Stop Overcomplicating Your Running Training 

What Patrick is saying - when in doubt, do the Forrest Gump training plan. "Just felt like running" turns into "just run for feel."

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - most of us not running to qualify for the olympics or something, this advice makes a lot of sense. We're all focused on data that we forget running is a very straightforward sport, needed to hear this - thanks!

Love this. I tried heart rate, MAF training, etc. and it took the joy out of running for me. I was becoming a slave to my Garmin and walking virtually every hill as a result. I now run by perceived effort which is pretty much what you’re saying, enjoying running again and getting faster. Thank you for promoting a more natural approach to running 😊

Your story is incredible. I ran a 100k ultra this past summer and although I trained well my weekly mileage was really inconsistent. I've got another ultra in May 2024 and I've decided to bin off the training plan and make my focus consistent higher mileage and building it up over time. I always run focusing on my heart rate no matter how I feel and after watching this video feel like I may have become a bit of a slave to it. Thanks Patrick!

Love this! There is so much information online and the most important thing is to just get out there and do something!

This is one of the best running videos I’ve ever seen, because of its simplicity. Returned to it again after finding it a couple months back. Thanks a lot for putting this out there.

I love how you’re turning what is a very simple sport into simple training again. I’ve doubled my weekly mileage this last couple of months from 50k to 100k per week by just running to feel. I’ve no training plan apart from ever increasing miles. Well done Patrick. One of the more sensible running voices on this platform.

Thanks for sharing. Totally agree with your approach! Cheers!

Patrick, I love your videos. Thanks for sharing the thoughts behind your training strategy. There are many great running channels on RU-vid, but you are one of those who inspire me the most. 👍😀

Needed to hear this - thanks! 👍

Very simple approach. Love it. I've recently switched to this, running steady in a morning and easy in an afternoon. Running 80mpw, and feeling fitter week-on-week. Would be great to know more about your typical week day, balancing training/work, food consumed, etc.

I've tried to run sub 3hrs for the marathon twice and both times got so bogged down on workouts and stats and only realised after I failed I hadn't ran on feel or enjoyment at all. I was a slave to the stats on my watch. Just starting again to go sub 3hrs in spring or summer 2024 and I'm using this method. Thanks Patrick.

Very insightful ! Thank you .

I like this - strong work ethic. Consistently doing anything is the way forward... being perfect at something for a month is worse than consistent over the long term - solid

Inspiring story, thanks for sharing! Managing one's training by feel more than a pedantic plan is in my opinion something that comes with self confidence which is built over time. In the early days of a runner's journey, learning about the different frameworks, paces, workouts, and metrics can be beneficial to understand how adaptation and progress occur.

Patrick, I really appreciate you sharing your story. I feel that I have some similarities as I like to run based on how I feel and not by the pace that the running watch tells me. I have been criticized for not following the plan or a scheduled pace so I mainly run alone now. I have big plans for becoming a better and stronger runner and your story fits with my future goals.

This is the way to approach running ❤ pure wisdom. Book recommendation (tho can be hard to get hold of): "running within". Keep the good work going Patrick n i always looking forward to your videos 👏🙏

hi Patrick greetings from turkey. your training idea very effective.actually we don't need fancy training plans that is so confusing.congrulations and thank you for sharing

Thanks for sharing this, things get some complicated in the world now 😅

Well said, keep things simple

I enjoy listening to your channel it makes running fun and more accessible. I subscribed. I noticed you put a lot of mileage though .. no joke

Love it Patrick. Just run : )

Thank you great video 🎉

Another brilliant-to the point- endurance running reminder to simply Run and run well & often. Most people massively underestimate the results that come from high volume running in ones own Zone 2 & 3 (in the easy to steady range up to say 15sec above marathon pace etc). What youve shown time & time again Patrick is the continual mths of 10+ hrs a wk mostly all aerobic (slower than m.p) perhaps 90% of the time builds a tremendous Aerobic Base. Everyone wants to make 120km wks fit 40km wks...and it just doesnt work that way. Your Left Ventricle must be improving constantly too which is exciting. Have u noticed your resting pulse is now near 35-42bpm etc? The Left Atrium achieves a full filling of the chamber with runs not faster than steady so its very rewarding. Keep inspiring 🎉Cheers from Australia

Thank you for this

I came back to running over the summer after 10 years of being completely sedentary due to a chronic illness (finally in complete remission 🎉) and I did some wildly inconsistent running for August and September, but in October I buckled down and started running 5 days a week however I felt like it, only rule was one run each week had to be at least 10 miles. Last weekend I ran a 1:45:58 half marathon, my first ever half and the furthest I've ever run at once. (I am 28/F and ran XC/track in high school) I didn't follow any sort of training plan, I didn't do any core or strength training. I just ran at whatever pace felt good, it was usually in the low to mid eights per mile. Now, I am running a full marathon in April, which I've obviously never done before. I am nervous and had been thinking about the best way to approach my training. This video I feel came to me at the perfect time and it confirms that what I was already doing was probably the reason why I was able to run such a fast half marathon when a year ago my muscles were so atrophied I couldn't even sit up straight. Not to say my time is super incredible, but given the context of my illness and how little time I've been training, I think my time was actually pretty crazy. Thanks so much for this video, I think I will prep for my marathon by continuing to build mileage. I'm running about 30 miles a week right now and hope to build up to 60-70 by April!

Great advice

I just ran a half-marathon after coming back from a bad achilles injury. Towards the end of my recovery I started doing simple things like going for light walks, some squats and side leg raises to build my glutes. Then I did some bike riding for a few weeks. With only 5 weeks to go before the HM, I started doing some light running but always mindful of my injury to ensure I didn't re-injure myself. Gradually I became more confident and built up the kilometres. With limited time I focused on volume as there's no point in running a HM if I couldn't make the distance. Most of my training was done at 12k/ph. With two weeks to go, I sprinkled in some fartlek sessions - total distance 8km - 2km easy pace (12k/ph), 400m @ 12.7k/ph, 400m @ 13.4k/ph, back down to 12k/ph for 800m, and repeat 3 more times, with one final 400m at 12k/ph. With one week to go on the Sunday before the race I pushed myself to do an 18km at 12k/ph. On race day I ran the HM in 94:52. This was nowhere near my best, but with only 5 weeks of running, not too bad - an average pace of just over 13.4k/ph. Conclusion to the story. Spend most of your time training at easy pace. Sure, you need to throw in some high-intensity stuff, but volume at easy pace is most important for endurance runners.

I used to find all the directly contradictory advice from running experts who are really just relaying what worked for them personally very demotivating, until I realised they're all just trying to find their own angle to differentiate their brand. Very high mileage works for some, relatively low mileage and lots of speed work works for others, fairly high mileage and some speedwork works for most. I do agree there is a tendency for perfectionism and optimisation - ultimately as long as you're improving, staying injury free and still enjoying it, don't question what you're doing.

Good to see you back Patrick. Great video 👍 I follow you on strava, you've been banging out the miles. Have you got any goal races between now and London?

This is really good advice. But I think it’s good to have a plan, even a flexible one, so it takes the pressure of deciding every day what type of run to do, where to go, what stretches, what kit, what hydration & nutrition to carry etc.

I agree it's a simple sport really...lots of miles with a sprinkler of strides every week will get you fast....lots of bread n butter as I call it

Finally, someone who makes sense. Run how you feel and fuck all

Hi Patrick really enjoying your content, love your journey so far! Will you be able to bring out a video on running technique as I think I'm over complicating thing at the moment

This is the best advice for working out in general. Listen to your body, it will tell you what it needs.

Probably the best advice is to find what style of training works best for you. For every high mileage runner there’s a moderate mileage runner doing more intensity who swears their approach is the best. The best results for me so far has been moderate mileage with an emphasis on speed and strength. Higher mileage didn’t get me a PR.

Very inspiring video.. listen to your body and ‘just do it’.. today I set out to do 10k in about an hour (I’ve only ran 10k about 3/4 times).. set the pacer to 6:18/km just felt good so I crushed 1h and got 56:20!

well said sir - i get paralysed through over thinking

Fully agree - its all about consistent mileage. When I am doing marathon training (more miles in the week), my Parkrun times just improve and then dip down when the marathon training stops. Intervals and tempo don't do anything for me - its all mileage.

I agree 100%! 👍

First of all congratulations on your success and I really could buy into this philosophy. You do however run almost superhuman distances which would see my body at a similar age to yours simply fold (that is if I even had the time to do it). Just wondering.... I understand that you run to feel, but obviously there is more.planning involved.... Do you therefore run with a distance in mind or a time? Or is it again simply you run until you think thats enough (which happens to be crazy numbers) like I said it's all brilliant what you do and best of luck in the future

One question, where you say increase the mileage are you doing this over a block for a specific race? Or are you just increasing this week on week for as long as you can? I am inbetween races at the moment and in a bit of no mans land. Still running a good amount but not sure how much I should be doing before my next marathon block starts before London 2024, Great video as always thanks Patrick

Patrick is there any chance you could do a what I eat in a typical day nutrition video that supplements all this running I can never seem to get nutrition right what you eating? Times? How much? Calorie counting? Etc etc?

I gone disagree while i get your message and i feel like keeping it simple really helps a lot. Still it is important to have same guidelines and rules to applies. Some are personal how to structured do you like your plans and on the other hand how to make it your mileage or your lifestyle. So i would advocate to set some bundaries from time to time. How often do you run per week or per months at a maximum? What's the ratio between easy and hard workouts? How much rest is needed ?

Thanks

I’ve been saying this for yrs , stick with what you’re capable of doing but go out and do it consistently for your self - DW about what other people are doing at gym or running, focus on building ur mind and listening to ur body

I need to know every run purpose. I don't want just "junk miles" here km. Listening what body feels and needs It clears out to me when I always first just run 10-15min warmup. I can change program.

Totally agree

So true .

Just wanted to say that as a 52 year old coming back, I found adding workouts from the EIM book you recommended helped immensely to get me out of slogs I'd been doing. With basically the same mileage I ran a 10k 10 secs per mile faster than I'd run a 5k at 7 weeks earlier. Really made me cognizant we run with muscles and tendons and not just energy systems. I think steady running might have done the same, but I found this very easy to recover from and think it would be harder to recover from longer continuous efforts.

reckon if you started adding stephen scullion style gym and workouts you could compete near the top level?

I have always believed that a training plan cannot be a 'one-sized fit all' type of arrangement. It should be tailored to individual needs and strengths. I also believe that you might just be naturally gifted.

Do you remember what pace did you had when you first started 3 and a half years ago? And also what was the weekly mileage back then? Thanks a lot!😊

Wat was the time of your first ever 5k run?

moral of the story : CONCISTENCY is the key

Hi do you do much strength and conditioning training

hay maybe random question but do u feel more or less energy and vitality with how much weekly mileage u do? also has all this mileage have a positive or negative effect on libido? was their a specific weekly mileage that u felt was more conducive to general well being or has running more just made everything in ur life better ? also how many strength sessions a week do u do? will b a interesting watch if u decide to record what u do for ur gym workouts

Got to say I have to disagree with this... You can get results without " lots of mileage" by training smart ! I ran a 52 min 10 miler ) and 31 mins / 10k off around 40 miles/ week. Also 7th in the Inter Counties Cross country.... My training was 10-15 miles on a Sunday, 2 track or interval sessions / week and the rest was pretty easy running. It is not necessary to do high mileage to get results !

I have ran 2 marathons, and I used to just run every day, which was good, but when I added rest days and hill repeats to my routine, I ran 18 minutes faster than my first marathon.

I'm curious you said you've been running for 3 and a half years. What was your fitness like for what you consider your starting point. What would have been 5k or 10k times?

Patrick - it’s surely possible that you are naturally brilliant and if you followed 8020 you could run 2:05 😂

I been reading watching vids about zone 2 stuff . Complete overload and realised 99 percent of people including coaches are becoming too obsessed by it all and most dont understand it. I checked wickipedia and in the mid 1970s before the polar hr monitor came out , world marathon pace was 2hr 9min . Today its 2hrs . So since hr monitors came on the scene almost 50yrs ago ! Marathin time has improved by 9 minutes 😂. Outside of hr monitors trainers, diet , and drugs cheating has hot very sophisticated. And as u say what I noticed reading all this stuff training volume , discipline , common sense with regards to low intensity training to avoid injury still more important than hr monitors, which I have found useful though 😅

I'd say you've got more talent for distance running than you realise Patrick. If everybody could run a 1hr09 1/2M simply off running lots of miles you'd see a lot more people doing it. Whereas look at race results and you might see the winner going sub70 and that's about it.

Just saying, if you love running, just enjoy it and run how you feel that day so you enjoy it the most.

You can run in morning at 3:58 pace for 20 km and the afternoon at 4:20 pace for 10 km. At this level of course you can run 2:24 marathon. Think someone doing this 2 trainin at 5:00 pace in the morning at 5:30 pace in the afternon. Do you think that can someone run 2:24 marathon at this level?

Tomorrow I do 40 mins to see how many miles I can do with Garmin smartwatch it’s been working out for me so far

Do I need still run if I got liitle pain in my thigh?

Not everybody has the body to adopt well on those given loads of running not getting injured. Lucky you don't get injured. Easy for you to say those things. One success is not everyone's solution. To each his own.

To play devils advocate, is it possible that you were able to achieve those feats without structure due to genetics? (Not discounting your hard work). I come from a bodybuilding/strength training background and that community is also saturated with information with new studies coming out every day on how to optimize every little detail. However, there are certain lifters in the community who recommend doing the bare basics such as compound only movements when in reality their genetics have allowed them to get away with simplicity, certain non responders to training need more volume and specialisation in their training. In addition to this, I like the phrase "everything works, until it doesn't", some training methodologies simply stop working after plateaus.

What if you want to get quicker but can’t run 100 mile weeks?

I feel one of the most difficult things is nutrition to have the fuel to run long runs, 100 mile weeks etc. you ever gonna show us your diet?

What about the easy interval method? You didn't use that? Just the surges on the longer runs?

I'm curious to know what you do for a living? I'd love to have more time to be able to run, but work life can really suck the energy out of you sometimes

Run forest run.. how many miles you running per week? And how many days your rest day?

If you’re running 2.24 at 42 then you have been lucky with your genetics. But yes, you can think too much and do too little.

I assume you do strength training Patrick.

One of the Main aims of the internet is to muddy waters .

''If you were a superhuman and could run super fast every day without getting injured or fatigued'', so Kelvin Kiptum then 😂

That's all well and good for you mate. But don't try to oversimplify things either. Running is like any exercise or activity. We are all different and what works for one person does not necessarily work for another. Just because you have the time to put in crazy amount of miles at crazy pace, and at the moment at least, not be injured and you're fine, does not mean you should be preaching this to everyone as some sort of motivational way that can work for everyone. There is a science to everything because there are many different ways that may need to apply to different people for various reasons. So you can't just try to brush away years of observation and research by many people simply because you've been able to post a great time after 3.5 years of running. Bully for you but this does not make you an expert in running...

Forrest Gump tactic.

this isnt for everyone .When you are young nothing gets hurt. When you are older you need rest days