I love books in general, and now that I am a running coach I love running books even more. After getting my certification, I knew I wanted to delve even deeper into the science behind running and also learn from other coaches the how’s and the why’s of the training programs they put together.

Even if I wasn’t a coach, the book by Matt Fitzgerald and Ben Rosario would be one that I would have read as a runner. The drills, training tid bits and “extras” are things that I have incorporated in my own running.

The chapters have names like “Plan Like a Pro”, “Pace Like a Pro” and “Recover Like a Pro”. There are also training plans in there from the 5k to the marathon. Most of the plans use minutes instead of miles, which I still have not gotten myself to do. I like mileage!

The point of the time based workouts instead of distance is that our bodies react to the stress placed on them based on the time spent. I understand that, but it still helps my brain to tell my body to go a certain number of miles instead of a certain length of time.

If you coach a large group of people, like those in RRCA running clubs, you can use timed runs instead of miles for all your pace groups since they will end together no matter the pace. I’ve seen a lot of coaches struggle with how to set these group runs up. There is the dilemma of wanting the group to finish at the same time, but if you are having everyone run 6 miles…the finish time will be vastly different. Timed runs (run 60 minutes) means that whether you ran 3, 6 or 10 miles the group is all done at the same time and can then hang out.

For my own running, I like time based runs when I’m not training for something. That I can do. While training for a specific race though, I like miles.

There are drills, foam rolling exercises for recovery and fueling tips.

If you run and you want a sneak peek into how the elites structure their training and you’d like to give pro training a try (or just SOME of what they do) then I would recommend this book.

I’ve incorporated some of what I learned into my own training, and have also used some of the aspects with the clients that I coach.

One of the concepts that is brought up is the 7 hour standard. That is what they suggest as your weekly goal for running time to be competitive. I did find when I slowly upped how long I was running per week, I was PR’ing all my races.

When I started from where I was after a long break in training for specific races because of Covid, I was running around 4-5 hours a week. I added mileage every week to get half an hour more (approximately, since it was mileage I was using and not strictly time). Eventually, I was hitting 7 hours and more a week of running. This helped immensely when I started marathon training!

Reading books about running may seem like a weird thing if you haven’t done it yet, but it can be VERY rewarding. You not only gain knowledge, but you are also more than likely to see improvements in your running as well.