PODCAST - how to become a faster runner with asthma
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Havie, 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 100K ultra, I proved 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.
Today on the show, we're gonna talk about how to become a faster runner. Over the past couple months, I have started leading a running club, where we get together and we run three to three and a half miles, and we also train various HYROX exercises. [00:01:00] H-Y-R-O-X, HYROX being a hybrid fitness race that you can find events near you all over the country.
And really, the goal of the running club that I'm leading is to become faster runners. To be able to run one kilometer at a time at the fastest pace possible. Well, even though in recent years I have been an elite ultra-endurance runner, winning 100-kilometer ultras, I have not always been a runner. And even to this day, I look at myself as a slow runner.
And really, this all comes back to when I was four years old and I was finally diagnosed with asthma. I was told that I've probably always struggled with asthma, but the constrictions in my lungs and the issues I was having when I was on the soccer field, when I was running around the playground, when I was doing the fun run, when I was doing these things, why I was getting winded so quickly, was because I have asthma.
Well, since then, I've always looked at how to build my lungs and how to make sure that I don't have to always rely on my inhaler. How do I make sure that I can do these things that I [00:02:00] love? I've always been very active. I've always been running around the playground, playing soccer, and even running around the mountains.
Well, my 30-plus-year journey of asthma has not only shown me how to strengthen my lungs. In more recent years, I've used similar principles to actually become a faster runner, going from running a six-hour marathon, to running a 13-hour, 50-mile race, to ultimately running a 12-hour, 100-kilometer race in 95-degree heat.
So just in the matter of a couple of years, I was able to cut my mileage time significantly to the point where I'm even able to run a six-minute or even a sub-six-minute mile at shorter distances. And that's why we're here today. I have five tips about how you can become a faster runner with or without asthma.
And it really starts with running More. It really can be this simple. If you are just running five, 10 [00:03:00] miles a week, if you wanna get faster at running, just run more. Run 10 or 20 miles per week. What this does, and you can really apply this to anything in fitness, is if you wanna get better at something, if you wanna get faster at something, faster at different distances, then what you need to do is run more miles than the distance that you're training for.
Now, I'm not saying that if you're training for a 50-mile, 100K, or 100-mile-plus race, that you need to be running more than the race distance in one day. No, you shouldn't do that, especially when you're getting to the 50, the 100-kilometer, 100-mile-plus races, because of the amount of impact and the effects of doing that kind of mileage on your body can really set you back if you do it all at once.
What I am saying is if you're training for a 50-mile or 100-kilometer race, what you need to do is look at increasing your mileage to decrease your time. Now, this isn't the only way, and in [00:04:00] recent years, especially in ultra, the top runners are actually decreasing the amount of miles that they're running.
These runners are doing a couple hundred, if not more, miles per week. But I'm not saying that you necessarily should be decreasing your mileage, especially if you're only running five, 10, 20, even 30 miles per week. For me right now, I'm running about 25 to 30 miles a week, and that's really my base, my shooting off point for racing in general.
Now, once I go and I sign up for 100-kilometer race, I ramp that up. I used to ramp that up to 100-mile weeks. Well, instead of ramping it up to 100-mile weeks, I'm looking at ramping it up to 75 to 80-mile weeks. The second thing that you need to do is run Faster. Now, I'm telling you, I'm keeping it real simple today.
So obviously you're here 'cause you want to run faster. But in order to run faster, you need to actually run faster. What do I mean by this? Well, I've had asthma for my entire life, and what I've done in [00:05:00] order to improve my lungs, in order to run faster, in order to compete at a higher level in sports, is I have put my lungs under pressure.
Instead of taking my inhaler right away before an event, I started out by taking it five or 10 minutes into the event, and then I would just push that time back to the point where my lungs strengthen enough that I don't need my inhaler at all. I still bring it with me, and I'll use it when I'm sick.
Maybe I'm having seasonal allergies. Maybe the air quality isn't as good, but I still have it with me. It's the same thing here with running faster. If you wanna run faster, you need to run faster. Now, what you can do, and this is why I shared my example of why the top ultra runners are cutting back their miles, because if you're already running more, 'cause you may say, "Johnny, I'm already running a lot."
I'm training for HYROX, which is really less than five miles of running total, eight kilometers, less than five miles of running. Now, if you add in [00:06:00] transitions and going through the different functional fitness stations, maybe you get to six or seven total miles. But let's say that you're training for HYROX, and you're like, "I'm already running 25 to 30 miles per week."
Well, in that case, you probably don't need to run more. If you're training for a marathon and you're already running 50-plus miles per week, you probably don't need to run more miles. What you need to look at is running the miles that you are running faster. And you can do this just like what we do in running club.
What we do, we break it down into small segments. So last night at running club, instead of running all out a whole kilometer or a whole mile, we did 200 meters, which is just halfway around the track, running that all out and then walking or doing a really light jog for the next 200 meters. Then taking a whole lap at just a light jog.
Then we sprint again. This is called tempo. And when you do tempo [00:07:00] training or interval training- What you're doing is you're showing yourself you're building neural pathways, and you're showing your muscles that you can do faster things. Over time, this compounds, and your body gets used to pushing at this faster pace.
This also makes your slower pace feel easier, which ultimately brings up your pace. So when I say run faster, I don't mean go out for your three-mile run today and run the whole three miles faster. No. I mean take segments of it. Take 100 yards at a time, do a sprint, then slow down and jog. By doing this, you will increase your pace.
When you combine both of these things, running more miles and running faster the miles that you are doing, even if you're walking more miles 'cause you're running faster for f- more miles, you will ultimately get faster. Next, maybe you don't wanna run all the time. I [00:08:00] get it. When I'm training for 100-kilometer-plus ultras, it can get real tiring doing dozens upon dozens of miles every week.
So what I like to do is throw in some HIIT classes, high-intensity interval training. And this is similar to the run faster philosophy, is if you go and you do a class, you do an exercise, you do a workout That HIITs on HIIT, what you're doing is you're training your cardiovascular system, along with strengthening your body, to actually put out more energy, to work harder, to know how it feels to have your heart rate up and then bring it down.
I recommend running faster, but if you really are already putting in all the miles that you feel like doing, that your body is gonna let you to do, i- that your mind is going to stay interested in, but [00:09:00] you still wanna get faster, then I highly recommend you start doing some HIIT workouts. And you either go to a gym, like Endorphin in Colorado, where I teach, or you go to a yoga studio, like Core Power, and do a yoga sculpt class, or there's so many different gyms that you can go to to do HIIT classes.
And you could even go on YouTube and find HIIT classes to do as well. But HIIT and running faster have a similar effect to increasing your speed, and this works out really well, too, if you have asthma. HIIT can really empower your lungs to support you even more, strengthen your lungs, and set you up not only for your races, not only for your events, but just on a day-to-day basis.
Because when your body feels comfortable at these higher heart rates, and then bringing your heart rate down, on a day-to-day basis, things are gonna feel easier. Things like going up the stairs are gonna feel easier. Things like lifting your luggage into the overhead compartment while [00:10:00] traveling is gonna feel easier.
Cooking, all these things are gonna feel easier when you train HIIT. Next, I want you to eat healthier, and this, this is huge if you have asthma, because what you wanna do is you wanna eliminate inflammatory foods from your diet. So let's eliminate or at least decrease inflammation. This really helps with asthma.
But even if you don't have asthma, this is gonna help you, 'cause what's gonna happen is, when you're recovering from the more miles you're doing, running faster, maybe integrating some HIIT, your body's gonna recover faster when you are taking in less inflammatory foods and you're taking in more anti-inflammatory.
But this isn't the only thing you wanna eat. You wanna make sure you're getting protein- and carbs. Carbs are gonna actually help you when you're running. What I've seen, when I go and I do an event, I take my nutrition very seriously. Even doing a simulation, I'm doing a HYROX simulation in a couple of [00:11:00] weeks.
I did one a few months ago, and I approached it like a race. I made sure that I had enough carbs and calories to push extra hard during the simulation. So you need to think about this when you're racing, when you're doing anything. When you get the nutrition right, you will be faster than when you get it wrong, especially if you have asthma or something else that's affecting you.
When you get your nutrition right, you're supporting your body to do the thing, and in this case, run faster. And that really brings me to the last one, which if you've been following me for a while, you probably hear me talk about this all the time, but don't drink. Please drink water. Drink a lot of water.
Get the electrolytes in, get your salt, but don't drink alcohol. If you want a way to get faster immediately without having to do any training, just stop drinking. Stop drinking. Stop putting any sort of substances like [00:12:00] alcohol, tobacco, other recreational drugs, and other things. Just stop doing it, and you will get faster.
This is a cheat code. I found that by taking alcohol out of my life, I've gotten better at everything. That includes getting faster. That includes winning races. That includes just overall being able to show up better for my family and my friends. So ultimately, if you're looking to get faster, all you have to do is try out these things.
You don't even have to do all of them. If you do all of them, you're gonna get a lot faster. But just pick one or two of these, and I invite you to start integrating them into your life today. Let me know, by the way, if you're watching this on YouTube in the comments, or if you're listening to this as a podcast, send me an email, [email protected], and just let me know what's working for you.
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 [00:13:00] to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection, it's 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
