Final Surge Podcast

Welcome to episode 145 of the Final Surge Podcast. Today we welcome hall of fame sprint coach Tony Holler. Tony is an extremely popular coach known for his program Feed The Cats. He has been coaching for close to 40 years and we talk to Tony about how what he does with sprinters can translate to the endurance world. 1:00 How did Tony get started in track 4:08 What was your background in track before you became the head coach in 1990? 5:28 Where did that drive to change the program and learn come from? 7:58 Do you find that writing so much makes you examine closer the way you think and why you think them? 9:28 What can an endurance athlete or coach learn from your system Feed The Cats? 12:58 You say the faster your top-end speed, the faster your sub-max speed is, how does that work? 15:45 John O'Malley is also the only coach two have two different individuals win Footlocker 16:38 If a miler works on top-end speed, how is that helping with his mile time, is it biomechanical, neural, combination or what is impac

Welcome to episode 144 of the Final Surge podcast. We welcome back the founder of the Boulder Running Clinics Jay Johnson to talk about his clinics and the state of high school distance running. What are the most successful programs doing and how are people incorporating things like speed more into their programs. I have been to several coaching clinics and I can say without a doubt that Jay's Boulder Clinic is the most informative and useful one I have ever been too. Enjoy this episode and if you attend the clinic in January come to say hi to me.    1:40 Intro to Boulder Running Clinics 4:03 You have been around the high school running scene for around 20 years now. It has changed a lot. What has been the biggest change you have seen? 8:02 You can have coaches sharing ideas and talking to each other but if they are doing different things how do you know what to implement.  17:33 One probably is you need to look at the whole system not just workouts because the system works as a whole.  25:55 Clinic is Jan 17

Episode 143: Dathan Ritzenhein joins us to talk about the recent Chicago and NYC Marathons. Along with his own running, he is also coaching and his athletes include Olympic hopeful Parker Stinson. We talk Olympic marathon trials and shoe tech.  1:00 What happened so you needed to pull out of the Chicago Marathon? 4:28 We have 11 men under the A Standard now so it is harder than ever to make the team 5:01 Will the trials be your next race? 6:23 You are now coaching Parker Stinson who has the A Standard 7:47 Parker's first marathon he went out hard and blew up in historic fashion, this race was a perfect split 9:57 When did you and Parker start working together? 11:36 Was racing strategy the first thing you guys talked about? 13:50 There were 4 Americans all running within 20 seconds of each other 15:12 We are seeing crazy times being put up, how much do you attribute that to the shoes? 17:40 Is there any concern with you that the technology is getting too advanced? 19:44 Even if you could limit them in races,

Episode 142: This week we welcome Mario Fraioli to the podcast we talk about the recent Chicago and NYC marathons, the sub 1:59 marathon and what this all tells us about the upcoming Olympic Trials. We also discuss the shoes. How much do they help and what should be the limits. Please share the podcast with your friends. 1:08 Were there any big surprises or take-a-ways you had from the NYC marathon results? 2:59 Desi went out early, did that surprise you? 5:50 How did your NYC Marathon go? 6:15 Chicago on the men's side we had 10 under 2:12 7:54 Jared Ward had a great NYC race too 8:32 On the women's side of Chicago do you think that 2:14 was real? 10:47 We have so many distance runners getting popped for drugs, you almost need to ask yourself why they are still doing it 12:39 What did you think of the 1:59 marathon? 17:24 Looking at the US Trials we have twice as many men and women qualified, why? Is it because of the shoes? 19:55 The new shoes, how much do they make a difference? 23:20 Is there an advantage

Welcome to episode 141 of the Final Surge Podcast where today we welcome marathon and ultra runner Brad Lindeberg. We talk to Brad about his quest for 50 marathon or longer races in 50 states and how having a personal coach has helped him achieve new goals.    1:17 How you got started in running? 3:01 How was your high school cross country career? 5:08 Did you keep running after high school? 6:30 Did that 2010 marathon go much better than  2001? 7:20 At what point did you decide you wanted to pursue that goal of running 50 marathons in 50 states? 9:51 At what point did you decide to hire Neely as a coach? 13:30 You are running NYC this weekend, does that mean you got that sub 2:55 marathon? 15:23 How has that personal coaching helped you? 17:12 What is a big take away you have learned from Neely as a coach? 20:11 Is a lot of the communication going on in Final Surge? 22:40 How has your training block for NYC been going? 24:35 Has there been anything different in this training block? 27:02 Has she given you an

Welcome to episode 140 of the Final Surge Podcast. Corcoran High in California has a very successful running program. Coach Isaias Ramirez is the unlikely leader of the program. With no running background, Coach Ramirez leaned on other coaches to help develop his winning philosophy. In the last year, he has implemented something he learned at a clinic called RPR, Reflexive Performance Reset. He credits RPR for taking a successful program and making it even better and reducing injuries to almost nothing. We discuss what RPR is and how he uses it.    1:20 How did you get involved in running? 3:15 How long you been coaching now? 3:34 You were a lineman in football then a football coach and then became a cross country coach. Did your background in football help or how did you learn how to have so much success? 5:47 What was the philosophy you adopted for your program? 8:10 You start learning to develop your plan, what was your progression like? 9:54 What does a typical week look like for you? 11:18 CV, hill sprin

This is a best of episode. Tom Schwartz joined us to talk about skills, hills and keeping the ball rolling. 

Episode 139: Today we welcome back triathlon coach Mark Sortino to the podcast. Mark joined us on Episode 39 and now he joins us again 100 episodes later. Mark runs Team MPI and we talk to him about his coaching organization, some coaching continuing education sessions that he has coming up and what to expect at Kona 2019. 1:10 Tell is who you are and what you do in 2 minutes. For a more full bio listen to episode 39. 3:07 How many coaches are Team MPI up to? 3:40 With your 15 coaches are they full time or part-time and this is something they do on the side? 5:04 How many coaches are each coach working with and how do you match the athlete to the best coach? 6:58 How individualized is each plan if you have a coach working with 20 athletes. 8:22 What is the Team MPI system look like? 10:25 How do you work on a swim stroke or run gate for someone you are working with online? 13:52 Do you have people video themselves doing strides or such? 15:09 What type of education process do your Team MPI coaches go through?

Episode 138: Jason Fitzgerald of Strength Running. Jason has been blogging and creating online courses for about a decade. Jason has a new program out called Running Smarter, Runner Stronger. This program is 17 chapters of high-quality video to make you a better runner. Check out Jason's program and if want to train with a purpose head over to FinalSurge.com for your free account, now onto the show.  1:33 How Strength Running Started 4:45 You have been doing this for a decade now, but when I saw your new trailer I knew this was next level stuff 6:25 Who is this new course designed for? 9:00 We expect strength training and injury prevention content from you, but this is so much more, does this take place of a coach? 10:50 One of the things you talk about is overstriding, in this video series what is the structure of the advice they would get? 15:25 One thing you hear often is you don't want to change form too quickly in their running for. What are some of the things you work on to do this? 18:50 Overstriding v

Episode 137: Brad Curtis is the cross country coach of a small school in Arizona. Their boy's team this year is a top ten school in the state, not bad for a school of only 200 kids with only 12 boys on the team. We talk to Brad about the struggles of being a coach from such a small school and how he has built a strong culture.   1:10 When did you start in running? 2:08 His background in boxing and how far the boxing career went 4:02 How did that lead to being a cross country and track coach? 4:59 How old is the school and how big is it? 4:58 You are competing in a state where some schools have 3-4,000 kids 6:23 Small school makes it tough in what way? 7:52 How many kids are on the high school team? 8:15 When you took over the program from Josh how big was the team at the time? 9:00 When your team is not big and not competitive how do you entice kids to come out and get involved? 10:50 How big is your middle school program? 11:38 Are you losing them because you are a small school without the resources or facil

Episode 136: Reed Fischer of the Tinman Elite Group has had quite a year. He has set a PR in everything from the 5k to the half marathon and just came in 5th in the 20k National Championship. This is quite an accomplishment for someone who didn't break 23 minutes in a 5k his freshman season or 5 minutes in a mile until he was a sophomore in high school. We talk to Reed about his growth and about the success of his team.      1:15 How did you get started in running? 4:20 When you were a freshman/sophomore what type of times were you running? 6:50 Where was it that you made your biggest change that set you on this path? 9:53 You had a steady progression after that, when was it you realized that college running may be a possibility?  12:14 Did you think you had a shot at making the team at Drake? 14:21 Who started working with Tom first you or Brogan? 15:45 How did you end up teaming up with Tinmen? 18:31 Most of you are not the NCAA Champions but you have tremendous success as a team and competing for national

Episode 135: We welcome Dr Jason Karp who has been a competitive runner since sixth grade. Dr. Karp is also a coach and the bestselling author of 8 books and over 400 articles. We talk about several issues including cardio, mental health benefits fo running and the importance of coaches and athletes knowing about the Female Athlete Triad. 1:10 Background on how he got started getting interested in running 2:29 Did you become interested because you had success? 3:40 In high school did you continue sprinting or did you move up in distance? 5:08 In high school did you know you wanted to take this career path? 6:50 Where did you decide to go to school? 11:33 Was your intention to keep coaching after this process? 11:58 What level of coaching are you doing right now? 12:44 You are a big supporter of running while not all exercise trainers are a believer in cardio, you even wrote a book called Run Your Fat Off what do you find so beneficial about the sport? 14:05 So how do you Run Your Fat Off? 16:11 How often do y

Episode 134: Matt Baxter grew up running in New Zeland. He comes over to the states to run for Coach Smith and the NAU Lumberjacks and helped lead the team to 3 straight Cross Country titles. We talked about the mental game of not always having your best race and his transition to running as a professional for NAZ Elite. 1:15 How did you get started running in New Zeland? 1:51 what is high school running like in New Zeland high schools? 3:02 When did you make the transition to coming to the United States to run for NAU? 3:22 What was it like coming to Flagstaff and running at elevation? 4:40 Why did you decide to come to the States? 5:53 3 years and 3 national titles, was there one that was more special? 7:15 In 2017 you were second overall at Cross, but then at Indoors you didn't even qualify for nationals in the 5k, what happened? 10:05 When you are a high school runner you can have a bad race and still win a race, but when you are running at a high level it is different, what is it like mentally to get use

In episode 133 we have a great show for you. Did you watch the USATF's? Did you see the men's 5k? I thought it was absolutely one of the most entertaining 5k races I have ever seen. Over the course of that race I went from thinking what is Woody Kincaid doing up there, to thinking Woody Kincaid is done to saying wow, what a gutsy race by Kincaid. I became a fan. We talked to Woody about the race, what he was thinking and how he feels about being top 3 but not getting a spot on the World's team. This was a great episode and I hope you enjoy it and share it. 1:30 How did you get started in running? 2:08 What was it about running that drew you in? 2:44 Did you have early success? 3:10 At what point did you realize you wanted to do it in college? 4:02 Did a lot of colleges have interest? 5:00 Did the option come from Colorado to run there? 5:35 When did you decide you wanted to run professionally? 6:35 What did you learn from going to Kenya? 8:00 Did Rob Conner introduce you to Jerry or how did that relationship

In Episode 132 of the Final Surge Podcast, we welcome Olympics Trials qualifier and 50 mile US Trail Champ Dani to the podcast. Dani currently also coaches for Luke Humphry and the Hanson running team. She recently had a fundraising run for domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy which we talk about. 1:15 How Dani got started in running and as a multi-sport athlete 2:05 Were you playing club softball? 2:20 What was it about track that drew you in? 4:00 Do you remember what type of times you ran for the mile in middle school and high school? 4:55 You had success as a middle school miler, did you play both softball and run in high school? 5:50 Once in high school did you always want to run in college? 7:32 What was your running career like as a professional runner? 8:55 2017 US 50-mile Trail Champ, what was that like doubling the marathon distance? 11:20 How did you get started coaching? 13:20 What is the similarity in coaching at all levels from MS-Adults? 14:40 Let's talk about middle school coaching, y

Dr. Jeff Messer is one of the most successful high school coaches of the 21st Century. He has won more state cross country titles than not including winning the 2016 National Coach of the Year. In 12 years he was involved in coaching 11 State Championship teams. Jeff is also the head of the exercise science department at Mesa Community College. We have a great discussion on building a team, what your goals should really be and how important things like sleep and nutrition are to a successful high-level athlete.  :45 Background as a runner  1:52 You stay on top of all the latest science, what came first the love for that or the love for coaching? 2:52 Coaches may be looking at a research paper how do we know if the research paper is actually a good paper and good research? 4:15 What is your success in cross country as a coach? 5:15 For a high school coach who doesn't your science background, how can they become better educated? 6:18 Some coaches know the science and can explain everything. Some don't know the

Welcome to episode 130 of the Final Surge Podcast where we welcome Jeff Taylor. Jeff has been coaching youth runners for close to 30 years and in the last year has launched a non-profit organization called Kids Love to Run. We talk about the organization and the challenges of getting youth engaged with distance running. :55 How he got running in middle school with the 800m  2:12 Was there an influence in your youth that got you to love to run as a youngster? 3:45 Where did the passion for coaching start? 5:39 It is one thing for a coach to say 'never again' but how did you get the kids to buy-in? 10:03 Sara Hall tweeted that kids can run a lot of miles in high school, what do you think about high miles? 12:27 How did your organization Kids Love To Run get started? 14:16 how big are your events? 15:08 How do you change things up for a 7-8-year-old runner to make it fun for them? 16:35 Are they all from your school or is it open to other schools? 17:04 Do you encourage the kids to do AAU/USATF meets? 17:54 How

Episode 129: Today Stryd Power Meter employee Evan Schwartz joins us to talk about the new and updated Stryd Power Meter. The power meter is just one tool that many people are turning to for help in their training and racing. Today Evan joins us to talk about the new wind reading on the Stryd and other changes such as the automatic critical power reading.  1:30 How did you end up in Boulder Colorado working for Stryd 4:15 What is your role at Stryd 5:45 Stryd Power Podcast 7:12 What is a power meter? 10:03 How does a little device on my shoe measure my effort? 11:57 How do external things such as wind effect power? 15:18 How is a pod on the foot sensing the wind? 19:12 If it is measuring my effort was wind something that needed to be measured? 23:18 DC Rainmaker has been a skeptic of power, but he put your device through the tunnel and it was amazing how accurate those wind numbers were.  27:20 When will it be out? 28:24 Is the wind update the only update? 32:18 Are you finding any teams are adapting power? 3

Episode 128: Lawrence Avery did not start running until he was 30 years old. Almost a decade later he is running sub 2:30, has a successful coaching business and splits his time between his home UK and Kenya. We discuss what inspired him to get running, how an injury lead to his passion for coaching and what he has learned spending that time in Kenya.   :40 Got into running much later, not until he was 30 3:10 When you decided you wanted to run a marathon, how did that training go? 4:35 Were the 5ks the only racing you did in your marathon build up? 5:03 How many people show up for free 5ks in the park? 6:18 So is the running scene really healthy in the UK? 7:50 How big of an impact has Mo had on the running scene? 8:25 Was there anything that drew you towards the sport to start competing? 9:10 When did you go to Kenya to train? 9:46 What have you learned from your time there? 12:03 You picture everyone in Kenya running, is it that way, or it is it the ones who do run just have a lot of success? 12:44 How has

This is a best of episode. Dr Jay Dicharry joined us to talk about running rewired. Are we born to run or is it a learned skill. Dr Dicharry talks about that and deliberate practice.