Episode 547: Underrated!

·1 hr 5 min·5 clips

Kirk DeWitt reveals how poison ivy on his genitals tells a story of a woodland bathroom break gone wrong.

The episode begins with personal updates, including Kirk DeWitt's struggle with poison ivy and Bracken Crocker's recovery from training soreness. The hosts then transition to the main topic: underrated components of running. Bracken argues that the paid version of Strava is a highly underrated tool for tracking fitness and making training decisions based on objective metrics like relative effort. Kirk discusses the underrated value of progressive, detailed training plans for long-term development, emphasizing the need to intentionally modulate volume, intensity, or frequency over time. Kirk highlights running with people as an underrated performance enhancer, claiming it can improve output by 4-7% and reduce mental fatigue. Bracken counters that finding the right shoe for your individual stride is more important than following popular rankings, using the Nike Vaporfly as an example of a shoe that doesn't work for him despite its reputation. Kirk adds that high-stack super shoes are underrated for their durability and injury-prevention benefits, though Bracken cautions that ill-fitting super shoes can cause injuries. Bracken identifies downhill running as a critically underrated training element, especially for preparing for races with descents, noting that many runners are unprepared for the eccentric damage. The episode ends with Bracken recommending 60-100 meter strides as an underrated hack for improving running efficiency at all speeds.

As heard by us

A grounded case for letting repeatable workouts do more of the training work.

This single-episode review follows Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWitt as they turn a plain coaching idea into useful training judgment: a runner can make real progress by repeating a session long enough for the work to change.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a steadier way to progress without turning every week into a fresh training experiment.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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