I think for trail runners as well, we feel like we're not accomplishing anything

physiologically if we don't push ourselves just a little bit. We always just

want to be hurting so bad and what the pros are really good at is being

comfortably uncomfortable. I think amateur's want to be completely uncomfortable,

but you can do more work if you're comfortably uncomfortable. You are improving

when you're comfortably uncomfortable. You are improving when you're running easy. [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Today we're bringing back one of our favorite conversations with Coach Ben Rosario, head coach of the Hoka NAS Elite Team, down in Arizona. We learned a ton from Coach Ben in this episode, and it's packed with insights that remind us that there are many ways to improve our running without actually running. We hope you enjoy this encore presentation from Coach Ben Rosario. We've been supported by John G for a few years now, and there's a reason why John G. Loves Trailrunners and the design gear are tribe actually loves to wear. If it's been a while since you've visited JohnG.com, take another look because they're always rolling out fresh prints and innovative gear. Their new fall collection just dropped and it's worth checking out. Now I've been traveling a lot for work lately and my go-to bags are the Revy Pack and I pair that with the multi-pass mini. It's durable, functional, they're great for travel. That's the John G. Diffrance, founded by Runners. They make fun gear that performs and lasts. And here's the best part, John G. Diffus gives every purchase and all John G collective membership fees go directly to clean water initiatives worldwide. Plus you get free shipping on orders over $100 and free exchanges. So check out John G dot com today. And as a bonus for listening to TRN, you can get 10% off your order by using the code TrailRunner. When you've been around trail running long enough, you learn two things. Not all energy bars are created equal and you can't fake good fuel. That's why Don and I reach for Jam Bar. It's created by Jennifer Maxwell, the same runner nutritionist who co-founded Power Bar back in the 80s. She's also one of us. She loves trail running. She came back to the category with something better. Bar's made from ancient and gluten-free grains, natural sweeteners, dried fruit, or premium chocolate, and clean protein. And they're tough too. Jam bars don't melt, they don't crumble or freeze, which makes them perfect for long days on the trail. Even better, half of Jam bars after tax profits go to supporting sports and music programs. You can find them at your favorite grocery or running store or grab them online and here's a perk. SonerNation listeners get 20% off at jambar.com with the code TRN20. Thanks for joining another edition of TrailrunnerNation. My name is Scott War. And I'm Don Freeman. And today's topic we're talking about five things pros are doing that maybe we should too. You may think back a couple of weeks ago, we talked to Matt Fitzgerald about the book Run Like a Pro even if you're slow. And now we have the co-author that helped Matt with this in Rosario. Ben is head coach and executive director of the Hoka Northern Arizona Elite Team or the NAZ Elite. That's where you can find them at NAZ Elite.com. He's coached everyone from third graders to beginner adults to professional athletes, a world Olympic champions. And he has just a wealth of knowledge. He's a division two all-American at Truman State University and became the youngest qualifier for the 2004 Olympic trials marathon. Ben, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Matt told me that this was a really fun podcast to be on. You've come highly recommended. Right on. We'll get with our accountants in the chat. Matt. So Ben's been asked to come with five and we just learned he may have more than five. It just depends how things move along. But at home, you might keep track of some of these five.

How many are you doing and how many can you do?

If you're already doing all five, congratulations.

If you're not doing any of the five again,

congratulations because that means

you can implement those into your training regime.

So I'm looking forward to get started

and seeing if I can learn something.

One of the things that we learn talking to Matt is a lot of times we see some training plans or we hear training plans or we read in magazines about these pro athletes and the giganticly huge miles they do and the two of days and the five of days and the massive training that they do and we can get a little intimidated by that. What Matt did was pull the curtain back a little bit and said, you know what, there's a lot of stuff the pros are doing that if we incorporate and when I say we, us recreational runners, when we can pull back, we can use some of their strategies and actually attain a higher potential than what we would do if we were just to go out and run the same pace, same miles, same trail, same everything.

So Ben, when you're coaching someone that is just a recreational runner, what is the main thing that you like to improve with their training? Well, I think that I want to figure out what their goals are first.

What do they want to accomplish?

And let's just assume or imagine that their number one goal is just simply to improve. And I say that because it sounds simple, but it really should be everybody's goal. It's just to improve. I mean, the pros at the most basic level, that's what they're trying to do is improve. And I think what you said a second ago about getting intimidated by some of the big sexy things that the pros do 100 mile weeks or some of the really fast paces they do in training, I think sometimes we amateurs use that as a cop-out to just dismiss everything and say, well, we could never do what they do. That's a whole different thing.

But the reason I think that's a cop out is, look, if they're trying to improve and you're trying to improve, well already, that's a pretty big commonality. So there must be some overlap, some things that we can learn from them, some things that they're doing to improve that we could also do. And yeah, let's forget about the big sexy numbers. Let's talk about the non-sexy stuff, right?

Let's talk about nutrition.

Let's talk about sleep.

Let's talk about the non-sexy stuff, right? Let's talk about nutrition. You know, let's talk about sleep. Let's talk about recovery. Things like that, because if you're dismissing those things, I think you're doing yourself a disservice because those sorts of things are actually vital to the improvement of pros, and they can be vital to your improvement. I'm happy to start with any of those if you're interested in one of those particular topics. Yeah, let's jump into one of those. I'm interested in the one that you're thinking about first. How's that? And what I'm hearing is we can even become better runners without even putting on our shoes. There's some things around running that we can do to become better.

Let's start with one of those. I purposely started with those because I don't care how talented you are. You can do better about sleep. I'll start with sleep. Sleep is when the body recovers. Sleep is when the body adapts, absorbs, I should say, all the training that you've doing. And without it, we cannot get the most out of ourselves. And without it, we're not taking advantage of the running that we're doing basically. And the way I describe sleep to the amateur runner, to the pro runner, to anybody is first getting us all on the same page. Let's admit that sleep is good. Okay, if we can admit that, if we can acknowledge that, we're all on the same page there, then you start saying, okay, well, can I do better with sleep? And how can I do better? Well, right off the top, I always encourage people to examine their nighttime routine. And if your nighttime routine involves the last hour of your evening, hour and a half, two hours of your evening is scrolling on your phone or watching garbage television or reality television, whatever, I would advise you or I would encourage you to see if you can cut that down. Because a lot of that is really unnecessary and in fact can hurt your sleep because it's not recommended to have so much screen time right before bed anyway. So if you're someone who stays up to 11 p.m. let's say and that last hour and a half is stuff that you don't really need in your life. See if you can cut it back to 9.30. Can you imagine? Can you imagine an extra hour and a half of sleep every single night?

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