Run to the Top Podcast | The Ultimate Guide to Running

Will running a marathon in high-tech super shoes help you run faster? Nike made huge headlines when they came out with the Vaporfly series in 2017.  Featuring a new kind of foam and a flexible carbon plate, Nike promised that their expensive new shoes would improve a marathoner’s running economy by 4%. With elites and recreational runners doing everything they could to improve by just one percent, these magic new shoes were pretty tantalizing. But with all new technology comes controversy.  Nike had already been supplying its best runners with Vaporflies as early as 2016, which was an Olympic year.  Other athletes sponsored by other companies would be at a clear disadvantage if the 4% improvement numbers were really true and they complained to the governing bodies of the sport. Rules changed and the copycats followed Nikes lead.  Now in 2021, most of the major running shoe companies have some version of high-tech foam and carbon plate shoes and all of them need to be available to the public before they can be used in competition. So what does this all mean for you?  How much do high-tech shoes matter in your running and racing?  I wanted to find out so I invited Michael Haischer on the Run to the Top to tell us what he found. Mike is a doctoral student and lab manager at the Athletic and Human Performance Research Center at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, which just so happens to be my alma mater. Mike and his team wanted to better understand the potential performance-enhancing effects of technological advancements in marathon racing shoes.  So they examined the finishing times of the top 50 male and 50 female runners from all the World Marathon Major series in the past decade, both before and after the introduction of new Nike shoe models. Did the Nikes make a difference?  And if so, what implications does that have on the rest of us, who are not in the top 50? We are about to find out. Take a Listen on Your Next Run! CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Marquette University's Athletic and Human Performance Lab Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT!

Do you eat before a run?  Should you?  And what should you eat that will fuel your run the best? Coach Claire Bartholic explores exactly what you should eat before any type of run.  She brings back registered dietician and 2:57 marathoner Meghann Featherstun to explain the science. Coach Claire also gives you meal and snack ideas that you might not have thought of that are quick to grab, easy on your stomach, and fast to fuel your run.   CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page   GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT!    

Sarah Clem is the director of operations and running coach at CHAARG, an organization dedicated to igniting a passion for movement in college women.   CHAARG stands for Changing Health Attitudes + Actions to Recreate Girls.  They have chapters on 115 university campuses in the US and their mission is to free young women from the elliptical and show them that fitness can (and should!) be fun.  Sarah Clem has been an avid runner for the past 16 years and started the CHAARG Run Club in order to help more women learn to love running. She's coached over 500 athletes to complete their first 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons over the past year and is looking forward to sharing the powers of running with even more young women this fall. CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT!   This episode is sponsored by LMNT When coaching endurance runners of all levels to be their best, I always emphasize the need for proper hydration with the right balance of electrolytes.  Most athletes I've coached are surprised to learn that their sodium needs are actually much higher than they expected and it's been hurting their performance.  Part of the reason athletes need much more sodium than they think is not just because they lose electrolytes through their sweat, but also because athletes tend to eat very healthy diets.  They've been told that salt is a bad thing in food and frequently don't get enough for their lifestyle.  Much of the science of sodium is based on people who eat highly processed diets which also are very low in potassium.  It could actually be the low potassium levels causing the issues that sodium has been blamed for!  What is clear is that both sodium and potassium at the proper levels are essential for high performance (and for life in general!).  When I race, I don't crave sweet, I crave salt and LMNT is the perfect way to hydrate and replenish the electrolytes I need to perform and feel my best.  Head over to DrinkLMNT.com/RUNNERSCONNECT for your salty samples.       

The tempo run is a classic workout for runners. But  what does the word "tempo" really mean?  It can mean different things to different runners and can be done at different paces. Coach Claire Bartholic brings on Coach Dylan Belles, fellow RunnersConnect coach and 2:16 marathoner to help explore the science, benefits, and different types of tempos or threshold workouts. They will go over the three main phases of intensity of tempos: aerobic threshold, lactate threshold, and anaerobic threshold.  They clear up the confusion since these terms are often used interchangeably, so you can be the smartest one at your next group run.   CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page   GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT!    

Imagine having the opportunity to train for one of the top marathons in the world with nearly all the advantages of an elite.  You’d have access to world-famous coaches, have top of the line training gear and tools, and thousands of dollars of free stuff.  When race day comes around, you’d be whisked away to meet your teammates in person, as prepared as humanly possible for the race of your life. Sounds amazing, right?  Katie Sloane and Ivan Alonso  won exactly that. They are two of the lucky winners of a contest held by Zwift, a massively popular multiplayer online cycling and running platform.  Ivan Alonso is a 39 year old, Texas-based husband and father of two young children. Since beginning his athletic journey, he’s lost nearly 100 pounds from both running and cycling and dropped an incredible more than 90 minutes off his very first marathon to become a sub-three hour marathoner today.   Katie Sloane is a 31 year old amateur ultra runner from England who is shifting to the roads by training for Berlin.  She’s most at home on  the trails with her dog, but don’t underestimate Katie’s talent in the marathon.  She’s training for a blisteringly fast 2:45 finishing time. Claire Bartholic asks them about their running Cinderella story and what it’s like to virtually train like an elite for one of the world’s most iconic races.  If you’ve ever wondered what your training and racing would look like with some of the best coaches and gear in the world, you can experience it vicariously through their stories. CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page   GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT!   This week's show brought to you by:  Heal from the Amino Company. Heal is an amino acid, whey and creatine based formulation designed to reduce recovery times and improve physical function after injuries by accelerating muscle repair while helping maintain a healthy inflammatory response. Check out the research here: https://aminoco.com/rttt  If you're looking for a nutritional advantage when it comes to recovering from your running injury or your daily training I recommend you give Heal a try.  If you’re interested in learning  more and giving Heal a try, we’ve got a special offer for you where you can save 30% by using the code RC30. Just head to: https://aminoco.com/rttt and use the code RC30 at checkout to save 30%     

Strength training for runners improves performance and prevents injuries.  But when you love to run, it can be hard to add strength training into your routine, even if you know you should.  The two main benefits of strength training are that it prevents and helps heal injuries, and it enhances performance. Done properly, strength training creates a foundation for injury-free running and allows you to keep up with increasing mileage and intensity on your runs. On the performance side, studies have shown that resistance training improves running economy and endurance muscle fibers. Research has also linked weight training to better body composition and resting metabolic rates.  Not to mention, strength training is particularly important as we get older, in a way that running alone is not.  Recent studies have proven that running does not protect against the gradual loss of lean muscle tissue and, as we lose muscle, we also lose a larger percentage of our fast-twitch muscle fibers, which is part of why we slow down as we age. To say it another way, if you are afraid of getting slower as you get older, making strength training a part of your routine will slow down that slow down. In this episode of the Run to the Top Podcast, Coach Claire Bartholic explains exactly how much strength training runners need, when to do it, and the four best exercises for runners. CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT! This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens and Timeline Nutrition.  Use the code CONNECT to save 10% of your Timeline Nutrition order!

Aqua jogging, also known as deep water running, is the most running-specific alternative to land running.  By using a flotation belt which keeps you vertical in the water, you can mimic a land-based running workout, with no impact.  It can effectively maintain or even build your fitness if you're injured or if you can't handle the pounding of another day of running. Jennifer Conroyd is a marathon runner who was stuck in the deep end of the pool for six weeks before the Chicago Marathon.  She had injured her calf so badly that pool running was her only option to keep her fitness and finish the race.  Not only did she finish Chicago, but she qualified for Boston. Her success led her to found her company Fluid Running, which provides a complete system to get anyone started with deep water running.  Fluid Running offers group classes that Men’s Journal voted one of the Best Workouts in America, and they also have the only app-based and coached water running workout system in the world.  Using waterproof, bluetooth headphones, you get workouts, music, and a coach in your ears to keep you entertained and focused on your fitness. Coach Claire Bartholic talks with Jennifer about her personal journey, the science behind deep water running, and how it can not only help injured runners, but healthy runners as well.  If you are looking for a way to break out of a plateau, but just can’t handle more pounding on the roads, this could be the solution for you. CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT! This week's show is brought to you by LMNT.  Head over to DrinkLMNT.com/RUNNERSCONNECT for your salty samples.

Finding the time to get in a run, let alone a warm up can be a challenge at times.  But if you are the kind of runner that thinks a little jogging is all you need to warm up, you're going to want to listen to this. A proper warm up will help you feel better on the run, be less injury prone, and with practice, run better and faster than ever.  And if you are getting ready for a speed day or a race, a warm up is essential for performing your best. In this bonus Run to the Top Podcast, Coach Claire Bartholic talks about why you shouldn’t skip a true warm up and she explores exactly how to warm up for any kind of run or race. CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page   GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT!

In May of 2021, two ultrarunners named David Kilgore and Margot Fleming were invited to a unique event whose only rules are there are no rules and there are no spectators.  In the spirit of Hunter S Thompson’s mind-expanding trip across the desert in the iconic book Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, The Speed Project is a race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.  The route is anywhere from 300 to 340 miles and is a journey just as counter culture as Thompson’s book, just without the drugs. David and Margot were each supported by their crews on this multi-day race and to make things more interesting for all of us data-lovers, they had their biometrics measured the whole time by a wearable technology device called WHOOP.  WHOOP measured their heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep quality, recovery and more. You would think that after 50 to 80 mile days of running in the desert, all biometric trends would progressively get worse as each athlete deteriorated with the effort.  But that’s not what happened. A little background, David Kilgore is an accomplished ultrarunner, who ran for the University of Colorado and on Team USA in the Trail and Ultra Running World Championships in 2019. Today, he leads marketing for On Running in New York City, where he now lives and trains.  Margot Fleming is an ultrarunner and marathoner, has worked with Nike as a global brand manager, and now heads the global footwear marketing team at Lululemon.  She is also the daughter of famed marathoner and 2 time NYC Marathon winner Tom Fleming who tragically suffered a heart attack at age 65.  Margot is deeply ingrained in the NY NJ run scene and has worked closely with New York Road Runners in honor of her father’s legacy. Claire Bartholic sits down with David and Margot to learn what it was like to push yourself to such limits through running, what it was like to race through the desert for days, how they fueled, and how they recovered. For those of you that already love the world of ultra running, this one will hit the spot and for those of you who cannot even fathom such a journey, David and Margot will help paint the picture of what it’s really like. CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT! Whoop.com  Save 15% with code RTTT   This week's show brought to you by:  Purity from the Amino Company. Purity is an essential amino acid-based formulation that has been shown in clinical trials to help reduce liver fat levels while working to maintain healthy liver enzyme levels and so much more. Check out the research here: https://aminoco.com/rttt  If you’re interested in learning  more and giving Purity a try, we’ve got a special offer for you where you can save 30% by using the code RC30. Just head to: https://aminoco.com/rttt and use the code RC30 at checkout to save 30% 

Many runners are guilty of downplaying their running.  If you've ever said, "I'm not a real runner," or have gotten down about your abilities as a runner, this is for you. We are shifting the negativity about our running on The Run To the Top in this episode and owning up to our true awesomeness!  Learn how to break out of the negative self talk and comparison trap today. *GIVEAWAY ALERT* If you agree with how awesome running is, and are ready to celebrate the fact that you are an awesome runner, I’d love to hear about it.  Follow me, @theplantedrunner and tag me on instagram with your running post using the hashtag #awesomerunner.  I’ll respond to you personally and I’ll send two winners a FREE supply of LMNT hydration powders as a thank you. CONNECT, COMMENT, & COMMUNITY: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!  A great FREE way to support the show! Email Coach Claire Follow Claire on Instagram Follow RunnersConnect on Instagram Join the Elite Treatment where you get first dibs on everything RTTT each month! Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community  RunnersConnect Facebook page GET EXPERT COACHING AT RUNNERSCONNECT!