on the run ... with sara hall

Happy girl after a pain-free run on my favorite Mammoth trail- Horseshoe Lake, 10,000 ft. elev. #Huff #Puff

A photo posted by Sara Hall (@sarahall3) on Jul 27, 2013 at 11:34am PDT

what's it like being married to one of america's greatest distance runners?

you could ask ryan hall that question.

sara hall is in every way an elite athlete, having won a Pan Am gold medal in the 3000m steeplechase in 2011, twice been a member of both the US world cross-country championships team and world indoor track and field championships team, posted a 4th place finish at the 2015 half-marathon championships and most recently crossed the line as the second place finisher at the 2015 falmouth road race outduelling such notable runners as amy cragg, neely gracey and tara erdmann.  2015 also marked sara's first foray into the marathon distance, competing in the LA marathon along with her husband ryan.

while running is a hallmark (pun intended) of her life and career, sara is also most active in the hall steps foundation, a charitable organization she and ryan founded to help alleviate the impact of global poverty through promotion and provision of better health.

. . . . .

1.  In preparation for the 2015 LA Marathon you spent some time training with Ryan (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmq8uKhq0pc) - what were some of the most notable tips and tricks that you picked up from his marathon preparation/insights?

(a) Easy days easy, hard days hard

(b) Start fast and stay aggressive

(c) Listen to your body

(d) Appendix is good? Good!

(e) Other

SH:   'C' - this is something Ryan always encourages me to do. In this buildup the training felt much easier and I responded to the high volume much better than expected so it allowed me to be more aggressive.  Even though the race was disastrous, I don't see that being a result of my preparation but more the course and day I faced.

2.   The work that you are spearheading through the Hall Steps Foundation makes your life direction much bigger than just your running goals. How are these two facets of your life connected?

(a) Both are an expression of faith and an act of worship

(b) Elite athletes should use whatever platform is available to them to effect positive change in the world

(c) I've gotta have something to keep me busy after my running career winds down!

(d) All of the above

(e) None of the above / Other

SH:   'A' - definitely. I try to have my entire life be ministry and worship unto the Lord.  My compassion for people who live in extreme poverty comes from God's love living in me.  My passion for running is also something He created me with and I believe He delights in seeing me use these gifts He's given me.

3.   You've experienced success in a variety of events, from winning the US National Road Mile Championships, to steeplechasing to taking the 2012 American title at the US Cross Country championships. What's left on the bucket list for Sara Hall?

(a) Ironman, baby!

(b) Taking to the trails in something like the Western States 100

(c) Still have sights set on the US Olympic Marathon Trials

(d) Stepping into a coaching career

(e) Other

SH:  'C' - I'm planning to race a marathon this fall to get a feel for the event since I didn't feel like I really got a sense of it in LA.  After that, I'll decide if the marathon trials will provide a viable option to making a team.  If not, I'll focus on the track trials!

4.  There must be some rather unique dynamics in terms of your training situation - while you don't run with a team, you're married to a world-class competitor (who espouses faith-based coaching) and are being coached by Steve Magness (author of The Science of Running). How do you integrate all of these pieces together?

(a) They just all seem to converge on the same principles

(b) Steve is my guy - although he's distracted by the Nike Oregon Project exposé right now

(c) Ryan's approach inspires me

(d) I pretend to listen, but in my head I'm thinking about what recipes I want to try next

(e) None of the above / Other

SH:  'C' - it's been great to be working with Steve the last 3 years, and now that I'm starting to run marathons, it has been kind of a collaboration between him and Ryan and I, especially when I am in a season of marathon training.   Ryan is the one who creates a framework for my main marathon workouts.  Steve is the constant through the different seasons whereas Ryan takes a more active role when I'm doing marathon work.  And he's the one with me on a day to day basis to really process the training - I'm a verbal processor!  Working from afar it really is up to me to tweak things based on how my body is feeling and communicate what I feel I need.

*** for more on sara and the journeys that she is taking on her own and with ryan, visit their website http://ryanandsarahall.com/. many thanks to sara for taking time from her busy schedule to connect with all of us at The Rendezvoo Point!

on the run ... with sara hall

how (s)low can you go?

"i am both poles and the equator, with no temperate zones in-between."  ~ e.k. hornbeck in inherit the wind

coaches and good training plans all mark out various types of runs that you can and should complete in preparation for a race.  terms like "aerobic", "tempo", "long run", "race pace", "fartlek", "intervals", "recovery", "hill work" and others usually help to describe variations in duration, intensity and sometimes terrain that contribute to improved conditioning.  while this may all come across as elitist jargon or technical mumbo-jumbo, one of the important takeaways is that for a runner who is focused on making real gains there has to be attention given to specific types of training.

like many runners, my ego has gotten in the way of properly strategizing my training runs and for too many training cycles i believe i've fallen into the trap of running mainly in the mediocre (or medium effort) zone instead of making 75-80% of my runs easy and the remainder medium-hard to hard.  every easy run that i took i felt like i was losing ground - or at least speed - and convinced myself ever-so-subtly that i needed to push it just a bit faster.  i figured that if somehow i could increase my baseline speed for an easy run to something faster, then that would naturally make my hard runs even more impressive.

as logical as that may (or may not) sound to you, i should have paid attention to the fact that even the best runners in the world know the importance of taking it really easy on their easy runs.  i recall reading sara hall's blog entries while training in kenya about just how slow these kenyan running machines take their runs - a pace that would even seem über-relaxed to a hack like me!

the main idea is to log your easy miles easy so that when it comes to logging the hard workouts you can really put forth a high-investment effort.  when the easy runs drift toward the faster side, your body's fatigue levels can act like a magnet and pull your hard runs toward the slower side, reducing the magnitude of super-compensation. 

there are all sorts of good articles out there about the 'hard-easy principle' of training, and two that i found interesting are here and here.  there's also a very good article that addresses how to fine tune the spectrum of training runs here.

so how easy do you take it on your easy runs?  for me right now it's about 5:45-6:00/km, and that's counterbalanced with race pace runs at 4:27/km and speed intervals at around 3:40-3:45/km.  would love to hear back from you!

how (s)low can you go?