The Physiology of Endurance Running Podcast · Dan Nash and Owain Zerilli

Bonus: Training Talk - Episode 1

·1 hr 53 min·5 clips
Dan describes six-by-a-mile and 12-by-400m sessions while saying his legs still feel like 'in a bin'.
This is the start of the training-talk series, framed as a continuation of the Road to Valencia series. The hosts begin by taking stock of where they are after Valencia. They joke about whether the race was four, five, or six weeks ago, which gives the whole conversation a pleasantly dazed post-race feel. Patreon is announced early. Bonus episodes will go there every week, and physiology resources will live there too. After that, the episode settles into a loose catch-up between the three hosts. The tone stays informal. A muddy Boxing Day run gets a long stretch of attention. The route, the ground, the clothes, and the toilets all end up in the story. The mud is not a small detail. It is the kind that covers everything and makes a short run feel much bigger than it should. One runner is plainly annoyed. Another is more relaxed about the whole thing, which creates the familiar contrast the show likes. They also talk about running in Newcastle. A parkrun there becomes a useful benchmark after a stretch of recovery and reset. The expectation is not that it will feel good. The expectation is that it will feel hard and then help everything settle afterwards. There is also some route confusion. Google Maps makes the lap look bigger than it is, which is a reliable way to kill the mood. The hosts keep circling back to how the body feels after Valencia. The sense is that recovery can lag behind the calendar. That is part of why the training-talk format exists. They want to explain what they have been doing, what goals they are working towards, and the rationale behind the work. The conversation moves the way training conversations actually move. One topic leads to another, and the useful detail shows up in the detours. The end of the episode leans into the next stretch of racing and training. A cross-country race is coming up, and they say they will talk about that next week. They joke about the amount of content they have now. The Patreon launch is treated as a way to keep that going rather than as a grand reinvention. The whole episode has a back-to-training feel. It is less about theory for its own sake and more about how running fits into weather, logistics, body state, and mood. The physiology is still there. It just comes wrapped in jokes, mud, and a lot of practical runner talk.

As heard by us

A lived-in training catch-up that starts a new Patreon-backed series and keeps the Valencia thread moving.

This episode opens a new training talk series while carrying on the Road to Valencia thread. Owen and Jen look back at what they have done since Valencia, the goals they are chasing, and why the training has unfolded the way it has.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a post-Valencia catch-up that still sounds like real training.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
Listen to the show on