PODCAST - How to Train for a 5K, 10K, Half Marathon or Marathon With Asthma
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
I've been getting a lot of questions lately about how to train for specific races, which is why today on the show I'm gonna share with you how to train for a 5K, a 10 k, a half marathon, and a marathon [00:01:00] even if you have asthma. So what I've done is I've taken my entire running journey to this point, going from never running more than a couple laps around the playground in elementary school, all the way to running and winning a hundred kilometer ultra.
I've taken all of this and packaged it into my five step strategy that you can use to build your next training program for whatever distance you are looking to run now. I've talked a lot about ultra running on this channel. Therefore, my focus today is on the races all the way up to running a marathon.
And I'm going to go through the specifics of what I would do for running a 5K, a 10 KA half marathon, so 13.1 miles and a marathon. That doesn't mean that you can't take this [00:02:00] exact same strategy and apply it to ultra running. I just know that if even been following me long enough, you have heard a lot about my philosophies when it comes to training for an ultra marathon defined as anything greater than 26.2 miles.
And that brings me to step one in creating your next training routine. Safety comes first. Listen to your body. Therefore, I highly recommend that no matter if you have asthma or if you feel like you don't have any health issues whatsoever, that when you're looking at embarking on any race or event, or maybe you're just looking to do something like me, where I have a goal of running a certain amount of miles and I make it happen, even if there isn't a race or event, no matter what, it is extremely important that you consult with your healthcare professional and it's [00:03:00] because your body is unique.
Maybe you have asthma like me. Maybe like me, you were diagnosed with asthma as a little kid, and then throughout the years you have tried different strategies to improve your lungs and to really live with your asthma. Maybe like me, you have gotten to the point where you have been able to run a 5K or a 10 K on your.
Or maybe you've been scared of even attempting to run a mile no matter what it is, and maybe you don't have asthma and maybe you've had knee injuries over the years, ankle injuries over the years. Maybe you have issues with your cardiovascular system. Maybe you have different food allergies. That's one thing that I've had to deal with over the years as well, is food allergies now, outdoor allergies and how our food allergies and outdoor allergies can actually compound on one another.
What I've found is when I'm training for anything, it could be any distance and I'm outside and I'm [00:04:00] running. If I haven't been eating as healthily from the standpoint of avoiding anti-inflammatory foods that are really inflammatory to everyone, and then definitely avoiding foods that I have sensitivities to or allergies to, then if there are some allergens in the air, it affects me more.
And I have different episodes. You can check out all about this on my channel. How these different things can compound and really create issues for us when we are training, when we are doing anything. And this is why when you're looking to build a training program, you gotta start with safety first. And once you set this as a priority.
You need to throughout training, listen to your body. So you could set up your entire training program using the five step process that I'm gonna share with you today. And, uh, you may, uh, realize that even the first week, a couple weeks in, it could be week 10 of your program, that something in your [00:05:00] body doesn't feel right.
That's why it is extremely important for you to listen to your body. So yes, safety comes first. Talk to your healthcare professional, get the support that you need, and make sure that when you have different things that you know are affecting your body. And affecting your health and affecting how you could show up and affecting how you may show up on a daily basis for your training, for a race, for an event, that you have a plan to handle that for asthma.
I always recommend, along with talking to healthcare professional, to always have your inhaler with you and to always, if you have allergies like me, always have Benadryl, always have your EpiPen, always have these things with you. But even with all of that. You may find that during your training something new, flares up, something that hasn't affected you in the past, something you weren't aware of, especially when we're talking about running a distance that we haven't even gotten close to before.
So this [00:06:00] could mean that maybe you've never ran it all. Maybe you haven't ran more than a couple of blocks or a block, or maybe you've never ran at all, ever, and you've just walked and all of a sudden you're like, you know what? I wanna run a 5K, which is three miles, which. Is a lot of miles if you've never ran before.
Now, if you've already ran a half marathon and you're looking at doing your first 5K, that may not be a lot of miles. With that being said, you may be running that 5K much faster, a much faster pace than you run your half marathon or marathon. Right now, I'm actually in the process of increasing my pace, so I'm focused on shorter distances and instead of my 50 to 62 mile plus races.
So what I'm finding is when I'm pushing harder, I need to be more cognizant with my body, with my asthma, with my plantar fasciitis, which I am still currently over. Really glad about that. [00:07:00] But these different things can affect our bodies differently when we're going f faster and we're going farther, so.
Even if you're going into this, you're like, I don't have asthma. I don't have any health issues that I'm aware of. I invite you to listen to your body along the way, because as you run faster and as you run farther, you may become aware of how different things affect your body. Step two, integrating progressive overload into your training program.
Now, the first couple steps I'm sharing with you are much more principle based. We are looking at our event or our race at a high level. What we need to do in order to achieve our goal, how we need to protect ourselves, how we need to strengthen ourselves incrementally over time. As we get deeper into this, I am gonna share with you how I would personally [00:08:00] train for a 5K, a 10 k, a half, and a marathon.
And after looking at safety, really progressive overload is the key. This is what I have done throughout my life. When I was told at four years old that I could not play soccer and I would never be a runner, I looked for another way. I looked for a way that I wouldn't have to always rely on my inhaler.
Over the years now, I've always had my inhaler with me, and I've always had a nebulizer nearby as well, because especially when I was younger and I would get sick, an inhaler wouldn't be enough. I would need a nebulizer to help me get through different asthma attacks with the key of progressive overload.
What is progressive overload? Well, it is really incremental overload or incremental strength. And this is what I've [00:09:00] used over the years after being told that I couldn't do these things, I found some alternative medicine doctors, or my parents found them for me and, uh, really talked to them about how I could continue to play soccer.
At the time, I didn't really care about running unless it was on the soccer field or the playground, but I wanted away so I didn't have to use my inhaler all the time. And what I learned and what I've used to this day is that this one alternative medicine doctor shared with me, which was what we really need to do, Johnny, is incrementally strengthen.
Your lungs and how do we do this? Well, what I do today with running is based on what I did as a kid on the soccer field, and really what I did as a kid on the soccer field is instead of taking my inhaler before practice, I would have it with me. It was real [00:10:00] close by, but instead of taking it before I even started practice, I was advised that I should try and go five or 10 minutes without taking it and then take it.
So that's what I did, and it was really tough. I had to be very mindful of what was going on. I had to listen to my body. Is this what my doctor showed me? He's like. Five or 10 minutes, but if you need it sooner, take it sooner. The point here is to, instead of taking it before the activity, let's put a little bit of pressure on your body and see how you react.
Cardiovascularly, see how your lungs react. Cardiovascularly, let's give them the chance to strengthen themselves. This is the same reason why what I've learned over the years with different knee issues and ankle issues is if you sprain your ankle and you wrap it for [00:11:00] weeks and weeks and weeks, you're actually going to, what I have found is it takes longer for me to get over the ankle sprain.
I am pretty sure that I had a minor ankle sprain a week or two ago. I was running and I, uh, mistepped. And I twisted my ankle real bad. Well, I didn't end up wrapping it at all, and I'm not recommending that you should do this. I'm just telling you what I've done and how progressive overload has helped me with different things over the years.
This was a very minor situation. I twisted my ankle. It was in pain. I didn't wrap it. I took it easier. I ended up only running three or four more miles that day instead of running eight more miles that day. But what I have learned is when you wrap something and while you are supporting it, you are also acting as a crutch.
And when the ankle doesn't have to support itself, it doesn't [00:12:00] have to heal as fast. Similar situation here. So if you take your inhaler before you even do the activity, you are telling your lungs that your lungs are always gonna have the help of the inhaler. So your lungs don't have the incentive to grow stronger.
But instead, if you tell your lungs, Hey, inhaler is here for you. If and when you need it, but I believe in you to strengthen yourself, and you start with five minutes. You start with 10 minutes, then your lungs are gonna get stronger. Well, I did this for five or 10 minutes for a week or two, and then I went to 10 to 15 minutes, then 15 to 20 minutes, and my lungs.
We're getting stronger all the way to the point where after doing this for about a season, I could play an entire soccer game without using my inhaler. I always had it available though. Well, once I went into the off [00:13:00] season, I would go into the season again. I'd have to do a similar situation. 'cause that's another thing I've learned with progressive overload, is you can progressively overload and strengthen your lungs.
But if you don't continuously keep up the strength that you've built, then you may have to start at a lower interval than you were before. And that's fine. That's just how it works. But I did get to the point where I could play three or four soccer games in a day without using my inhaler. And as I've.
Got 'em further in my ultra running career, I always have it in my bag with me. 'cause you don't know how far from an aid station you're gonna be. You don't know how far from an inhaler you're gonna be. So I always have it with me right next to me in my bag. But I have not used it in my past few races, including my hundred kilometer race that I want.
So here is what it looks like when it comes running. This is exactly what I use to go from never running more than five [00:14:00] miles as an adult all the way to running marathons, 50 Ks, 50 milers, and a hundred Ks. What I recommend that you do. No matter where you're starting in your running journey, as we get through how many miles I would run per week for each of these distances you may be training for.
When we look at the specific runs that I would do every week for the distances that you are looking at training for and the cross training that I do in order to support all of this, the most important principle other than safety and listening to your body is progressively getting stronger in your lungs, in your cardiovascular system, in your respiratory system, and in your body overall.
We do this when we're running with something I like to call, walk, running for whatever reason, someone at some point made you [00:15:00] and I feel that walking is bad. That if you're running and you need to take some time to walk, you're failing. These things are so wrong and far from the truth. I remember when I was training for my first marathon, I was getting to my first double digit mileage ever.
I never ran 10 miles before, and I was pretty terrified. I was also excited about it. I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna run double digit mileage. This is amazing. Well, this could be any mileage for you. Maybe you've never ran a mile before running a mile. This is an amazing thing the first time you do it. You don't have to run a mile the second time you do it.
You don't have to run a mile the third time you do it. You don't have to run a mile. Last time I checked, you can walk a whole 5K and it still counts [00:16:00] as you completing a 5K. So what I recommend from a progressive overload perspective is no matter what run you're doing, run a little bit, walk a lot of it, and do that for a while.
And eventually you'll get to the point where you can run more than you walk. And eventually you may even get to the point where you run the whole thing. My 50 mile race, I'm pretty sure I walked 10 miles. My a hundred K race, I think I walked half a mile to a mile because I had a cramp in my leg. But that was a year after my 50 mile race and a lot of training after my 50 mile race.
Well, that first 10 mile run I ever did, I walked half of it. I walked five miles. It just, that's what I did. I walked half, I ran half. And I did that whenever I needed to hit a distance I hadn't been at before. [00:17:00] 'cause I'm looking at progressively overloading my body, looking at progressively like overloading my lungs, my legs, everything.
My body hasn't experienced this before, so let's give it some love. Walking is okay. You can do this with all the workouts I'm gonna share with you today. Let's say that you're in a yoga class or you're in a high intensity interval training class when you need to rest. Rest. You need to drink water. Drink water.
If you need your inhaler, use your inhaler. You need to listen to your body. And just remember, we are progressively strengthening. We are incrementally strengthening our lungs, our heart, our body, and our mind. And we do it over time. Step three, build, drop down, and taper. A couple months ago I was having conversation with a friend of mine at the gym that I go to and we were talking [00:18:00] about how he is preparing for his first marathon ever.
And we were going through his training program and he was crushing it. His mileage was right on the types of runs he was doing was right on. And he was giving himself plenty of time. I think we're talking six to nine months of really getting to know his body before his first marathon race. And I'm gonna share all of the details of mileage and runs and workouts and all this stuff next.
But the one thing that he hadn't been doing, and when I started talking to him about, Hey, so have you set up your program where you have build weeks, dropdown weeks, and ultimately a taper before your race? And he was like, no, what is that? I've really just been running [00:19:00] pretty consistently every week and then all after a couple weeks run more mileage the next week and I'll like build to there.
So he was building, but he wasn't doing it methodically. And I get it because when I was looking for my first marathon training program, I went on the internet and this is pre-chat, GBT and all this stuff. And I was pulling up articles and getting Google search results and all this stuff, and it just was extremely complicated.
I had no idea what any of these things were saying. I had no idea about half the stuff that was in these programs. Only thing I really understood is, oh, okay, I gotta run three miles there and four miles there, and then I have to do a long run. Not really sure what a long run is, but I gotta do a long run.
And I guess I, it's the most important run of the week. I didn't know what tempo runs were and just basic speed [00:20:00] runs all this stuff, all this vernacular. I'm like, this is not built for me. This is my first time doing it. I have no idea what any of this is. And then I would also look at the training program and it would show, like it just seemed really random to me.
Because it was like, okay, so I run three miles that day, five miles that day, two miles that day, and then it, it goes up this week, down this week. What the heck is going on? Well, what the missing link for me and the missing link for my friend was the theory of building dropdown weeks and tapering, and here's really what it is.
I eventually went with the Peloton first marathon training program, and I did it because I was really into riding the Peloton bike and doing the hit classes that Peloton had virtually was really into it at the time, and I saw they had this program where I could just take my phone with me, and it took me through this 18 week progression [00:21:00] where I didn't really have to think about it.
I'm like, great, I don't have to come up with my own workout. I'm just gonna do the workouts. They have it week to week. I don't even know what's in the workouts until I do the workout. It took all the guess workout, it took all the overwhelm out of, I don't know what the heck I'm reading online and, uh, simplified it for me.
Well, I know that today if you're watching this or listening to this episode, you have probably talked to AI about a training routine and it's thrown a bunch of stuff at you. It. Really it's aggregating data from articles online, the same articles that I was reading five plus years ago when I was working on my first training routine.
And it probably didn't do a good job of explaining this either. Here is what I mean. When we are talking about building, we're talking about increasing our miles and really you wanna do this for three weeks, we build [00:22:00] in increments of three weeks. This will make even more sense once we get to how we look at total mileage on a weekly basis for each of these 5K, 10 k, half marathon, marathon, et cetera.
And the, when we look at the specific workouts we're doing, but really you're gonna build for three weeks and then. You're gonna do something called a dropdown, and guess how long this is? This one week. So our training blocks are four weeks. That's it. When you're looking at building a program, all you really need to know is that your program is gonna be built in sections or segments or blocks of four weeks, four week block.
You build for three [00:23:00] weeks, and then you have a dropdown week. The dropdown week typically doesn't have to be like this, but to simplify this, wherever your mileage started, at the beginning of your build block is where your dropdown block or week should be. Let me get some numbers. Let's say that you ran the beginning of your build block five miles that week, and then maybe the next week you ran seven miles.
And I'm talking total mileage right now. And then let's say you did nine miles. So you built, this is a pretty impressive build. You build all the way from five to nine miles. Well, on your dropdown week you gotta drop down to five miles. You could drop more if you want. And I've done this and it doesn't ruin this, and I've done this because I listened to my body and my body was in a lot of pain and I needed the [00:24:00] time off so you could drop lower than five miles.
In this example. The point is the dropdown needs to be at least dropping down to the beginning of the build block. You can drop further. But you're not gonna drop from nine to seven. You need to drop at least to that five. And the theory here is exactly why we started this by talking about listening to your body and then progressive overload.
'cause that's what we're doing here. We're progressively overloading our entire body for three weeks. And then we need to give our body some time to recover so we can keep building. And that's why we have a dropdown. We, it's similar to when you're working out and you take rest. There's a reason why we run a specific number of miles every week, and we don't try to get all those miles in the same day.
And for most races, you're not [00:25:00] gonna run the race mileage until race day. Five Ks and 10 Ks are a little different. But when we're talking about half marathons and marathons and beyond, you're probably not gonna run that amount of miles. 13.1, 26.2. Or if you're training for an ultra, you're not gonna run those miles until race day.
And it's because we are building and resting or dropping down. Now the last part of this is tapering. When we're looking at a taper, the taper occurs at the end of your entire training program. And really what this is. As you are doing much more than just dropping down, you are tapering down to extremely low mileage one to two weeks before your race.
And really it's, this is based on you. If you've never built a program before, then I highly recommend you start with two week taper, but you may find [00:26:00] that two weeks may be too long and then you go down to a one week taper. I've also seen people do a three week taper. For me, one to two is perfect, and it really depends on how my body's feeling when I get deep into my program.
And this is also why when we look at how long these training programs are, 18 weeks is really a great minimum when we're talking about training for a marathon. Now a half marathon, you could probably have little less minimum. And same with 10 K, same 5K. But also depends on where you're starting. If you're starting from nothing, from never running before, then you may want that extra time.
But when we're looking at a marathon training program, the absolute minimum that I have personally done is 18 weeks, and it's because we get four blocks [00:27:00] plus a two week taper. So four times four is 16 weeks. That equals four blocks of building and tapering of building and dropping down, and then you have two weeks for your taper.
This is your taper. This works out really well. Now, using the mileage we already have here, here's what a one to two week taper could look like. You could week one of the taper drop down to five miles, but then week two of the taper, you're probably gonna do two to three miles if that. And really what you want to think about is week two of the taper.
You're going into the race. So really what you wanna do is move your body a little bit just to stay fresh, [00:28:00] keep everything loosened up, but you're not trying to do anything crazy because you're setting yourself up for race day. So really, you probably wanna even drop down even more. So probably three to five miles for week one of Taper.
And then week two, you're probably looking at one to three miles. So that's the difference between a taper and a dropdown dropdown. We drop to where we started at the beginning of the Build tap taper. We want to drop down more significantly, and we're doing it twice now. If you're only gonna take one taper week, then you're gonna skip this initial dropdown and go to the really aggressive low dropdown immediately.
And then you're going into your race. When you're looking at, maybe you want to add a third week or three weeks, then you could do [00:29:00] the five miles, maybe three miles and then one mile. And really, I really only see tapers of three weeks when we're talking about longer distances, marathon plus. But if you need it, if your body's telling you you need a longer taper, then take a longer taper.
Now that you know how to structure your training program, let's move on to step four, which I like to work backwards, which is why I start with what are the miles, what are the total miles that I need to run my peak week of training? Now, the peak week of training is right before the taper, so you're looking at that one.
To three weeks before your race. And when I look at a training program, what has been easiest for me over the years is [00:30:00] thinking about what is the total amount of mileage I need to run in a week? And I do this because I'm busy. You are busy. So it's nice to know I need to run X amount of miles this week, and if I have a busier day where I had a workout scheduled, I had a run scheduled, I'm not able to run as many miles that day.
That's okay. I can still get a couple miles in so I can decrease the total mileage that I need to run for the week. It starts taking the pressure off instead of, oh, I have to run this many miles this day, this many miles this day, this many miles This day. I just tell myself, I have X amount of miles I need to run this week, and I'm gonna slowly knock those miles off throughout the week.
And then when I get to my long run over the weekend, which I'll talk about in the next point here. I know how many miles my long run's gonna be. So what I like to do is use what we learned in step three, the build, dropdown and [00:31:00] taper weeks, and the fact that our build dropdown blocks are four weeks long.
And I like to structure those to get me to peak week mileage. And here is what, when I'm looking at a 5K, a 10 k, a half marathon, and a marathon, the mileage that I would shoot for if I was running it for the first time. And I'm gonna give you a range because depending on how you and your body feels and what your goals are, you may want to run less or more miles your peak week.
So let's start. With a 5K. The great thing here is if you are looking to run a 5K for the first time, when we're looking at peak week mileage, really it could be somewhere in the five mile to 10 [00:32:00] mile range. I know this is a long range, but a 5K is 3.1 miles long. So when I look at training for a a hundred kilometer race, I never.
Run a hundred kilometers in one day, just don't, peak week is gonna be something like 20 miles, 30 miles, 20 miles. Now there's different philosophies that have changed in recent years for ultra running where running less miles and running them faster is better than running more miles and running them slower.
So I am adjusting that in my mind as well, where I could probably go and do 15, 25, 15 for my main three runs that week, and the rest of the week I'm probably only gonna be doing a few miles a day. But when we look at a 5K, you're running 3.1 miles. Now, if you've never ran before, 3.1 miles can seem [00:33:00] astronomical, especially if you have asthma and you haven't strengthened your lungs to where they need to be yet.
And you may be a little terrified about that. I was. So scared when I was a kid and we had the fun run. The fun run. It was supposed to be for fun, but my doctor told me I shouldn't be a runner. So every fun run, which was every year, I was terrified. It wasn't very fun 'cause I didn't know if I was gonna have an asthma attack or not.
I didn't really know how to go about it. I would run one lap around the field and feel great, and then feel terrible for the next lap and have to walk. And everyone's running by and they're feeling all good and making fun of me because I'm walking and I'm slow and all this stuff. 3.1 miles may sound astronomical to you.
Well, the great thing is in order for you to get to a place where you can feel extremely confident and comfortable completing a 5K, [00:34:00] you really only need a run five to 10 miles your peak week. Now in the last point that I go through today, the last part of this five step process of building your training program, I'm gonna go through how we actually break this down, but in total, five to 10 miles, you can just run five miles or walk, run five miles, walk, run 10 miles, not a one day total throughout the week.
That could look like taking a one mile walk run for five days of that week. You could do a one mile walk, run seven days that week. This is your peak week. This isn't the entire training program. This is what you're building up to is a five to 10 mile week. If you're looking to run a 5K now, if you've been running five Ks for a long time and you're looking to get faster, [00:35:00] then yeah, you're probably gonna want to be in the 10 miles and you could even go all the way up to 20 miles a week if you want.
For me, I am considering shorter races right now, five Ks, 10 Ks to get faster overall for my longer races. So I'm currently running 25 to 30 miles a week, but it's 'cause I've been doing it for a long time and I'm working on maintaining my strong lungs. But if I was running 5K for the first time, this is all I would look at building myself up to for my peak week mileage.
Let's look at a 10 K. A 10 K is 6.2 miles and our peak week of training for a 10 K isn't that much different than a 5K. Probably being a little more aggressive with mileage for the 10 K than the 5K, but really, you [00:36:00] run 10 miles your peak week, you're doing extremely good, and you could go up to 15 miles.
You could go up to 20 miles to, but really if you wanna run 6.2 miles, you've never done it before. You run 10 miles in your peak week, you're gonna finish that. You have a strong chance to finish that 6.2 mile race. Same thing. We're incrementally building to this point. If you wanna do it a little faster than maybe shoot for 15 miles, even if you shop for 15 miles, this could be running or run, walking two miles per day.
Your peak week. That's it. Now, that may sound astronomical now, but if this is 16 weeks into a program where you've been building your lungs up, building the strength in your body, you'll be ready to do this. Now, let's look at a half marathon, [00:37:00] which is 13.1 miles, or I believe a marathon's 42 kilometers. So 21 kilometers, a 21 kg, 13.1 miles.
For this, we're looking at a bit more, and I do have a wider range for this one. 15 to 25 miles. That's your peak week. On the low end, you're talking running three miles per day, five days. Of that week. On the high end, you're talking about three miles per day, maybe four miles one day or two days, seven days of that week.
Now, I don't recommend running every single day, even though I do it sometimes, but when I'm in a training program, I like to take at least one [00:38:00] full day off from any training per week. Not because I wanna do it, but because my body wants me to do it. 'cause when I listen to my body, that's what it wants.
Similar to the build dropdown mentality, having one day per week for your body to be able to recover actually empowers you to hit your mileage the following week. Now let's look at Marathon. So 26.2 miles. Our peak week, this is a 40 2K. Our peak week is really 25. To 35 miles. I've had friends run way less than this.
I've had friends run, uh, all over, between 25 and 35 miles their peak week, some going all the way up to 35, some just doing 25, some even doing 20. So wide range. And it really depends on your goals and it depends on everything else that you're doing as part of your [00:39:00] training. But even this 25 miles, this is about three, three and a half miles per day.
If you ran seven days in a week and 35 miles is five miles a day, if you ran seven days a week. Just to put that in perspective. So this is what we're building up to. And, uh, really when we're looking at peak weeks, this is as much about your mental state going into a race as it is about hitting these numbers to be physically ready.
For me, I tell myself before I even start a training program, if I can get to my peak week hitting this interval that I know I'll be able to finish the race. And it's amazing. That is an empowering thought to have because instead of thinking, oh my gosh, I have to run five kilometers, I have to run 10 kilometers, I have to run 13.1, I have to run 26.2 miles.
All you're [00:40:00] thinking is, I just need to get to peak week, hit the peak week numbers, and I will finish my race. That's it. It takes the pressure out of thinking of the race distance that you may have never ran before, and instead you just know that you hit the peak week mileage. You're gonna finish the race.
And remember, you can always walk during the race and step five, piecing together the different types of workouts in order to get you to peak week and ultimately to finish a race. Now I'm gonna start by listing the types of workouts that I do when I'm training for a race and then. I'm gonna go through each type of workout and give you an idea of what this could look like for each distance that we're [00:41:00] talking about today, 5K, 10 K, half marathon, and marathon.
But let's start with the types of workouts that you're gonna be looking at when building your program. And it all starts with the most important workout, your long run. Now, I'm gonna go through exactly what this looks like for each of those races, but the theory here is the most important workout of the week is the long run because this.
Is your practice race day, and you get this every single week throughout your program. In an 18 week program, you're gonna have 18 long runs. Now, depending on where you are in the program, you may be building, you may be dropping down, and you may be tapering. So the long runs may be longer in some areas and shorter in others, but the long run is the longest run you do that week, and it is the most important run you do that week.
[00:42:00] You still wanna do your other runs, but if you need to skip a workout throughout your week. Try not to skip your long run. You have a lot more wiggle room with all your other workouts, runs, cross training, et cetera. Your long run, you probably don't wanna skip more than one, maybe two in your entire program.
And if you skip it, I highly recommend that you try and make it up on a day that is close to when you're supposed to do the long run. Now, the long run is best done the same day that race day occurs. What I mean by this, well, if your race day is on a Saturday, then your long run should be on a Saturday each week.
If your race day is on a Sunday, then your long run should be on a Sunday each week, and so forth. So the long run [00:43:00] is the most important workout now. What I don't want you to do is get way too busy with life, with training all the, all your commitments, and you feel like you have to skip your long run and then you reschedule it and then you blow up your next training week because you have way too much mileage that week.
So you gotta be really careful when I say reschedule, I mean if one week you can't run it on Saturday and you need to run it on Sunday instead, then that's okay. You could also move it to Friday, but I wouldn't move it too much more than. One day away from when you're supposed to do it. If you have to skip it, maybe increase your mileage across your other runs that week.
Or if you have to do a week where you need to have your long run, be less mileage than it is, but you have more time earlier in the week to hit your mileage, to get your ultimate mileage goal for the week, then you can do that. But the long [00:44:00] run is the most important part of all. This next one, just gonna keep it simple.
Short runs your short runs. Are really to build your weekly mileage. You can take them at whatever pace you want, you're just getting mileage in. So when we're working towards our peak week mileage, we're gonna have mileage goals for other weeks. They're gonna be less than the peak week, but our short runs allow us to take bites out of the total mileage that we have that week in a really low key way.
We're not trying to set any records, we're just trying to get miles, and this could be short run walks, et cetera. Next we have tempo. Or what I like to call interval runs. Now, if you're looking to get faster, so let's say that [00:45:00] you've already done a couple of five Ks, couple of 10 Ks, and you're looking at getting faster at those distances, or maybe you've been competing at half marathons and marathons for a while and you wanna get faster at those distances.
If you are looking to get faster, then your tempo and interval runs are key. And really what this is, is runs where, you know, when we're talking about progressive overload with walking and running, well, this is where we look at if you are used to a specific pace. So for me right now, a nine to nine and a half minute pace is probably what I'm taking most of my long runs and short runs at.
For my temple runs, I'm gonna be mixing. My 9.5 minute mile with, I'm getting pretty aggressive with this, like a 6.5 [00:46:00] minute mile. So I'll run my nine and a half and I'll do intervals with a faster mile for you. This could be run walking. This could be, uh, instead of run walking, you're doing a really slow run pace and then you're picking it up a little bit throughout the run.
But this is how we really build strength in our bodies, in our lungs, in our minds when we're looking to get faster. This is your first race ever. Don't worry about tempo and interval runs as much. Just focus on your walk running, getting your miles in, et cetera. But if you are looking to get faster, your tempo and interval runs.
Extremely important, especially if you already have the long run mentality, short run mentality down, this is what's gonna get you faster. Running more miles, total miles in the week, doing more short runs with [00:47:00] more mileage in them, making them less, uh, making them more than just short runs. You're gonna get more out of the temple and interval runs.
And this is really the new philosophy in ultra running is if you're an ultra runner like me, once you get to a CER mile, you get used to running 50, 60, 70 mile weeks. Running 80, 90, a hundred mile weeks is going to get you less progress than just doing more. Tempo and interval runs throughout your weeks.
I learned this the hard way training for my last race, where I was like, I wanna get faster. I'm gonna run more miles, and I burned myself out instead of focusing on tempo and interval runs next, we got all that cross training with hit high intensity interval training with lifting, just focusing on heavy lifting, lower body, upper body, and then stretching slash yoga.
Now, none of this is required for [00:48:00] training, especially if this is your first time doing these things. I will say that I personally have less injuries when I have a healthy dose of cross training in my life. I therefore, I highly recommend that you integrate at the very least. Stretching slash yoga, and then one of these.
And really you just need to focus a little bit on strength so that you have strong glutes, strong core, strong quads, strong hamstrings, strong cabs to take the pressure off that you have when you hit the ground. When your feet hit the ground, vibrations go up through your body. So having strong glutes, engaging your glutes at the right time, using these muscles basically to soften the impact.
That's why we [00:49:00] want cross training. We're looking to soften the impact. Cross training is much more about longevity in our running, in our races, preventing injuries than getting faster. And I say that when the caveat, what I've found, that when I focus. On HIIT workouts during my training programs, this combines with my temple workouts and helps me become a faster runner.
So. If you are looking all this today or listening to all this and you're like, you know what? I wanna run a 5K. I wanna run a 10 K, but I don't love running. Well, you should still focus on getting that long run in every week. Get some mileage in here and there, and then throw in some high intense interval training, stretching and yoga, and maybe even lift once a week.
It definitely makes it more fun. And that's where I'm at [00:50:00] right now is I'm having so much fun in my training because I'm making time to do all of this, which is why instead of running 50, 60, 70 mile weeks, I'm running 30 mile weeks and I'm doing HIIT a couple times a week. I'm lifting one or two times a week.
I'm playing tennis every week, and I am stretching and doing yoga multiple times per week 'cause I love all of this. Now let's break down each of these workouts individually. Four, 5K, 10 k, half marathon, marathon. Starting with the long run. Long run's. Really simple. You need to do this once per week during your training cycle.
Therefore, what I wanna show you is what I aim for when looking at each of these races for my longest run of my entire training program, this is the run that you will do during your peak week. This is the run that you will really be able to use. The [00:51:00] mileage, the total mileage that you're shooting for, for that week can subtract out the long run, and now you know what to do for your short runs.
And if you want to throw tempo runs, what to do for that as well. But really, let's start with a 5K with our 5K, our longest run, so this is our peak week long run really is gonna be two to four miles, four R 10 K. We're looking at five to seven miles. And these races are very interesting because these are the only two races where the long run could be the length of the race, a 5K, 3.1 miles, a 10 K, 6.2 miles.
So a. Your long run for your peak week. If you're feeling up to it, you could run a 5K that week, or even more than the 5K that week for your [00:52:00] long run. Same thing with your 10 K. You could run your 10 K or even a little bit more. You can also run less so you don't have to run a 5K as your long run to finish a 5K.
You could just run two miles. If you feel sick during your peak week, maybe you don't even wanna run two miles. You could still finish your 5K even if you get sick during your peak week. Now, I've had this happen where I've gotten sick before races. I got sick a month before my a hundred K and I was freaked out.
I'm like, maybe this ruined my entire training program. It, well, it didn't. I ended up winning the race. So as long as you have a solid training program, you do your best to stick to it. Best you can. You have some wiggle room for things like getting sick, for things like missing different workouts and runs, and now let's look at our half marathon and marathon.
So our 13.1 [00:53:00] miles, or our 21 k is our half marathon for this. Really your long run is gonna be somewhere between the eight and 10 mile range. You could, I guess, run a half if you really want to before half marathon, but you don't have to. And really eight to 10 miles is all you really need to build yourself up to to complete that half marathon.
Then when we look at a marathon, this may seem a little bit scary. It definitely scared the heck out of me when I first saw how many miles I was gonna need to run my peak week. But after 16 weeks building up to it, I was able to do it. You're looking at 18 to 20 miles. I've seen people even run 22 miles.
I think I've ran 22 miles leading up to some marathons, and that's okay as well. It's a little overkill. You really need to be in the 18 to 20 mile range. [00:54:00] If you're really not feeling it, you could probably get away with 16 miles or even 15 miles that peak week, as long as you're hitting the higher end of your peak week goal mileage.
So instead of just hitting 25, if you're gonna run a shorter long run for your peak week of marathon training, you probably want to be hitting closer to that 35 miles total that week. So that would look like having a 15 or 16 mile long run, and then another 20 miles that you break up throughout the rest of the week with your short runs in your tempo runs.
Next we have short runs. Let's start with 5K. For our 5K, what we really wanna look at is doing one to two short runs per week. And, uh, the mileage that we're looking to hit for each of our short runs [00:55:00] is also one to two miles per run. So when you are looking at building your program, when you're earlier in the program, working up and building your body, building your mileage, you're gonna be running on the lower end of this range.
And as you get closer to your peak week, you'll be running more times per week and more miles per run. But that is how I look at it when I build my training programs is we're increasing the frequency. Of runs and the mileage per runs and it, it's up to you kind of how your body feels. You can mess with this a little bit, and that's why I also like to have a lot of time before my race so that I can really figure out what feels best for me.
Now it's like a 10 K. For a 10 K. We're [00:56:00] looking at one. To three times per week for our short runs and somewhere between two and three miles per run. Now, if you really are starting from scratch and you're never ran before at all, and you're running your first 10 K, then you could even start one mile per short run at the very beginning of your training program.
But as you progress towards that peak week, you really should be in the two to three mile range per short run. Now, this changes a little bit as we get to our half marathon, a marathon. So here is our half, we're looking at two to three times per week is what you should be doing your short runs and. We want to be doing [00:57:00] 2.5 to five miles per run.
Same theory. Start on the lower end of the range and work up to that five mile mark. And once again, if you have never ran before and you're looking to run your first half and you're just going for half right outta the gate, you could start even lower in the one to two mile range, but you're gonna need to build up pretty quickly, probably at least by that second block.
So that first four week block, you could do it a little lower. And then when you get to that second four week block, you're probably gonna want to be in the two to two and a half mile range for each of those short runs. Now we got a marathon, so 26.2 miles, and this one is similar to the half, really looking at two to three times per week.
But your mileage is gonna be three to [00:58:00] six miles per run. Now, if you are coming outta the gate, you've never ran before, or you've never ran more than a mile or half a mile before, and you're looking at running a marathon, you can do it. You're just gonna need to really listen to your body, and you are gonna wanna ramp up to this real quick.
But if you need to start slow your first couple of weeks, or an even better way of looking at this is I highly recommend you hitting these numbers. But if you need a walk for the first few weeks and you need a walk, run throughout the entire training program, then. Hitting this mileage while walk, running while walking is gonna be extremely important for you.
So I would really advise that. You probably want to try and hit these numbers, but you have to. But if you have to walk it earlier in the [00:59:00] program, then great. Do that. If you have to walk, run it throughout the entire program, great. Do that. Let's just make sure we're getting enough mileage in our weeks and compounding the mileage week after week after week.
Because what I don't want you to think is that you saw the peak week mileage and you're like, okay, I just need to be able to run 35 miles in one week before the marathon. Aren't you run anything leading up to it? No. That's not how it works. Cumulative mileage over the 16 weeks, 18 weeks, whatever, 24 weeks, 30 weeks, whatever your training cycle is, the cumulative mileage is what's gonna get you there.
I just like to share what the peak week mileage is. 'cause then you can adjust your mileage from there. Okay, I have to run 25 to 35 miles my peak week. What do all the weeks before that look, that's the highest I need to run. Peak week. Let's see how we can incrementally get there. It's about the incremental growth.
[01:00:00] It's not about, okay, I run 35 miles a week. I'm ready for my marathon in two weeks. That's not how it works. Next tempo runs. If this is your first time running this distance, or your first time really running at all and having a race or a goal or an event in mind, you could skip tempo runs. But you can't necessarily skip the mileage that you would be doing for the Tempo Run.
So I invite you, if you go through this and you're like, Hey, I already have enough on my plate. I got the long run, I got the short run. I want to do some cross training. Maybe I could skip something. Well, you could, instead of doing a temple run, do an extra short run. Or instead of doing a temple run, do a hit workout.
Now when we're looking at our half marathon and marathon mileage, it may be more importantly the mileage in than the extra hit workout. But really [01:01:00] remember, listen to your body and just look at what I have for you here. So for a 5K, really all you're looking at is doing one per week. So one temple run per week and it really just needs to be one mile.
So the temple run could be as simple as you could even walk. You could even walk for a quarter mile and then run for a quarter mile and run faster than you usually would. You could jog for a quarter mile and then run for a mile. You could jog for a quarter mile and then run for a quarter mile. You could run for a quarter mile and then sprint for a quarter mile.
This is a really fun workout, so I highly recommend, even if you're thinking, eh, I could, I could skip it. Tempo runs are super fun and it mixes it up 'cause you're not just going the same pace all the time. You can do it with songs. That's [01:02:00] what I like to do, is I listen to a song and when the beat drops, I go and I push real hard and then when it slows down I slow down.
So you can really have a lot of fun with these. Let's look at a 10 K. For a 10 K. We're looking at. Same thing, just one time per week and maybe one to two miles. Another thing here, when you're earlier in your training program, you could start by not even doing tempo runs and maybe the second half of your training program.
Introduce them. Especially once you start getting bored of all the miles you're doing in your short runs, you could even take part of a short run and do a tempo version of it for a mile, maybe for two miles. So really, when you're looking at tempo runs, look at this as this is where you can have some fun.
Now you also need to be a little more aware of your asthma for tempo runs. This is where you definitely need to listen to your body and if maybe in short runs, you don't need [01:03:00] your inhaler temple runs, you may need it now. You want it with you all the time. You may need to take your inhaler more often in a tempo run than a short run or even than a long run.
It really depends on how the going faster versus going farther in mileage affects you and your asthma. Now let's look at our half marathon, 13.1 miles. What are we looking at here for a half marathon? We're still really only doing this one time per week. And we're looking at two to three miles for our temple run.
And remember, this also depends on your goals. If you're looking at getting faster at these distances, you've done them before, you feel comfortable and confident at a distance, your lungs feel comfortable and confident, then you could throw in more temple runs. You could do two per week. You can integrate them in other runs more often as well.
I am just saying that if you're looking at integrating these into your workouts, you don't have to do temple [01:04:00] runs in order to complete your races. They're just a great way to have fun and to really create a more well-rounded running regimen. Now, 26.2 miles, our marathon. What does this look like? Well, a marathon really, you're still looking at once per week.
I remember the marathon program I was doing through Peloton. I think sometimes they'd have two in a week for me. But really it was just one tempo run per week, and we're looking at three to six miles for that tempo run. Now let's talk about cross training. Hit or high intensity interval training is my favorite type of cross training.
It may not be the most important for you and your success in these races in these different distances that you are looking at. Training for stretching slash doing some sort of yoga is probably more important just to protect your body, let it relax and recover. But hit [01:05:00] for me is definitely the most fun.
So. What I invite you to do, if you don't like the idea of doing these tempo workouts and maybe you don't wanna just be running all the time, then maybe instead of doing that tempo workout, you look at doing a HIIT workout instead. Here is what it could look like for a 5K. You could do zero to one per week for 10 K.
You could do, once again, zero to one per week. And when we're looking at a half marathon, then we get to the half and the full, and really this could be zero to one as well. For me, I'm doing a half or a full. I'm doing at least one per week. [01:06:00] One per week. It's too fun. It's too good for you. The first marathon I ever tried to run and I bailed on it, I was actually just doing a long run every week and hit the rest of the week.
I wasn't running at all, so I was running. I was doing a long run and hit. Now I didn't get that far into the program, so I was only running like six miles as my long run, but I was doing hit like five or six days for the rest of the week, which I don't necessarily recommend you doing. I just know that I felt like I was in such good shape and when I was doing that long run, I wasn't that long of a long run.
I felt amazing. I couldn't even tell that I wasn't doing miles the rest of the week 'cause I was spending so much time doing hit. Now I. Really ended up bailing on my first couple marathons because I didn't have a training program set up. I was just winging it. I was really only doing long runs with a buddy of mine who was in an official training program.
So that's the importance of putting a training program together and knowing what you need to hit for your peak week, what you need to hit for your long [01:07:00] runs, and having an idea of what all your other workouts could look like, because that is really gonna help you have the confidence to go through with the thing.
So what does hit look like? Well, hit could really be a 30 minute to 60 minute workout with weights, with a stationary bike, with a rower. Technically, a temple workout is a high intensity interval training workout. So really these are short workouts. You could even do a 15 to 20 minute workout. The key here is I like to use this.
To mix things up so that I'm not always running. I love the row machine. Love it. I love lifting weight, so doing that in a way where I am elevating my heart rate and then learning how to bring my heart rate back down and recover. I absolutely love and I've seen amazing results in my [01:08:00] speed and my injury prevention, and.
Even though it's probably not most important, 'cause when we're looking at safety, safety is the most important. I just have way more fun when I add hit workouts to my training regimen. Next lifting. I also really enjoy to heavy lift, and what I have found is that lifting. Has helped prevent a lot of injuries for me.
It's also helped me recover from injuries. It's helped me recover from plantar fasciitis, strengthening other muscles in my legs to take the pressure off my heels. It has helped with knee sensitivity. With knee pain. By building up my glutes, my quads, I've been able to take the pressure off of my knees.
So lifting, when we're looking at integrating this into a training program, it's really, if you are looking to do this for the long term, you're not just looking at doing one race, you're looking at doing [01:09:00] a bunch of races, then having a lifting routine. This is gonna be extremely important for you. Now, when we're looking at doing a 5K for the first time, maybe just have a goal to do a 5K.
Just wanna complete it. Just check it off and be done. You don't necessarily need to lift. I do recommend though, if you start feeling different things in your body, you're like, oh, different things are hurting. Well, it might be because different muscles in your body may be underdeveloped. You may need to give them a little bit of love by strengthening them.
Just like we work on strengthening our lungs. So similar to hit when we're looking at a 5K, a 10 k, a half marathon, and a marathon. It's. The same recommendations, zero to one, zero to one, one and one especially. What I've seen for myself is I've ran marathons without lifting and I've ran marathons with lifting and I perform better and [01:10:00] feel better and have way less injuries when I lift and run marathons.
You don't have to lift much just once per week. And when you're looking at 5K and 10 K, you could lift one week, not lift the other week, you could do every other week. Maybe you wanna integrate, hit and lifting. You can do hit one week lifting the next week. You could probably. Pull that off with the half and the full as well.
If you wanna alternate, do lift, hit lift, hit lift, hit. 'cause I know you don't have unlimited time. So if you wanna integrate both, just do one each week and then alternate the weeks. Now if you were looking at lifting, really you wanna do exercises for your glutes. It's gonna protect your knees, your quads.
I also look at calf work, but you don't wanna do too heavy with calves. Same with hamstrings. And guess what? You can also do [01:11:00] upper body. You could work on chest. You are gonna want to do core. Core is extremely important. You can do biceps, triceps, shoulders. Et cetera. If you really wanted to focus your time, then really I would look at glutes, quads, and core, and if you wanna throw some upper body, then you know, chest and shoulders, especially if you're holding a pack.
Having that strength is gonna really help you get deeper into races, especially if you're looking at a marathon and you're holding a pack the entire time. Having stronger shoulders, having stronger chest may help you alleviate some of that pressure, some of that pain, holding a pack for [01:12:00] three to six hours.
Lastly, stretching slash yoga. This. Is not optional. The great thing though, is you don't have to stretch or do long yoga sessions for this to be impactful to your training. So when we're looking at our 5K, 10 K, we're gonna have a little less. Then we're looking at a half marathon or marathon, just 'cause we're doing a lot less miles.
And the key here is we want to integrate this. So for a 5K or a 10 K, we're looking at one to three times per week. For our half marathon, a marathon, we're looking at two to three times a week for our half and three or more times for our full. If you really wanted to, you could stretch every day. For any of these types of races and you can stretch for five minutes a day.
What I do, I've done this for a while 'cause I dropped the ball on [01:13:00] my stretching and yoga. I was always stretching or doing yoga once per week and not really anything else. And now what I'm doing that helped me get over my plantar fasciitis. I have a whole video and podcast episode about that. You can check it out on my channel.
I even have it linked below and in the show notes if you're listening to this as a podcast. But really five minutes isn't that long. I don't expect you to do it out of the gate stretching every single day, but if you want to add something to your routine runner or not, that's gonna help you. And with the longevity in your life, then stretching is the way to go.
Well, along with having continuous consistent. Movement. Movement is so powerful. Movement is what I'm passionate about, and that's why I created my three pillars of Healthy Living Guide with the three pillars being movement, tracking, and [01:14:00] accountability. What we've really talked about today encapsulates all of those things movement.
We're moving in different ways throughout our training program, tracking. We're tracking how we're progressing through our training program. We're listening to our body through our training program, and accountability. You are being accountable for yourself and by being here and spending some time with me now, you can also be accountable with me.
And a great way to do that is by commenting below. If you're watching this as a video on YouTube or sending me an email, [email protected], letting me know how your training is going, letting me know what race you are training for and giving me updates on how it's going. Now. If you're interested in my Healthy Living Guidewire any other resources and figuring out [01:15:00] maybe it might be a good fit for us to work together someday, then I have links to all of those things in the YouTube description and in the show notes.
If you're listening to this as a podcast, I'll look forward to continue to serve you and hear how your race goes. I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It is about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
