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

Road to Valencia 2025 - 2 weeks to go

·1 hr 20 min·4 clips
Jen says she thought the 60-minute progression meant she was doing it wrong and started crying at home.
1. The Physiology of Endurance Running Podcast’s "Road to Valencia 2025 - 2 weeks to go" tracks the squad’s final training block before Valencia. 2. Jen, Dave, and the rest of the squad are named as the runners on the episode, and Dave is the coach shaping Jen’s week. 3. The episode asks what the final taper week looks like when Valencia is 14 days away. 4. Jen describes a Monday double that included a 75-minute morning run and a 75-minute afternoon run around Victoria Park. 5. The hosts also mention Strava challenges, including the Wicked challenge and the HealthSpan 15% Off challenge. 6. The week’s third session is a 4x5K workout off 1K float on the cleaned mile loop in Victoria Park. 7. Jen says the goal was to match the previous 5x4K session while increasing rep length by 1K. 8. She reports splits of 17:44, 17:36, 17:37, and 17:38, with floats around 6:20 per mile. 9. Jen notes that the session used 90 grams of carbohydrate and the Met Speed Edge Tokyo shoes. 10. She says the Thursday workout left her “buzzing” and gave her confidence after weeks near 100-mile volume. 11. Dave sets up a Sunday run as 60 minutes easy followed by 60 minutes at roughly four minutes per kilometer, and Jen initially understands that as a strict pace target. 12. Jen runs the second hour alone, gets upset about possibly doing the workout wrong, and says she thought “everyone hates me now.” 13. The run ends with Jen returning home, telling Dave not to talk to her, and sitting on the sofa until he makes pancakes. 14. The episode also mentions a non-Valencia chat with Elliot Jenkins, a PhD candidate at Cardiff Met. 15. That discussion covers passive heating in a hot bath for five weeks, five times a week, and hemoglobin mass changes similar to altitude. 16. The hosts say the paper’s Figure 3 clearly shows the blood adaptations, and they recommend reading it alongside the episode. 17. The tone is conversational, with frequent interruptions, running jokes, and detailed post-run debriefs. 18. The format mixes training diary updates, coaching explanations, sponsor reads, and side discussions about research papers. 19. Listeners training for a marathon or following the Valencia build will likely get the most out of this. 20. Listeners wanting polished interviews or short summaries may skip it.
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