I’d Rather Be Long-Distance Running

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Katya Rucker: Meet Colin Turner, a fitness coach who loves running so much, he's on a mission to help adults of all ages love it too. 

[00:00:09] Colin Turner: When we were kids running was really fun and I have two kids. They're five and seven and we can't keep them from running. They run through the house, they run up and down the street, they run by the pool and adults are always telling them to stop running.

[00:00:23] They can't help it. It's fun. It's joyful. It feels good. And, it could still be that way as [00:00:30] adults if we take it with the same amount of fun and somewhat casual, just like, oh, I think I'll run over there. And not worry so much about how fast, how far, how many miles it’s like, oh just run a little bit.

[00:00:49] Katya Rucker: Welcome to I'd Rather Be, a podcast that explores the answers to two questions. First is it possible that something as overlooked as having a hobby could be the [00:01:00] key to living a happier life? And second, what exactly is it about specific hobbies, like playing badminton, or stargazing, or running, that might have the power to infuse more purpose and meaning into our lives?

[00:01:15] I’m your host, Katya Rucker. And these questions matter to me because I was one of the people who put my passion, a form of horseback riding called dressage, on hold in my mid twenties when things got busy with work. And it took me six years to realize [00:01:30] that my life was just not going to be as good without it. There's never enough time for all the things we want to do, but I've come to believe that our passions and most treasured hobbies deserve to be prioritized.

[00:01:43] Each episode of I'd Rather Be features a different hobby and what it is about that hobby that makes people fall in love with it. Today's episode is I'd rather Be Long Distance running and you'll hear from a guest who has run a marathon on every continent, including [00:02:00] Antarctica, and another who favors ultra distance races that get up to 50 and even a hundred miles long.

[00:02:07] And Colin, our fitness coach from earlier, will also share some common myths about running that might surprise you. 

Now, running isn't exactly a neutral hobby. Plenty of people would rather be scrubbing their bathroom’s tile grout than running a full 5k. But to Colin's point from earlier, it didn't start out that way. As soon as a kid learns to walk, they want to learn to [00:02:30] run. So where does this change? Our ultra distance runner, Ilya Bass, might have part of the answer. He grew up in Russia, and he doesn't have the fondest memories of those mandatory runs many of us experienced in middle school gym classes. 

[00:02:45] Ilya Bass: So when I was growing up, I wasn't particularly fit and I, uh, didn’t like physical education in general, Uh, and then running in particular was just the death of me. I remember one of the regular things was to run around our school [00:03:00] for maybe something like two or three kilometers. And I just, I just hated that.

[00:03:04] Katya Rucker: I empathize with Ilya here. It's one thing to choose to do something physically challenging, but when running is forced upon us, that can easily feel like a form of school-sanctioned torture. But there's no getting around the fact that running is difficult.

[00:03:18] Andrew Warner, our world-traveling marathon runner finds this physical challenge to be one of running's greatest merit. 

[00:03:25] Andrew Warner: Sometimes you have days where as soon as you set foot outside, it's just too painful. You don't want to [00:03:30] do it. It's being able to do it despite how you feel, being able to just keep going feels exciting. And then that's where the sense of accomplishment comes from. I don't feel excited for having had a beer at the end of the day, because it's so easy. I do feel excited for having done something that was challenging and hard. 

[00:03:48] Katya Rucker: Speaking of challenging, Ilya competed in the Bryce Canyon 100 last May. It's a hundred mile ultra distance race on the edge of Bryce Canyon National Park in [00:04:00] Utah. These are the words he used to describe that experience. 

[00:04:04] Ilya Bass: Invigorating, challenging. Uh, what was the word? Oh yeah. Uh, maybe like 20 miles out before finish I ran into a runner and uh, he taught me a new word. He said, it's brutiful, which, which is a combination of brutal and beautiful.

[00:04:23] Katya Rucker: So maybe there's something to crave about having a brutiful [00:04:30] experience. One that's deeply personal, but that can also be shared with others who are out there on the course with us. 

[00:04:37] Colin Turner: Running's one of the few sports where there is no enemy. There's no, there's no team that you're against. Nobody has to lose because we're all running against the clock. And the, the opponent is exhaustion or mental doubt, or it's the training that you've put in. And it's [00:05:00] just such an honest sport. You get out and you put on shoes, you're all on the same course. And you run it together with the same mutual goal, which is: cross the finish line as fast as your body is physically able.

[00:05:13] Katya Rucker: It's clear that Colin, Andrew and Ilya have fully embraced the fact that running involves some amount of suffering. The way they described long races sounds like a mini hero's journey. There's this difficult descent as your body gets tired and it gets harder and harder to keep [00:05:30] going. But that phase is followed by this amazing feeling of accomplishment.

[00:05:35] Now, what I want to hear from every guest about every hobby on this show is the story of how they discovered their love for the hobby. No two stories are the same, though I was surprised to hear the parallels and how Andrew and Ilya got hooked on distance running. Here's Andrew.

[00:05:50] Andrew Warner: It all started for me when work wasn't going so well. I just couldn't figure out how to turn things around. And I was so exhausted. [00:06:00] And then a friend of mine at the office signed up for the Avon AIDS Walk. And so she would go after work to a gym and just run on the treadmill, except she didn't have a gym membership, but my building had one. So I'd get her into the gym and she'd get on the treadmill.

[00:06:15] And I’d think, all right, I should try that too. And then I tried it a couple of times and I kind of liked it. And then I started going out at night when I was anxious. I would spend a lot of time at home thinking about why work wasn't working so well, [00:06:30] I would want to watch television. And I remember that when things weren't going great for my dad, he started watching a lot of TV and I said, I don't want to go down that path.

[00:06:38] So I just put on my running shoes and ran through Manhattan. And at some point it was maybe once I hit my three miles that I got the runner’s high and could forget about work and that got me really into running. And then I started signing up for the Roadrunners races in Manhattan. And they started escalating me, you know, it would be like a four mile or five [00:07:00] mile run.

[00:07:00] And then they'd say, well, do you want to sign up for the half marathon or the this or that? And I just kept going up and up and up with them as they challenged me. And then for each new race that I signed up for, I'd feel more compelled to train, to do better. And that's what fired me up.

[00:07:15] Katya Rucker:  Similar to Andrew, Ilya started running during a stressful period at work. He quit his job at a large company and was trying to get his own startup off the ground. And amid all of that stress, he thought, maybe I should give running a try. 

[00:07:28] Ilya Bass: And I noticed there was this [00:07:30] old abandoned railroad really close to my house. I happen to live in a town which has lots of trails. And this wasn't maybe an official trail at the time, just a railroad that was no longer in use. And then there was a side trail right along it. And so I just started kind of running along there and exploring. And yeah, that got me started, um, I just took [00:08:00] whatever sneakers I had in my closet, which happened to be too small and I got black toenails right away within the first week or two. So at some point, I had to invest in real running shoes. 

[00:08:13] Katya Rucker: The other thing Andrew, Ilya and probably many other distance runners have in common is a drive to set goals that might be really small at first, but that get bigger and bigger as time goes on. I mean, how else do you go from a three mile jog along an abandoned [00:08:30] railroad to a hundred mile ultra marathon? Ilya credits an app called Runkeeper for helping him build his initial momentum toward long distance running. 

[00:08:40] Ilya Bass: What really made a difference for me is they had this, uh, you could sign up for running, uh, like a training plan that was in the app and it just became this motivation for me, uh, where, um, it would just tell me, well today you're doing X.

[00:08:56] All right. Well, that's what I'm doing, like three miles. [00:09:00] And then at the end you do these strides or, and then next day you do whatever, four miles, and there's one faster mile in the middle or something along those lines. And there was a goal of finishing, I think maybe a 10K, which is six miles, within a certain timeframe. And it just, uh, I guess maybe that just spoke to me because I like setting goals and I like having a sense of achievement. So, having that structure, [00:09:30] uh, pushed me a bit in that direction. 

[00:09:34] Katya Rucker: A training plan can really take the guesswork out of how hard to push yourself when you're just getting into running. And Colin is going to talk about the kinds of training plans he creates for new runners a little later in the episode. Now, I learned about Andrew's goal to run a marathon on every continent while I was reading his book. And the quick sidebar on that is that Andrew hosts a podcast called Mixergy where he interviews entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. And he's [00:10:00] really mastered the art of interviewing.

[00:10:02] So he wrote a book called Stop Asking Questions about how to lead high-impact interviews, which was exactly what I needed as I was starting this podcast. So it was a lot of fun to get to interview Andrew, admittedly using some of the strategies I learned from his book. Anyway, here's the backstory about how his cross continent marathon goal came about.

[00:10:23] Andrew Warner: No, my initial goal was not to run a marathon on every continent in one year. I just discovered that I had this goal [00:10:30] of running a marathon on every continent and I had forgotten all about it. So I told my friend, Brad Weimer, I'm going to start this thing. I'll do my first one this year, and Brad, who is a guy who last time I saw him, he ran up and down the Grand Canyon. I mean, he couldn't have dinner with me and my kids and wife, because he was doing that. And then he came back a few days later, broken bone, other injury, sat down at dinner with us. Um, and he's that kind of a guy. So when he heard me say, I'm going to do it and I'll start the first one this year, he said, [00:11:00] why not do faster?

[00:11:01] How about if you do it all, can you do it all in a day? What if you could do it all in seven, no you can't do seven hours. What--how fast can you? And he just kept pushing me and pushing me. And I said, no, Brad, it's not possible. I don't want to do it. And then finally, we settled on an understanding that I had, which is: I want to run on every continent to experience it. And the best way I know how to experience cities is to run through them. And I said, I can't just run through and not [00:11:30] taste the food, see the people, hang out at night, drink their whiskies or beer or whatever they have. And so we came up with one on every continent in a year. And then the challenge of how do you get to Antarctica?

[00:11:42] It almost immediately popped up because I tried to get to Antarctica in the past to just kind of put it on my bucket list. And there's a wait list. I mean, Antarctica has all these international treaties. So, all the countries of the world agreed that they would not arm Antarctica, for example, that they would not allow [00:12:00] each other to take over Antarctica.

[00:12:02] So there's a limit on how many people go there. There's not that much demand for it. So it's not like you can get on a United Airlines flight to go there. So the waitlist was years.

[00:12:09] Katya Rucker: Andrew kept making phone calls, trying to find a way to get to Antarctica. And finally he learned about a company that helps people fly to Antarctica from the Southern tip of Chile.

[00:12:21] So he went to Chile, waded out some bad weather on Antarctica by running a solo marathon on a whim. He had already done his South America marathon in [00:12:30] Santiago earlier in the year, but it was an organized race and he had run a solo marathon and all the other continents, so he decided, why not? And then finally he caught his flight to Antarctica.

[00:12:40] Yeah. And I mean, just cause I think a lot of people think of Antarctica as, you know, ice and nothing but ice and snow, were you on roads in Antarctica? Like paved roads? 

[00:12:50] Andrew Warner: No. No, it's basically nothing but ice and snow. It’s everything people imagine. It's worse than that. It's nothing but ice and snow and crevasses randomly there. And so there is this, uh, [00:13:00] Antarctica, this company called Antarctica Logistics and Expeditions. All they do is they help people who are trying to cross the continent and do these ungodly feats. They help them stay safe. In fact, while waiting to get to Antarctica, I'd read all these books by people who had done these crazy adventures on Antarctica and they often refer back to the people at this company who they were calling, who were keeping them safe, who would have to evacuate people in the middle of nowhere. 

Um, and so what they did was they laid out a [00:13:30] path that I could run on without falling into a crevasse. In fact, just a few days before I'd gotten there, their snowmobile fell into a crevasse with a person, they almost killed one of their own people - not almost killed - one of their own people almost died. And so they laid out this path. They said, look, here's where you can go and not fall into ice, and we're going to watch you. And then they also made me sign an agreement that said that I will not pee on the snow. You have to have your own pee bottle and prove that it's available with you because they have to keep the snow pure. 

[00:14:00] And once we'd done all that, I was able to run. And when I finished, they gave me this gold medal. They said, Andrew, you're not only the only runner of the Antarctic marathon that you created, but you're also the winner. And they took a pickle jar lid and wrote something about how I'd won the marathon and presented it to me at the end. And that was the end of the year. 

[00:14:19] Katya Rucker: For the average runner, a marathon usually takes between four and six hours to complete, though, I imagine Andrew needed a little more time in Antarctica, given his snowy, [00:14:30] icy crevasse filled conditions. But for an ultra distance race, like the Bryce Canyon 100, which is also very rugged terrain with steep elevation changes, you're given 36 hours to complete the course Elliot got in just under the wire at 35 hours, 23 minutes, and many times throughout the race he had doubts about whether he'd be able to finish it. That's such a long time that I asked him whether runners try to get any sleep during the race. 

[00:14:57] Ilya Bass: I didn't get to sleep because I couldn't afford to.

[00:15:00] Um, I know some people who are faster than me, sometimes they, they can actually afford a nap here and there, but, you know, I'm just not fast enough. So I just have to keep moving. 

[00:15:10] Katya Rucker: Dehydration is the biggest threat on pretty much any long distance run, but especially when you're covering a hundred miles through a dry canyon.

[00:15:19] Ilya tells me that eating is harder because while you're running, your blood is mostly being pumped to your legs and your stomach doesn't want to work as hard, but you can end up with some unusual [00:15:30] cravings because eventually you will need to eat something over 36 hours of near constant exertion.

[00:15:38] Ilya Bass: I remember one time, the greatest thing ever at the time seemed to me was a cold watermelon with salt on it, which, you would never eat that on a normal day.

[00:15:52] Katya Rucker: yeah, but it’s what your body was saying it needed, right? 

[00:15:52] Ilya Bass: Yeah, yeah it was a hot summer day. I was sweating a lot. And yeah, having eaten that a couple of times, it just felt [00:16:00] great. It felt like exactly what, what I needed, exactly. 

[00:16:02] Katya Rucker: I want to come back to Colin to get into a few more of the do's and don't’s of long distance running. Because as a coach, who's passionate about making, running both fun and injury free, he's put in the years of research and training that he hopes will help people avoid the cycle of running injuries he dealt with in his thirties. While he was a competitive runner in college, Colin stopped for a few years after graduating, getting a job, and starting a family. [00:16:30] And then one day, while he was watching the Boston marathon on TV, he realized it had been way too long and he had to get back into running, but he got injured on one of his first few runs.

[00:16:40] And every time he tried to recover and start again, he got injured again. Something about the way he ran at age 19 obviously wasn't working. So Colin started researching running biomechanics, physiology and anatomy, strength and mobility, and nutrition science. And through this process, he realized he needed to forget pretty much [00:17:00] everything he thought he knew.

[00:17:02] So I asked him for an example of a common myth he has since learned about running. 

[00:17:07] Colin Turner: Yeah, I think one is: walking is weakness. That's a big one that I see all the time. I think it came from gym class where, you know, we had to do the timed mile for the physical fitness test back in middle school. And, you know, when you would run in gym class, the teacher would, yell, and blow the [00:17:30] whistle. And what would they yell? No walking! 

[00:17:33] Katya Rucker: Yeah, I remember that. 

[00:17:35] Colin Turner: Right. And even, it was in our culture on the cross country team in college, when we would, when everyone would start walking because of a red light or because of traffic, we’d all reach over and stop our watch when we'd start walking.

[00:17:48] And then we'd start it again when he started running. And now looking back, that's just silly. Walking is an excellent way to build endurance and build fitness. It's the [00:18:00] same muscle systems as running. It's less impact. So it's safer. And it's great if you are injured and trying to still maintain your aerobic fitness.

[00:18:09] It’s a great thing to mix in with running, but I think this myth that you've gotta be running and if you're not, you're not doing enough or you're giving up, when, walking's a tool, it's another activity in the toolbox that you can use. And I learned that some professional [00:18:30] marathoners, ultra marathoners, use four-one; run for four minutes, walk for one; as a regular training practice because it’s as effective or more effective at building long distance aerobic fitness, then running without walking. 

[00:18:46] Katya Rucker: The benefits of sprinkling walking into a running workout just keep piling up. Colin tells me that walking resets your nervous system and your brain's connection with your muscles. When you run for 20 or 30 straight minutes, you kind [00:19:00] of settle into autopilot and your form can get a little lazy. But if you take a walking break every five minutes, you create this biofeedback loop where your brain is constantly refreshed and helping you maintain good form. And speaking of good form, I also had the misconception that longer strides, meaning a slower running cadence, is better for covering more ground efficiently.

[00:19:21] But Colin tells me the opposite is true. 

[00:19:23] Colin Turner: The easiest one that most, that any runner can do to improve their form immediately and [00:19:30] reduce the risk of stress fractures, reduce the risk of shins splints and knee pain is just increase cadence. The number of steps you take per minute is a major predictor of injury. And it is a better way to manage gravity and the forces that the ground is pushing up on you, to take more steps per minute, rather than less. 

[00:19:56] Katya Rucker: And your cadence should be the same, whether you're running a slow pace or a [00:20:00] fast pace. Colin says that if you watch an elite runner warming up, their cadence will be almost the same as it is during a race. The optimal cadence is 180 steps per minute. And most amateur runners will do around 160 steps per minute, but take it from Colin. Those extra 20 steps really do make a difference. Cause more steps per minute mean less up and down pounding, or vertical oscillation, per stride. And this brings us to Colin's final and perhaps most surprising myth.[00:20:30] 

[00:20:30] Because many people believe you should stretch to get loose before going on a run. 

[00:20:34] Colin Turner: Stretching prevents injury is the myth. In fact, more stretching in study after study -- people that do more stretching before they run are actually at higher risk for injury. And the reason is because when you stretch a muscle by doing a static, prolonged stretch, you deactivate the muscle, the muscle relaxes because you're, you're stretching it. You're elongating it and you're teaching it to [00:21:00] relax. So then when you go to run and your muscle is too relaxed, it's not firing the way that it should. You're putting more strain on a smaller number of muscle fibers and they strain. OR they pull, or they tear. So what research is showing is that before running, activate. Do jumping jacks, do squats, do one leg squats, do jump rope for five minutes. Something to get your muscles warm and firing, [00:21:30] and your nervous system connected to the muscles, not deactivate. 

[00:21:34] Katya Rucker: Colin has created a 12 week online course called the Running Reboot camp. And it's based on all the things he learned about how to run long distances and avoid injury. So I asked him what he does to make people realize that running can actually be fun. 

[00:21:49] Colin Turner: Here's here's what I can tell you. If you start doing too much, too fast, it's going to hurt. It's going to suck and you're not going to want to do it anymore. So I have people [00:22:00] start with walking, with three or four minutes of walking and then one minute of running, with a timer that beeps at them to tell them when to start running and when to stop.

[00:22:12] And I tell them this is going to feel too easy, and you may feel like you didn't get anything out of this workout when you go out for 20 minutes and you run for, uh, four minutes of that time, but I promise you're building the endurance you [00:22:30] need, so that eventually, you're going to be running for 10 minutes at a time and walking for one and feel great.

[00:22:37] Katya Rucker: So, let’s recap. To correct three common myths about running, Colin tells us that one, walking is a great idea, not something you should avoid on a run, two, your running cadence, or the number of steps you take per minute, should be pretty high, and it should be the same whether you’re warming up or in a race, and three, instead of stretching before a run, you should do something that [00:23:00] activates your muscles, like jumping jacks. A final tip about where to go on a run, especially if it’s going to be a longer distance, comes from Ilya. 

[00:23:09] Ilya Bass: I guess one plug I can give for trail running is that I, I do think it's just more healthy, actually for a number of reasons.

[00:23:18] Well, first of all, you're closer to nature. Um, also I think the way you move on trails because the terrain is so uneven, it's less prone to [00:23:30] repetitive motion injury. Because if you're just hitting pavement all the time, all the same way, um, I think it's more of more conducive to, uh, creating problems with, you know, ankles, knees, whatever. 

[00:23:43] Katya Rucker: Of course not everyone has access to off-road trails and that's okay. Plenty of runners prefer and only run on paved roads and sidewalks. And keeping Colin's tips about walking, cadence, and warming up in mind is a good idea for any running surface. 

That brings us to the final section of [00:24:00] today's episode. I always ask guests what broader life lessons they've learned from their hobbies. Ilya and Colin shared the same one, which is basically, small problems that we choose to ignore will inevitably become bigger problems. 

[00:24:15] Colin Turner: That's something that I work with people really carefully, is, you know, one of my athletes or runners comes to me and says that their knee hurts. I have lots and lots of questions. I don't just say, oh, your knee hurts, take a week off. 

[00:24:30] It’s like, okay, which knee? Was that the knee that you sprained that ankle, or is it the other one? Which part of your knee is it? Does it feel like it's deep inside the knee or right on the surface? Is it a sharp pain or a dull pain? How long does it last after you're done running? So like, listening to when something feels slightly off, it's probably something, and you should investigate and find out. Don't ignore those little signs that your body is giving you. 

[00:25:00] And that is one of those life lessons that is applicable to anything, relationships, a job that's not a good fit for you. You can see those signs early on and ignoring them doesn't make it better. And continuing to train or continuing to show up at that job, pretending everything's fine will make it worse, not better. 

[00:25:24] Katya Rucker: A lesson Andrew shared came from an experience he had during an Iron Man [00:25:30] camp. And while he didn't necessarily want to do an Iron Man, he wanted to learn how to be a better biker, swimmer, and runner. Biking did not come naturally to him. And during one of the camp’s cycling sessions, he found himself trailing far behind the rest of the group. 

[00:25:44] Andrew Warner: And at one point I saw someone on a motorcycle and I said, I wish I had an engine like them. And I, and I realized, wait, earlier in the week, I wished that I was out running or cycling instead of dealing with this headache of work.

[00:25:55] And now that I'm here, I'm wishing I was on a scooter so that I could, or a [00:26:00] motorcycle, so I could finish. And then when I'm finished, I'm going to say, I wish that I was somewhere else. And I realized I'm just not ever enjoying the moment, the thing I'm doing. I'm always, like, annoyed that I'm not doing the next thing.

[00:26:09] And what's the point then? And I learned at that point to really enjoy the ride, enjoy the run, to just be there. And remember, I'm going to wish I was back here later on.  

[00:26:20] Katya Rucker: I think this is one of the most profound things that our hobbies can teach us. How to keep our minds engaged with what we're doing, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, [00:26:30] feeling, and to Andrew's point, learning to be present and enjoy the ride is something that takes constant practice.

[00:26:36] And where better to practice this form of mindfulness than in doing the things we love?

[00:26:44] A little food for thought, as we wrap up this first episode of I'd Rather Be. Next week you can tune into I'd Rather Be Thrifting, and thrifting, as I learned from our guest, is a hobby that goes far beyond shopping for clothes or cheap furniture. 

Guest for Thrifting Episode [00:27:00] So this is where this idea of thrifting or even thriftiness as a mindset or even a cultural value comes into play.

[00:27:09] Because if you're not used to looking for things to thrift, you're not going to think about it. So it's about shifting your thinking to imagine. Is there a place where this is thriftable? And the answer is 100% of the time, Yes. There is almost nothing I wouldn't thrift. 

Katya Rucker I'd Rather Be Thrifting comes out next Tuesday, December 21st, and I [00:27:30] promise you won't want to miss it.

[00:27:32] Is there something you'd rather be doing most of the time? It could be a hobby sport, art form, even a coin collection. If you're passionate about it, I'd love to hear about it and maybe even feature it in an upcoming episode. You can get in touch at idratherbepodcast.com. Or via the Instagram handle, IdRatherBePodcast.

[00:27:51] This podcast was hosted, produced and edited by me, Katya Rucker. Show notes for today's episode can be found at idratherbepodcast.com. I'd Rather [00:28:00] Be is available wherever you listen to podcasts. And in these early days, your ratings and reviews really help. So thanks so much if you're able to take a minute to rate the show on Apple Podcasts.

[00:28:10] And of course, thanks for listening.