michael: Hi everyone and welcome back to episode 44 of Miles Better. It's been a big couple of weeks with our new format where we dive into people's training behind some breakthrough races that they've had to really try and understand what the drivers of performance are. So we went through Josh, myself, Jimmy Wheelan the other day. And today we've got a special guest on whose progression has been extreme to say the least. So It's going to be super juicy in terms of the I guess, training data that we can dive into and the like breadth of training blocks in terms of, I guess, the volume of them as like a starting point, and then seeing how that reflects in the results. he's a 1452 5k runner. He's run close to 30 dead in the 10k, 67 minutes. in the half marathon at Bath earlier this year, which he he's just told us he's incredibly proud of given the conditions, and has gotten him selected to run a half marathon at Antrim on behalf of Wales in a couple of weeks' time. And he's also run a two twenty two marathon. So he's absolutely slouch. is he Josh?
Josh: Yeah, it's impressive stuff. I I've really enjoyed, you know, poking around through the graphs here and seeing some phenomenal miles being put in, to say the least.
michael: So welcome to Sam Griffith, SaKA Globe Runner Griff.
Sam: Thanks for having me.
michael: Pleasure. So
Josh: Should we start with should we st
michael: You wanna go straight into it, don't you, Josh? Straight into the data.
Josh: I wanna go straight into it, but do you wanna do a a bit of a background on Sam first? Let's do a bit of a background on Sam. Sam, tell us a bit about that progression and how that's looked from your side. maybe sprinkle in some races there and I will interrupt you to talk about those races in more detail.
Sam: Yeah, perfect. so three years ago I was a hundred and twenty five kilos and I couldn't race. I actually to to break through my running journey, I signed up to a ten K and I didn't finish. I got to nine K, average heart rate of a hundred and eighty and literally couldn't finish the ten K. and it was that point I decided, you know what, I really wanna kind of kick start my running journey and see how far I can take it. so yeah, over The past three and a half years now, I've I've progressed quite quickly. so that was March 2023. I couldn't complete a 10K. And by October that year, I think I'd broke 40 minutes for the 10K. so a very, very rapid, quick progression into it. And then moving forward, then I got a qualification into the London marathon. So I built up my times from the 5K all the way through to the half marathon. and in April twenty twenty five it was my debut marathon. and that was London in the heat wave that it was I gave it my all and I finished in two hours and fifty minutes for my debut marathon. which I was actually at the time pretty disappointed because I felt like I could have gone quicker. But given the conditions and like how I look back on my training now, that was that was the best I could do on a day, given those conditions. And then from there, then it's been an absolutely mad progression. So April 2025 was a 250. Then September 2025, I ran a 237 at Berlin. Fast forward then another three months in December 2020.
michael: That that was a another another hot day in Berlin as well, right? Like Josh and I both ran that day and I definitely blew up in the heat. I should have probably finished around you, but was about ten minutes back. So you know, another asterisk on that one.
Josh: Right, Sam, it's c it's possible that you overtook me while I was vomiting at the side of the road, actually. On on that Berlin course. I was
Sam: That could that could be very possible.
Josh: around about there and spent about two minutes doubled over
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: some poor spectator's feet. While you're talking about these races, let me just share my screen for anyone watching on video. They can see a little bit about what you're talking about. So this is that This easy marathon wasn't a race, so kind of we can mentally scratch that from this list. But that April twenty twenty five, two fifty, September twenty five,
Sam: Yeah, then Berlin.
Josh: two thirty-eight, and then it just gets better and better from there.
Sam: Yeah, so then I went to Valencia with my goal of breaking that elusive sub two thirty, crossed the nine in two twenty-nine thirty-three, I think official. And I thought that was my running journey over. I thought I've peaked, I've peaked in running now, I've broke the two thirty barrier, it was that like elusive thing. but then I took a little bit of a different approach to my training going into twenty twenty-six in terms of mileage, and that's where I really started ramping up. I was targeting maybe around a two twenty seven, two twenty-five kind of marathon thinking for London. but in the in the midst of the London training block, off quite a higher mileage kind of thing, I did the Bath half marathon, which is probably one of my best results, given the conditions of that. It's not a flat course. It was a very windy day and I ran my half marathon PB of one seven five, which I was really, really proud of. and negative split that as well. So I knew something special was on for London then, which was a month later. then yeah, April 2026, I ran London Marathon in 223. and I think it was like two or three seconds, something like that. and I was absolutely buzzing. It was for me, I'm I'm not very good at I'm a heavier marathon runner for the times I produce. I I I'm in and around the 80 kilos for five foot ten or 178 centimeters, which when I stand on the start line, I would say I sit on the heavier side. and I do think stronger is faster, but being on the heavier side of the run in, thermoregulation is something that I really struck struggle with. especially I just I just struggle in the heat. so two weeks later, there was a Copenhagen marathon, which was going to be my B race. And essentially what I said to myself was if London was anything like last year, I'm not gonna send London and I will wait to Copenhagen. London was okay, but the sun was still out, and I thought, I've got to give myself a chance. Like you're only at London once. So I went all out at London. And then nothing booked for Copenhagen. I had the spot, and then about five days before the marathon, I was feeling all right, my legs felt all right after the marathon, and I was like, I could go out there and do that. And then I got a text from my friend, by the way, there's a 220 pacer, just to let you know if you are still interested. I was like, go on, then I'll book my flight. So I booked my flight literally like four days before. went out, stayed with a mate out there in Copenhagen and ran the Copenhagen Marathon with the elite female, which was a really, really good experience. and I crossed the line in 222 30. I think I was on pace though for about 35k. but then my legs started to hurt and that's probably down to the fatigue of London. but yeah, I managed to cross the line in another PD just two weeks after London. and then decided to take a break from the marathon. And one thing I would say, like obviously I've touched on like my weight and like thermal regulation. One thing I personally do after each marathon is is is make a good effort to put on weight. So after Valencia Marathon, I put on eight kilos straight after the marathon. after The previous marathons I tend to be around five, but I went a bit crazy after Valencia. But I put on a bit of weight and then try and cut down over a longer period of time. So over a three, four month block to my race weight, ready for the marathon. so yeah, that's pretty much my marathon journey from a hundred and twenty five kilos to a two twenty two marathon.
Josh: Well let's
michael: Before we b before we go into
Josh: I wanna talk about wanna touch on I wanna touch on the weight thing there because that's a really interesting point and I don't hear I actually haven't heard anyone else say they do this explicitly and I I'm in the same boat in the post training cycle. I also attempt to I'm not a particularly big person at all, but I do also attempt to add a little bit of weight there. I think this is a really smart thing to do because when you're I don't know, I mean by well, I do know. Got the numbers right here. You're putting in big miles, right? This is your lead up to Valence here and you're doing nearly a hundred miles a week, leading peaking out at about a hundred miles a week. You have to eat a lot to fuel that, right?
Sam: Yes, yeah, you do.
Josh: sometimes it can be hard to meet that fueling requirement. And if you've got a little bit of like stores to fall back on, it can be a little bit easier to I find it can be a little bit easier to handle those big weeks in an upcoming block if you've just got something to fall back on. Whereas if you're light going into the start of a training block, it can be a bit harder to hit those really big weeks because you can't, because you have to make ever make sure that you really hit your fueling every single day. There's no get out of jail free card. Is that kind of the same logic that you apply there?
Sam: Similar. I think for me, like I take recovery so important and like so I I strip it back to basics in terms of like sleep and food. So like I I know over a long block that I am slowly depleting myself out of energy. And obviously I do a carbload and do all of those things, but I really need my body to get back all that fuel, all that glycogen, get back to some normality because like training for a marathon isn't normal for your body. you are pushing it to extremes. So I wanna just basically refill my body back to normal, feel good in myself, and then start training. And then as I start training and bringing up the load, my my weight just slowly drop. But I do it quite sensibly. Like I I do like a very small calorie deficit a day and make sure I fuel around the runs, make sure that those key sessions are really well fueled both before, during and after so that I can gain the maximum benefit. and then over like the three, four months then I will drop the five kilos down back to like what I would call my race weight or the weight in which I've been when I've hit my PBs, which is still heavy, but it's not as heavy when you've put on the five kilos. So for me it's just restore and then you can start the the block feeling like you've got loads of energy and then see that progression rather than start on the block feeling fatigued, etc.
Josh: That's interesting. It's kind of the same thing from a slightly different viewpoint, but we're ending up doing a a similar thing there. And that's I think that's interesting. And not very many people go out of their way to do that. It kind of happens naturally for some people, but often not done explicitly. Looking quickly at this Valencia block, phenomenal rate of phenomenal like consistent improvement in your race predictions, all the way from the the end of September or middle of September up to Valencia. So you're gradually ramping up that training. beautiful. You mentioned you don't have a coach, right? How are you structuring these these weeks and how are you structuring your training to get that nice consistent improvement in fitness?
Sam: So the way I look at my training is in anything in life, consistency is always the number one thing. So people say that I'm too data driven, but I love seeing a Stravagraph that is strong and consistent. And so the way in which I structure my week is I would ha know the sessions for that week. I do two sessions per week. depending on what part of the block I'm in. is depending on what those sessions are, but it would typically be a Wednesday and Saturday, which would be a kind of tr VO2 slash LT1, LT2 session on a Wednesday, and then a marathon-based session on the weekend, or if I'm in a different part of the block, something different. So I put those two sessions and I know what I'm doing for the week. And then I set my mileage target for the week. And I just put in all of my easy running when I can around work. etc., knowing that what matters is those two sessions. So I will make sure I nail those sessions and progress week on week. And what I tend to do is do a session at the start of the block. Very simple session, maybe four by five K in terms of a marathon session. And then do it maybe ten weeks later and see that progression in the the numbers itself because my heart rate will stay the same. And one thing that I do during a block is because of my now Experience with racing a marathon half marathon, and I wear a heart rate monitor for all of my training, every easy run, every race. actually something that's really quite funny was when I did my first half marathon, I ran well, my first sub-two half marathon. my heart rate was exactly the same as what it was for bath half marathon. So what that tells me is that is kind of my physiology limit. for for that distance. So I know what I can do for a half marathon, a marathon, 10k, et cetera, in terms of heart rate. So when I structure these sessions, I focus on staying in that zone so that I know that I'm staying in the right area. rather so at the start of the block, it might be, say for example, a 235 marathon pace. But
michael: You've thirty five are things.
Sam: by the end of the block I've built that fitness to to where where I would be maybe 225 or 220 So and I let that fitness come to me rather than like me, I'll put publicly put it out there that I'm doing Berlin marathon this year and I want a sub two twenty, rather than going out now and doing all my stuff at two twenty pace, like I would do all my stuff to my marathon heart rate and hope over the ten to twelve weeks of real solid training that that actually comes down to the two twenty pace. Because what what I often see people do wrong is chase a number that they're not at that fitness level for, which will induce a lot of fatigue in their body because they're chasing something that they haven't quite got yet. Whereas I like to have the approach that it comes to me over that twelve week period.
michael: And do you think I mean it's a good it's the approach to have, right? And it's the only way you can stop yourself over training. is that something that you I mean, you talked about breaking a two hour half marathon, talked about breaking 40 minutes in the 10K for the first time. How quickly in your running journey did you figure it out?
Sam: Did I figure my the approach I take now out? I I
michael: Basically to run to an FI.
Sam: I would say it's taken me two and a half years to figure that out.
michael: Yeah, I can.
Sam: I when I started as a bigger lad, it was do 5k as fast as I can every single day. And I was constantly getting injured and I was like tired all of the time. London Marathon 2025, I pushed sessions and easy runs way too hard. and I was constantly fatigued. Whereas in the recent block for London Marathon, I was doing loads more mileage than what I did the previous year, yet I was able to actually not be fatigued and do it. So I would say it would only be this London Marathon block where I've really figured it out properly. So yeah, a good three years.
michael: And was was there an aha moment that led you to that or was it something else?
Sam: I think you know you see the Kenyans do the eighty twenty. Now, so for th for anyone listening that doesn't know what that is, like the Kenyans have the approach or it's like it's quite well known that eighty percent of their runs are easy and twenty percent of their runs are hard. and the easy runs are easy and the hard ones are hard. And I never believed it really. I just worked a little bit harder and I was just like, just crack on. And then for London Marathon, I was just like, you know what, if they're doing it, why can't I? So I s I tried. I was like, I've got nothing to lose here. Like I've I've hit my 230. Mission achieved. Like, let's just give it a go for three four months. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But you gotta try. And I started doing my easy run super easy. So around 115 to 125 beats per minute. and my progression was crazy since then. I was feeling not fatigued, I was feeling fit, aerobically fit. And I think Anything above a fifteen hundred meter race is an aerobic event. So being able to do all of this aerobic stimulus and being able to do more of it, so more mileage, because I'm not feeling fatigued because I'm doing it slower just helped me so much then progress.
michael: So the unlock for you was then throwing in a lot more volume, but making easy way easier so that you can also do harder work.
Sam: Exactly. Exactly that.
michael: And what sort of training were you doing?
Josh: So it's interesting.
michael: What sort of training were you doing back in the day when you were just getting into it breaking two hours? Because I think what we're not going to look at in the data is that. just want that as a reference point so that we can say, well, when you had some early breakthroughs, you know, what was your training looking like? Let's say when you broke two hours for the half marathon.
Sam: Yeah, it's it it's actually not too dissimilar. I just didn't realise it at the time. In terms of like I've always been someone that sh like the biggest thing for me is consistency. So back then it would have been like maybe something like forty or fifty kilometers a week and I was like peaking at fifty kilometers in the week and just being consistent but but back then I was probably doing my easy runs way too fast. and I wasn't really doing interval sessions or anything like that. It was more easy run, easy run, easy run, and then a faster park run. And then easy run, easy run, easy run and a faster park run. But my easy runs weren't easy. I would say my easy runs were probably around 150, 160 beats per minute, which is not easy like but it was just what I was doing to kind of lose the way and get into the running. but then over time then developed from there. But that's like what it would look like. But it was always I had this thing of like having that sexy Stravagraph, which was like I'm hitting the same mileage every week and just being consistent, whether or not I do the session or not, just being consistent in terms of hitting the mileage. And I think even now when I look at it, I'm just like that consistency is is what it takes. And back then it was fifty, now it's like a hundred and eighty K. I haven't changed much really, but it's just the volume has slowly increased and my consistency is even better.
Josh: And this is I I want to touch on the heart rate conversation, Sam, because it's interesting that you seem to so this I don't know if you looked at this in in Kaizen, this concept of beats per kilometer, kind of heart rate strength. So this is in case anyone listening is interested, beats per kilometer is a way of visualizing the strength of your heart and cardiovascular system and it's kind of how f how many beats it costs you to run a kilometer and a sh stronger, more powerful cardiovascular system, it's gonna cost you fewer beats to run a kilometer. So you say you do your sessions at like marathon heart rate and your your race heart rate hasn't changed across across these years, but you're able to get more out of your heart rate As your training block progresses. And this graph that we're looking at now is a perfect example of that. So it seems to me, I was clicking around just a minute ago, it seems to me that you're able to get to at the peak of your fitness, just under 600 beats per kilometer. And when you're hitting that 600 beats per kilometer, you seem to be in about, you know, 107 half marathon shape or Dare I say about 220 marathon shape on a perfect day. and it's interesting that you see this, you you see this, you have been able to identify that increased strength in your cardiovascular system through an increased speed when you're training, but it's also evident in the kind of this is not just how. quick you're doing your interval sessions, this is how quick you're doing all your sessions. Your easy pace must also be getting quite a bit quicker for the same heart rate across a training block. And you can see this graph is just a like a beautiful that consistency in training is evident in the in your body's response to that training through the heart rate graph. And you can see that for Valencia you get that lovely shape. But for Copenhagen I suspect we're gonna get, yeah, very similar shape for Copenhagen, right? And you're down at so I
Sam: Yeah. That'll be London. Yeah, that's London.
Josh: Yeah, that's London Marathon there. This you you've built into London and then you embrace London about here, I guess. Or here probably. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, London London's right on the peak actually, yeah. Basically.
Josh: so I think actually
michael: Okay.
Josh: you go on, Michael.
michael: I'm keen to I mean, heartbeats is interesting, but I'm keen to dive into some of the other training stats. I mean, as someone who's been stuck on two thirty-seven for three years, since you've basically been running Sam, I wanna know what it takes to go from two fifty to two twenty three. So Josh, can we start there at the two fifty London marathon block and look at the the training that led to that? And I wanna hear I wanna hear all about that.
Sam: So well, yeah, London, as he's got it up there on the screen now, started my block at around a hundred kilometres and stayed at around a hundred and thirty. But what you'll see is my my weekly stats in terms of my pace, my easy runs were not easy. like relatively easy. I think I was doing them, there you go, sub four thirty. whereas now I'm actually doing them five. to 515 maybe. so I there's a perfect example there like four ten for an easy session. it wasn't actually that easy, but it was what had happened was I was I I got zone tested in the lab and my zone two came up and there was the whole craze about training at zone two. And what I didn't realise was actually that's not right for everyone. Zone two may work for some people but I myself or Jimmy Whelan or Alfie Manthel, any of these like as you progress, your zone two becomes so fast that it doesn't it's gonna biomechanically affect you. so during this block, I didn't really understand that as as well. And I was just going, well, my data says this is easy because it's zone two, but I was going out and running like four ten. easy easy zone.
Josh: Yeah. So I mean 140 beats a minute, so not a super high heart rate, but four seven per kilometer is yeah.
michael: When your marathon pace is like four twos to run two fifty, then
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So I think I what I learned from that and obviously I peaked at a hundred and thirty kilometers there. And what I can tell you f from myself and how I felt during that block, I was always tired. Always. and that was because I was pushing those runs too too hard and not r respecting the training. And also from that 250, like looking back on it in retrospect, I didn't have enough focus on those long runs that maybe I do have now. I was more focused on hitting my weekly mileage, on hitting some decent sessions, on having sessions that looked good on Strava rather than what were going to benefit me in terms of the actual marathon itself. Like I think there is a balance between I'm an Instagram influencer. so sometimes the things that look better on Instagram. Are things that are more relatable to people. So 5Ks, 10 K's, because the average person can do that. So I was doing things that are helping me algorithmically on social media, but not my training, and I wasn't training effectively. I'm an I'm a performance athlete at a heart, and now I don't care what I do on Strava, how it looks, I don't care. I just want to if it's gonna make me a better athlete, I will do it. So the biggest change for that was. would be from the two fifty to the two twenty two would be A my mileage, B take it my easy runs actually easy, and C like honing in on the threshold marathon paste stuff, which is what I didn't do in that block.
michael: So what was the the faster running or the harder sessions you did in the say London twenty twenty five block? What what sort of sessions were they? Were they just whacking that at VO two?
Sam: well let's ha have a look. I have you got one up there? 'Cause
Josh: What day of the week do you usually
michael: Lots of easy.
Josh: do sessions?
Sam: The I like I
michael: Five K at ten K pace.
Sam: Yeah. The like I was just working very hard. and I don't think I was doing see the two K and then fifteen by two hundred meters. I wasn't doing marathon specific stuff. I was getting very fit and I was like feeling very confident because I'm running quick five K's and quick ten Ks, but what I'm not doing is running quick marathon sessions. in terms of like for my relative fitness for where I was at in the five K, ten K.
michael: Yeah. So it's all just completely miscalibrated.
Sam: Yeah, pretty much, yeah. And then Berlin I started doing a little bit more specific and higher volume. So around that hundred and forty kilometre mark. and started d doing a bit more specific and then feeling stronger over longer runs. and I slowing my easy pace down for the week. and then basically what's happened is over the different blocks, my pay my average pace of the week has gone down and slower. My mileage has gone up and I've gone so much quicker.
michael: Let's have a look at this year's marathons then, Josh.
Josh: Issue's marathon, so we got twenty twenty six, maybe this the two twenty three something. Yeah.
Sam: I think London's the best one to do. Copenhagen was a kind of like last minute kind of thing. so yeah.
michael: I was a proper block.
Sam: Yes.
Josh: So this I mean we see this lovely increase in brace prediction that suggests, you know, gradually increasing. And you finish the training block with a hundred miles a week at an average pace of four thirty two. So you're right, that average pace is probably slower there than when you were doing your two fifty or if not slower, pretty similar.
Sam: Yeah, I think but I was honing in what what what you don't see in the two hundred fifty is like the volume of fast stuff was so low because I'm not doing I'm I'm doing like two K and two hundred meters. Like I'm doing maybe ten, fifteen, twenty K worth of volume that's actually fast. Whereas now I'm doing forty K of volume that's fast. Or faster.
Josh: Yeah. So this graph gives a slightly deceptive view because we zoom in so you can see the difference between the weeks. But even these weeks that look very low, they're actually still 120k a week. So
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: what we're actually seeing here is 10 really strong weeks of phenomenal consistency. There we go, you can see the distance, really consistent distance. 169, 170, 170, 172, 121, 72. I mean you're doing 170 to 185k a week pretty much every week there. at a mmm, yeah, pretty similar average pace here as well. 435, 434, like pretty similar average pace. So you're just Turning that dial a little bit, but actually you're not you don't seem to be massively increasing your f your training across this block. It's just ten really consistent weeks. Is that f did it feel
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: that way?
michael: Yeah, but
Sam: Yeah, basically I I obviously the the down week is my bath half marathon, so I did take a little deload into that. but yeah.
Josh: Followed by a forty K day the next day to to make up for a race the day before.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But probably very easy. Yeah.
Josh: Yeah, that's a much more chill, chill day to go get some lentils, it would appear.
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: so this this obviously all probably also pr acted as quite a good tune-up race in yeah, as you said, you knew something good was on, but it was also probably a really good load there that you, you know, stretch out the legs and do something a fair bit. This from what you've said, I would assume that this is twenty-one K at three eleven per kilometre is gonna be A seriously long, hard run relative to the rest of your training, is that fair to say?
Sam: Yeah. It's not long 'cause my long runs at this point are like thirty K. But but
Josh: Well, I mean, for a run done at that at that pace.
Sam: I I don't work at that pace ever. so yeah, it was a it was a different stimulus and and and I like race into fitness. So if you fast forward to the taper week, just the one before that, I you'll see on the Sunday, I did is it that Sunday there? I did
Josh: Is this
Sam: yeah, that one there. So I ran thirty seven. I think it was official time. I think for me, like mentally, like, especially for this marathon, my P B before London Marathon for ten K was thirty two minutes and I was wanting to go through t each ten K in something like thirty three. So for me that was way too close. So I just did a ten K race and I ran thirty six, which gave me the confidence then going into London the week later that actually, you know, Three twelve per kilometer is not my 10k pace, it's actually three flats. so yeah, I do like racing to fitness.
michael: So this psychological strategic 10K.
Sam: Basically, yeah. I think, you know, i if it was that close, it's just like mentally I just couldn't like fathom how I was gonna hold that for a marathon. But then knowing that actually for a ten K my pace is actually three flats, so running three twenty, so running twenty seconds slower per kilometer, that is more attainable than running eight, six seconds faster per kilometer. So yeah, that's that's why I did that that race there.
Josh: And you do, but you're setting a 10k PB seven days before a marathon. So I would I would actually personally taper in a in a similar way, I would I would do that. But I think a lot of people wouldn't. A lot of people would consider that to be to be doing a hard race, even a 10k for a marathon, which is obviously a fair bit shorter, doing a hard race seven days beforehand. as a suboptimal taper, how did you factor that into the equation?
Sam: Yeah, it's it's a really valid point. But the way I look at it also is from a training load perspective. As someone that trains a hundred and seventy K a week, as someone that does marathon sessions which are extremely high training load, running a fast ten K actually took less training load out of my body and I felt fresher on the Monday than I would of doing a marathon session. And because I'm on my tape a week anyway, it didn't take any load out of me. I'm very fortunate in terms of like how my body bounces back off races and how my body bounces back off high mileage. I get no injuries and everything is good. Like literally next day I'm ready to go again. which is like really, really fortunate for myself. so that's why I can like race so close to other races and why I do do so many races because I think if I if I tapered for every race that I did, I would never get a training block in. So I just do the races within the block. as part of and part of parcel of it and just know that I'm gonna be on a higher mileage. but my body reacts well to that. So I think the training load of a fast ten K is actually not as much as even a a mediocre marathon session. So it is it's fine for me.
Josh: Yeah, I I would I would agree with that and I think I can imagine myself, certainly I get my I know that my fastest five K is come in the few weeks before before a big marathon 'cause it's you do all of this training and it takes so much time and energy to do all of these doing hundred and eighty Ks a week, that's like twelve, fourteen hours, something like that, fifteen hours. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, fourteen and bet, yeah, fourteen.
Josh: It's a lot of time to be putting in and you've spent all this time building this fitness. So then you're so fit at the end of that that even yeah, a fast five, five or ten K in the last few weeks is actually not too taxing and you can do it even on the tired legs of the training block and end up with a good a good result. were you aiming for just
michael: If if if
Josh: personally, were you aiming for the sub thirty in that in that ten K that you just missed? Or
Sam: Do you know do you know I so my P my P V before that was thirty-two zero zero. So I w I knew I was gonna get a P V because if I didn't get a P B, London was gonna be a disaster. Like I was not gonna get the time I'm after if I if I can't get under thirty two. I wanted to give myself a shot at sub thirty and at eight K one of the guys I was racing pulled away at the bridge and I just didn't have the confidence at that given time to go with him. Given that this was already two minutes quicker than my P V pace, whereas now I would have gone like now I would go with it and just hang on for dear life. But yeah, I was I was going for around thirty thirty, but knowing that I have a chance at going sub thirty, so I gave myself a chance. I went through eight K in t twenty four flat. So I lost at the few seconds when the group pulled away and I was just mentally battling them by myself. but I I think maybe in retrospect I could have gone with that group. But they went on a hill. Like it's a it's a perfect place to attack and yeah, mentally it just got to me a little bit.
Josh: Yeah.
Sam: So I'm gonna actually be attempting a sub thirty ten K in September this year, three weeks out from Berlin.
Josh: perfect. So we'll see. I'll be tuning in to see what you do there. That's a that's exciting because it's, you know, at the end of that big training block. Good stuff.
Sam: But but with that
michael: Yeah.
Sam: I will not taper. So it'll be part of my big week. So I'm doing about a hundred and eighty five K a week and I will still do a hundred and eighty five K that week then I'm raising the ten K. It will just replace my marathon effort session, which I will probably push more on to the start of the week. so that I'm still not losing anything and still gaining as much as I can. But this will be kind of my VO two session for the week where I just bang it out and and still hit my mileage. And I tend to what I do with the races that are on a Sunday, I tend to kind of like more top load the week. So you'll see kind of very high mileage Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. so that I can give myself a little bit of respite ready for the race on on S Sunday.
michael: Just gonna say if Sifan Hassan can do a 10k two days before winning an Olympic gold in the marathon, then a week out's probably fine, right?
Sam: Exactly. Exactly.
michael: There was a I think back in the day, a few of the Aussie marathoners they would often do a five or a 10k one week out just to like blow out any steam or cobwebs. And I think it have a similar sort of effect to what you were looking for, which is, okay, if I can run that pace for five or ten K, running twenty, thirty seconds slower a K is just gonna be a a walk in the park.
Sam: Yeah, and I think, you know, back to kind of your like circling back to your question about like that progression from the two fifty to two twenty-two, what I see a lot of marathoners do that are in and around my level is a lack of VO2. And like I love a VO2 max session and I think it is so important because at the end of the day, the faster you can run a five K and a ten K, the faster you will run a marathon. So I still get a very high amount of quality in and around ten K pace. five five well, my five K and ten K pace are basically the same, but in and around that kind of effort. so that like I'm used to running faster, so that when I'm running then the three twenty per kilometer, it doesn't feel like a a real hard effort. So I think that's something that I really hone in on is like doing stuff at that pace.
Josh: Mm.
michael: Which w where
Josh: What's
michael: when do you think you were your absolute fittest?
Sam: When do I think that's a really good question? I think I was I felt extremely fit at Bath Half Marathon. That was probably my I'm I'm optimal. Like I think if I had raced Bath if I had raced a marathon the same weekend I raced Bath, I would be the fittest.
Josh: Let's see if if we if Kaizen agrees. So on the week before bath, we think you were you a hundred miles a week, hundred and sixty three kilometers, an average pace of four thirty-six. four hundred and ninety meters a week of elevation. You're living in a pretty flat area then I guess.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. Cardiff is pretty flat and I avoid all unless I'm doing a race that has hills, I would occasionally do a hill for running economy, but I avoid it. I think it adds unnecessary load on my legs when I'm already running high volumes. so I try to just avoid it.
Josh: Yeah, you I mean, you've done well to get less than five hundred meters a week of elevation off a hundred miles. You've you've
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: avoided hills like anything there. anyway, we think that, or or Kaisen thinks that you had a less focus on the marathon prediction and just benchmark off that. We think you're in about two fifteen shape on that day. in a in a perfect world. The When would you say you were next fittest? What was your like other big peak? Is it Copenhagen or or London Marathon or is it another time?
Sam: I'd actually s relative to my fitness, I I think I executed Valencia, but London probably London Marathon was my next fittest, yeah.
Josh: London. Well we'll look at Lancia and see how close you got to Kaisen's prediction after that. But yeah, ooh, so actually we think that you were running a little bit further, a little bit faster and a little bit hillier. just before yeah, just before London.
Sam: Yeah, one thing that I haven't I never did on Kaizen is like fine tune my predictions. Like when I would race like
michael: Okay.
Sam: a one seven or whatever. like even like if you go to this week it'll be way faster because I haven't I don't for me it's more like seeing a trend is much more valuable than seeing like the actual number. So like I don't compare it too much. I think when I did Valencia Marathon, you know, Dimitro. that was where he introduced me to Kaizen. and I just downloaded it to have a little look. In in Valencia, I think it was two twenty three. So like just having that as a benchmark, like I ran two twenty nine there. Like I tend to think like I'm in and around the six minutes slower, off no fine tune. Off no fine change.
Josh: Yeah, so when you fine-tune your predictions, that's that's kind of what it's doing, right? So it's taking your it it it's done an automatic tailoring. When you when you created your account and you signed up, it has looked at your training and the racing and kind of attempted to pick your best races and go, well, from this amount of training we would expect this result and you got this result, so we're gonna kind of fine-tune the predictions accordingly. Sometimes it picking those races it has a hard job doing that through the algorithm. so if you do it manually you end up with a more accurate result, but all it's doing is kind of shifting the response to training that it allocates to your body. So or you know
Sam: Yeah, and it and it probably also thinks I'm rapid because of the way I sometimes do my sessions, like a twelve by four hundred meters. I like it might log that as like a five K in like fourteen minutes, which I I'm definitely not that.
Josh: Well actually kind of no because it it abstracts all that away anyway. So when you do your session, it's not saying it's not looking at that and going, wow, he can run a five K in twelve minutes. It just lumps that in with all of your easy running and says from this total
Sam: Okay.
Josh: training picture we would expect this result. anyway, so if you
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: were to tell your predictions, it would shift this, it would shift the numbers up and down, but you would still get that same line. So It doesn't actually matter that the numbers are a bit optimistic. It because you know you always under underperform. it's actually not really a fair way of putting it, but we know that like compared to our perfect predictions, it's like we think, you know, there's about a six minute offset there. Offset is is the right is the right way to put it. but the point is we think that London you were in slightly better shape. Your training stats at least certainly look slightly better than going into Bath.
Sam: What what about Valencia? 'Cause I was I was fit then. For my fitness
Josh: Let's
Sam: I was fit.
Josh: C for Valencia. So for Valencia, we think you you ran fast. We think this because you've actually got a so we're for those listening, not watching, we've got 126 kilometers a week, an average pace of 428 and 304 meters per week. So it looks to me like this slightly faster average pace, although it is only a few seconds that compounds over the hundred plus kilometers you do in a week to produce some pretty good results there. But this you are so we're saying this is a 10 minute offset here, right? Between your result and there. what did we get? Not
Sam: Hm. Not fine tuned, but yeah.
Josh: fine, not fine tune, but about a 10-minute offset. Are we getting Ten minute yeah, and we get ten minutes here as well. So we think that you executed London and Valencia to about the same degree of impressiveness as in you executed the race about the same with about the level of
Sam: I would I I would agree on that. Like that I would I would say I worked just as hard on both of them, and and was happy with like where I was to my current fitness from both of them. So that that works where where would that put me now?
Josh: This now puts you saying a 217 prediction. So we think you're in interestingly, you've ramped up this distance and slowed down the pace as you as you said.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Josh: slightly hillier, so you've been doing a bit more bit more hills, two seventeen prediction. so you're in we think in very good shape at the moment. I'm not seeing any I'm not seeing any dud races, to be honest. I'm not seeing any races. Looks to me like you haven't ever really messed up a marathon. I've been there many a time.
Sam: I would say, yeah, I I've given my best on the day. I haven't been very lucky with the marathons in terms of the heat. London was hot, Berlin was hot, Valencia was hot, London this year, I wasn't hot, but it was like direct sun, so I that affected me. And then Copenhagen. Like the only reason I ran a PV at Copenhagen two weeks later was just purely because of the weather. Like it was just colder and I operate better
michael: Yeah.
Sam: in those temperatures. My heart rate was lower over Copenhagen than it was London, even though it was two weeks later and I ran faster. So I just know what's more optimal for me.
Josh: Our stats agree with that. This is the build for Copenhagen and we can see that you have your prediction has dropped off. We think you've lost fitness after London, between London and Copenhagen. But
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, I would have, yeah.
michael: Yeah, okay.
Josh: I mean not a huge amount of fitness, but we do think we you've you've lost a little bit. you
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: ever so all of your marathons, maybe you haven't got lucky with the temperature on all of them, but they seem to be well executed races within the bounds of the cards you've been dealt.
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: Would you say the same is true for your half marathons? 'Cause there's some great ones in here as well.
Sam: I would say yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that's first sub seventy in October twenty five. That was the first time I've ever broken seventy minutes. that was probably a very like best effort. And then I would say the same amount of effort went into the sixty seven as well. just kind of like six months later. so yeah.
Josh: It's not easy to do. So talk us through that. Does it come intuitive to intuitively to you this the the task of getting a good night's sleep before the race, pacing yourself well, wearing appropriate clothing, not doing anything silly on race day. These are all difficult things to do when they have to be done together. Do that does that come naturally to you or have you really gone out of your way to execute very well? Each time.
Sam: And I think that's another reason that I race so often. I think when you train for so long for a single race, there becomes so much pressure on all of these races. And you miss the just doing a race and like putting on a bib and that becomes like foreign. So when it comes to the race then itself, if you haven't done loads of them, it becomes all of this pressure. So I try to put myself in scenarios where I'm pushing myself to my limits. I'm doing lots of races so that, you know, putting on a bib, I'm not getting like super nervous. So I become a lot more comfortable in doing it. so that's why I do race a lot. I do hone in on all of the everything that you said, like sleep, food, fuel. I'm very lucky I'm supported by precision fuel and hydration. So I get like the best advice that I can. on how to both operate in races but also just generally from the sports scientists. so knowing like my sweat rate, knowing what electrolytes I need to take, knowing all of those things doesn't come intuitively to me, but I've got the support network around me that help provide that. from a food perspective, my girlfriend is a student dietitian. So she is able to give me all of the knowledge. In fact she cooks like 99% of my meals. So like I have the network around me that enables me to optimize my training. So I optimize my training and my network around me optimise everything else. And I think running isn't a solo sport. Like I wouldn't be able to have the progression that I've had without the support of like my girlfriend, like making me the meals so that when I finish a track session, I'm coming back to a high protein, high carbohydrate meal that she is like prepped for me. Or Like having the support from my hydration and fuel and all of those things make a massive difference to the training. And it's not like I'm just the I'm just the person that wears the time that I've run. It's actually the people around me that have made it possible to run that time. and again, that works with my training partners and all of that. Like I wouldn't be where I'm at without being able to train with people better than me, being able to train with people around me, like going out for an easy run, I absolutely love it, but I would not enjoy it as much if I was doing it solo. So like all of those factors have made a huge difference. I'm just the person that crosses the line in the time, but actually it's everyone else that has helped me and got me to that point.
michael: Let's talk about the future a bit. you got Berlin. Have you got goals for Berlin?
Sam: Yeah, so let's go future races. So the next big one is Antrim Coast Half Marathon, where I'll be representing my country, Wales. and I would like to think that I could run a P B in three weeks' time. who knows? the pace scares me. It's about three ten per kilometer that I need to run to get a P V. So a sub sixteen minute five K times by four. and so that's the next big one. Then off the back of that, we've got the Cardiff 10K, which is my goal to break sub 30. and we've got a a a group attempting that, which will be great. And then we've got b the Berlin Marathon is the next big one. which will be mega. My goal is to break that 220 barrier, but traditionally Berlin has been quite hot over the past few years. So noting if it is a a heat wave day. And I know how my body works. It may be a challenge to do it in the heat, but it you've got to give yourself a chance. It's an amazing course, super quick. So we'll give ourselves a chance for in Berlin. But we also have another marathon lined up this year. So we'll come off the bot block in Berlin and go straight into kind of the next just transitional period. I've got the Rome half marathon with Brooks in October. So that'll be a nice little tune-up race. and to see where the fitness is then transitioned into the winter. And then we've got the Valencia Marathon on the 6th of December. which if I run sub two twenty, I might set a more ambitious target for Valencia. But if I haven't run the two twenty, Valencia will be my second more my next attempt in breaking that elusive barrier. So we've got two big marathons lined up Berlin and Valencia which is very, very exciting.
michael: All right. Now let's get that training simulator up, Josh. Let's see the training you need to do.
Josh: Yeah, well I was actually just we'll go to the training simulator. First I'll I'll note that your heart rate's looking strong, five hundred and ninety beats per kilometer right now. And before going into your half-marathon PB, you're saying you're looking for hope you're at five nine four. So we think you're physiologically speaking in shape for a PB right now. That's my cards on the table.
Sam: That is great news because I use heart rate obviously the most. So that's for me, that's a bigger indication because I know what I can sustain for a half marathon in terms of heart rate. So that's a perfect kind of thing for me to know, like, even just mentally, that
Josh: Yeah.
Sam: I can sustain that.
Josh: We think if you can sustain that heart rate and you execute well on the day, you've got room for a P B. So, Michael, guide us here. What numbers am I putting in?
michael: Well, go marathon, because I can't remember what the offset we've got is for any of the other distances. So let's go marathon and see what gets a two nine. Cause if we're talking ten minute offset, that's probably around the two nineteen mark. So I reckon it's gonna be somewhere
Josh: Yeah.
michael: in the one eight one eighties is my gut.
Josh: Let's give a little bit, just a little, not much more hills, but maybe 700, 700 meters. No, no, just
Sam: I won't I won't be doing hills. I won't be doing hills. Put it down to
Josh: natural, but but this assuming you run on the same gradient, so you collect a few more elevation meters just by doing more kilometers, right? Let's let's keep it at six six seven five. we think you're gonna need to hit. A hundred a hundred and eighty five.
michael: Yeah, probably about that.
Josh: Yeah, something like we think, yeah, ooh.
michael: This is this is averaging this over the next
Josh: Yeah.
michael: next eight weeks.
Sam: Well it's funny because I've actually got my plan over the next eight weeks and my average is a hundred and eighty five K and it will probably be around four thirty pace on average.
michael: There we go.
Josh: if
michael: Well
Josh: Kaizen thinks if you can hit 185k, four minutes 30 per kilometre, doing broadly the same elevation you're currently doing. Elevation doesn't actually matter as much as lots of people think. So broadly this a similar elevation and a little bit of cross-training as you're currently doing, just keep doing the same cross-training. You're gonna be doing 15 hours a week of training and you
Sam: Yeah, that's about right.
Josh: Could be in shape. We think.
Sam: well we'll have to give it a go. It'd be interesting to see kind of on the heart rate from where but where I'm at in terms of my heart rate, in comparison to like when I did the London. So you said the half I was in five nine four and I'm currently in five ninety. But for the marathon I'm assuming I was in like five seventy.
michael: I think it was five
Josh: We can chat.
michael: seventy five or something.
Sam: for London, yeah. So at the top where did I peak? Yeah. So
Josh: I've seven years.
Sam: aiming to get to that level of fitness to basically optimise my my marathon.
Josh: I mean, as you know, the heart rate is affected pretty heavily by weather
Sam: Sure.
Josh: layers, all of fueling, hydration, all of this stuff. But over over 180 kilometers in a week, it gets averaged out pretty heavily. so
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: I think it could be a very strong tool for you. You can always Kaizen yet doesn't yet have a heart rate predictor baked into the app, but you can get the pen and paper out and use the Beats per kilometer, it's it's quite easy to calculate it yourself. You if you know what heart rate you can sustain for a marathon, which is probably one sixty, one seventy.
Sam: Yeah, one London I did one sixty eight and Copenhagen I did one sixty five. But I would say yeah, one sixty five, one sixty six.
Josh: So you you just work out what how many minutes it's gonna you your target time wants how many minutes your marathon is gonna be for your target time. You know the heart rate is beats per kilometer, you divide one by the other, and you've got how many heart beats it costs you to do a marathon, divide by 42.2, and you've got the target beats per kilometer for your PEB marathon. for anyone listening, you don't need to worry about the details for that because Kaisen will have this feature at some point. but you can also get the pen and paper out and work out what kind of cardiovascular system would be required to to get that PB.
Sam: Right, straight after this call, once the once the podcast is finished, I'm gonna get him to do it for me 'cause I can't do the maths. and we get that data.
Josh: I will do that.
michael: Awesome. shall we wrap it up there? Seems like a place to wrap it up for me. Sam, thanks so much. It's been great to have you on listening about I mean, A, the progression, but B diving into your training data. and also just how in tune I guess you are with what you need to do to get a certain outcome, right? Like you were pretty bang on in terms of what you think you need to do to get yourself in the shape that will get you that PB. and the data sort of back that up. So well done to you for sort of building that understanding of your system and training and all of that. And look forward to seeing progress even further in the next few months. And also we'll have to we'll have to get a beer after Berlin because we won't be able to run together, but we'll definitely be there.
Sam: That sounds like a plan. Yeah, we look forward to it. Let's just hope that it's a cold day or colder than last year. it's a quick course and a nice environment. So hopefully we'll see you out there and catch up there.
Josh: Brilliant. you. So yeah.
michael: All right, thanks everyone. Bye.
Josh: Yeah, it's impressive stuff. I I've really enjoyed, you know, poking around through the graphs here and seeing some phenomenal miles being put in, to say the least.
michael: So welcome to Sam Griffith, SaKA Globe Runner Griff.
Sam: Thanks for having me.
michael: Pleasure. So
Josh: Should we start with should we st
michael: You wanna go straight into it, don't you, Josh? Straight into the data.
Josh: I wanna go straight into it, but do you wanna do a a bit of a background on Sam first? Let's do a bit of a background on Sam. Sam, tell us a bit about that progression and how that's looked from your side. maybe sprinkle in some races there and I will interrupt you to talk about those races in more detail.
Sam: Yeah, perfect. so three years ago I was a hundred and twenty five kilos and I couldn't race. I actually to to break through my running journey, I signed up to a ten K and I didn't finish. I got to nine K, average heart rate of a hundred and eighty and literally couldn't finish the ten K. and it was that point I decided, you know what, I really wanna kind of kick start my running journey and see how far I can take it. so yeah, over The past three and a half years now, I've I've progressed quite quickly. so that was March 2023. I couldn't complete a 10K. And by October that year, I think I'd broke 40 minutes for the 10K. so a very, very rapid, quick progression into it. And then moving forward, then I got a qualification into the London marathon. So I built up my times from the 5K all the way through to the half marathon. and in April twenty twenty five it was my debut marathon. and that was London in the heat wave that it was I gave it my all and I finished in two hours and fifty minutes for my debut marathon. which I was actually at the time pretty disappointed because I felt like I could have gone quicker. But given the conditions and like how I look back on my training now, that was that was the best I could do on a day, given those conditions. And then from there, then it's been an absolutely mad progression. So April 2025 was a 250. Then September 2025, I ran a 237 at Berlin. Fast forward then another three months in December 2020.
michael: That that was a another another hot day in Berlin as well, right? Like Josh and I both ran that day and I definitely blew up in the heat. I should have probably finished around you, but was about ten minutes back. So you know, another asterisk on that one.
Josh: Right, Sam, it's c it's possible that you overtook me while I was vomiting at the side of the road, actually. On on that Berlin course. I was
Sam: That could that could be very possible.
Josh: around about there and spent about two minutes doubled over
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: some poor spectator's feet. While you're talking about these races, let me just share my screen for anyone watching on video. They can see a little bit about what you're talking about. So this is that This easy marathon wasn't a race, so kind of we can mentally scratch that from this list. But that April twenty twenty five, two fifty, September twenty five,
Sam: Yeah, then Berlin.
Josh: two thirty-eight, and then it just gets better and better from there.
Sam: Yeah, so then I went to Valencia with my goal of breaking that elusive sub two thirty, crossed the nine in two twenty-nine thirty-three, I think official. And I thought that was my running journey over. I thought I've peaked, I've peaked in running now, I've broke the two thirty barrier, it was that like elusive thing. but then I took a little bit of a different approach to my training going into twenty twenty-six in terms of mileage, and that's where I really started ramping up. I was targeting maybe around a two twenty seven, two twenty-five kind of marathon thinking for London. but in the in the midst of the London training block, off quite a higher mileage kind of thing, I did the Bath half marathon, which is probably one of my best results, given the conditions of that. It's not a flat course. It was a very windy day and I ran my half marathon PB of one seven five, which I was really, really proud of. and negative split that as well. So I knew something special was on for London then, which was a month later. then yeah, April 2026, I ran London Marathon in 223. and I think it was like two or three seconds, something like that. and I was absolutely buzzing. It was for me, I'm I'm not very good at I'm a heavier marathon runner for the times I produce. I I I'm in and around the 80 kilos for five foot ten or 178 centimeters, which when I stand on the start line, I would say I sit on the heavier side. and I do think stronger is faster, but being on the heavier side of the run in, thermoregulation is something that I really struck struggle with. especially I just I just struggle in the heat. so two weeks later, there was a Copenhagen marathon, which was going to be my B race. And essentially what I said to myself was if London was anything like last year, I'm not gonna send London and I will wait to Copenhagen. London was okay, but the sun was still out, and I thought, I've got to give myself a chance. Like you're only at London once. So I went all out at London. And then nothing booked for Copenhagen. I had the spot, and then about five days before the marathon, I was feeling all right, my legs felt all right after the marathon, and I was like, I could go out there and do that. And then I got a text from my friend, by the way, there's a 220 pacer, just to let you know if you are still interested. I was like, go on, then I'll book my flight. So I booked my flight literally like four days before. went out, stayed with a mate out there in Copenhagen and ran the Copenhagen Marathon with the elite female, which was a really, really good experience. and I crossed the line in 222 30. I think I was on pace though for about 35k. but then my legs started to hurt and that's probably down to the fatigue of London. but yeah, I managed to cross the line in another PD just two weeks after London. and then decided to take a break from the marathon. And one thing I would say, like obviously I've touched on like my weight and like thermal regulation. One thing I personally do after each marathon is is is make a good effort to put on weight. So after Valencia Marathon, I put on eight kilos straight after the marathon. after The previous marathons I tend to be around five, but I went a bit crazy after Valencia. But I put on a bit of weight and then try and cut down over a longer period of time. So over a three, four month block to my race weight, ready for the marathon. so yeah, that's pretty much my marathon journey from a hundred and twenty five kilos to a two twenty two marathon.
Josh: Well let's
michael: Before we b before we go into
Josh: I wanna talk about wanna touch on I wanna touch on the weight thing there because that's a really interesting point and I don't hear I actually haven't heard anyone else say they do this explicitly and I I'm in the same boat in the post training cycle. I also attempt to I'm not a particularly big person at all, but I do also attempt to add a little bit of weight there. I think this is a really smart thing to do because when you're I don't know, I mean by well, I do know. Got the numbers right here. You're putting in big miles, right? This is your lead up to Valence here and you're doing nearly a hundred miles a week, leading peaking out at about a hundred miles a week. You have to eat a lot to fuel that, right?
Sam: Yes, yeah, you do.
Josh: sometimes it can be hard to meet that fueling requirement. And if you've got a little bit of like stores to fall back on, it can be a little bit easier to I find it can be a little bit easier to handle those big weeks in an upcoming block if you've just got something to fall back on. Whereas if you're light going into the start of a training block, it can be a bit harder to hit those really big weeks because you can't, because you have to make ever make sure that you really hit your fueling every single day. There's no get out of jail free card. Is that kind of the same logic that you apply there?
Sam: Similar. I think for me, like I take recovery so important and like so I I strip it back to basics in terms of like sleep and food. So like I I know over a long block that I am slowly depleting myself out of energy. And obviously I do a carbload and do all of those things, but I really need my body to get back all that fuel, all that glycogen, get back to some normality because like training for a marathon isn't normal for your body. you are pushing it to extremes. So I wanna just basically refill my body back to normal, feel good in myself, and then start training. And then as I start training and bringing up the load, my my weight just slowly drop. But I do it quite sensibly. Like I I do like a very small calorie deficit a day and make sure I fuel around the runs, make sure that those key sessions are really well fueled both before, during and after so that I can gain the maximum benefit. and then over like the three, four months then I will drop the five kilos down back to like what I would call my race weight or the weight in which I've been when I've hit my PBs, which is still heavy, but it's not as heavy when you've put on the five kilos. So for me it's just restore and then you can start the the block feeling like you've got loads of energy and then see that progression rather than start on the block feeling fatigued, etc.
Josh: That's interesting. It's kind of the same thing from a slightly different viewpoint, but we're ending up doing a a similar thing there. And that's I think that's interesting. And not very many people go out of their way to do that. It kind of happens naturally for some people, but often not done explicitly. Looking quickly at this Valencia block, phenomenal rate of phenomenal like consistent improvement in your race predictions, all the way from the the end of September or middle of September up to Valencia. So you're gradually ramping up that training. beautiful. You mentioned you don't have a coach, right? How are you structuring these these weeks and how are you structuring your training to get that nice consistent improvement in fitness?
Sam: So the way I look at my training is in anything in life, consistency is always the number one thing. So people say that I'm too data driven, but I love seeing a Stravagraph that is strong and consistent. And so the way in which I structure my week is I would ha know the sessions for that week. I do two sessions per week. depending on what part of the block I'm in. is depending on what those sessions are, but it would typically be a Wednesday and Saturday, which would be a kind of tr VO2 slash LT1, LT2 session on a Wednesday, and then a marathon-based session on the weekend, or if I'm in a different part of the block, something different. So I put those two sessions and I know what I'm doing for the week. And then I set my mileage target for the week. And I just put in all of my easy running when I can around work. etc., knowing that what matters is those two sessions. So I will make sure I nail those sessions and progress week on week. And what I tend to do is do a session at the start of the block. Very simple session, maybe four by five K in terms of a marathon session. And then do it maybe ten weeks later and see that progression in the the numbers itself because my heart rate will stay the same. And one thing that I do during a block is because of my now Experience with racing a marathon half marathon, and I wear a heart rate monitor for all of my training, every easy run, every race. actually something that's really quite funny was when I did my first half marathon, I ran well, my first sub-two half marathon. my heart rate was exactly the same as what it was for bath half marathon. So what that tells me is that is kind of my physiology limit. for for that distance. So I know what I can do for a half marathon, a marathon, 10k, et cetera, in terms of heart rate. So when I structure these sessions, I focus on staying in that zone so that I know that I'm staying in the right area. rather so at the start of the block, it might be, say for example, a 235 marathon pace. But
michael: You've thirty five are things.
Sam: by the end of the block I've built that fitness to to where where I would be maybe 225 or 220 So and I let that fitness come to me rather than like me, I'll put publicly put it out there that I'm doing Berlin marathon this year and I want a sub two twenty, rather than going out now and doing all my stuff at two twenty pace, like I would do all my stuff to my marathon heart rate and hope over the ten to twelve weeks of real solid training that that actually comes down to the two twenty pace. Because what what I often see people do wrong is chase a number that they're not at that fitness level for, which will induce a lot of fatigue in their body because they're chasing something that they haven't quite got yet. Whereas I like to have the approach that it comes to me over that twelve week period.
michael: And do you think I mean it's a good it's the approach to have, right? And it's the only way you can stop yourself over training. is that something that you I mean, you talked about breaking a two hour half marathon, talked about breaking 40 minutes in the 10K for the first time. How quickly in your running journey did you figure it out?
Sam: Did I figure my the approach I take now out? I I
michael: Basically to run to an FI.
Sam: I would say it's taken me two and a half years to figure that out.
michael: Yeah, I can.
Sam: I when I started as a bigger lad, it was do 5k as fast as I can every single day. And I was constantly getting injured and I was like tired all of the time. London Marathon 2025, I pushed sessions and easy runs way too hard. and I was constantly fatigued. Whereas in the recent block for London Marathon, I was doing loads more mileage than what I did the previous year, yet I was able to actually not be fatigued and do it. So I would say it would only be this London Marathon block where I've really figured it out properly. So yeah, a good three years.
michael: And was was there an aha moment that led you to that or was it something else?
Sam: I think you know you see the Kenyans do the eighty twenty. Now, so for th for anyone listening that doesn't know what that is, like the Kenyans have the approach or it's like it's quite well known that eighty percent of their runs are easy and twenty percent of their runs are hard. and the easy runs are easy and the hard ones are hard. And I never believed it really. I just worked a little bit harder and I was just like, just crack on. And then for London Marathon, I was just like, you know what, if they're doing it, why can't I? So I s I tried. I was like, I've got nothing to lose here. Like I've I've hit my 230. Mission achieved. Like, let's just give it a go for three four months. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But you gotta try. And I started doing my easy run super easy. So around 115 to 125 beats per minute. and my progression was crazy since then. I was feeling not fatigued, I was feeling fit, aerobically fit. And I think Anything above a fifteen hundred meter race is an aerobic event. So being able to do all of this aerobic stimulus and being able to do more of it, so more mileage, because I'm not feeling fatigued because I'm doing it slower just helped me so much then progress.
michael: So the unlock for you was then throwing in a lot more volume, but making easy way easier so that you can also do harder work.
Sam: Exactly. Exactly that.
michael: And what sort of training were you doing?
Josh: So it's interesting.
michael: What sort of training were you doing back in the day when you were just getting into it breaking two hours? Because I think what we're not going to look at in the data is that. just want that as a reference point so that we can say, well, when you had some early breakthroughs, you know, what was your training looking like? Let's say when you broke two hours for the half marathon.
Sam: Yeah, it's it it's actually not too dissimilar. I just didn't realise it at the time. In terms of like I've always been someone that sh like the biggest thing for me is consistency. So back then it would have been like maybe something like forty or fifty kilometers a week and I was like peaking at fifty kilometers in the week and just being consistent but but back then I was probably doing my easy runs way too fast. and I wasn't really doing interval sessions or anything like that. It was more easy run, easy run, easy run, and then a faster park run. And then easy run, easy run, easy run and a faster park run. But my easy runs weren't easy. I would say my easy runs were probably around 150, 160 beats per minute, which is not easy like but it was just what I was doing to kind of lose the way and get into the running. but then over time then developed from there. But that's like what it would look like. But it was always I had this thing of like having that sexy Stravagraph, which was like I'm hitting the same mileage every week and just being consistent, whether or not I do the session or not, just being consistent in terms of hitting the mileage. And I think even now when I look at it, I'm just like that consistency is is what it takes. And back then it was fifty, now it's like a hundred and eighty K. I haven't changed much really, but it's just the volume has slowly increased and my consistency is even better.
Josh: And this is I I want to touch on the heart rate conversation, Sam, because it's interesting that you seem to so this I don't know if you looked at this in in Kaizen, this concept of beats per kilometer, kind of heart rate strength. So this is in case anyone listening is interested, beats per kilometer is a way of visualizing the strength of your heart and cardiovascular system and it's kind of how f how many beats it costs you to run a kilometer and a sh stronger, more powerful cardiovascular system, it's gonna cost you fewer beats to run a kilometer. So you say you do your sessions at like marathon heart rate and your your race heart rate hasn't changed across across these years, but you're able to get more out of your heart rate As your training block progresses. And this graph that we're looking at now is a perfect example of that. So it seems to me, I was clicking around just a minute ago, it seems to me that you're able to get to at the peak of your fitness, just under 600 beats per kilometer. And when you're hitting that 600 beats per kilometer, you seem to be in about, you know, 107 half marathon shape or Dare I say about 220 marathon shape on a perfect day. and it's interesting that you see this, you you see this, you have been able to identify that increased strength in your cardiovascular system through an increased speed when you're training, but it's also evident in the kind of this is not just how. quick you're doing your interval sessions, this is how quick you're doing all your sessions. Your easy pace must also be getting quite a bit quicker for the same heart rate across a training block. And you can see this graph is just a like a beautiful that consistency in training is evident in the in your body's response to that training through the heart rate graph. And you can see that for Valencia you get that lovely shape. But for Copenhagen I suspect we're gonna get, yeah, very similar shape for Copenhagen, right? And you're down at so I
Sam: Yeah. That'll be London. Yeah, that's London.
Josh: Yeah, that's London Marathon there. This you you've built into London and then you embrace London about here, I guess. Or here probably. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, London London's right on the peak actually, yeah. Basically.
Josh: so I think actually
michael: Okay.
Josh: you go on, Michael.
michael: I'm keen to I mean, heartbeats is interesting, but I'm keen to dive into some of the other training stats. I mean, as someone who's been stuck on two thirty-seven for three years, since you've basically been running Sam, I wanna know what it takes to go from two fifty to two twenty three. So Josh, can we start there at the two fifty London marathon block and look at the the training that led to that? And I wanna hear I wanna hear all about that.
Sam: So well, yeah, London, as he's got it up there on the screen now, started my block at around a hundred kilometres and stayed at around a hundred and thirty. But what you'll see is my my weekly stats in terms of my pace, my easy runs were not easy. like relatively easy. I think I was doing them, there you go, sub four thirty. whereas now I'm actually doing them five. to 515 maybe. so I there's a perfect example there like four ten for an easy session. it wasn't actually that easy, but it was what had happened was I was I I got zone tested in the lab and my zone two came up and there was the whole craze about training at zone two. And what I didn't realise was actually that's not right for everyone. Zone two may work for some people but I myself or Jimmy Whelan or Alfie Manthel, any of these like as you progress, your zone two becomes so fast that it doesn't it's gonna biomechanically affect you. so during this block, I didn't really understand that as as well. And I was just going, well, my data says this is easy because it's zone two, but I was going out and running like four ten. easy easy zone.
Josh: Yeah. So I mean 140 beats a minute, so not a super high heart rate, but four seven per kilometer is yeah.
michael: When your marathon pace is like four twos to run two fifty, then
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So I think I what I learned from that and obviously I peaked at a hundred and thirty kilometers there. And what I can tell you f from myself and how I felt during that block, I was always tired. Always. and that was because I was pushing those runs too too hard and not r respecting the training. And also from that 250, like looking back on it in retrospect, I didn't have enough focus on those long runs that maybe I do have now. I was more focused on hitting my weekly mileage, on hitting some decent sessions, on having sessions that looked good on Strava rather than what were going to benefit me in terms of the actual marathon itself. Like I think there is a balance between I'm an Instagram influencer. so sometimes the things that look better on Instagram. Are things that are more relatable to people. So 5Ks, 10 K's, because the average person can do that. So I was doing things that are helping me algorithmically on social media, but not my training, and I wasn't training effectively. I'm an I'm a performance athlete at a heart, and now I don't care what I do on Strava, how it looks, I don't care. I just want to if it's gonna make me a better athlete, I will do it. So the biggest change for that was. would be from the two fifty to the two twenty two would be A my mileage, B take it my easy runs actually easy, and C like honing in on the threshold marathon paste stuff, which is what I didn't do in that block.
michael: So what was the the faster running or the harder sessions you did in the say London twenty twenty five block? What what sort of sessions were they? Were they just whacking that at VO two?
Sam: well let's ha have a look. I have you got one up there? 'Cause
Josh: What day of the week do you usually
michael: Lots of easy.
Josh: do sessions?
Sam: The I like I
michael: Five K at ten K pace.
Sam: Yeah. The like I was just working very hard. and I don't think I was doing see the two K and then fifteen by two hundred meters. I wasn't doing marathon specific stuff. I was getting very fit and I was like feeling very confident because I'm running quick five K's and quick ten Ks, but what I'm not doing is running quick marathon sessions. in terms of like for my relative fitness for where I was at in the five K, ten K.
michael: Yeah. So it's all just completely miscalibrated.
Sam: Yeah, pretty much, yeah. And then Berlin I started doing a little bit more specific and higher volume. So around that hundred and forty kilometre mark. and started d doing a bit more specific and then feeling stronger over longer runs. and I slowing my easy pace down for the week. and then basically what's happened is over the different blocks, my pay my average pace of the week has gone down and slower. My mileage has gone up and I've gone so much quicker.
michael: Let's have a look at this year's marathons then, Josh.
Josh: Issue's marathon, so we got twenty twenty six, maybe this the two twenty three something. Yeah.
Sam: I think London's the best one to do. Copenhagen was a kind of like last minute kind of thing. so yeah.
michael: I was a proper block.
Sam: Yes.
Josh: So this I mean we see this lovely increase in brace prediction that suggests, you know, gradually increasing. And you finish the training block with a hundred miles a week at an average pace of four thirty two. So you're right, that average pace is probably slower there than when you were doing your two fifty or if not slower, pretty similar.
Sam: Yeah, I think but I was honing in what what what you don't see in the two hundred fifty is like the volume of fast stuff was so low because I'm not doing I'm I'm doing like two K and two hundred meters. Like I'm doing maybe ten, fifteen, twenty K worth of volume that's actually fast. Whereas now I'm doing forty K of volume that's fast. Or faster.
Josh: Yeah. So this graph gives a slightly deceptive view because we zoom in so you can see the difference between the weeks. But even these weeks that look very low, they're actually still 120k a week. So
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: what we're actually seeing here is 10 really strong weeks of phenomenal consistency. There we go, you can see the distance, really consistent distance. 169, 170, 170, 172, 121, 72. I mean you're doing 170 to 185k a week pretty much every week there. at a mmm, yeah, pretty similar average pace here as well. 435, 434, like pretty similar average pace. So you're just Turning that dial a little bit, but actually you're not you don't seem to be massively increasing your f your training across this block. It's just ten really consistent weeks. Is that f did it feel
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: that way?
michael: Yeah, but
Sam: Yeah, basically I I obviously the the down week is my bath half marathon, so I did take a little deload into that. but yeah.
Josh: Followed by a forty K day the next day to to make up for a race the day before.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But probably very easy. Yeah.
Josh: Yeah, that's a much more chill, chill day to go get some lentils, it would appear.
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: so this this obviously all probably also pr acted as quite a good tune-up race in yeah, as you said, you knew something good was on, but it was also probably a really good load there that you, you know, stretch out the legs and do something a fair bit. This from what you've said, I would assume that this is twenty-one K at three eleven per kilometre is gonna be A seriously long, hard run relative to the rest of your training, is that fair to say?
Sam: Yeah. It's not long 'cause my long runs at this point are like thirty K. But but
Josh: Well, I mean, for a run done at that at that pace.
Sam: I I don't work at that pace ever. so yeah, it was a it was a different stimulus and and and I like race into fitness. So if you fast forward to the taper week, just the one before that, I you'll see on the Sunday, I did is it that Sunday there? I did
Josh: Is this
Sam: yeah, that one there. So I ran thirty seven. I think it was official time. I think for me, like mentally, like, especially for this marathon, my P B before London Marathon for ten K was thirty two minutes and I was wanting to go through t each ten K in something like thirty three. So for me that was way too close. So I just did a ten K race and I ran thirty six, which gave me the confidence then going into London the week later that actually, you know, Three twelve per kilometer is not my 10k pace, it's actually three flats. so yeah, I do like racing to fitness.
michael: So this psychological strategic 10K.
Sam: Basically, yeah. I think, you know, i if it was that close, it's just like mentally I just couldn't like fathom how I was gonna hold that for a marathon. But then knowing that actually for a ten K my pace is actually three flats, so running three twenty, so running twenty seconds slower per kilometer, that is more attainable than running eight, six seconds faster per kilometer. So yeah, that's that's why I did that that race there.
Josh: And you do, but you're setting a 10k PB seven days before a marathon. So I would I would actually personally taper in a in a similar way, I would I would do that. But I think a lot of people wouldn't. A lot of people would consider that to be to be doing a hard race, even a 10k for a marathon, which is obviously a fair bit shorter, doing a hard race seven days beforehand. as a suboptimal taper, how did you factor that into the equation?
Sam: Yeah, it's it's a really valid point. But the way I look at it also is from a training load perspective. As someone that trains a hundred and seventy K a week, as someone that does marathon sessions which are extremely high training load, running a fast ten K actually took less training load out of my body and I felt fresher on the Monday than I would of doing a marathon session. And because I'm on my tape a week anyway, it didn't take any load out of me. I'm very fortunate in terms of like how my body bounces back off races and how my body bounces back off high mileage. I get no injuries and everything is good. Like literally next day I'm ready to go again. which is like really, really fortunate for myself. so that's why I can like race so close to other races and why I do do so many races because I think if I if I tapered for every race that I did, I would never get a training block in. So I just do the races within the block. as part of and part of parcel of it and just know that I'm gonna be on a higher mileage. but my body reacts well to that. So I think the training load of a fast ten K is actually not as much as even a a mediocre marathon session. So it is it's fine for me.
Josh: Yeah, I I would I would agree with that and I think I can imagine myself, certainly I get my I know that my fastest five K is come in the few weeks before before a big marathon 'cause it's you do all of this training and it takes so much time and energy to do all of these doing hundred and eighty Ks a week, that's like twelve, fourteen hours, something like that, fifteen hours. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, fourteen and bet, yeah, fourteen.
Josh: It's a lot of time to be putting in and you've spent all this time building this fitness. So then you're so fit at the end of that that even yeah, a fast five, five or ten K in the last few weeks is actually not too taxing and you can do it even on the tired legs of the training block and end up with a good a good result. were you aiming for just
michael: If if if
Josh: personally, were you aiming for the sub thirty in that in that ten K that you just missed? Or
Sam: Do you know do you know I so my P my P V before that was thirty-two zero zero. So I w I knew I was gonna get a P V because if I didn't get a P B, London was gonna be a disaster. Like I was not gonna get the time I'm after if I if I can't get under thirty two. I wanted to give myself a shot at sub thirty and at eight K one of the guys I was racing pulled away at the bridge and I just didn't have the confidence at that given time to go with him. Given that this was already two minutes quicker than my P V pace, whereas now I would have gone like now I would go with it and just hang on for dear life. But yeah, I was I was going for around thirty thirty, but knowing that I have a chance at going sub thirty, so I gave myself a chance. I went through eight K in t twenty four flat. So I lost at the few seconds when the group pulled away and I was just mentally battling them by myself. but I I think maybe in retrospect I could have gone with that group. But they went on a hill. Like it's a it's a perfect place to attack and yeah, mentally it just got to me a little bit.
Josh: Yeah.
Sam: So I'm gonna actually be attempting a sub thirty ten K in September this year, three weeks out from Berlin.
Josh: perfect. So we'll see. I'll be tuning in to see what you do there. That's a that's exciting because it's, you know, at the end of that big training block. Good stuff.
Sam: But but with that
michael: Yeah.
Sam: I will not taper. So it'll be part of my big week. So I'm doing about a hundred and eighty five K a week and I will still do a hundred and eighty five K that week then I'm raising the ten K. It will just replace my marathon effort session, which I will probably push more on to the start of the week. so that I'm still not losing anything and still gaining as much as I can. But this will be kind of my VO two session for the week where I just bang it out and and still hit my mileage. And I tend to what I do with the races that are on a Sunday, I tend to kind of like more top load the week. So you'll see kind of very high mileage Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. so that I can give myself a little bit of respite ready for the race on on S Sunday.
michael: Just gonna say if Sifan Hassan can do a 10k two days before winning an Olympic gold in the marathon, then a week out's probably fine, right?
Sam: Exactly. Exactly.
michael: There was a I think back in the day, a few of the Aussie marathoners they would often do a five or a 10k one week out just to like blow out any steam or cobwebs. And I think it have a similar sort of effect to what you were looking for, which is, okay, if I can run that pace for five or ten K, running twenty, thirty seconds slower a K is just gonna be a a walk in the park.
Sam: Yeah, and I think, you know, back to kind of your like circling back to your question about like that progression from the two fifty to two twenty-two, what I see a lot of marathoners do that are in and around my level is a lack of VO2. And like I love a VO2 max session and I think it is so important because at the end of the day, the faster you can run a five K and a ten K, the faster you will run a marathon. So I still get a very high amount of quality in and around ten K pace. five five well, my five K and ten K pace are basically the same, but in and around that kind of effort. so that like I'm used to running faster, so that when I'm running then the three twenty per kilometer, it doesn't feel like a a real hard effort. So I think that's something that I really hone in on is like doing stuff at that pace.
Josh: Mm.
michael: Which w where
Josh: What's
michael: when do you think you were your absolute fittest?
Sam: When do I think that's a really good question? I think I was I felt extremely fit at Bath Half Marathon. That was probably my I'm I'm optimal. Like I think if I had raced Bath if I had raced a marathon the same weekend I raced Bath, I would be the fittest.
Josh: Let's see if if we if Kaizen agrees. So on the week before bath, we think you were you a hundred miles a week, hundred and sixty three kilometers, an average pace of four thirty-six. four hundred and ninety meters a week of elevation. You're living in a pretty flat area then I guess.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. Cardiff is pretty flat and I avoid all unless I'm doing a race that has hills, I would occasionally do a hill for running economy, but I avoid it. I think it adds unnecessary load on my legs when I'm already running high volumes. so I try to just avoid it.
Josh: Yeah, you I mean, you've done well to get less than five hundred meters a week of elevation off a hundred miles. You've you've
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: avoided hills like anything there. anyway, we think that, or or Kaisen thinks that you had a less focus on the marathon prediction and just benchmark off that. We think you're in about two fifteen shape on that day. in a in a perfect world. The When would you say you were next fittest? What was your like other big peak? Is it Copenhagen or or London Marathon or is it another time?
Sam: I'd actually s relative to my fitness, I I think I executed Valencia, but London probably London Marathon was my next fittest, yeah.
Josh: London. Well we'll look at Lancia and see how close you got to Kaisen's prediction after that. But yeah, ooh, so actually we think that you were running a little bit further, a little bit faster and a little bit hillier. just before yeah, just before London.
Sam: Yeah, one thing that I haven't I never did on Kaizen is like fine tune my predictions. Like when I would race like
michael: Okay.
Sam: a one seven or whatever. like even like if you go to this week it'll be way faster because I haven't I don't for me it's more like seeing a trend is much more valuable than seeing like the actual number. So like I don't compare it too much. I think when I did Valencia Marathon, you know, Dimitro. that was where he introduced me to Kaizen. and I just downloaded it to have a little look. In in Valencia, I think it was two twenty three. So like just having that as a benchmark, like I ran two twenty nine there. Like I tend to think like I'm in and around the six minutes slower, off no fine tune. Off no fine change.
Josh: Yeah, so when you fine-tune your predictions, that's that's kind of what it's doing, right? So it's taking your it it it's done an automatic tailoring. When you when you created your account and you signed up, it has looked at your training and the racing and kind of attempted to pick your best races and go, well, from this amount of training we would expect this result and you got this result, so we're gonna kind of fine-tune the predictions accordingly. Sometimes it picking those races it has a hard job doing that through the algorithm. so if you do it manually you end up with a more accurate result, but all it's doing is kind of shifting the response to training that it allocates to your body. So or you know
Sam: Yeah, and it and it probably also thinks I'm rapid because of the way I sometimes do my sessions, like a twelve by four hundred meters. I like it might log that as like a five K in like fourteen minutes, which I I'm definitely not that.
Josh: Well actually kind of no because it it abstracts all that away anyway. So when you do your session, it's not saying it's not looking at that and going, wow, he can run a five K in twelve minutes. It just lumps that in with all of your easy running and says from this total
Sam: Okay.
Josh: training picture we would expect this result. anyway, so if you
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: were to tell your predictions, it would shift this, it would shift the numbers up and down, but you would still get that same line. So It doesn't actually matter that the numbers are a bit optimistic. It because you know you always under underperform. it's actually not really a fair way of putting it, but we know that like compared to our perfect predictions, it's like we think, you know, there's about a six minute offset there. Offset is is the right is the right way to put it. but the point is we think that London you were in slightly better shape. Your training stats at least certainly look slightly better than going into Bath.
Sam: What what about Valencia? 'Cause I was I was fit then. For my fitness
Josh: Let's
Sam: I was fit.
Josh: C for Valencia. So for Valencia, we think you you ran fast. We think this because you've actually got a so we're for those listening, not watching, we've got 126 kilometers a week, an average pace of 428 and 304 meters per week. So it looks to me like this slightly faster average pace, although it is only a few seconds that compounds over the hundred plus kilometers you do in a week to produce some pretty good results there. But this you are so we're saying this is a 10 minute offset here, right? Between your result and there. what did we get? Not
Sam: Hm. Not fine tuned, but yeah.
Josh: fine, not fine tune, but about a 10-minute offset. Are we getting Ten minute yeah, and we get ten minutes here as well. So we think that you executed London and Valencia to about the same degree of impressiveness as in you executed the race about the same with about the level of
Sam: I would I I would agree on that. Like that I would I would say I worked just as hard on both of them, and and was happy with like where I was to my current fitness from both of them. So that that works where where would that put me now?
Josh: This now puts you saying a 217 prediction. So we think you're in interestingly, you've ramped up this distance and slowed down the pace as you as you said.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Josh: slightly hillier, so you've been doing a bit more bit more hills, two seventeen prediction. so you're in we think in very good shape at the moment. I'm not seeing any I'm not seeing any dud races, to be honest. I'm not seeing any races. Looks to me like you haven't ever really messed up a marathon. I've been there many a time.
Sam: I would say, yeah, I I've given my best on the day. I haven't been very lucky with the marathons in terms of the heat. London was hot, Berlin was hot, Valencia was hot, London this year, I wasn't hot, but it was like direct sun, so I that affected me. And then Copenhagen. Like the only reason I ran a PV at Copenhagen two weeks later was just purely because of the weather. Like it was just colder and I operate better
michael: Yeah.
Sam: in those temperatures. My heart rate was lower over Copenhagen than it was London, even though it was two weeks later and I ran faster. So I just know what's more optimal for me.
Josh: Our stats agree with that. This is the build for Copenhagen and we can see that you have your prediction has dropped off. We think you've lost fitness after London, between London and Copenhagen. But
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, I would have, yeah.
michael: Yeah, okay.
Josh: I mean not a huge amount of fitness, but we do think we you've you've lost a little bit. you
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: ever so all of your marathons, maybe you haven't got lucky with the temperature on all of them, but they seem to be well executed races within the bounds of the cards you've been dealt.
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: Would you say the same is true for your half marathons? 'Cause there's some great ones in here as well.
Sam: I would say yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that's first sub seventy in October twenty five. That was the first time I've ever broken seventy minutes. that was probably a very like best effort. And then I would say the same amount of effort went into the sixty seven as well. just kind of like six months later. so yeah.
Josh: It's not easy to do. So talk us through that. Does it come intuitive to intuitively to you this the the task of getting a good night's sleep before the race, pacing yourself well, wearing appropriate clothing, not doing anything silly on race day. These are all difficult things to do when they have to be done together. Do that does that come naturally to you or have you really gone out of your way to execute very well? Each time.
Sam: And I think that's another reason that I race so often. I think when you train for so long for a single race, there becomes so much pressure on all of these races. And you miss the just doing a race and like putting on a bib and that becomes like foreign. So when it comes to the race then itself, if you haven't done loads of them, it becomes all of this pressure. So I try to put myself in scenarios where I'm pushing myself to my limits. I'm doing lots of races so that, you know, putting on a bib, I'm not getting like super nervous. So I become a lot more comfortable in doing it. so that's why I do race a lot. I do hone in on all of the everything that you said, like sleep, food, fuel. I'm very lucky I'm supported by precision fuel and hydration. So I get like the best advice that I can. on how to both operate in races but also just generally from the sports scientists. so knowing like my sweat rate, knowing what electrolytes I need to take, knowing all of those things doesn't come intuitively to me, but I've got the support network around me that help provide that. from a food perspective, my girlfriend is a student dietitian. So she is able to give me all of the knowledge. In fact she cooks like 99% of my meals. So like I have the network around me that enables me to optimize my training. So I optimize my training and my network around me optimise everything else. And I think running isn't a solo sport. Like I wouldn't be able to have the progression that I've had without the support of like my girlfriend, like making me the meals so that when I finish a track session, I'm coming back to a high protein, high carbohydrate meal that she is like prepped for me. Or Like having the support from my hydration and fuel and all of those things make a massive difference to the training. And it's not like I'm just the I'm just the person that wears the time that I've run. It's actually the people around me that have made it possible to run that time. and again, that works with my training partners and all of that. Like I wouldn't be where I'm at without being able to train with people better than me, being able to train with people around me, like going out for an easy run, I absolutely love it, but I would not enjoy it as much if I was doing it solo. So like all of those factors have made a huge difference. I'm just the person that crosses the line in the time, but actually it's everyone else that has helped me and got me to that point.
michael: Let's talk about the future a bit. you got Berlin. Have you got goals for Berlin?
Sam: Yeah, so let's go future races. So the next big one is Antrim Coast Half Marathon, where I'll be representing my country, Wales. and I would like to think that I could run a P B in three weeks' time. who knows? the pace scares me. It's about three ten per kilometer that I need to run to get a P V. So a sub sixteen minute five K times by four. and so that's the next big one. Then off the back of that, we've got the Cardiff 10K, which is my goal to break sub 30. and we've got a a a group attempting that, which will be great. And then we've got b the Berlin Marathon is the next big one. which will be mega. My goal is to break that 220 barrier, but traditionally Berlin has been quite hot over the past few years. So noting if it is a a heat wave day. And I know how my body works. It may be a challenge to do it in the heat, but it you've got to give yourself a chance. It's an amazing course, super quick. So we'll give ourselves a chance for in Berlin. But we also have another marathon lined up this year. So we'll come off the bot block in Berlin and go straight into kind of the next just transitional period. I've got the Rome half marathon with Brooks in October. So that'll be a nice little tune-up race. and to see where the fitness is then transitioned into the winter. And then we've got the Valencia Marathon on the 6th of December. which if I run sub two twenty, I might set a more ambitious target for Valencia. But if I haven't run the two twenty, Valencia will be my second more my next attempt in breaking that elusive barrier. So we've got two big marathons lined up Berlin and Valencia which is very, very exciting.
michael: All right. Now let's get that training simulator up, Josh. Let's see the training you need to do.
Josh: Yeah, well I was actually just we'll go to the training simulator. First I'll I'll note that your heart rate's looking strong, five hundred and ninety beats per kilometer right now. And before going into your half-marathon PB, you're saying you're looking for hope you're at five nine four. So we think you're physiologically speaking in shape for a PB right now. That's my cards on the table.
Sam: That is great news because I use heart rate obviously the most. So that's for me, that's a bigger indication because I know what I can sustain for a half marathon in terms of heart rate. So that's a perfect kind of thing for me to know, like, even just mentally, that
Josh: Yeah.
Sam: I can sustain that.
Josh: We think if you can sustain that heart rate and you execute well on the day, you've got room for a P B. So, Michael, guide us here. What numbers am I putting in?
michael: Well, go marathon, because I can't remember what the offset we've got is for any of the other distances. So let's go marathon and see what gets a two nine. Cause if we're talking ten minute offset, that's probably around the two nineteen mark. So I reckon it's gonna be somewhere
Josh: Yeah.
michael: in the one eight one eighties is my gut.
Josh: Let's give a little bit, just a little, not much more hills, but maybe 700, 700 meters. No, no, just
Sam: I won't I won't be doing hills. I won't be doing hills. Put it down to
Josh: natural, but but this assuming you run on the same gradient, so you collect a few more elevation meters just by doing more kilometers, right? Let's let's keep it at six six seven five. we think you're gonna need to hit. A hundred a hundred and eighty five.
michael: Yeah, probably about that.
Josh: Yeah, something like we think, yeah, ooh.
michael: This is this is averaging this over the next
Josh: Yeah.
michael: next eight weeks.
Sam: Well it's funny because I've actually got my plan over the next eight weeks and my average is a hundred and eighty five K and it will probably be around four thirty pace on average.
michael: There we go.
Josh: if
michael: Well
Josh: Kaizen thinks if you can hit 185k, four minutes 30 per kilometre, doing broadly the same elevation you're currently doing. Elevation doesn't actually matter as much as lots of people think. So broadly this a similar elevation and a little bit of cross-training as you're currently doing, just keep doing the same cross-training. You're gonna be doing 15 hours a week of training and you
Sam: Yeah, that's about right.
Josh: Could be in shape. We think.
Sam: well we'll have to give it a go. It'd be interesting to see kind of on the heart rate from where but where I'm at in terms of my heart rate, in comparison to like when I did the London. So you said the half I was in five nine four and I'm currently in five ninety. But for the marathon I'm assuming I was in like five seventy.
michael: I think it was five
Josh: We can chat.
michael: seventy five or something.
Sam: for London, yeah. So at the top where did I peak? Yeah. So
Josh: I've seven years.
Sam: aiming to get to that level of fitness to basically optimise my my marathon.
Josh: I mean, as you know, the heart rate is affected pretty heavily by weather
Sam: Sure.
Josh: layers, all of fueling, hydration, all of this stuff. But over over 180 kilometers in a week, it gets averaged out pretty heavily. so
Sam: Yeah.
Josh: I think it could be a very strong tool for you. You can always Kaizen yet doesn't yet have a heart rate predictor baked into the app, but you can get the pen and paper out and use the Beats per kilometer, it's it's quite easy to calculate it yourself. You if you know what heart rate you can sustain for a marathon, which is probably one sixty, one seventy.
Sam: Yeah, one London I did one sixty eight and Copenhagen I did one sixty five. But I would say yeah, one sixty five, one sixty six.
Josh: So you you just work out what how many minutes it's gonna you your target time wants how many minutes your marathon is gonna be for your target time. You know the heart rate is beats per kilometer, you divide one by the other, and you've got how many heart beats it costs you to do a marathon, divide by 42.2, and you've got the target beats per kilometer for your PEB marathon. for anyone listening, you don't need to worry about the details for that because Kaisen will have this feature at some point. but you can also get the pen and paper out and work out what kind of cardiovascular system would be required to to get that PB.
Sam: Right, straight after this call, once the once the podcast is finished, I'm gonna get him to do it for me 'cause I can't do the maths. and we get that data.
Josh: I will do that.
michael: Awesome. shall we wrap it up there? Seems like a place to wrap it up for me. Sam, thanks so much. It's been great to have you on listening about I mean, A, the progression, but B diving into your training data. and also just how in tune I guess you are with what you need to do to get a certain outcome, right? Like you were pretty bang on in terms of what you think you need to do to get yourself in the shape that will get you that PB. and the data sort of back that up. So well done to you for sort of building that understanding of your system and training and all of that. And look forward to seeing progress even further in the next few months. And also we'll have to we'll have to get a beer after Berlin because we won't be able to run together, but we'll definitely be there.
Sam: That sounds like a plan. Yeah, we look forward to it. Let's just hope that it's a cold day or colder than last year. it's a quick course and a nice environment. So hopefully we'll see you out there and catch up there.
Josh: Brilliant. you. So yeah.
michael: All right, thanks everyone. Bye.
