Essential Running Tips for Training, Injury Prevention, and Form with Strength Running's Jason Fitzgerald

##### Guest Quote
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:00:00]
I think it's really instructive again, we're kind of coming back to learning from the best in the world that Tom Schwartz, a Coach to elite level runners.
And he's saying let's not do workouts that are too hard. And I think if even the best in the world are running workouts, most of the time where they could do an extra or they could go a little faster, that is telling us a very important lesson that we should also scale back the intensity a little bit.
##### Episode Intro
###### Kevin Chang: [00:00:31]
Hello, and welcome to the RaceMob podcast, where we're all about running long, having fun and making the human connection.
This is episode number 38.
I'm Kevin entrepreneur technology and fitness nerd. And I'm joined by the head coach of RaceMob and master motivator, the incomparable Bertrand Newson.
Our next podcast guests has coached tens of thousands of athletes. Over the years. He was named men's running influencer of the year. In 2017. He has a thriving YouTube channel and host the incredibly popular Strength Running podcasts. He is the one and only Jason Fitzgerald.
In this episode, we dive into his training philosophy and the fundamental advice he gives when developing a training plan. How we incorporate strength, training, and why it's so fundamental to his programs.
The mental mindset required to improve your running and why most people aren't realizing their full potential. How he's grown one of the top running podcasts on the planet. Plus we dive into some running form cubes that will help you run more efficiently.
All the show notes can be found online at RaceMob dot com slash podcast and without further ado, here's our conversation.
##### Start of the Interview [00:01:38]
RaceMob folks, our next guest needs no introduction. He's been competing in running events for over 20 years, he's ran multiple events throughout the year and won a bunch of them. A 2:39 marathoner who founded Strength Running in 2010. Hes coached tens of thousands of athletes probably written thousands of training plans by now.
He was named men's running influencer of the year in 2017. He has a thriving YouTube channel that we love. And we'd love for you guys to go check out. Andy hosts, the podcast, which is consistently ranked. The number one or number two, running podcast in the world. The Strength Running podcast.
Welcome to the RaceMob podcast, Jason Fitzgerald!
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:02:19]
What an introduction. Thank you so much.
###### Bertrand Newson: [00:02:24]
No pressure, Jason
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:02:25]
Im excited to be here, guys.
###### Kevin Chang: [00:02:28]
Well, if you can't tell we are huge fans of yours. We've been listening to the podcast, for me, at least since 2017. Im a regular listener of the podcast, love what you're doing with your athletes. I love how you're introducing the fundamentals of running and strength into the running program.
##### Jasons Roots [00:02:45]
Walk us back into your history. So we know that you kind of started competing back in high school, and I know that you now live in Colorado, but have some East coast roots as well. So walk us back into how you got into running and your roots.
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:02:57]
Yeah, I didn't always live in Colorado. I grew up in Massachusetts, right outside Boston. And I was the kid who showed up to the first day of cross country practice as a freshmen wearing basketball shoes, very baggy mess shorts.
And I actually thought that I was going to high jump because when I was in middle school, I, he just enjoyed the high jump during track and field week, I was doing everything I could to. Get away from the running events. You know, I was like the five foot, two guide doing high jump and throwing the shot, but you're just even funnier now that I think back on it.
But, you know, I showed up for the cross-country practice and I very quickly learned that there are no field events. We're only going on, longer runs in cross country. And, I quickly fell in love with the sport because I got hooked on improvement.
I just really liked putting in the work and then seeing the results of that work. It just spoke to me and, you know, it certainly helped that the coach was really great. I love the guys on the team and we just had a, a great environment for running.
And so, you know, I got hooked on running there and I made the challenging decision to abandon my first love, which was basketball, but, you know, everyone else started growing between eighth grade and ninth grade and I didn't grow to them too much. So I had to abandon my basketball dreams. But I don't really regret it at all.
I, found a sport that I absolutely adore and I ran cross country indoor track, outdoor track, all four years of high school, all four years of college, I kept training and racing fairly competitively after I graduated from Connecticut college back in 2006.
And so that's how I started. I mean, I, I was very much a runner who kind of came to the sport by accident, but fell in love with just the intrinsic nature of running you put in the work, you get results, and if you're smart about it, you can keep progressing. And ultimately you'll become a runner that surprises even yourself. And I always thought that was really exciting about the sport. ##### Running Longer Distances
###### Kevin Chang: [00:04:55]
Absolutely. And we know that you did some steeplechase in college, but mainly cross country. When did you get into the longer distances? Was that directly after college?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:05:04]
Yeah, it's funny. So in college I purposefully avoided the 10 K like the plague. I had no interest in running 25 laps on the outdoor track. So I was primarily a miler, 3K, 5k runner in college. I did start doing the steeple chase, which is 3000 meters, as a senior.
And then, you know what typically happens after college, you know, I got interested in some of the longer road race distances. I did my first 10 K cross country race, my first 10 mile race, half marathon. And then about two years after I graduated, I did my first marathon, which was New York city in 2008.
So, yeah, I kind of had a somewhat typical progression in terms of race distance that a lot of collegiate runners have, you know, they focus on track and cross country and then post collegiately, they get into some of the longer stuff
###### Bertrand Newson: [00:05:53]
You know, Coach Jason, for perspective, can you share some of your PRs by distance, one mile up to maybe full marathon for our listeners ?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:06:02]
My best mile was four 33 and I ran a three K in nine Oh four, which doesn't mean too much to a lot of people. That's just, that's basically a nine 45, two mile, I think. Wow. I ran 1602 in the 5k, which is very frustrating, being so close to a sub 16 and never getting it.
But I digress. Let's see, uh, one 1338 in the half marathon. And then I've run a two 39 32 marathon. It's amazing. I can remember all those numbers for so long ago.
##### First Marathon Experience
###### Kevin Chang: [00:06:37]
That's incredible. Talk to us about your first marathon experience. Was it that New York city marathon? How did it go for you?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:06:44]
Yeah, New York city, 2008. I was. 24 years old. So obviously I was cocky and full of myself. I thought I'd be negative splitting the New York city marathon running fast and mile 24, 25. And I had the opposite experience. I had the most cliched first marathon experience that you could potentially have.
I went out too fast. I hit mile 20, immediately hit the wall and my pace just started getting slower and slower and slower. I eventually was running slower than my easy pace. I remember mile 25 or so, you know, a senior citizen just blew past me. It was very humbling marathon experience to just to just watch them go and have no power to even get close to him.
I didn't really have the greatest first marathon experience. I ran two 44 in my first marathon, which, you know, I think objectively, like it's, it's a fairly competitive time. But it was in line with my other PRs at the time, you know, it was what I was expecting to run. But having such a dramatic slowdown in my pace. And, and just feeling as terrible as I did over the last, you know, five or six miles or so, it was just not a fun experience for me.
And so I really wanted to make sure that my second marathon was better and it was, I took my fueling more seriously. You know, my training was better, my pacing was better. So I do a lot of better things in my training and in the race execution of my second marathon. But it took me until 2011.
I think I waited three years, 'cause IT got a pretty bad IT band injury after my first marathon, which I was out for almost six months or so. And then I really had to think about why am I getting hurt like this? You know, and I have six month it band injury is substantial and severe. And. You know, I was just sitting on the couch most days, watching reruns of House, eating Ben, and Jerry's feeling sorry for myself.
And I realized, look, if you want to keep running, if you want to do what you love to do, you got to make some changes. And so that's when, you know, I think I saw like four or five physical therapists. I really revamped my training after my first marathon so that, you know, I could have a second marathon and.
You know, that was really what prompted me to start Strength Running back in 2010, was my experience with getting injured and then my experience getting healthy. So I really felt like I had something to share with the running community that, you know, we could design better training. We don't have to get injuries like this.
Cause I feel like, you know, that's every runner's worst nightmare, right? Is that season ending injury. And unfortunately too many runners know what that's like, because the injury rate is just so high and running.
##### What is Strength Running?
###### Kevin Chang: [00:09:32]
Absolutely. Talk to us a little bit about the principle behind Strength Running. I know that you have some kind of fundamental principles that you talk about throughout including, you know, running more miles, incorporating strength, training, structured training, and that sort of thing. So talk to us, about some of the things that Strength Running is, built on.
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:09:49]
Sure. And first, let me just be totally upfront that there is no Strength Running system. There is no methodology, you know, I don't have a patent on my training plans or anything like that because what I try to do at Strength Running is. Model what the best in the world to do. And that could be at the university level, the collegiate level. It could be the professional level. Let's learn from them.
Let's take lessons and principles from the folks who are the best at what they do in the world. And then scale those down to recreational runners like us. Right. I can't run 120 miles a week, like a pro. I can't run three hard workouts a week, like a pro. And I certainly don't have all the support systems that a lot of pro athletes have, but we can pull a lot of principles from how elite runners train so that we can just design better training for ourselves.
So, you know, we can't run 120 miles a week, like a pro most of us can't, but. What does that teach us? It teaches that more mileage is generally a good thing. If you want to train at a high level, if you want to run fast, finished times, you've got to run a lot. Now a lot is relative and you know, I'm not going to get a 52 year old woman from Illinois.
Who's never run a step before and have her start running 60 miles a week. But the idea is to always be setting goals where your training is ramping up. You know, you're doing more you're, you're trying to be more strategic with things because, you know, ultimately I think training PRs have to happen before race PRs.
So a lot of those training PRs are weekly mileage, monthly mileage. I really like to have runners do different things. You know, let's not train for two marathons year every year, year after year after year instead, take a break from the marathon, even if that's your goal. Like there are so many runners who just want to qualify for Boston or just break the three or four hour Mark.
But the way to do that, isn't just to run marathon after marathon. It's to get fast, you know, do not pass, go do not collect $200. Just get fast. It doesn't matter if you're training for the 5k or the mile or the or an obstacle course race. If you are improving, then you're improving and that's going to bleed over into every other race distance that there is.
You know, I don't really have any crazy principles or anything like that. That would really be surprising to a lot of people who have maybe read a lot of running books or been on a collegiate track team or cross country team, and really been exposed to best practices.
I just try to implement best practices. No fads, we're not chasing shiny red balls or anything like that. We are just really focusing on the fundamentals because you know what I've seen in more than a decade of doing this is that most runners.
Aren't really adhering to the fundamentals. You know, they're not warming up dynamically before a run. They're not doing enough strength training. They're not being consistent with the long run. They're not running enough overall weekly mileage. You know, I talked to a lot of runners who just don't really run too many fast workouts.
Because they don't know how to structure them. They're not sure what's appropriate. They don't want to get hurt. So there's a lot of fear around it as well. And you know, my entire goal with Strength Running is let's get you training like a pro runner except scaled down to your individual capability level.
So we're going to warm up dynamically. We're going to run strides. We're going to be consistent with a long run. We're going to try to run more weekly mileage. And just be strategic with all those little things that I don't actually really consider very little and strength training is a good example there where I don't even consider it cross training.
You know, strength training is really part of the training that runners have to do if they want to achieve their potential. And I just think about every other sport, you know, Basketball soccer, football, all those athletes don't just play the game. They don't just play the sport. They're also doing a lot of conditioning.
They're getting in the weight room and getting strong. They're working on drills. They're working on mobility. They're doing all these other things to condition their bodies for the sport itself. And then when they actually play the sport, they're much better at it.
And I think runners can approach the sport of running exactly the same, you know, let's think of ourselves as not just runners, but athletes that specialize in running.
And that kind of sounds a little bit like we're just splitting hairs here. It's just, you know, word choice, but I think it's a powerful reframing of your identity as an athlete. And that really then helps you get out of the mindset of simply I'm just going to go for my run today. No, your workout is not your run.
Your workout is the warmup beforehand. It's all the post run drills in mobility and strength and all the other things that we have to do as runners. Uh, so I think that's a powerful reframing of runners as athletes.
###### Kevin Chang: [00:14:49]
I love that because we work with a number of runners as well. And. Introducing them to structure. Introducing them to other types of workouts has really helped a lot of them reach new PRs, throughout our training cycles with them.
And I love how you introduce some of these principles in a gradual way, in an easy way. Right? So you talk a little bit about strides. , as an easy intro into speed workouts and not just giving speed plans to people, but , let's get them accustomed to strides and building a little bit of speed .
And then you also talk about , strength training as in sometimes, you know, we'd love to have you in the gym, but if you can't get into the gym, there is body weight workouts. There are Hill workouts. There are other ways to get strong that are not just, Hey, lift heavy, heavy weights.
And you bring in a lot of other things as well, including compound lifts, rather than just sitting in the gym for two hours, let's get you strong, not get you like pumped up like other bodybuilders.
##### Common Mistakes Runners Make [00:15:48]
So talk to us a little bit about common mistakes that you see runners make and, how you coach them to progress.
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:15:56]
I would say the number one mistake that runners are making is what you mentioned before. Kevin it's is the structure too many runners don't have that structure around their training.
You know, there's no progression, you know, they're not progressing somewhere. They don't really know where they're going. So, you know, their training, isn't periodized to their goal. Uh, it's not really specific to the goal either. You know, I read a lot of custom training plans and, you know, you said I've probably written thousands.
Yeah. I've probably read about twenty-five hundred custom training plans since 2010. And part of that process is runners will fill out this 20, 25 question questionnaire that I have, and the purpose there is I really want to get to know you as a runner, your background, what you've done, what you'd like to do.
And. The training that you're doing right now, your injury, history, all that kind of stuff. And what I've discovered is that yeah, most runners don't have that structure. You know, they're not being consistent with the long run. They're not doing a workout. They're not doing any strength training. They're not warming up dynamically. They're not doing strides consistently.
You know, the biggest problem is that, you know, running, I think has this reputation that anyone can do it, which is true. But then people think because of that, you don't need any instruction where if you want it to learn any other skill, whether it was baking a cake or learning how to swim the breaststroke, you would go ask someone who knows how to do it and get advice, get guidance.
You know, give me the recipe to bake that cake. Show me the proper technique for the breaststroke. But nobody asks, well, how do I actually train for a 5k? Do I just go out and run a couple of days a week? And it's like, well, that's what someone who's not familiar with training might do. And you'll certainly get to a point where you can go run a 5k.
But if the question then becomes, I want to race a 5k, I want to see how fast I could cover this distance, whatever it might be, now that structure becomes so incredibly important because it really kind of brings you from and where you are right now to where you'd like to be in the future. And there needs to be some sort of plan plan for that transformation, because it's really what it is, right.
We are transforming people into people who are capable of doing X, Y, Z, today. Two three months from now four months from now, five months from now, people who are capable of doing double that or triple that that requires a lot of physiological changes. And we have to go through that and really have those changes, you know, as goals in a methodical way.
If we're not approaching it with some sort of structure, then we might as well be exercising randomly and just kind of, you know, focusing on general health. And I'm not knocking that there's nothing wrong with just running regularly for general health.
But as soon as you become a more performance oriented runner, and that simply means that you'd like to run a new distance, maybe that's your first marathon, first half marathon, or you have a certain time goal in mind. I want to break four hours in the marathon or 50 minutes in the 10 K you know, whatever, as soon as you're a more performance oriented runner. That structure becomes absolutely non-negotiable. If you want to keep improving from season to season and year to year,
###### Kevin Chang: [00:19:10]
Recreational runners can learn so much from that as well, because if you put some structure around your running and you're able to recover longer distances faster, it's actually becomes a little bit more enjoyable as well.
So, you know, it doesn't come down to just people who have certain time goals or certain distance schools. There are a lot that recreational runners or those that just enjoy the run can learn from all of this as well. I love what you also talked about around periodization and talking about kind of the body adapting and getting stronger or getting better at certain distances.
In your podcast you also talk about failure as something that we don't do enough. So either. Running to longer distances to failure or the speed we're kind of to failure and the physiological benefits of that as well.
##### Obtaining Progress Over Time [00:19:57]
Can you talk a little bit about periodization and how, how the body adapts, how long it sometimes takes to get faster as some of these distances?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:20:06]
Yeah. So I think a lot of runners will experience progress in a matter of weeks, but big progress will definitely take months and years. And if you're a relatively new runner, you're going to experience more progress at the beginning, just because you're new. And you're going to pick up on technique and skills and gain early fitness very quickly at that point.
So, you know, if you're a beginner, I would try to upset PRs every couple of months. You know, by running short races, five Ks, 10 Ks, eight Ks, six Ks. I don't care. Just run a lot of races. You know, the short ones you can really recover from quickly and essentially give yourself a lot of at-bats at racing because I do think it's a skill.
Yeah. I mean, in terms of periodization and, and how long things take. I think most runners who have followed a training plan do somewhat intuitively understand periodization where, you know, if they followed a plan, they know that typically a training plan will become more intense over time. The workouts will become longer.
They will get faster, but that early work where. Maybe you're really just focusing on easy runs and strides and strength training. That really is your foundation. You know, that is like the capacity building work in your training. It builds your capacity for future work. And then, you know, the faster workouts, that's more like utilization.
You are taking what you've already built and then better utilizing it. So you're, you're kind of using those faster workouts to sharpen your fitness. And to really express your fitness a little bit better. Now, most training plans are probably 12 to 20 weeks. You know, there's going to be shorter plans.
There's going to be longer plans, but most generally fall in that 12 to 20 week cycle. Where generally I'd say that there's probably one or two months of mostly base-building and that would be the phase one of periodization. You know, the goal there is to get your mileage up, to be consistent with long runs, to get the long run higher as well.
And then again, build that capacity. And then as you start getting into the competition phase of the training cycle, now you're starting to do faster workouts. You might start running some early season races too. And that that's the, what I would say is maybe a another month or two, you know, it's, it's the chunk of the biggest chunk of your training cycle right there.
And then finally, there's your, what I would call peaking phase. Some runners call it the taper phase, but peaking or tapering is the final couple of weeks where you're running your goal race. The volume of running that you're doing is generally falling while the intensity either stays the same or maybe slightly gets higher.
Uh, and the goal here is really just to get you to a point where you're fit and fast and primed to run really well. But you're also not very tired. So that's what we do with reduction in the mileage. We like to say that the Hay's in the barn, you know, you're two weeks out from a race, don't go run a 20 mile run.
It's going to take the body a couple of weeks to really recover from that, to adapt to it. And at that point you're only making yourself more tired for the race that you're about to run. And so that's why the volume will decrease while we're mostly maintaining the intensity. So that's kind of a 30,000 foot view of periodization and it's mostly true, no matter the race.
So whether you're training for a mile or a marathon, most training plans will follow that general structure. I don't know if you want to get into linear periodization or non-linear periodization, but that you might need a graph or...
###### Kevin Chang: [00:23:34]
And we know that you have it on your YouTube channel, definitely you in front of a whiteboard showing kind of a different methodologies for getting to that race day. So that is. Fantastic. I think that's a great overview.
##### A Sample Week Plan
###### Bertrand Newson: [00:23:47]
Coach, let's take an example of a runner shooting for a marathon distance. Blue-collar runner, maybe at 10 minute pace or so. And what a sample week looks like broken out. And then if there was one workout during that week for them not to miss, what would it be and why?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:24:04]
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I would say, um, sample weeks or. Generally a little hard for me, because it really does depend on the athlete.
You know, for someone who might be shooting for, you know, a four 15 or a four 30 marathon, which I think that's about 10 minute pace. You know, this runner is probably running in the peak of their marathon training.
You know, they're probably running 30 to 40 miles a week. I would consider that maybe the minimum that you would have to run in a weekly basis to really prepare yourself for the marathon distance. So overall mileage might be somewhere between 30 and 40. I think the most important run that any marathon or does during the week is probably the long run.
It's the most specific run to the race that they're preparing for, and it's going to build the most race, specific fitness for them. Uh, and then afterwards there's probably the workout. And for marathoners, I think aerobic oriented workouts are probably the best bang for your buck.
You know, I think one of the bigger mistakes I see among marathoners is, you know, they're 12 weeks out from their race and they're running 12 by 400 meters on the track. At 5k effort. And I'm just wondering what they're doing, you know, like what, what does that work you're very far away from your goal race. You're running a pace that is very much faster than your goal pace.
It's very intense. And so when we talk about periodization, a big part of that is running workouts that are appropriate to not just your goal race, but also where in the season you are. So if you're 12 weeks out, you're going to be doing different workouts than you might be two or three weeks out. Even for marathoners, your workouts might get a little bit more intense in the month leading up to the race.
But in terms of a faster workout, you know, one of my go-tos that I think is, is arguably one of the more benefits types of workouts for distance runners, you know, really anyone training for, uh, you know, a 5k on up to 50 K might be the tempo run or the lactate threshold run. It was funny. I just looked at a study.
I don't know if they were measuring the amount of improvement or. The total contribution of certain types of workouts to these athletes, uh, performances. And one of the things that that's not very conducive to fast running of these long, really hard repetitions, but tempo runs were quite good. And I think that's because they're what a lot of coaches will call comfortably hard.
It's hard, but it's not brutal. It's not a workout where. You know, you're left on the side of the track, clutching your knees heaving. You're not throwing up after a tempo run. And I think it's, it's working at that level. We are a couple of steps down from a maximum effort that allows runners to get a lot of benefit without beating themselves up.
And so I really take a long-term approach. Whether we're talking for the marathon 5k, I would rather do a workout where you can run another rap or two, or you could have gone faster, but I'm less interested in one workouts result. I am more interested in the total body of work over the course of a four month training cycle.
So I guess that's my long-winded answer of saying, you know, I think the mileage for this runner might be 30 to 40. I would probably have them do some type of aerobic workout, like a tempo run, and then their long run, I would label as the most important run of the week.
###### Bertrand Newson: [00:27:22]
Thank you.
###### Kevin Chang: [00:27:23]
Fantastic. And I think you, you got into something that was pretty interesting I picked up from the tin man podcast that you did with Tom Schwartz. On how he suggests not going to your absolute maximum, where you're clutching your knees on the ground doubled over, but actually pulling back a little bit from that so that you can recover and still have those great workouts afterwards.
So just wanted to double down on that, make sure that our audience is kind of getting those physiological benefits, but not totally crushing. Their bodies
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:27:55]
yeah. Let me just add to that. I think it's really instructive again, we're kind of coming back to learning from the best in the world that Tom Schwartz, a Coach to elite level runners.
And he's saying let's not do workouts that are too hard. And I think if even the best in the world are running workouts, most of the time where they could do an extra or they could go a little faster, that is telling us a very important lesson that we should also scale back the intensity a little bit.
Let's focus on the longterm. Let's focus on consistency. Let's focus on the total body of work, rather than on being a hero in any one workout. You know, that's a great example of really learning from the pros and the pro coaches and how they approach things, because you know, there's no reason for your blue collar runner to be training at an intensity that's higher than a professional runner. I don't think that's right.
###### Kevin Chang: [00:28:48]
Absolutely. So we kind of departed from your professional career. So we know that you had ITB syndrome and then you got back into running, winning races, winning a bunch of events. And one of the events that you won was warrior dash back in 2011, which caused a special place in our hearts because, listeners of our podcast know that warrior dash was my first ever race.
And it was Coach B's first ever race back in probably that 2010, 2011 timeframe. So we remember that race fondly. We remember it really ushering in people that were new to the sport had never really thought about, doing runs or races because it brought that element of fun to the events.
##### The Warrior Dash [00:29:32]
Talk to us about your warrior dash experience and winning your dash in Maryland. Was it your first obstacle course race? Have you done OCR since then?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:29:41]
So 2012, Maryland warrior dash. It was my first and only obstacle course race actually. You know, ever. And I went with my wife, I went with my buddy and his girlfriend at the time.
And, uh, we were just like, Hey, let's do this silly mud run. You know, let's, let's go have some fun. And, you know, I was in really good 5k shape, which is, I think the shape you've got to be in to be good at an OCR, especially the short course ones. And this was only a three mile race. And I had no intention of running it hard or anything like that, you know, but within 50 meters or a hundred meters, I was in like third place in my heat.
And, you know, I started getting a little competitive after there and I was like, all right, I'm definitely winning this heat. I'm going to take down these guys and I'm going to, I'm going to crush it right now. Now full disclosure. I did end up inadvertently skipping two of the obstacles, you know .
I finished and they were like, Oh, did you like that one we had a slide down the Hill on your butt. And I'm like, I never know. I don't know where I was. Of course, you know, I, I think I've just ran down the Hill instead of sliding down on my butt, full disclosure aside. Uh, I did end up, I think winning, I won my heat, but then I also had the fastest time out of the two days by about a minute or so.
Wow. So I, I do think if I had done all the obstacles, rather, I wouldn't have been so far ahead, but the next time, if there ever is next time, I'll definitely try to get in the faster heat. I think it's like the first or second one of the day on the first day. Because that'll give you a better opportunity to have competition.
And hopefully if you're around more people, you won't run around an obstacle and just completely miss it. I must've been in the zone. I was just in like RaceMob
###### Kevin Chang: [00:31:26]
it was competitive juices start flowing. I was going to say. Yeah, we'll invite you to go into a Spartan race with us sometime, but, uh, I think you would probably leave us in the dust. You'd just... right out there stuck in wind, trying to catch up with you.
##### Moving to Colorado [00:31:39]
Talk to us, I guess, about moving back to Colorado. And . When did you end up moving back there?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:31:45]
So I didn't move back here. We just kind of decided Colorado was a cool state and we wanted to live here. So we packed up from silver spring, Maryland in 2014 and came out here to Colorado. And a big reason was because the running scene Chang here in Denver and, and a little bit further North in Boulder. Great. And I've been able to meet some people runners and do some different, you know, events around, you know, the Denver, Boulder area that.
Yeah, it's just great to be so close to the endurance space. So it wasn't yeah. Moving back anywhere. We did a little bit of a trial run where we came and visited or a couple of weeks and stayed in a few Airbnbs and really loved the city. So we decided to make the move and.
It was ultimately a decision based on the fact that, you know, I, I thought being near the running community here would be good for Strength Running. And I think it has been, and I also just really want it to be near the mountains. I thought that would be really fun.
And we realized that, you know, Strength Running is a completely mobile virtual business. So I'm not really tied to any one location. So, you know, uh, DC was really nice and we liked living there, but, you know, I think it was not the place where we wanted to raise a family. And we're excited that we're here.
##### Talking about Strength Running
###### Kevin Chang: [00:32:57]
Talk to us, , about Strength Running. , when you started it, you mentioned that it was completely virtual, completely online. So did you kind of build a website from scratch have clients , how did you navigate kind of that virtual environment with your clients?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:33:11]
Yeah, thats a good question. I started strength training initially in 2009 as just a static website. There's no blog. There was no, just a couple of pages. And nobody really visited it. And, uh, I didn't just start coaching people out of the blue, like I thought I would. If you build it, they will not come.
And I realized that if I wanted to get traffic to the site, I really needed to start a blog. And so that's what I did in 2010. It was maybe, you know, six months later, nine months later that I was like, I'm going to write a blog.
And I never really intended to be a blogger. I don't really consider myself a blogger, but, uh, yeah, back in the early days, you know, I was really focused on creating two pieces of content a week to be published on the blog. Uh, I tried to make it more actionable and specific and practical for runners that they could actually take something away from it and incorporate it into their running to implement right away.
And, you know, I started getting a little bit more active on some social media channels, but I didn't really have a grand plan or anything. I was just making it up as I went along. You know, and then I didn't start the podcast until 2016. So it's been kind of a slow journey over the last decade, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
You know, it's been a kind of a great adventure for the last decade.
###### Kevin Chang: [00:34:30]
Absolutely. Yeah. And now your blog is one of the most visited, , running blogs out there on the internet. And. Your podcasts. Obviously we talked about it being number one or number two ranked, , running podcasts.
##### The Start of the Podcast
So talk to us, , about the start of the podcast , and who were the initial guests and how did you get it going, and , how did you start growing that podcast?
###### Jason Fitzgerald: [00:34:50]
Yeah, I didn't start the podcast until I think it was right around November 1st or the very end of October in 2016. So it was a couple of years ago.
And I didn't take the podcast as seriously as I took the blog for a little while, you know, I was recording maybe two or three episodes at a time. And, you know, I was pretty fortunate that my first two guests on the podcast were Nick Simmons and Shalane Flanagan.
So I had some pretty good off the podcast and, you know, I've had some amazing guests since then, but you know, I've learned that, you know, it's not the amazing guests that build your podcast.
It's the consistency of you publishing. Its building a relationship with your audience. It's trying to create material that is going to help them in some way. So I'm always trying to think about what part of this conversation is, is, uh, applicable to my audience. How can we take this high level theory or this great idea and really make it work for you and make it work for any runner?
You know, whether that's. Someone who's just started or someone who's trying to break three in the marathon, no matter what your goal is, but yeah, the podcast has been amazing. And right now it's actually one of the things I'm most excited about because I just get to connect with so many people that I never would have otherwise.
And I think it's one of the things that's kept me sane during the pandemic over the last year. Because you know, I work from home. My kids are actually all in school. They're not doing any distance learning. And my wife is a teacher at a private school that never went remote. So I would just be alone by myself all day long with no one to talk to if I didn't have a podcast.
###### Kevin Chang: [00:36:31]
If you like our podcast and sign up for our newsletter, where we give you weekly tips on how to run your best race and have fun in the process, just go to RaceMob dot com and sign up today.