The Wrinkled Runner
The Wrinkled Runner
Off-Season Strategies for Runners: Strength, Form, and Fun with Coach Jen Steele
Can you imagine running without the pressure of hitting a specific pace or mileage? Today, Jen Steele, a certified running coach from California, shares her actionable tips to maintain running fitness, the importance of strength training, and why having a base building season is so important when you're not training for anything. This strategy has helped her and her athletes achieve their race goals more effectively.
Resources from the Episode:
Coach Jen Steele's Off Season Boot Camp- do check this out, it is a unique concept in running groups
Chari Hawkins- Chari is an Olympic runner (who was on the Paris '24 US Team) whose instagram is a gold mine for runners looking to have drills broken down into easy to follow steps
Misadventures of a Marathoner- Coach Jen's website
If you are looking for a coach to help you reach your running goals, even if it's just to start to run, take a look at my Coaching Services page on the website. I do virtual, in-person (Buffalo, NY area) and also offer single zoom sessions for those would just like to chat with a coach one time.
Find my additional outlets over at the YouTube channel and at wrinkledrunner.com. Sign up over on the blog for the once-a-month newsletter! If you would like information on utilizing a running coach, check out what I can do for you here.
If you have any running-related questions, please send an email to sherry@wrinkledrunner.com…I answer every one.
So today on the episode for the Wrinkled Runner, we have Jen Steele, who is a certified running coach from California, and she has mastered the art of what to do when you are running in your off season or if you're not training for a race. And what I understand is that you've kind of got to this point through your own story, which I'd love for you to share for my listeners, on how you kind of learned that what to do in your off season just from your own personal experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. So I did not run when I was growing up. I didn't do any organized sports soccer a lot. I think a lot of people get into running in that way and I didn't. I didn't start running until I was an adult. And I started running because a friend invited me to sign up for a 10k with her and I thought, yeah, I can do a 10.
Speaker 2:Like, let's figure this out. Could not run a mile but I was good like down for the six miles and so I did that and I fell in love with the race community. I did a really welcoming, inclusive race, which I think was really helpful for somebody who started like as a more back of the pack runner, and it was just a very positive of the pack runner and it was just a very positive experience and I loved it. So then I jumped up to the half marathon, as I think a lot of people do. Um, you know, they start with the 5k or the 10k and then, you know, half marathon becomes the norm and I did that for a while and I would, you know, do a 10 week ish training plan, find one online, download it for free, kind of sort of stick to it, finish the race and then be like, oh, I am so glad that I am done, and not really run.
Speaker 2:Maybe run once a week with the run club, like my local you know she runs this town group or a friend would invite me for a three mile run and I'd go do that. But like once, maybe twice a week, I would do a one mile neighborhood loop, like nothing structured or planned. And then my next training cycle, you know, six months later I sign up for another half marathon and I would want to run it faster because I had just done a half marathon. And then I would get really frustrated when I couldn't run it faster. Or you know, you set the sub 2 15 time goal or the sub two hour time goal for a half marathon and I kept coming close right, sitting in those same zones and not ever being able to like actually get faster, and that's kind of how I stumbled into this idea of base building.
Speaker 2:And now this was pre becoming a run coach. Now that I've become a run coach, you know I can look at all the science and the research on why it works and I can explain it to the athletes that I coach, like this is why we do it and this is why it works. But also my personal story says that it like personal experience it also is true. So instead of not training for four months between races, if you keep consistently doing something, then you can actually build upon your prior race cycle, instead of the kind of two steps forward, one step back that often happens, where you might get a little bit closer to that goal, but not quite. And it's because you're not doing anything in those you know, couple of months before.
Speaker 1:So Right, right, yeah. And I think it's so interesting when you become a run coach you know, I ran for like 10 years before really knowing anything about running either and then when you learn stuff, it's like, oh, this is so much more fun because you have some structure to it. Are the things that they can incorporate kind of in their off season or when they're not training, to have like to make it look a little more structured even if you're not actually training for something. So I love this topic to kind of introduce the idea that there is science behind some of this and what can a runner do even if they don't have a coach although I think you and I both think you should have one, but not everybody is ready to have a coach. And so what are some of the things then that you recommend? If you're not training for a race, or if you just get done with a race and you're not really looking at something in your future, to kind of stay structured and kind of stay within that training zone.
Speaker 2:I always think it's a really good idea to pick what kind of mileage feels good and stay with that. So a lot of people coming out of a marathon or a big half marathon training cycle, you're not going to keep up a 40 mile a week training Like that's just too much, but maybe 20 felt really good and doable. Or if you were a half marathon, you know, maybe like 12 miles a week feels really good and you think that that's something you can sustain, like commit to doing that instead of letting it drop to. You know, a three mile run on the weekend, like keep some sort of structure, I think is always a good place to start, after taking some time off. Definitely take the week or two or even a month off but then ease back into like the mileage per week that felt good in whatever kind of format.
Speaker 2:I think works in your schedule easy, whether it's two or three or four days a week of running. And then I think this is the time where you start doing all of the little things that we stop doing when we're building mileage and intensity and getting ready for a goal race. So you're not going to do a lot of speed work anymore, you're not going to be having the really long weekend runs anymore. So that's the time when you can make sure you're doing some consistent strength training. You know, twice a week you can work on the drills, you can pay attention to your running form, you can make sure you're actually warming up before your run, because so often that falls apart and then we like get all these niggles and we wonder why. And it's because your body's just tired and you have to remind it what to do. So you can start kind of building those good habits back in, I think, during the base building phase, which is what.
Speaker 2:I like to call the in between.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, yeah, and I think some of what you said is like so important because you know, a lot of times if we're not training for something, we are not paying attention to our nutrition and our feeling as much, and we're not paying attention to our form or all those things kind of go by the wayside, and if we don't have that stuff written down or we don't have the right resources for that, then we really don't know what to do. So do you have any resources that you like to look to or advise people to look towards when they're in this kind of in-between stage?
Speaker 2:So there's not a lot of like pre-written plans for this base building phase that just kind of generally apply to everybody, which is why I like to say, like, pick the mileage that feels good in your body and go with that. I do like to have, like the runners that I'll coach, I do like to have them include, like I said, drills. Sherry Hawkins, who is an Olympic hip athlete who just competed, her Instagram for running drills is incredible, like her ability to break down a drill and explain to you the pieces and the why behind them. Like you just mentioned, right, you become a seasoned runner or you become a run coach and you start learning all this stuff why behind it. She is very good at breaking it down piece by piece.
Speaker 2:Um, so her Instagram is amazing and just picking like two things each week that you are going to add in. So are you going to add in a drill this week? Are you going to add in? Strides are one of my favorite things, which is just running fast, not a sprint, but running quick with intention for like 20 seconds with a good recovery. Um, pick two things and then do that and I will actually include them in a run instead of making it another thing to do. Okay, so for drills every mile or every five minutes, like, do that every five minutes, do a stride over the course of your run, or every five minutes do a a skips drill, something like that, so it's not adding to the length of your run, it's not the one more thing of a warmup that so often we'll just skip, it's just part of what you're going out to do anyways.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that I I'm going to steal that for some of my athletes, because they hate weight warming up.
Speaker 1:They hate drills, you know, and if I have it, you know, as part of the workout, then maybe it'll be more. Yeah, I love Sherry Hawkins I refer people because I cannot do an, a skip to save my life and her little, the hop that you know, that the hop thing that she reiterates with people is so good, and so I will send people to her and say, okay, watch this video, because if you watch me, do it, it's, it's. I just don't have the coordination for it, but yeah, there's a reason she's an Olympic athlete.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, I love that, I love that One of the things that we had kind of corresponded about was the low pressure aspect of education, kind of the in-between thing. So could you like touch on that a little bit, cause I love that concept. For us, you know, as runners, we can be very um a type people and we got to get it done, and if it, if it says six, we got to do six, and if it says this pace, we got to do pace. So can you kind of um talk back some of the, some of that for, uh, for some people who might always want to run those hard things hard or the easy things hard, even too, everything's hard.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I think that that is one of the things that draws people to running right. There is a plan and you get told exactly what to do, and especially when people start working with a coach, then you not only get told what to do but you get told how fast to do it Right. So for somebody who likes to like do which is very much me somebody who likes to have a box to check off and say I did the thing like, it is rewarding and studies show that it like will give you a dopamine hit when you get to check the box, and so making sure that you are giving yourself a time where the focus is on something different. So the win is not that you did this six mile run or that you did a six mile run at a certain pace, but the win has a different focus and really allowing that to be the goal for the season. So all of my runners, when they are in off season, our runs stop being by mileage and they start being by time.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 2:You are not going for a six mile run because it doesn't matter how many miles you're going. You're going to go run. Let's assume, because it's easy, that you run a 10 minute mile. And so if you run about for your easy effort pace a 10 minute mile, then we're going to put a 40 minute run or a 30 minute run. And if you only end up getting 2.6 miles because it was hills or you were tired or life stresses or travel, like cool If you went for a walk instead, like that's great because you still moved for 40 minutes and that was the goal. And so I think that shift can be really helpful for people.
Speaker 2:When your watch is going to stop buzzing at you to hit a certain pace for 40 minutes, like it's just going to be what it is.
Speaker 2:I also think that, um, for that easy effort, like not letting your watch connect to whatever your coaching platform is, or it's not going to buzz at you, right?
Speaker 2:So if you don't work with a coach or have a coaching platform, for those of us that do when your watch is connected to it and you're running and you're supposed to hit a certain pace, it will yell at you and tell you that you're not doing it.
Speaker 2:And so this connecting that feature for the base training phase, I think can be really powerful, because you're not going to be told that you're doing something wrong, and I do think there's something very powerful to be said for being able to listen to your body, which so often when we're in training, especially when we have a big goal, we stop, we push through because we want to check the box and taking the time to reconnect with what does easy effort on a run actually feel like? Or is this actually like have I been running too fast or have I been running too slow? Like? What does this feel like in my body? Um, especially now as seasons are changing and humidity is dropping in places, right, like those things change and it'll change again in the spring when temperatures heat up again. Like really remembering what certain things are supposed to feel like and making sure they feel good, because if it doesn't feel good, we shouldn't be doing this, right?
Speaker 1:so yeah, yeah, yeah. So so do you work with rpe a lot, then, and teaching like what like a three should feel like, or a five, or is it just you're feeling good, you're feeling, you know, less fatigued than like during training, or how do you, how do you structure that or how do you teach that, I guess?
Speaker 2:So beyond easy effort running, it's pretty much I'm a lot of pace work or the strides that I mentioned, which are going to be, you know, a set little bit of RPE, but otherwise it's more like a conversation.
Speaker 2:pace is what I use for athletes, which is more helpful than easy effort, cause sometimes nothing feels easy, um, I'm training for a half marathon right now and I had a speed workout yesterday and an easy run this morning and like nothing was going to feel easy, my legs feel like bricks, um. But so we talked about like conversation pace, like can you run with a friend and talk? Um, and if they're not somebody who runs in a social setting, we talked about like can you hum or sing your favorite um TV theme song?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You sing the full house theme song, can you sing the friends theme song or Brady bench or whatever your show that you don't have to think too much about, but like, can you hum that or sing that to yourself? And if you can, great, and if not, you probably need to slow down, even if that means a walk break, because a lot of times we're like, yeah, our PE is five, six, and it's actually not. They're actually running harder than that. So I think you know that having an actual thing to do is helpful, whereas watches are so often wrong about heart rate.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and I I totally agree with you there and I like how you're, how, I like how you teach that as far as humming or singing or talking or whatever, because I think our PE the point of it is kind of the objectiveness of it. But also we are sometimes not very good at being objective as far as what's easy or not, and I think sometimes in our heads we're like, well, this shouldn't feel easy. So I'm going to say it's a three or a four, but I'm really feeling like it's a seven. But you know, so I like having something active to do to actually tell you if it's easy or not, rather than a number in your head. You know, I've been running for like 20 years and so I'm more used to like the pacing thing. So I'm always trying to find that kind of middle ground between jumping on a bandwagon and putting all the science and all the things together instead of just you have to run by VO2 max, you have to run by this, you have to run by this, and sometimes I think we forget it.
Speaker 1:There's so much science out there and so much stuff that I think we forget sometimes just to go out and just run, just put one foot in front of the other and run, and I think the off season is such a great time to do that, even if we leave our watches at home and just go out.
Speaker 1:And if we see a pond, you know we stop. We smell the roses, we look at the ducks, we, you know all the things and, uh, so I I think that this is such a good topic for all runners from beginner who I think they're in this great, advantageous place of building all this stuff now before they're really entrenched in. Well, I've been running for so many years and this is how I do it, and it's so hard for some people to pull back and really have an off season, which I think is important for everybody to have. And do you have a kind of a rule of thumb as far as time off have? And do you have like kind of a rule of thumb as far as time off? Do you base it on the race somebody just raced, or how long they've been running, how much training they've gone through, or is it a very personal thing of how much time off before you start the kind of base building again?
Speaker 2:it's a little bit personal and a little bit of all of the things that you mentioned, and so the biggest question is like what, what do they want to do after, right? So, after a big training cycle, um, depending on the race, anybody is going to get for a 5k a couple of days off, right, if they raced it hard, maybe a week off a marathon, two or three weeks off hard. Maybe a week off a marathon, two or three weeks off, um. And then I will just put in things that are like optional, if you want today, um, or just certain things, um. And then it comes down to like knowing the athlete too. Like, are they somebody who needs to have me tell them what to do? Are they're going to go back out and do too much, too soon?
Speaker 2:Because there are those people right who are like great, I just ran 26 miles. It's been eight days now. I'm going to do an orange theory class and then I'm going to go for a five mile run. Like no, you just ran a marathon. Like slow down, um. Or people who need to lovingly be reminded that. Like, no, their goal, their five-year goal, their big, scary goal over time is to go from half marathon to a marathon, right. And so maybe after a goal, half, you know, three weeks or a month in, it's me checking in like, hey, you ready to set up a couple three mile runs consistently, like let's, you know, kind of get back to this point where you have, you know, a 10 to 15 mile base. So I think that really comes down to kind of knowing the athlete if they need the push forward or if they need somebody to hold them back and tell them like you're doing too much, too soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, and I like that. That can be reversed. You know, it's not always people trying to do too much. Sometimes it's people doing a big race and then kind of taking off and needing that nudge of okay, you know, let's get back to it. And I also like the fact that, yeah, if you are wanting to train for a marathon or half marathon or whatever wanting to train for a marathon or half marathon or whatever if you are doing all these other cross training kinds of things, that factors into your fatigue and factors into what your body is, what you're putting your body through, uh, in addition to the training. So I think that's something that people also need to be aware of. Um, with the cross training thing, which kind of brings us to the extras I call it that we kind of do in between trainings and I know you talk about that a little bit of you know the cross training and the strength training and all that stuff. So if you could touch on that a little bit, that'd be great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is like one of my favorite things to do is to help people figure out what that would actually look like. Right, like how do you combine running with strength training so that your runs don't always feel bad? Because that is one of the things that I hear all the time from people is that they do it and then they're just tired all the time, or they can't run more than three miles, or that they don't want to, but they love their peloton class or their orange theory or f-45 or whatever the CrossFit, whatever the case may be, and I think that there is a way to marry those things, and it might come down to like sacrificing a little bit, like maybe it's one less orange theory class a week, or maybe you're doing the bike instead of a run, or you have to make yourself walk instead of a run heaven forbid. Um, depending on the phase you are in, like there is a way to make it work, and so, um, one of the things that I like to teach people is like how to structure that around your runs or how to structure your run. So, for the things that I like to teach people is like how to structure that around your runs or how to structure your run.
Speaker 2:So for the athletes that I have that like to do orange theory, we will like double those days. So they're just adding on like a run warm-up to their orange theory. So they're still going to get in a couple miles for the day, but then the next day is a full rest day, not adding another run. You know you're getting the full rest day, um, or looking at how, like a CrossFit class is structured, like how can we make sure that you're still getting some actual full rest days in um while still containing that, um, the mileage that you want to build and the strength that you want to have, if you want to have strength training, like we're going to have hard days where you're going to do, you know, your longer runs in a leg day together and then you're going to do upper body the day before. So just the way that things complement each other so you're not constantly feeling fatigued and like you can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, yeah, that that sounds good. And a lot of times runners don't like the extra stuff. Like you have those who love all the extra stuff and they're doing everything you know, six days a week they're working out. And then you have the other ones where strength training is so hard and doing drills is so hard and focusing on form is so hard and so kind of getting your mindset into that. I think off season you can kind of get some almost motivation although I don't like that word a lot, because sometimes we're not motivated to do stuff but we still got to do it anyway. But I guess the discipline and the habit to do it is something that we can really establish during that off season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's why I like to build it into the workouts, right, like building those drills or the form checks. I have a lot of runners do what I call a form check run, where it's the same idea Every five minutes. You can set it so your watch will have an alarm and you're just going to check your form for like 30 seconds not for a long time, but 30 seconds where you're thinking about your form because otherwise it's exhausting and your run never feels fun and it never gets to that easy effort because you're constantly thinking about every part of your body and how it's supposed to move and it's terrible. But if you can just build it in to it, then it's easy. Easy. Quote, unquote right, it becomes easy for it to be more disciplined and more of a habit. The same with strength training. Like nothing crazy.
Speaker 2:A lot of my runners who don't strength train hate the gym. I start them with a cool down routine that is 30 seconds of plank One time they do one 30 second plank and one 20 second side plank on each side and that's it. That's their strength training for the day. And then the other day is 20 lunges or 10 lunges on each side and 20 squats and that's it. Body weight only. Like we are starting with the basics. It's less than five minutes because they're less likely to skip it and it's really not a deal to add that much in, whereas if you start telling somebody that they have to do a 30 minute strength workout and they don't have weights, they don't belong to a gym and they hate it. They're just going to skip it every time. So, like, lower the barrier to entry and make it so that it's something that doesn't take extra time is not something that's so terrible, like we can all do anything for like three minutes, and those are the things that are going to help along the way for a run, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that Kind of switching gears just a little bit with the off-season thing. You also mentioned injury prevention, so can you talk a little bit about how this is so beneficial for us as far as the injury prevention, in having this kind of structured off season but backing off and going easy?
Speaker 2:so there's kind of two shoots, right. We've been talking about like two very distinct groups of runners. There's the runners who do too much too soon and then there's the runners who don't do anything between training cycles, right. And so for the people who do much too too too much, too soon, you're going to prevent a lot of those overuse injuries. So the tendonitis, the Achilles pain, the IT band syndrome, the runner's knee, all of that stuff that just adds up over time.
Speaker 2:If you run a marathon and then you're back to doing 50 mile weeks a couple of weeks later, like you're very much risking those kinds of injuries from building up.
Speaker 2:So giving yourself a time to rest and focus on the form, the mobility, the strength training will help prevent those.
Speaker 2:And then, on the other side, when we are tackling these big run goals, for somebody who doesn't like to do anything in between and I say big meaning, regardless of what, that is right, whether you're going to run a 10K or a 5K or a half marathon, a marathon, if you have a goal that you are trying to run towards, whatever it is, if you'd go from doing nothing and then you're going to build mileage and intensity at the same time, you're talking about the same overuse injuries that this same person that's running 50 miles a week, a couple miles after a marathon, is doing, right, um, so it's very different reasons why and stories, but it's the same sort of injuries that are going to plague and happen in those same runners.
Speaker 2:And so if we can lower the people who want to do too much too soon and slowly bring up the people who want to chase these gold and continuing training cycle, it helps to just make sure that everything is kind of more even across the board, because we want overall our training to end like slight uphill right, not a huge steep mountain and not going from nothing, to straight up.
Speaker 1:So right, yeah, good, good, I think that's a great reminder for wherever you are on the spectrum. As far as too much or too little. I think that that's a good reminder because nobody wants injuries and to take you out and sideline you for a length of time. Can you talk just a little bit about the transition between an offseason into where you're kind of training for something or you're trying to ramp up the running a little bit?
Speaker 2:So I think for a lot of that it's going to start with increasing your mileage, because the rest of it doesn't. Most training plans will build mileage and intensity at the same time, because most people will do a 12 week training cycle and they get the 12 week plan. They download it free online or even pay for it, and it's 12 to 18 weeks right, depending on what plan you have, and that's what you're going to do. And the plan starts with a, you know, five mile long run. So that's what you do when you just kind of go for it, and so the base building allows you to actually not have to increase mileage at the beginning of a plan.
Speaker 2:You're like wait, I'm already running more than this plan says to run, which is a great thing, because now it or you would base it off of, you know the last race you ran, which isn't really your current fitness anymore, because it's been three months, um which you should take time between races. You should not do back-to-back training cycles and races, um, you want to have that in between time. You just don't want to lose fitness during that time, which is why I'm a huge fan of the base building cycle, so just slowly ramping up the mileage so that, when it is time, you can add speed work without having to increase mileage and just jump right in okay, I like that a lot.
Speaker 1:I like that, that concept of guiding people to kind of hit that in base training so that they are where they kind of need to be at the start of training, because so many people they back way off and then they jump right up and then they back way off and then they jump right up and don't understand why they're not PRing and don't understand why things are feeling so hard.
Speaker 1:When I ran this last year at this, you know time and pace and and everything kind of builds on each other and it's it's really important, I think, for people to grasp that, which is why I think coaching is so good. And I think now, nowadays, the fact that anybody can have a coach something that I never even dreamed of 20 years ago, it didn't even cross my mind that I could have had a coach and now it's just so accessible for everybody people to even be listening to what our coaches are saying, even if they don't sign up or pay for it, to be able to pay attention to some of this stuff, so that they have it in their own mind I think is super important. And one thing that you do which I find really fascinating is this off-season bootcamp thing that you have. So can you tell us a little bit about that, how people can get involved in that, what it looks like? That's really intriguing to me. So yeah.
Speaker 2:So I have a. It's kind of in between the big race seasons, so it'll start in mid-October when people start kind of finishing their big fall races and we'll run through December, because then in January most people know set some new year's goals with some big races, um, and so it is a it's just a four weeks at a time bootcamp where you get the way that I was talking about how I structure those training plans the runs that have the form checks, the runs with the drills thrown in. You get a schedule that provides all of that for you and if you have a strength training program that you enjoy, I will help you customize it so that is programmed in for you. If you have classes you like, I will help you put that into the schedule the right way and don't, I will help give you those very simple short strength kind of mobility workouts that I was talking about, and then we kind of all do it together so that you are getting help with the motivation right.
Speaker 2:It's all virtual, so I'm not actually there to hold your hand and make sure you show up, but there is a group and a chat and we are making sure that you. You know we're. I'm going to check in with you. There are other people doing it with you. We're talking about kind of why you might be doing this, things that you're having a hard time with, or why those things are coming up, and then I share kind of a little bit of the science and the why behind it. So why we're doing these drills, why this works for easy running some more easy running tips, why you want to build your base, what aerobic changes you might be seeing, how you can use that kind of an expanded version of everything we've talked about here today.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I think that is so helpful and it's unique. I've never heard anybody do that and take that approach before and really, from a run coach perspective, look at it as an in-between kind of seasons and in-between training thing. So I think that's unique and I think it's really, really great. I think it would be awesome for anybody who's listening to really take advantage of that. Now where can they go to find this online to really take advantage of that?
Speaker 2:Now, where can they go to find this online? So I am, misadventures of a marathoner is my website, and there is a whole page there with all of the stuff, and you can also find me at that handle on Instagram too, and I have all of the details there for you.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, and I will put that in the show notes as well so people can go and and check that out. So I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I think this has been so helpful, as, from one coach to another, I think you've actually given me some ideas. So I really appreciate chatting with you and I would encourage anyone to go to the website, especially take a look at that boot camp. And do you also do virtual coaching as well, for like training?
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of my coaching is virtual. I have a training club that will launch again in the winter and then one-on-one coaching as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I am thrilled to have been able to talk to you, and I know it's going to be beneficial for my listeners.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate it Okay, thank you.