and all that just sends a chill up your spine I mean there's a real buzz.

00:39:59.701 --> 00:40:08.684
I think the only thing I would say with ccc was the first climb out of cormier up to tête de la tranche was a queue.

00:40:08.684 --> 00:40:16.346
I lost I mean, we all lost a good hour just from queuing to get up to the first, the first peak.

00:40:16.346 --> 00:40:28.090
It's pretty steep, lots of the big chain backs and yeah, once you kind of got past the first aid station it opened up a bit and yeah, like from a personal perspective, I was feeling great, like really good.

00:40:28.090 --> 00:40:29.755
I was running super well.

00:40:29.755 --> 00:40:35.088
My running ability, you know, flats and the downhills were certainly helping me.

00:40:35.088 --> 00:40:38.664
I was overtaking people a lot and, and yeah, just having a great time.

00:40:38.704 --> 00:40:56.041
Really, my, my feeling was good, my hydration, I thought, was really good and because I kind of learned my lesson from the race I'd done at the end of July in the Lake District, because it was pretty warm that day and I just didn't drink enough and couldn't fuel Still did okay, but anyway.

00:40:56.041 --> 00:41:10.068
So, in my bid to stay super, super hydrated, because there were fountains everywhere in the Alps, so I said, right, I'm going to make sure I drink from all the fountains, I'm going to stay really, really hydrated.

00:41:10.068 --> 00:41:20.351
But I think, in my bid to stay hydrated, I drank so much plain water that I think I went slightly hyponatremic.

00:41:20.351 --> 00:41:26.952
Oh, yikes, yeah, my hands and face started, yeah, started tingling, and and I was.

00:41:26.952 --> 00:41:34.813
This was coming out of triant, which is about 70k into the race, uh, of 100k yeah, that's.

00:41:34.853 --> 00:41:42.186
I want to say that's probably two thirds, three quarters of the way, yeah yeah, I got about a third of the way out of the climb of uh from triant.

00:41:42.186 --> 00:41:49.692
I left treon, like you know, waving at uh, at the at the aid station camera you know the live stream and I was in great spirits, I was loving it.

00:41:49.692 --> 00:41:52.329
Yeah, I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna finish this in in 12 hours.

00:41:52.329 --> 00:41:53.635
I'm, I'm flying here.

00:41:53.635 --> 00:42:02.128
A third of the way up the climb I just started feeling really nauseous and then I puked and kept puking and I kept trying to push on.

00:42:02.128 --> 00:42:08.061
But I was so far away from the next aid station that, just from a safety aspect, I just had to.

00:42:08.061 --> 00:42:10.028
I had no choice but to call it in.

00:42:10.028 --> 00:42:21.206
So, yeah, unfortunately DNF'd, but it is definitely a DNF that I do not regret because it was the right call to make at the time and I loved it.

00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:42.469
Just, I had a great race, loved it so much and uh, yeah, want to go back is that a race nick that you would recommend the ccc or, like I said, maybe even the occ as a sort of starter race for particularly folks, well, really folks from anywhere in the world to come to the alps and get your feet wet?

00:42:42.570 --> 00:42:46.523
definitely not a starter race purely because you have to qualify for it.

00:42:46.583 --> 00:43:08.507
Anyway, you have to do one of utmb's world series races yes, yeah, to get the running stones, and this could be you could do a whole podcast episode on how to get running stones maybe I will, because I was around when they were doing tickets and and I got lost when we went to stones and and the very specific races, so I didn't.

00:43:08.507 --> 00:43:09.471
Maybe I'll do an episode on.

00:43:09.471 --> 00:43:12.885
They are basically still tickets so effectively you know like.

00:43:12.905 --> 00:43:25.351
So the race I did was the the ultra trail, snedonia in um in north wales, which was that's a tough one as well and it was very hot that day as well, which it's never hot in wales, so that was a shock to the system.

00:43:25.639 --> 00:43:35.652
But I got my two running stones, which basically meant I had two tickets in the lottery and I entered CCC because that was a race I'd qualified to do.

00:43:35.652 --> 00:43:37.768
I could have done OCC or CCC.

00:43:37.768 --> 00:43:43.688
I wanted to do the 100K, so, yeah, I got through that way.

00:43:43.688 --> 00:43:57.632
So, yeah, yeah, it's not one I would recommend as a first for sure, because, purely because you have to qualify for it and even if you could just go and do it, you've got altitude to think about, you've got serious amounts of elevation.

00:43:57.632 --> 00:44:01.284
I mean, you know the and the climbs are the climb.

00:44:01.284 --> 00:44:05.434
I actually that that was where my undoing came was brutal.

00:44:05.434 --> 00:44:16.786
I wasn't too bad with the actual climb itself, but yeah, tough, like you know, lots of switchbacks, very steep, lots of routes and it was hot, hot, humid.

00:44:16.786 --> 00:44:18.623
So, yeah, I wouldn't say it's.

00:44:18.623 --> 00:44:27.552
I definitely wouldn't say it's a, it's a first-timers race, but I would definitely recommend it to anybody to try and qualify to get over there.

00:44:27.552 --> 00:44:32.652
And qualification basically means finish a UTMB race somewhere in the world.

00:44:32.800 --> 00:44:33.945
And there's some great ones to do.

00:44:33.945 --> 00:44:51.318
I want to say, when I looked at it there are maybe only two or three, I think, over here in the US which seems I mean I know there's UT Snowdonia as well in the is that the only uk one uh no, the arc of attrition has just um just been, just been snapped up, which?

00:44:51.898 --> 00:44:52.159
wonderful.

00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:55.248
Well, I say wonderful, yeah, I mean I know that was a good race.

00:44:55.248 --> 00:44:56.791

Nick Hancock: Strength Training for Ultrarunners, CCC Recap & Building Maximum Mileage Coaching Success

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