Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
Today’s episode is called “Run Faster Without Getting Fitter: The Truth About Running Economy.” Most runners think getting faster means building a bigger engine—more miles, harder workouts, better …
Continue Reading about 321. Run Faster Without Getting Fitter: The Truth About Running Economy →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there and welcome to episode 321 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today run faster without getting fitter the truth about running economy. So most runners think that getting faster means getting fitter, building a bigger engine, more miles, harder workouts, better VO two max.
And while that stuff does matter, it’s not the whole story. There’s something else that might be even more important. A lot of people are missing, and that is running economy. It’s one of the most overlooked performance variables out there. But improving it can mean running faster at the exact same fitness level.
Same heart rate, same oxygen use, same engine, just less wasted energy. So in this episode, I’m breaking down what running economy actually is, why most runners misunderstand it, and how improving it can change everything from your pace to your endurance, to how hard running feels for you. And if you want running to feel smoother, easier, and stronger without piling on more training.
This episode is for you. But first, let me be direct with you. If running feels harder than it should if you’re putting in the work, but not seeing the payoff. If you finish long runs, feeling wrecked instead of strong. If you’re training consistently, but your pace hasn’t improved in months, it’s not a motivation problem.
It’s not a grit problem. It’s usually a structure problem. Most runners are underused, undercovered, and slightly overtrained all at the same time. It’s not a good combination by the way. They’re doing enough to stay tired, but not enough of the right things to actually make improvements. That’s exactly why I created the Leaner, stronger Runner Project.
This isn’t about random workouts. It’s a comprehensive system designed to help you build real strength that translates to better running economy, improve endurance without digging a recovery hole dial in your nutrition. You’re supporting your performance and improving your body composition train in a way that makes running feel smoother and more powerful.
If you want running to feel lighter, if you want to see your pace improve at the same effort, if you wanna feel strong instead of fragile, just go to running lean coaching.com/ready. Read through the information on that page if it resonates. Join us. Stop trying to outwork inefficiency. Start building a body that runs lean, runs strong and is durable.
Alright, let’s get into this topic. Run faster without getting fitter. The truth about running economy. So today I am talking about something that a lot of runners misunderstand or completely ignore, and that is running economy. And here’s why this matters right now. Most runners I talk to are kind of frustrated.
You know, they train consistently, they put in the miles, they do things like speed work. Um, they try working on building endurance, and yet they still feel like running feels harder than it should feel. They feel like they’re working too hard. For the pace that they’re running, you know, they get into races and they fade late.
Uh, they struggle to hold a, a good tempo pace. They hit a ceiling. So what do they do? They assume that what they need is to increase their fitness. They need to do more intervals, more mileage. You know, more slogging, more suffering. But what if the problem isn’t your engine? What if it’s how efficiently you’re using it?
And so that’s what we’re digging into here today. And before we go deeper, I want to kind of address this. You know, the title is Run Faster Without Getting Fitter. Okay. And this is exactly how running economy is going to improve you, right? You’re gonna be able to run faster at the same effort. You’re gonna run faster without necessarily improving your VO two max.
So I wanna, you know, kind of dig into this title a little bit. Okay? What do I mean without getting fitter? So it can sound kind of misleading if you don’t understand what I’m talking about here. I’m not saying fitness doesn’t matter. I’m not saying VO two max is irrelevant. I’m not saying endurance doesn’t matter.
I’m not saying you can, uh, skip training. What I’m saying is this, you can improve your speed at a given effort level. Without increasing your aerobic capacity. So that’s a very specific claim, right? Let’s break it down a little bit. Imagine your VO two max stays exactly the same for the next 12 weeks, your heart and your lungs don’t get stronger.
Your maximal oxygen uptake doesn’t increase your engine. Stays exactly the same, but you reduce the amount of oxygen required to run at an eight minute per mile pace or whatever your pace is. Now at that same pace, you’re using less of the available engine. So that means you’re, you’re running at a lower percentage of your vo O2 max at the same pace, so lower relative effort, which means a slower fatigue buildup and overall faster sustainable speed.
So you didn’t increase the size of your aerobic engine, you improved how efficiently you used it. Here’s another way to think about it. Fitness is capacity. Economy is cost. So your capacity could stay the same, but when the cost goes down, performance improves. That’s the whole point of this. Two runners with identical VO O2 max values.
Can have dramatically different race times, purely because one is more economical, and this isn’t just theory. This has been shown repeatedly in endurance research. So when I say without getting fitter, what I really mean is. Without increasing your aerobic capacity, you can improve performance by reducing waste.
And honestly, for most recreational runners, this is low hanging fruit. Most runners are focused entirely on building more capacity, and they almost completely ignore the cost factor. When you ignore cost, you end up working a lot harder than you need to for every mile that you’re running out there. Okay, so this isn’t, this whole topic here today isn’t about anti fitness, it’s pro efficiency.
It’s about understanding that performance is not just about how big your engine is, it’s about how cleanly and how economically you are using it. Okay, let’s talk about what running economy actually is and isn’t. So most runners here running economy and they think. Cadence or stride length or foot strike, or doing some sort of running form drills.
And yes, these things can influence your economy, but running economy is not just good form. It’s not about looking smooth or copying elite runners or obsessing over midfoot versus heel strike or whatever. Running economy is much simpler than that. Um, here’s a good definition. Um, or a good way to think about it.
How much energy does it cost you to run at a given pace? That’s what we mean by economy. Um, if you and I run side by side, let’s say we’re both running like an eight minute mile and you’re using less oxygen than I am to hold that same pace, you are running more economically same pace, less energy cost.
And that matters more than most people realize. So a practical definition, running economy is the oxygen or energy cost of running at a specific speed. So the lower the cost, the better the economy. Think of this like fuel efficiency than a car. Two cars are going 65 miles an hour. One burns more gas, one burns less gas, same speed, same engine.
But different cost. The more economical car goes farther on that same tank of gas, the more economical runner goes faster for the same effort, or holds their pace longer before fatigue sets in. Okay. Let’s zoom out just a little bit. There are three major physiological variables that determine your endurance performance.
There’s a VO O2 max, so this is the size of your engine. There’s lactate threshold, how much of that engine you can use. And then there’s your running economy, how efficiently you’re using that engine. And most people, especially recreational runners, they obsess over VO two max and they don’t really think about lactate threshold too much, and they definitely don’t think about running economy too much.
But once you’ve been, you know, moderately trained. Improvements in economy often drive performance gains more than small changes in VO two max. That’s why this matters. Um, if your economy improves, running feels easier, your easy pace feels easier. Your tempo pace feels more controlled, your long runs feel easier, and they drain you less.
Your race pace feels more sustainable for longer. So it’s not just about getting faster, you’re actually like reducing the cost of running and when the running costs reduces. When when running costs less. You actually recover faster too. This is huge for runners who are trying to, you know, lose weight and get stronger and improve their overall health and fitness and, and performance.
Okay. It’s also good if you wanna avoid inter over training or you’re trying to reduce your risk of injury, because if every run is inefficient. And expensive metabolically, you’re digging a deeper recovery hole every time you lace up your shoes. Okay? So running efficiency actually protects you. So I want you to think about performance in terms of cost, not just output.
This is a big shift in most runners way of thinking about this. Okay? So what happens when you improve your running economy? Well, you run at the same pace, but at a lower heart rate, you burn slightly less energy at those sub maximal efforts. You accumulate fatigue more slowly and you can push your race pace longer before blowing it all up.
Okay, and here’s something a lot of people don’t really talk about. Enough improved economy. Makes weight loss easier. Hmm. That is interesting why you ask, because when you are less, you know, mechanically sloppy out there and less MEChA, metabolically wasteful while you’re running. Your body handles training stress better, so that means better recovery, better hormonal balance, better hormonal response, less systematic stress overall.
So you’re not constantly inflamed and wrecking yourself, um, after every run. This matters a lot if you’re trying to lose weight. But most runners get this wrong. You know, they try to just go out there and just brute force performance. You know, they assume if I just get fitter, everything is going to improve.
So they add more mileage and usually too quickly they just hammer every workout. So every workout is like hard maximal effort. They ignore strength training, they skip drills. They avoid heavy lifting because they think it’s just gonna slow them down. But here’s the reality. You don’t improve economy by grinding harder.
You improve your running economy by becoming mechanically stronger and neurologically sharper. So I’m gonna explain how to improve your running economy here. Okay? This is where we’re gonna get practical. The first thing you can do is. Strength training, especially lifting heavy. This is the big one.
Research consistently shows that heavy resistance training improves running economy, not high rep circuits, not light dumbbells. No, like body weight stuff. Heavy lifting. Why? Because strength, when you build strength, you increase tendon stiffness and neuromuscular efficiency. Stiffer tendons, store and release elastic energy.
Better think about stiff tendons being like a rubber band. If it’s super loose, not a lot of energy output. You tighten that rubber band and, and you know, you pull back on that and there’s a lot of energy output there. Stronger muscles generate force more efficiently. Not just more force, but you’re, you’re generating force.
More efficiency. Again, lower cost. Your body wastes less energy, trying to stabilize yourself ’cause you have strong stabilizer muscles, you know, through your, uh, feet, ankles, legs, hips, core, all the way from the bottom. Up. So you don’t need bodybuilding volume, which you need is, uh, those big, uh, complex movements, you know, squats, deadlifts, split squats, step ups, hip thrusts, lift heavy low reps control.
This is one of the reasons why I program strength training the way that I do for runners. It’s not about looking strong, it’s about improving that running economy. Okay. Another thing you can do to improve your running economy is plyometrics and strides. So these are plyometrics are short, explosive movements that improve neuromuscular coordination, things like.
Hops, bounding box jumps, and then doing strides after some of your easier runs. These things teach your nervous system to apply force quickly and more efficiently. So economy is not just about strength, it’s about how quickly. And precisely you use that strength. Um, strides especially are underrated, like six to eight by 22nd, uh, fast.
But controlled strides do this after easy runs. It’s not about all out sprinting, it’s just smooth, fast, efficient turnover. Again, do it at the end of your run, um, when you’re already kind of fatigued. This is gonna help improve that, uh, neurological system. Um, another thing you can do to improve your running economy is improve your body composition.
This isn’t about like losing a bunch of weight really quickly or crash dieting, but carrying unnecessary mass means it’s gonna cost you more energy, right? Physics, physics doesn’t care about your feelings, okay? More mass means more energy is required. Per stride. The key here is like, we’re not starving ourselves.
We’re not just cutting out all carbs forever. Um, we’re not under fueling. You wanna build muscle, uh, reduce your excess body fat gradually, and then fuel smartly. Uh, stronger. Leaner runners are often more economical runners by design. Okay. Um, another thing to think about is consistency over novelty. So. An O economy improves with repetition, right?
Your nervous system adapts to the specific demands of running. This means that consistent mileage at the appropriate intensity. Matters more than constantly changing up your workouts, right? You don’t, don’t need to keep doing different things all the time. You, your body becomes more efficient at what it does repeatedly.
So, you know, do those same workouts kind of repeatedly. You don’t need to have a bunch of fancy hacks. You know, what you need is consistent, intelligent training. So a couple of myths I want to clear up really quickly here, what, what running economy is not. So run running economy is not buying carbon plated shoes.
Okay? These can help, but they’re not the foundation. It’s not the answer. Okay? Running economy is not copying elite runners form, right? Or it’s not forcing a. Four foot strike instead of a, a midfoot or heel strike. It’s not about shortening your stride artificially, or you know, doing cadence drills or running more miles no matter how you’re feeling.
Those things might influence economy slightly. But without strength training, without coordination, without smart training, you’re just, you know, rearranging the deck chairs here. Okay. So we wanna, we wanna make sure that we’re hitting those foundational things, you know, heavy lifting, do the plyometric, do the strides, um, work on improving your body composition, and then just do these things consistently.
Here’s a real world example. Let’s say you’re running a nine 30 mile and your heart rate. Is an average of like 150 after 12 weeks of heavy strength training, running smartly, like smart mileage, doing strides, better fueling, you know, improving your body composition. You might still be at 150, uh, beats per minute heart rate, but instead of nine 30, now you’re running a nine minute mile.
That’s improved economy. So you didn’t dramatically increase your VO two max, maybe you didn’t increase it at all. You didn’t double your mileage. So your, your, uh, you know, aerobic engine didn’t increase, but you reduced the cost of movement, right? This is powerful stuff, right? Here’s what I want you to think about.
Stop chasing harder. Okay? Start chasing more efficient because when you improve your economy, running feels smoother, it feels easier, your stride feels more powerful, not sloppy. You recover faster, your performance ceiling actually rises. And the beautiful part here is that improved running economy supports weight loss and your strength goals at the same time.
This is why strength training is non-negotiable for all the runners that I work with here. Okay. It’s not extra. It is foundational. Okay. Alright. Running economy, it’s not flashy, it’s not sexy, but it might be the most important variable that you’re not paying attention to. Right, run smarter, lift heavy, move efficiently, and let performance rise as a result.
All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.
Today’s episode is called “Your Weak Links Are Slowing You Down” — and if running has been feeling harder than it should lately, this might be the reason why. Most runners think the problem is …
Continue Reading about 320. Your Weak Links Are Slowing You Down →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 320 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today your weak links are slowing you down. Today is all about your weak links, and if running has been feeling harder than it should lately, this could be one of the reasons why. So most runners think that their problem is always about fitness or their age, or how much mileage they’re running.
And so they run more, they push harder, they add speed work, but they’re ignoring these small sort of unglamorous parts of the body that actually control everything. The ankles, the hips, the core. When those areas aren’t doing their job, you stride becomes inefficient. Your power leaks, your pace plateaus.
And little aches start to show up. And this isn’t about random corrective exercises or doing clamshells forever. It’s about understanding where strength actually matters and how to fix those weak links that are quietly holding you back. So if you want running to feel stronger, smoother, and more efficient, this episode is for you.
All right. Let’s just dive right into this. Here we’re talking about something that almost every runner deals with, but few actually address, or at least they don’t address properly. Okay? It’s all about your weak links and how they are probably slowing you down. And here’s why this matters right now. A lot of runners are training consistently, right?
You’re getting in your miles, you’re doing your long runs. Maybe you even lift weights a little bit here and there, but running is still feeling harder than it should. Your pace isn’t improving. You feel unstable on those trails. Your knees get. Cranky, your lower back tightens up on long runs. You lose power late in races, and the instinct is always the same.
I need more fitness. I need to run more miles. I need to do more speed work and those things. Are fine. Okay? But that’s more of like a conditioning issue. Okay? What if it’s not a conditioning problem we’re addressing here? What if it’s a structural problem? What if you’re strong in the big muscles, but you have small, overlooked weak links that are quietly.
Draining your running performance, and that’s what we’re digging into here today. Because if your ankles, your hips and your core aren’t doing their job properly, your body will compensate. And compensation is very inefficient. It makes you slower. It’s more fatiguing. And it’s really how injuries start to sneak in.
Okay, so today I’m gonna break this down, what weak links actually are, what we’re actually talking about here today. Why runners almost always overlook them, how they show up in real life, and then what to do about it. Okay, so let’s start with the concept itself. What is a weak link? A weak link is not your biggest muscle group, okay?
So we’re not talking about your quads or your hamstrings or even like, you know, the efficiency of your lungs, right? A weak link is a smaller stabilizing structure that limits the performance of everything around it. Think of it like this. If you have a powerful engine in your car, but your suspension is loose, your alignment is off, uh, you’re not gonna be able to use that engine efficiently.
Okay? So your body works the same way. Running is a single leg. Activity. Every step is a controlled fall. You land on one foot, absorb that force, you stabilize, you push off from that one foot, and you do this thousands and thousands of times per run. And if the small stabilizers aren’t strong enough to control that.
Force something else is gonna take over and that’s when performance leaks happen. Okay, so let’s just break this down into the big three things I’m talking about for runners, and that’s going to be the ankles, the hips, and the core. Let’s start at the bottom. We’ll start with your ankles. So most runners completely ignore their ankles.
Um, you might do some like calves stretching or foam rolling, or maybe you buy new shoes, right? But you’re not training your ankles. Here’s the issue. Your ankle is the first point of contact with the ground. It’s your shock absorber and your propulsion system. And if your ankles are stiff and weak, you lose that elastic recoil.
Your cadence drops. You spend too long on the ground and your knees take up a lot more stress. Um, if your ankles collapse inward, then your arch begins to flatten, your tibia rotates and your knee tracks poorly, and then you say, Hey, my knee hurts. Or you just, you get diagnosed with patella tendonitis or something, runner’s knee, you know, and it’s not.
A issue with your knee necessarily. It’s your ankle. Your ankle is not stable and, and it’s weak. Okay? So what ankle weakness looks like in real life is maybe you wobble during single leg balance work. All right? Have you ever stood on one leg and you see that wobbling happening? Um, that’s a sign of a weak ankle trail running might feel unstable, you know, ’cause you have this undulating terrain that you really need a stable ankle to feel, uh, in control and stable on the trails.
And maybe that’s not, you just don’t feel controlled and you don’t feel stable. You might avoid downhill because it feels a little sketchy for you and your calves might be trying to compensate. And so they’re. Um, constantly tight or maybe you get cramps in your calves a lot. So this is not random, it’s just a weak link.
Okay? Your ankle is so, so important when it comes to running, and most runners do not train their ankles at all. Okay? So this is a real problem. So what do you do about it? Stop thinking of doing ankle work as like, you know, a rehab. I do see people that do this, um, you know, they might have some sort of injury and they’re told, Hey, you need to, you need to strengthen your ankles.
And so they, they do some ankle strengthening work for a few weeks or maybe a month or two. Because the physical therapist told them to do that, but then they’re, then they’re done with it, right? And they never really develop the strength that they need to perform at their best. Okay? So stop thinking of it, uh, at, of ankle work as rehab work.
Start thinking of it as performance training, right? This is going to help improve your running. It’s going to help make running easier. So some things that you can do right off the bat. You can start working this into your exercise routine daily. A lot of this stuff you can do daily, like single leg balance.
So work on balancing on one leg. You can do this all throughout the day. Maybe if you’re standing at your desk or brushing your teeth or you know, making dinner or something like that, you can. Work on standing on one leg, um, for added fun. Do it with your eyes closed. This’ll really challenge you, and you might be surprised, you might be able to stand for 30 seconds or a minute on one leg with your eyes open.
But if you can get more than about five seconds with your eyes closed, that’s good. Okay, so, but work on, uh, improving single leg balance with your eyes closed. Another thing you can do is some slow and controlled calf raises. Um, sometimes with straight knees, sometimes with bent knee, but we’re working on improving the structure of that ankle.
Okay? So calf raises will help to improve, uh, calf strength, but also it helps, uh, improve the integrity of that ankle joint. Um, tibialis raises, hopping drills. Strength work where you’re working out barefoot. Um, I know a lot of people at the gym work out in socks or they work out barefoot because it does help to strengthen their, uh, ankles and, you know, uh, feet.
Uh, and runners are. You know, it’s all ankles and feet essentially. So think about that. You know, if you belong to a gym where you can take your shoes off, do that, you know, if you’re doing back squats and bench press and um, different lunges and things like that, the doing those things all. You know, barefoot is going to help, it’s gonna help improve that ankle joint.
Um, so your, your goal is to have some stiffness with control, right? Your, your, you want your ankle to act like a spring, so you need some stiffness there. You don’t want it to be like a wet noodle, okay? When your ankles get stronger, running is gonna start to feel easier. It’s gonna feel lighter. You’re gonna be quicker, you’re gonna be more responsive, okay?
So first thing to do is work on improving the integrity of that ankle joint. Okay? And of course, the kind of exercises I just mentioned are very basic, and these are just the, the starting point. Okay? You wanna, you can look up some other activities and different exercises that you can do that’ll help improve, um, all these areas here.
Uh, number two, let’s work our way up. Uh, so let’s talk about hips. This is the second area that. I would call a weak link for a lot of runners. So if ankles are your contact point, then your hips are gonna be your power center. This is where most runners probably have the biggest blind spot. Um, ’cause you think your hips are strong because you lift, or you uh, you do dead lifts or squats.
But hip extension, strength and hip stability are not really the same thing. Running requires single leg stability. Controlled internal and external rotation. Running requires lateral force management, and if your hips are weak, your knees are gonna start to cave inward. Your pelvis is gonna drop from side to side.
Your stride shortens. Your glutes don’t fire efficiently. And here’s the part a lot of people don’t want to hear, but when hips are weak, running is gonna feel heavy. And it’s not because you’re outta shape, it’s just because you’re leaking out power. Um, so it shows up with things like it band irritation.
If you’ve ever had your IT band flare up, you know what I’m talking about. Um, maybe you’ve got hip flexor tightness, maybe you have glute soreness, and maybe it’s only on one side. Maybe you have lower back fatigue, especially during those longer runs. These are all signs of compensation. Your body’s trying to get the job done, but it has to compensate so it’s not doing it efficiently.
So what are we gonna do about it? Well, you don’t need to do endless, you know, clamshells. You need progressive load and single leg strength exercises. Some things like, uh, Bulgarian split squats or single leg R rls, Romanian deadlifts. Step downs, lateral lunges, loaded caries. These are some of my favorite exercises for runners.
Um. Here’s the key. All this stuff needs to be done slowly in a controlled fashion and very intentional. Like we’re doing this because we’re trying to improve the integrity of our hips, right? So we don’t wanna just rush through these exercises, own the movements, slow it down. And when your hips get strong, something interesting happens, your stride length actually increases.
Naturally, your cadence improves without forcing it, and your effort at the same pace drops. So running is going to automatically feel easier just from improving. The strength of your hips. Doesn’t that sound like something that could motivate you to get out there and start working on this? Yes. Um, because now you’re using your glutes, not your lower back to actually move forward.
Okay? So your glutes are the biggest muscle in your body, and they are, um, they play a huge, huge role in running. Okay. Alright, let’s move our way. Um, up, uh, to the third thing we’re talking about here, which is your core. All right. I’m not talking about, you know, having a six pack of abs, like that’s just vanity.
Okay. I’m talking about trunk stability. So your core. Connects your upper body to your lower body, and if it’s weak, then force transfer actually breaks down. Okay? You can have strong legs, but if your torso collapses, especially when you get fatigued later on in longer runs or races, then you can’t transmit that power anymore.
And what weak core stability looks like you might slouch late in races. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen anybody finishing an ultra marathon, especially people who are, you know, maybe a little bit slower, and they’ve been out there for a long time. They do that lean, they’re kind of slouching, um, because they have no core stability.
Okay? Your breathing might get shallow breathing becomes harder. Your shoulders start to creep up to your ears. You know, your back tightens up, and so your whole posture just collapses. Um, and when this happens, your ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles drops, efficiency drops, and suddenly. Running is just gonna feel really, really hard.
Okay, so core weakness is not about aesthetics, it’s about endurance under tension. So what can you do about it? Well, you don’t need to do endless crunches. Instead, focus on things like planks and maybe planks with a load. So that means put a, put a plate on your back while you’re doing a plank. Um, things like dead bugs, uh, pal off presses, or any other kind of anti-rotation movement or anti-rotation hold.
So this is where, uh, you are. Uh, trying to prevent rotation. So you’re holding a, a lot of times, like a pal off press. You’re holding a cable or a, a resistance band, and you’re pushing that away from your body and towards your body. But the, the load is actually to your right or to your left. So you’re actually trying to prevent your body from rotating into that, um, into the load.
Okay? So you’re trying to keep your body straight, but it’s a anti-rotation movement. Something like it suitcase carry where you’re carrying one heavy kettlebell on one side. Um, that’s going to, uh, be an anti-rotation movement. Okay? So. With all of these things, your cores job is to resist movement, okay? So we’re not trying to create movement, we’re trying to resist the rotation there.
And so the goal is to have some stiffness there. Um, you’re gonna be able to breathe, you’re gonna be in control still, but you want some of that stiffness there. Uh, running is a rhythm, and when the rhythm breaks, your stability breaks. And think about running as like two springs working in opposite directions.
You’re. Your legs are turning one way while your upper torso is turning the other way. And what’s responsible for all of that rotation is your core. So a strong core means, again, running is gonna feel easier. You’re gonna have, uh, way more endurance. You’re gonna be able to, uh, sustain much longer duration out there running without your whole form breaking down and the slouch happening and all that stuff.
Okay. So why do runners avoid fixing these things, right? These are weak links. We all know this stuff. Um, why do we, you know, avoid working on these things? And honestly, it’s not exciting, right? It’s not glamorous, it doesn’t feel like a workout, right? It’s not gonna like show up on Strava. But here’s the mindset shift I want you to try to get into here.
When you train these weak lengths, this is training in force multiplication, okay? You’re not adding fitness, you’re actually unlocking it. And this is especially important if you wanna lose body fat, if you wanna build muscle, if you want running to feel easier, because when your mechanics improve, everything else improves.
Efficiency, improves fatigue, decreases injury, risk drops, power increases, and suddenly your current fitness level, you know, expresses itself better. You feel better where you are today. You don’t have to improve, um, all these different areas all at once. But start working through some of this. You know, maybe you start with your ankles and work your way up.
Okay? But you’re. Your running is going to feel easier, and you’re gonna feel a lot stronger and a lot fitter if you can improve the integrity of these different areas here. Um, so how would you know what you need to work on? Well, I’m gonna give you a couple prac practical tips to audit your own weak links here.
Um, try standing on one leg and then close your eyes and see if you can hold that for 20 or 30 seconds. And if you wobble like crazy. This means you have some ankle instability and you wanna work on that. Okay? Do a slow single leg squat and watch your knee. If it dives inward, you probably have some hip instability.
Okay? Hold a plank for one minute. If your back sags. This is a, uh, core weakness, a trunk weakness, okay? So you can. Do a little self-assessment and see, you know, where you land with this stuff. Maybe do that this week. And it’s not about, you know, oh, I’m, I’m a bad runner, or I’m not fit. It’s not about that.
It’s just information. Like, just treat it as like a little self-assessment to get the info so you know what to work on. Okay. And then you need to work this stuff into your training, just like we talk about in general. You gotta work in strength training, right? Well, we gotta work on, you know, training these specific areas and improving the integrity of these certain areas as well.
You don’t need an extra three hours a week to do this, right? You just need to be intentional about what you’re doing. Maybe 10 to 15 minutes at the end of an easy run, or you’re doing strength training two or three days per week. That’s probably perfect. Just prioritize some of the stuff, prioritize some single leg work, some load over time.
You know, some of that core work that I mentioned. Consistency is gonna beat complexity, right? Here’s the big idea though. If you strengthen your weak links, your running becomes more resilient, and resilience is what allows performance to actually grow. So let me ask you something. Are you tired of feeling like you’re working hard but not really moving forward?
You know, maybe you’re putting in the miles, you’re trying to eat better, you’re doing some strength work. But running still feels harder than it should. Your progress is slow. Your body feels beat up more often than it feels strong. It’s not a motivation problem, it’s just a systems problem, and most runners focus only on mileage, and they hope that the rest just sort of takes care of itself.
But you know what? It doesn’t. What you need is a complete approach, strength, nutrition, endurance, and mindset. All working together. That’s exactly what we do. Inside the Leaner Stronger Runner Project, we build runners from the ground up, stronger ankles, stronger hips, stronger core. Smarter, fueling smarter.
Training a clear structure so you’re not guessing every week. This isn’t about random workouts or hypey challenges, okay? It’s a proven framework that helps you feel lighter on your feet, more powerful in your stride, and more confident in your body. If you are ready to stop leaking energy and start running like someone who trains with intention, go to running lean coaching.com/ready.
Read through the information on that page, see if it resonates, and if it does join us. I’d love to see you in there. You don’t need more miles, you just need a stronger foundation. Cool. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.
Winter can either break your running routine—or quietly make you a stronger, smarter runner. In this episode, The Winter Running Survival Guide, I’m breaking down how to train, eat, and think …
Continue Reading about 319. The Winter Running Survival Guide →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 319 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the Winter Running Survival Guide. It is winter and winter can either break your running routine or quietly make you a stronger and smarter runner. So in this episode, I’m gonna break down how to train, how to eat, and how to think differently during the coldest months of the year.
This isn’t about pushing harder, just toughing it out more. It’s about adapting your approach so that you don’t lose momentum. You don’t lose fitness or confidence when conditions aren’t exactly ideal. I’m gonna talk about why winter training should look a little bit different, and how to stay consistent without burning yourself out, and how to come out the other side of winter feeling stronger instead of feeling like you gotta start all over again.
Okay, so if you’ve ever struggled to stay on track, once daylight disappears and the temperatures drop, this episode will give you a clear, practical path forward. So let’s just jump right into this. Uh, winter has a way of exposing how, uh, solid or how fragile your running routine really is. When the weather’s perfect, motivation is easy, right?
Shoes are by the door, the sun’s out. Running feels easy. But in the winter. Winter doesn’t care about your plans. It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s windy. Sometimes it’s snowy and icy and sloppy and just flat out miserable out there. Okay? That’s exactly why this topic matters right now. ’cause every winter I see the same thing happen with a lot of runners.
They’re mileage drops, the strength work disappears. Their eating gets a little bit looser. And their weight starts to creep up. Running starts to feel harder, and by the time spring rolls around a, a lot of people feel like they’re starting over instead of building on, you know, what they’ve already done.
And so I wanna talk about how we prevent that. Okay. I, I wanna reframe winter for you. Okay? Not as something that we just have to like, plow through here, but as an opportunity to actually get smarter, get stronger, and become more resilient as a runner. Okay? This isn’t gonna be like a hype you up type of episode.
This is more of a, uh, grounded and practical episode. Um, if you approach winter the right way, it can actually become one of the most productive trading seasons of your entire year. But a lot of people don’t really approach it that way. Um, winter is when a lot of runners actually derail. Um, they lose momentum, they lose discipline, and it derails them because the environment changes, but they don’t.
Days get shorter schedules. Tighten and friction unchecked leads to inconsistency. And the mistake I see a lot of runners make is trying to train in the winter the same way that they trained in the summer or the fall. Same expectations, same intensity, same structure, and this mismatch creates frustration.
You miss a run because it’s dark and icy out, or there’s. A foot of snow on the ground, then you miss another one because you know it’s, it’s cold and you’re tired, and then you start questioning whether you’re falling off. And before you know it, your whole identity as a runner starts to fall apart here.
Okay. Winter punishes rigidity, but it rewards adaptability. The runners who come outta Winter Strong aren’t the ones who you know, white knuckle through every single workout. They’re the ones who simplify, they adjust, and they focus on the right priorities for the season. Okay, now here’s a mental shift that we need to, um, make so that everything kind of changes for us.
Winter is not about peak performance, okay? It’s about foundation. You’re probably not racing much right now. Uh, you’re not chasing prs and that’s not a problem. It’s. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. Winter is where you build strength that supports your running winter’s. When you build aerobic efficiency without all the pounding, it’s where you build consistency without burning yourself out.
And it’s where you build habits that don’t depend on perfect conditions. So if you, men, if you measure winter success by. You know, maybe your pace, you’re gonna feel like you’re falling behind. If you measure winter success by consistency, strength, and resilience, you’re gonna realize that you’re actually, um, ahead of the game here.
Okay. The real goal of winter running is not to, uh, you know, run as fast as you can in freezing temperatures or grind through all these miserable workouts or prove how tough you are. The goal of winter running is to arrive at spring healthy. Stronger than you were in the fall. Leaner, not fluffier, mentally confident that you didn’t lose yourself over the winter, and this means that the way you train has got to change.
So for a lot of runners, winter mileage will naturally drop, and that is completely normal. We have less daylight, colder temperatures, tougher conditions, and it all adds that friction I was talking about earlier. So instead of fighting against all of that, the smarter move is to manage it intentionally and take the emotions out of it.
Okay? We don’t want to try to manage this with our emotions. That said, if you’re training for an important spring race, like a half marathon, full marathon, this is not the season to go completely rogue with your training. Winter is where the base gets built and base work doesn’t look flashy, but it absolutely shows up on race day.
So what can change is how the training shows up week to week. So you might be doing some shorter runs, maybe slightly fewer runs, but still maintaining consistency and that’s the key right there. Consistency is the non-negotiable. That’s what keeps the aerobic engine burning hot when conditions aren’t perfect for running.
Okay, winter running, should em emphasize. Easy aerobic efforts, time on your feet more than your pace. Um, terrain awareness and safety, right? It’s not the time to chase super fast splits or force workouts just because they’re written down on a piece of paper somewhere, um, or trying to hit summer paces on frozen ground with cold, stiff muscles.
This is a, a very fast way to get yourself hurt. And getting hurt in the winter almost always derails your spring, uh, races. So instead, we want to adapt the execution of the plan to the conditions. And we don’t need to abandon the plan altogether, though. Okay? This is where things like treadmill running becomes a tool.
It doesn’t mean, you know, you, you’re being punished. It becomes a tool that sometimes we have to use. I mean, if the choice is to skip a run entirely or do like 30 or 45 minutes steady on a treadmill, the treadmill is gonna win every single time. Okay? You don’t lose fitness because you ran indoors. You lose fitness because you stop running consistently.
And running fitness doesn’t care about scenery. That’s just your ego talking there. Okay? So if you can stay steady through the winter, keep up the routine, protect your aerobic base, avoid stupid injuries, uh, you don’t have to get back into shape in the spring. You can just build on what’s already there.
Um, that’s a big difference between showing up to your spring race. You know, just hoping everything comes together and showing up knowing that the work was done, even when the conditions outside were not super comfortable. Now, another thing that really has to become a non-negotiable during the winter is strength training.
Um. This is where, you know, the, the weather gets cold and your body gets tight. Your hips lose their range of motion. Your glutes stop firing the way they should. Ankles and feet get a little lazier, and you don’t notice it all at once, but you feel it. When running starts to feel heavy, awkward, or harder than it should, even at an easy pace.
And it’s not a motivation issue, it’s really just a strength issue. So winter is the season to lift with intention. And by that I don’t mean random workouts that you find online. I don’t mean. High rep bootcamp, chaos. It just leaves you tired and sore, and definitely, I’m not talking about lift lifting in a way that interferes with your running.
I’m talking about focused strength work that does three things, builds and preserves muscle, improves joint stability and resilience, and then makes running feel more efficient, not more exhausting. And this is how runners stay lean when their mileage drops. Muscle is metabolically expensive tissue, right?
The more muscle that you maintain, the more calories you burn at rest, the easier it is to keep your body fat in check, even when you’re running fewer miles. But strength training in the winter. Isn’t about chasing aesthetics or trying to bulk up. That’s not how runners train and that’s not how muscle growth actually works anyway, for runners, strength training is about durability.
It’s about being able to handle the miles you, you’re running, um, without all these nagging aches and pains. It’s about showing up to spring training with hips that work glutes, that fire legs that feel stable instead of super fragile. So two to three well-designed strength sessions a week is plenty heavy enough to stimulate, um, muscle growth, uh, strength gains, controlled enough to support your recovery.
In other words, don’t overdo it and then always thinking about your running right. All this stuff should be done. To help compliment your running, not compete with it. And when runners skip their strength training in the winter, they usually pay for it later. They feel weaker, more injury prone, and they struggle when their mileage starts to ramp back up, especially again for those spring races.
So that when they commit to this strength, uh, training, though, running starts to feel easier again. Um, almost like they’re, you know, getting something for free. And that’s quite powerful. If you think about it, you know, winter strength work can be a powerful tool. You know, you don’t see those gains immediately, but come springtime, it’s gonna show up in those spring races.
Okay? Now let’s talk a little bit about food, because winter is comfort food season. That’s just the reality. We all kind of start to gravitate towards comfort foods in the winter. Colder weather tends to push us towards more carbs, more sugar, more snacking, um, usually later in the day too. And at the same time, most runners are moving less, like they’re not running as much fewer miles.
Less walking around, more sitting. And this combination actually does matter. ’cause if nothing changes on the nutrition side, fat gain doesn’t really happen dramatically. It happens slowly and quietly. Okay, a few extra, a hundred calories a day here, a little less movement there. Then suddenly spring shows up and your running feels harder than it should.
Here’s a key point though. The goal in winter is not more restriction. It’s actually more awareness. You don’t need summer level calories when your training volume drops. It’s not punishment. That’s just math. But you do need enough protein to maintain muscle. You do need to eat real food that actually supports your running and your recovery.
And you do need some basic structure so that eating doesn’t turn into, you know, just a constant grazing fest. Most runners don’t gain weight in the winter because they’re eating, you know, badly. They gain weight because they’re eating mindlessly. They’re just, they’re on autopilot and mindless eating usually shows up as.
Snacking just because you’re bored, you’re not really hungry, you’re just bored. You just want something to do. Eating whatever’s easiest, especially later in the, in the day or at late at night and treating winter, like it’s the off season from being mindful, you know, that’s where we just get this mindless, um, unintentional eating happening.
Okay. We wanna make a switch from mindless and unintentional eating to mindful and intentional eating. So let’s make this practical First. Protein becomes non-negotiable in the winter when your running volume drops. Protein helps to preserve muscle. It helps you to stay fuller for longer. It makes weight gain far less likely.
And if every meal doesn’t have a clear protein source, that’s the first thing to fix right there. Second meals beat snacks. Okay? You don’t need to eliminate snacks altogether, but if most of your calories are coming from random handfuls of food, instead of, you know, having an actual meal, you’re just setting yourself up to overshoot without realizing it.
So two or three solid meals anchored with protein and Whole foods. This is gonna go a long way right here to help you to, um, fuel yourself properly, recover properly, maintain, or even lose weight if you need to. Third, carbs still matter, but timing matters more. You don’t need to cut out carbs altogether, but you need to, you know, earn them with training on harder run days or harder strength days.
Carbs help to support performance and recovery. On lighter days, you don’t need the same amount of carbs. Um, you know, you’re just going to do fewer, and that’s gonna go a long way in helping you to, you know, not get into this overeating, you know, super hungry all the time cycle that we get into when we’re eating a ton of carbs.
And then finally, structure is gonna be willpower every single day. Planning your meals even somewhat loosely, removes the decision fatigue that happens when you have to make decisions all the time. When it’s cold, when it’s dark, uh, you don’t wanna try to rely on figuring it out at 8:00 PM right? You wanna have a plan in place, so create that structure for yourself.
Winter is where intentional eating matters the most. Not because you need to be perfect, but because small habits. Compound fast in this season, so get this part right and you don’t just maintain your weight through the winter. You set yourself up to feel lighter, stronger, and more in control when your spring training ramps back up again.
All right, here’s a truth that most runners don’t really want to hear, and this is about motivation, and motivation is unreliable in the winter. Waiting to feel like it is going to be a losing strategy, especially when it’s dark and cold and snowy and icy out there. And this is where identity matters more than emotion.
You don’t run because you’re motivated. You run because you are the kind of person who follows through. You’ve adopted the identity of someone who does what they say they’re gonna do. Okay. This might mean you do some shorter runs. Or you do some indoor sessions, train at different times of the day instead of early in the morning when it’s the coldest, you do it in the afternoon.
Consistency doesn’t have to look heroic, it just has to exist. Okay, so let’s get away from relying on motivation, uh, and start getting into this identity of I am someone who shows up for myself consistently. Um, and this comes down to like building systems. You know, you gotta have systems in place in order to stay consistent, in order to not only create that identity, but to establish and reinforce that identity every single day.
And systems are gonna help you more than anything else. Systems look like this. Maybe you lay out your clothes the night before you decide in advance, which days are going to be indoor days. You can check the weather ahead of time. And you’ll know what days are gonna be good for running outside and days that are definitely gonna be good for running inside.
And then maybe have a minimum effective workout for some of those brutal days. Right. Just so, even if you’re like, oh, you know, I’m just gonna do two miles on the treadmill if I have to, whatever that looks like for you. But when decisions are made ahead of time, discipline becomes automatic. It’s just something that happens.
Okay? Now, every Spring runners fall into one of two camps. One of ’em is like, oh, I feel strong running feels easier. I didn’t lose too much, uh, uh, performance over the winter. And then the other group is like, oh, I feel sluggish and heavy. Everything feels hard. I’m outta shape again. And the difference isn’t talent.
It’s what they did during those quiet, cold months. Okay? Winter reveals who’s training with intention and who’s just being reactive. Okay. If winter feels like a constant battle for you, if running always seems harder than it should if you’re putting in the miles, but not getting leaner or stronger, it’s not a motivation problem, it’s a strategy problem.
And most runners try to solve everything with what? More running. Right? And that’s why they stay stuck spinning their wheels, dealing with nagging aches and pains. Wondering why progress feels so slow. That’s why I created the Leaner Stronger Runner Project. It isn’t a generic plan. It’s a complete system designed specifically for runners who want to feel lighter on their feet, stronger in their bodies, and more confident in their training without running themselves into the ground.
In the program, you’re gonna learn how to train smarter, not harder. You’re gonna learn how to build real strength that supports your running. You’re gonna learn how to eat in a way that actually works for you as a runner, and you’re gonna learn how to stay consistent year round. Yes, even in the winter, no guesswork, no extremes, just clear practical coaching that makes running feel better.
Again, if you’re tired of starting over every spring, this is your moment to change that pattern. Just go to my website running lean coaching.com/ready. And check out the leaner, stronger runner project. Winter doesn’t have to set you back. It can set you up for success. Alright, that’s all I got for you today.
Love you all. Keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.
If you feel like you’re constantly struggling with food… If strength training always feels hard to stick to… If you feel like you’re forever “trying to get back on track”… …but somehow, your …
Continue Reading about 318. If You’re Always Struggling, You’re Doing It Wrong →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 318 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, if you’re always struggling. You’re doing it wrong. If you feel like you’re constantly struggling with food, if strength training always feels hard to stick to if you feel like you’re forever trying to get back on track.
But somehow your running is just fine. Listen up. This episode is for you. It’s called If you’re always struggling, you’re doing it wrong. And yeah, I know that sounds kind of harsh, but hear me out here, because this isn’t about shaming you or telling you to try harder, it’s about something way more important.
I talk to runners all the time who tell me that they are disciplined, they’re motivated, they’re committed, yet. Their food plan, their strength training always feels like a constant battle. And the interesting thing is those same runners don’t say that about running. Okay, so today we’re gonna break all this down.
What the struggle really is, why it keeps happening, and how putting simple systems into place, not more motivation is the actual solution. Okay, so let’s just get right into this. Okay? I wanna start by saying this very clearly. If you’re struggling with your food, with your strength training, it doesn’t mean you’re weak.
It doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It doesn’t mean something is broken with you, okay? But what it does mean is that something in your approach is probably a little off, okay? The reason I’m talking about this now is because I keep hearing this over and over again from runners, and I’ve heard this many, many times in the last couple of weeks.
And these are different people, different ages, different experience levels. They all have different goals, but the story is the same. Okay. I hear things like, I’m running consistently, but I just can’t get my eating under control. You know, I know I should lift weights. Um, I know how important strength training is.
I, I know, but I just don’t do it consistently. I just can’t seem to stick with it. Or I always feel like I am starting over with all this stuff, and if you can relate to that, that, that, this is why I’m talking to you right now. Okay. Because I know so many people who can relate to this. Okay. Um, the crazy part is, is that they’re not struggling with their running, alright?
They don’t wake up every day debating whether they. Feel motivated enough to run. Okay? They’re not constantly second guessing their running training plan, maybe they’re training for a half marathon or a marathon. Um, they don’t, they don’t second guess that, you know, they don’t argue with themselves for 45 minutes before they put on their running shoes.
Okay? They get up and they go outside. Doesn’t matter how cold it is, doesn’t matter what the weather’s like and they run. Okay? So if you’re running feels. Solid, but somehow all these other things feel hard. We need to start asking some better questions. Okay? Not, you know, geez, what’s wrong with me? Um, but what am I doing differently?
Here. Okay, so the core idea of this episode, and I really want you to hear this, is this, if something feels like a struggle all the time, it’s not supposed to be that way. Okay. Now I am not saying that growth is effortless. Growth requires effort. Growth requires discomfort. I’ve talked about this a lot, where you know everything that you want but don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone.
In order to get something that you don’t have, it’s going to require you to get uncomfortable. Okay? So growth is one of those things that. Requires some discomfort. Okay, so growth is not effortless. And I’m also not saying that discipline doesn’t matter because it does matter. You do have to show discipline.
And the funny thing is, is I’m talking about. You know, runners who are very disciplined about running. Most people, most normal people would see us as runners who go out and run when it’s zero degrees outside or there’s snow on the ground or whatever, and they think we’re crazy. Like, how could you possibly do that?
I could never be that disciplined, you know? But I see it all the time with runners and we don’t even think about it. We’re just like, of course I’m gonna run. Well, it’s gonna be zero degrees outside, but that doesn’t really matter. I, I can wear the right gear. I, I’ve done this before, you know, so discipline is not the problem.
And I’m not saying this is, everything’s going to always feel easy either because stuff is hard sometimes, you know, sometimes it is hard to, to get out there and run when it’s that cold out and the wind chill is 15 below zero or whatever. But there’s a huge difference between, you know, sometimes things are challenging or uncomfortable, and then you’re constantly feeling exhausted and constantly struggling.
Okay. When something feels like it’s a daily battle, when you’re always. You know, negotiating with yourself, always feeling like you’re behind or feeling like you’re failing at stuff. It’s not a problem of, you know, not being disciplined enough. Okay. It’s a, it’s a problem of design, right? You don’t have a, a plan designed for that area, whether it’s food strength training.
Those seem to be the two that I hear most people talking about. And most runners have never been taught to really look at it that way. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about why running doesn’t feel like a constant struggle for most runners because you probably have set days that you run, right? You probably have a, a rough idea or, or a very.
You know, detailed idea of distance or time that you’re gonna run on those days. You know, you have a structure in place, you have a training plan that you are following, and you have a clear definition of what you know, what this week is going to look like, what this day is gonna look like, what this particular run is going to look like.
So you have those systems in place. You have that plan in place for running. And even if you’re not following a perfect plan, you know running still has. Well, you know, like rules, right? There’s a start time. There’s a route that you have in mind. There’s an end, you know, you don’t wake up and ask, you know, should I run today or not?
’cause you’ve already decided that ahead of time, that decision was made in advance. And because of that, because you made that decision ahead of time. Running doesn’t drain you mentally. You don’t have to make decisions every single day. Those decisions have been made so it doesn’t feel heavy. It doesn’t feel, uh, like a, like a struggle.
It doesn’t feel chaotic, right? It just feels normal. Alright, let’s compare that with, you know, sticking with a food plan and sticking with a strength training plan. So when we talk about food, especially if you’re someone who is trying to change their diet because you wanna lose weight, you know, a lot of times people say, I really wanna lose weight, so I’m gonna change my diet, but here’s what their food.
Plan looks like or lack of, like, they don’t have a clear plan. They are, there are too many options on the table constantly. Um, you’re making decisions in the moment all day long, every single day. And then there’s emotional baggage attached to every decision, every choice that you’re making. You know, we have a lot of emotions tied into food and what that means about us and about our, our sense of who we are and how we show up.
In the world and how we compare ourselves to others, right? So you don’t have clear plan, you have too many options. You’re making all these decisions. There’s emotional baggage attached to everything. Um, strength training, like sticking with that kind of a plan looks like this. You know, I should probably lift weights, but I just, I don’t know what to do, or, you know, I don’t have time.
In my schedule for another thing. So I just, I don’t know when I’m gonna work this in. I’ll just do it when I, when I have time or you know, I know I should be doing some strength training, so I’ll start next week. Okay. And then we label that as an a motivation issue. Okay. Like, oh, I just didn’t feel motivated.
I need to be motivated. Okay? But it’s not what I’m describing here around food, around strength training is decision fatigue. So every time you have to make a decision, what should I eat? When should I eat? How much should I eat? When should I lift weights? What exercises am I supposed to do? How long is this gonna take?
Where am I gonna do this? You gotta make all these decisions. You’re burning mental. Energy, and that’s why it feels like a constant struggle to you. Running doesn’t feel like a struggle to you because you already have a system in place and you just follow the system. Okay? Now let me say this very plainly.
You are not struggling with food or strength training. You are struggling with too many decisions and because you don’t see that you’re trying to solve the wrong problem, you’re trying to be more disciplined, you’re trying to be more motivated. You’re trying to lock it in this time, or you’re trying to push harder, and that works sometimes temporarily until.
Anything in life shows up until you’re tired or you get busy at work, or you get a little bit of stress and then everything just falls apart again. Right? Not because you failed, not because you’re undisciplined, it’s because your system. Is not in place. Okay. That’s all it is. Um, but I see this cycle over again, over and over again with runners.
You decide like, okay, I’m really gonna do this now. So you clean up your eating, you know, you commit to strength training and it feels good. Um, but nothing is automated. So every day you’re just relying on motivation and willpower and willpower. It is not reliable. Okay. The reason why is because willpower is a temporary resource.
Like you have willpower, like your willpower is strongest in the morning, if you’ve noticed that. And then as the day goes on, that willpower. Tank that you have like that, you know, reservoir of willpower that you have available to you throughout the day tends to dwindle down throughout the day. That’s why a lot of times in the evening, people have a very hard time sticking with their food plan, like they’re good during the day, but as soon as nighttime comes around because your willpower’s just gone.
By that time you’ve been making all these decisions, you’ve had all this stuff to do at work, kids have been bugging you, you know, you, it is just like too much stuff going on. And by the end of the day, you’re just done with making decisions. You’re just like, just don’t just gimme the pizza. Okay. So willpower, motivation, these things are not reliable.
They’re, they’re limited resources that we have available to us. Okay, so eventually you’re gonna miss a workout. You’re gonna eat something off plan. You’re gonna just go and eat that whole pizza by yourself, and then you’re gonna feel like a failure. You’re gonna feel like you’re running behind or, or falling behind with your plan.
And then you’re, you’re gonna start to talk to yourself and say, I blew it. I always do this. I’m gonna restart next week. Listen, this is not a lack of discipline, okay? It’s just a bad setup, right? It’s just a bad plan. Okay? Um, so. One thing I want you to really understand here. Is that hard? Is not the goal.
And I know endurance athletes love suffering, right? It’s glorified. It’s like a rite of passage. It’s a badge of honor. Uh, no pain, no gain, all that stuff. But food and strength training are not supposed to feel like daily emotional battles. Okay? Save those emotional struggles for. Uh, you know, out there trying to pr your, your marathon or whatever.
Okay? Sticking to your food plan, your strength training plan. These things should feel boring and predictable and repetitive. Not exciting. Not dramatic, not something you have to. Mentally prepare for every single day. If your nutrition plan requires daily motivation to stick to it, it’s flawed. Okay? If your strength training plan requires you to, you know, have motivation to, to feel like doing it, it’s flawed.
Okay? You need systems in place to avoid, you know, relying on motivation all the time. Let’s talk a little bit about systems. Okay? ’cause a system is something that you can follow without thinking. Um, and a real world example of this, this has nothing to do with like running or anything, but it’s brushing your teeth, right?
Think about you Don’t wake up every morning and ask yourself, Hmm, do I feel motivated to brush my teeth today? I’m just not feeling very motivated today. I, I, I don’t know, maybe I should brush later. I’ll just do it later. What if I just skip today and I’ll, and I’ll brush my teeth twice tomorrow? I know it sounds ridiculous, right?
But you don’t do this. You don’t debate it. You don’t negotiate with yourself. You don’t have to rely on willpower to brush your teeth. You just do it. Why? Because brushing your teeth has become a system. You have a system in place. Uh, it’s not a decision that you have to make. It happens at the same time every day in the same place, in the same way, with the same expectation.
And because it’s a system, it’s automated, it takes basically zero mental energy to do it. Okay? Now imagine if brushing your teeth work the way that most runners approach their diet. Okay? You’d wake up and think. I brushed last night, so maybe I don’t need to today, or let’s just see how the day goes. Okay.
Or I’ll be extra good tomorrow. Okay. That sounds ridiculous, right? But that’s exactly how people treat nutrition and strength training, and then they wonder why it constantly feels so hard, okay? The big takeaway here isn’t that brushing your teeth is easy. The big takeaway is this, things feel easy when the decision is already made.
Okay? You’re not disciplined. With brushing your teeth, you’re not motivated. You just have a system in place. That’s the point here. And if food and strength training feel heavy, emotional, or exhausting, it’s not because you lack discipline, it’s because you haven’t turned them into systems yet. Okay?
Running has systems like you run on the same days. Usually at the same times, there’s people that love to run in the morning or maybe they run after work, or maybe they switch it up, but they have like certain days they run at certain times. You just know when you’re gonna do it. You have the same expectations, right?
You don’t debate this stuff. You just execute, right? So food needs systems. You need to have some default meals in place. You know, you need to have some rules around the grocery store and what you get and what you don’t get. You need to have routines around. Eating strength training is the same way. You need fixed days.
You need simple workouts. You need a clear progression. And when you have these systems in place, the emotion disappears, the decisions disappear, um, and those emotions, that’s what’s really causing this. Struggle and it’s causing you to burn out. You know? ’cause you’re just getting too emotionally involved with all this stuff.
And we gotta remove that layer. When you remove that layer, because you have these systems in place, everything becomes easier. Um, and I hear this all the time from runners, you know, the a about the strength training, I just can’t stick to lifting. I’m like, well, what days are you doing this? What workouts are you doing?
How long do those workouts take? What you know? What exercises do you have in, in what order are you doing them? And they can’t answer any of these questions. You know, everything is like vague. I’m just gonna show up and do it whenever. I don’t know what I’m really doing. That’s the problem. Okay. You’re trying to build consistency without any structure in place, and you don’t do that with your running, so why are you doing it in other areas here?
Okay, so we gotta get out of this struggle. And if you want out of the cycle of constantly trying harder, falling off, starting over. The solution isn’t going to be more discipline, okay? It’s gonna be fewer decisions. So here’s what I want you to do instead. Decide once. Not every single day. Most runners don’t realize how much energy they waste deciding the same things over and over and over again.
What should I eat today? When should I do my strength training? Should I train now or later? That’s not flexibility. It’s friction. Okay? Running works because the decisions are already made. You don’t wake up and reinvent your training schedule every day. You just follow the plan that’s in place. So do the same thing with food.
Do the same thing with your strength training. Decide what you eat for breakfast on most days, or if you eat breakfast or not, decide which days you’re going to strength train. Decide which days you’re going to the grocery store. You don’t need to go every single day, decide, you know, when you’re gonna prep meals, if it’s, if it’s gonna be once a week, or you know, a couple times a week, whatever.
Make those decisions in advance and once those decisions are made, don’t question the decisions. Okay. You don’t need a new plan every Monday. You need a good plan that you can stick to long enough so that you can start seeing results. Okay? The point here is we’re trying to reduce options, more options feel freeing.
Like, oh, I have all these options here, but it’s actually exhausting. Okay? And if you’re choosing between five different breakfasts every single morning. You’re burning mental energy before your day even kicks into gear. Okay? So pick one or two, go-to breakfasts one, or go-to one or two, go-to lunches. Uh, maybe a small rotation of simple dinners, okay?
Not because you can’t eat other things, because you don’t need to be deciding these things every single day. Runners love routines, you know, when it comes to training. So apply that same thinking to your food. Repetition isn’t boring when it’s getting you the results that you want. Okay? And I like to use this term all the time, which is make it boring.
You know, this part messes with some people, okay? Because we’ve been taught that progress needs excitement and novelty and constant change. It really doesn’t. The most effective nutrition and strength routines are boring by design. Boring means it’s predictable, it’s low stress. It’s easy to repeat if your plan requires, you know, enthusiasm and, and.
Inspiration or perfect conditions, it’s not gonna last. Okay. Boring works because it is sustainable. Another way you can kind of make the change and start moving away from the struggle is to attach new habits to existing routines. Okay? This is one of the most powerful moves that you can make. Don’t create standalone habits that float around.
Your schedule that you’re just hoping will get done, you gotta anchor them to something you’re already doing. Okay? So maybe you lift after your easy run. So you have like two easy runs a week, and you lift right after those. Attach the habit of lifting to your running habit that’s already in place. Okay?
Or prep your food right after your grocery shopping. Maybe you have a grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon. You do that regularly. Just prep your food right after that. Okay. Or, or do your stretching while your, your coffee is brewing in the morning. Okay. Attach the habit of stretching to an already made and established habit of like brewing your coffee in the morning.
Okay? You already have strong routines in your life. I know you do. Just use these to your advantage. Okay? When habit has a, uh, an attachment, a trigger, it stops being optional. It’s just something you do no matter what. Okay. Now here’s a question I want you to ask yourself, and I really want you to sit with this.
What can I automate so I don’t have to argue with myself anymore? Because arguing with yourself is exhausting. Okay? If you’re debating food choices, if you’re constantly debating the timing of your workouts or whether you’re on track every single day. That’s a sign that something needs to be automated.
Okay? It’s not about being perfect. The goal is not perfection. The goal is removing friction. So consistency becomes the default. Okay? We wanna remove the friction so that our default is. Being consistent. All right? You don’t need to become a more disciplined person. Uh, you just need fewer things competing for your attention, right?
When decisions are made in advance, when routines are boring and predictable, when habits are anchored to things you’re already doing. The struggle disappears, right? Not because you’re stronger or more, you know, mentally powerful. It’s because you finally have a system that works. Okay, let me leave you with this.
You don’t need to struggle less because you’re tougher. You need to struggle less because you are smarter, okay? You are not broken, you are not undisciplined. You’re just trying to succeed without systems. And once you fix that, everything else changes. And if you’re listening to this and you’re realizing that you’re not actually struggling because you lack discipline, you’re struggling because you don’t have a system in place, this is where I want you to pay attention.
Okay? The leaner, stronger Runner project isn’t a quick fix. It’s not another short term challenge. It’s a simple structured system designed to support you over time, so you’re not constantly guessing, restarting, or relying on motivation. Most runners who join don’t come in saying, okay, I’m all set forever.
They come in thinking, I just want this to feel easier. And that’s exactly what happens because they stop debating their food choices. They stop wondering if what they’re doing is right with their strength workouts. Um, they stop feeling like they’re behind all the time. And everything gets simpler because the decisions are already made.
This program is set up as an ongoing coaching program month to month. You’re not locking yourself into anything. You come in, you follow the system, and you give it enough time to actually work. And here’s the key. People don’t stay because they have to. They stay because they’re training, they’re eating in their day-to-day life.
Finally, feel aligned. Right. So if you’re tired of struggling, if you want running to feel better instead of harder, if you’re ready to stop arguing with yourself every single day, go to my website running lean coaching.com/ready and join the Leaner Stronger Runner Project. This is where things get clearer, calmer, and a whole lot more sustainable.
Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
Let me say this straight up—you can’t rush progress. And yet, almost every runner tries. In this episode, “You Can’t Rush Progress,” we’re talking about why fat loss, strength, and better …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 317 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today you can’t rush progress. So let me say this straight up. You cannot rush progress, and yet almost every runner I know tries. In this episode we’re talking about why things like fat loss, building strength and better running performance take longer than you want.
But not longer than they need to. If you’ve ever jumped from plan to plan, if you’ve ever pushed harder when your body was already tired and exhausted, or if you’ve ever wondered why you’re doing all the right things, but still not seeing the results that you expect. This conversation should hit home for you.
I’m gonna break down what real progress actually looks like. Why impatience is one of the biggest things holding runners back and how to shift from constantly chasing results to building momentum that actually. Lasts, no hype, no shortcuts. Just clear thinking, practical examples, and a better way to approach training and nutrition so you can stop fighting your own progress and start working with it.
All right. Let’s talk about something that almost every runner struggles with at some point. Especially if your goal is to lose weight, if you’re trying to get stronger, if you wanna actually enjoy running again, and that is progress, or more specifically, the urge to rush progress. We live in a world where everything is fast.
You know, we want everything right away, and we can pretty much get it. That way, you know, same day shipping, instant feedback, training plans that promise big changes in just a few weeks. Social media, highlight reels that make it look like everyone else is improving faster than you are. And if you’re a runner, that pressure hits even harder because.
I, I, I know what you’re thinking. You’re like, I want the weight to just come off right now. You know, I want running to feel easier right now. I wanna be stronger. I wanna get leaner. I wanna get faster right now. So that’s why I decided this is a good topic for us all as a reminder, especially as we start this new year and, and start working towards big goals for this year.
You just cannot rush the process. You can’t rush progress. And I wanna be really clear about something upfront. This is not gonna be like a, a motivational speech today. It’s not about like, just trust the journey or you gotta embrace the grind. You know, that stuff is fine for, for some situations and it sounds nice, but it’s not gonna help you when you’re frustrated, when you’re tired, when you’re wondering if what you’re doing is actually working or not.
Okay? This episode is gonna be all about. Reality. Okay. How progress actually works. Um, why, you know, when we try to speed everything up, it actually backfires on us. And how to stay consistent long enough for the results that you actually want. You gotta give them a chance to actually show up for you. Okay?
So if you’ve ever felt stuck, impatient, or tempted to just switch everything up because you’re not seeing the results fast enough, listen up. Okay. I keep seeing this pattern over and over again with runners. Okay. They’re not lazy. Um, the people I talk to, they’re not unmotivated. Uh, it’s not like they’re sitting around on the couch eating Cheetos or something like that.
Okay. A lot of times they’re just doing too much. You know, a lot of people I talk to think the answer to everything is just more, more, more, more, more, more increased mileage and then like cut your calories way back. At the same time, um, people that add intensity, in other words, they, they do more. Intense workouts, more high interval in uh, sessions, high intensity interval sessions, um, when they’re already kind of beat down and exhausted.
Uh, they change programs every few weeks, but they think, oh, this next thing will finally be the one that works. You know, so they just keep switching things up. If they don’t see results in like two weeks, three weeks, then they just change up and move on to the next thing. I see this a lot with like the diet mentality out there.
A lot of people that adopt some sort of a diet and they give it like three weeks and they’re like, this isn’t working, and then they go and try something else. You know, they never give anything a chance to actually, uh, you know, show up and actually start showing you some results. You know, you just keep switching things up.
You never give your body a chance to adapt. And on the surface it looks like, you know, we’re committed to something. It looks like we’re, we keep changing things up because we’re committed to getting these results right now. So I’m gonna keep doing whatever I can to make sure we’re moving the needle. But underneath all of this, it’s just impatience.
Like you’re just being impatient. It’s disguised as effort. But it’s just impatience. And impatience is actually expensive, okay? It costs you consistency, it costs you recovery, and eventually, if this goes on long enough, it costs you the belief that you know nothing’s gonna work for you. You know, you just keep believing that, you know, you’ve tried everything.
And I hear this a lot with people. I’ve tried everything and nothing works for me. Well, how long did you try everything? Did you give it three months or six months or a year, or was it like three and a half weeks? Because there’s a big difference there. Okay. If your belief systems are built on shaky ground like that, you are never gonna be able to make progress, okay?
Because deep down you, you just know that nothing is ever going to work for you. Okay, so just to understand that what I’m talking about here is what’s really going on under the surface. Okay? And a lot of people don’t like to talk about this stuff because it’s uncomfortable. I hope this conversation makes you a little bit uncomfortable because then I’m doing a good job.
Um, one of the realities I want you to adopt here is that progress is slow by design, and it’s something that a lot of runners don’t want to hear. Um, if progress feels slow, uh, they think that it’s, it’s not working. It’s broken somehow fat loss happens slowly. Because your body is actually trying to protect you.
Your body’s goal is to hold onto that stored body fat as energy because hey, if we need that later, I want to have that on board. So fat loss is going to happen slowly. Your body is not going to release all the fat all at once. Okay? Strength gains happen very gradually. Because it takes a while for your muscle, tissues to adapt.
It takes time for your muscle, tissues to uh, either get larger or get stronger, or both, um, improving your running economy. It happens in small increments, not giant leaps. Okay. Your body isn’t Amazon Prime. Okay? It doesn’t deliver results overnight just because you want them, okay? When you try to force it by training harder or eating a lot less, or stacking more and more strategies on top of each other, you’re not actually speeding things up.
You’re interfering with the process. I’ve coached so many runners who were doing all the right things. You know, on paper they look like the right things and they’re still spinning their wheels. And when we zoomed out, the problem wasn’t what they were doing. It wasn’t their effort level is that they were constantly interrupting their own adaptation.
Process. Okay. They never stayed in one place long enough for their body to actually have that positive adaptation for their body to respond to the changes that you know, they were putting on their body or the stresses that they were putting on their body. You know, it’s like you go to the gym and you do some bicep curls and you expect your biceps to grow by three inches.
It’s just not gonna happen. It does not work that way. It’s like millimeters at a time and it takes weeks and months and years to grow, you know, three, four inches on your biceps or whatever. You know? It takes a long time and, and we get stuck. I think a lot of runners anyway get stuck in this trap of constantly making adjustments.
Okay? A lot of people get stuck here. I kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but it’s like you start a plan, you feel motivated, you expect noticeable changes in just a couple of weeks, right? And then you don’t see it. So you tweak something. Maybe it’s your diet, you cut out the carbs. Maybe you’re talking about trying to improve your endurance or make running feel easier, so you add a bunch more miles.
You know, you throw in a bunch of extra workouts because you want to get stronger faster. You download a new plan, and then a new plan, and then a new plan. And what you’re really doing is you’re telling your body, you know, nevermind, forget what I asked you to adapt to. Here’s something brand new. Okay?
Adaptation requires consistency under stable conditions. And if the stimulus keeps changing, the signal gets weaker. Um, and I’ve heard people talk about this when they, when they talk about strength training, and they’ll say, oh, you know, you wanna confuse your muscles, you know, by constantly changing everything up.
And there is some truth to that. But you don’t wanna change everything up constantly because then you’re never actually creating that adaptation. Okay? The, the signal does get a little bit weaker. You’re kind of watering things down, okay? So you do want to stick to a consistent workout routine for a while.
Maybe, you know, four weeks or something like that. And then you change it up. And so that gives your body time to, uh, you fully stress those systems adapt. Uh, have positive adaptations. You get stronger, uh, you get bigger muscles, whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. Same thing with running, you know, stick to the same training plan for, uh, you know, a few weeks at a time, three, four weeks at a time, and then switch it up a little bit.
Okay. Because when you do that, now you’re giving your body a chance to adapt to those, uh, changes and stressors that you’re putting on your body. And your body will have those positive adaptations and you improve, okay? But you’re not gonna improve if you constantly keep changing the rules. Okay. This is especially true if you’re trying to lose weight while you’re training.
Your body’s already navigating, uh, an energy deficit, right? If you, if you are cutting your calories, your body’s navigating an energy deficit, you’re gonna pile on, you know, a bunch of changes, a bunch of. Un uncertainty essentially, and your body responds by slowing everything down, so weight loss really stalls and you just can’t figure out why.
Why is this stalling? I’m doing all these different things. I keep changing everything, but it’s not working. And it’s not because your body is dumb or stubborn. It’s because your body is actually smart. Your body understands that it, it can’t respond to these constant, uh, variations and inputs. Okay? You gotta keep things consistent for a while, for a while, okay?
I wanna talk a little bit about comparison, because this actually is something that a lot of people do. And again, a lot of people aren’t talking about this, but it pours gasoline on the fire here. Okay? So you, you see other runners, uh, maybe friends of yours or people that you see on, on social media as you see them dropping weight faster than you, you might see people, you know.
Getting stronger, quicker than you. Um, you, you hear success stories of people and it just sounds like they did it without any effort. This is, this is not a good thing to compare ourselves to others, okay? Because you’re missing out on what got them there. Okay? You don’t see their starting point. You don’t see their history of consistency.
You don’t see how many. Years it took them to get to where they are. Uh, you don’t see their capacity to recover. Uh, you don’t see their, their lifestyle stress or their genetics. Genetics play a role with all this stuff. Okay? And progress isn’t linear. It’s definitely not universal across the board. So just because you see somebody else.
Losing weight super fast, that does not mean that even if you did the same things that person was doing, you’re gonna have the same results. It’s just not gonna happen that way. This is why I always say there’s not one diet that’s gonna work perfectly for everybody because we are all different. We’re all coming from different places.
We all have different metabolisms, different stressors, different lifestyles, different genetics. Um, and the same diet is going to, uh, have different results in different people. Okay, so there’s not one universal diet that’s perfect for everybody. Uh, so we just have to understand that, you know, you might be comparing yourself, uh, to your, where you are in your process.
You’re in chapter three, somebody else is on their chapter 12. And this feels logical, but it’s misplaced. Okay. The fastest way to really stall your own progress is to constantly judge your progress against someone else’s timeline. Okay? ’cause you have no idea what’s going on with that person or how they got there.
Um, all you’re seeing is where they are today and where you are today. And. Thinking somehow they should match up. And that’s just, it just doesn’t work that way. Okay, now I wanna make an important distinction here between urgency and consistency, because this is where kind of the rubber meets the road with this conversation here today.
Urgency says I need results right now. Consistency says I’m willing to put in the work and do this long enough for the results to show up. Urgency pushes harder when things are feeling slow. Just go harder, harder, do more, and more and more. Consistency keeps showing up even when nothing exciting is happening.
Right. That’s harder to do. Here’s the uncomfortable truth, though. Most progress happens during the boring phase, the weeks where nothing dramatic changes, but your habits are solid. The months where you’re not setting prs, but you’re not falling apart either. Those stretches where discipline matters more than excitement.
Okay? This is where your body actually adapts. Let me give you a couple of examples that I see all the time. A runner increases mileage and intensity while also cutting back their food intake because they want to lean out faster. Um, someone lifts heavy, runs hard, sleeps poorly, and they wonder why they’re not making any progress.
They just feel flat all the time. Or a runner abandons a solid plan after a couple of weeks because it doesn’t feel aggressive enough now. None of these people lack drive. What they’re actually lacking is patience. And patience isn’t passive. It’s strategic. It’s not just waiting around for something to happen.
It’s showing up consistently day after day after day, and doing those things, you know? Are going to eventually lead to results in the long run. Okay? We have to work with the process instead of constantly fighting against it. Okay? And here’s what actually works. Number one, pick fewer priorities. You can’t prioritize everything all the time.
You can’t maximize fat loss, strength. Speed, endurance. All at the same time, decide what matters most right now. Pick one thing, maybe two things that you wanna work on and work on those two things. Okay? Trying to do everything at once can just lead to exhaustion, burnout, and then you don’t want to do anything.
Okay? Number two, stay in the plan longer than feels comfortable. Right. This is a big one. Most people I talk to, they quit right before the results really start to compound. Okay? You gotta stay in the plan, and sometimes you get to the point where you’re like, I just don’t know if this is working or not.
Keep going, right? You just gotta stay with it. Eventually, those results are going to show up for you, okay? Number three. Track the right signals. Okay. Things like energy levels, recovery, consistency, your mood performance trends. Not just, you know, what the scale says or who, how fast that last run was. Okay.
You gotta be tracking more than just a couple of those, uh, kind of vanity metrics. Okay? Track the signals that actually. Matter. And number four, respect recovery as part of progress. Okay? Recovery isn’t time off. It’s the time when your body adapts. It’s the time when your muscles get stronger. It’s the time when your cardiovascular system improves.
You gotta give yourself time to recover. It is part of the process. It is what leads to progress. Okay? When you do these four things, pick fewer priorities. Stay in the plan longer than it feels comfortable. Track the right signals. Respect. Recovery. Progress. Doesn’t feel fast, but it happens. It feels stable.
Okay. And stable. Progress is sustainable progress. Okay. So you gotta shift your mindset here a little bit, okay? You gotta stop trying to rush progress. And when you do that, a few things are gonna happen. You stop overreacting to a bad week here or there. Because you’re in it for the long haul, okay? You trust your processes more.
You’re committed to what you’re doing day by day. You’re not focused on the end result. You’re focused on the processes. You train with intention instead of panicking all the time, and you make decisions based on logic, not just because you’re frustrated and you want results now. And ironically, when you do this, results actually show up faster.
I know it’s crazy how that works, right? Not because you pushed harder, but because you stopped getting in your own way and you just decided you were going to, uh, be consistent with this stuff. Okay? So this is the mindset shift that’s going to actually, uh, make big changes for you, okay? And if any of this is landing for you, here’s what I want you to consider.
A lot of runners feel like they’re constantly working, but rarely. Moving forward, you know, they train consistently. Yet running still feels harder than it should. They try to dial in their nutrition, but it feels confusing, restrictive, or unsustainable. They lift weights, you know, here and there, but it never really sticks.
And deep down there’s this quiet frustration that says, you know, I’m doing a lot. Why does this all feel like such a struggle? And it’s not a willpower problem. It’s not a motivation problem. It’s a problem of. Strategy and the leaner, stronger runner project was built specifically for runners who are done rushing, done guessing, and done starting over.
It’s a complete system that brings together smart training, realistic nutrition strength that actually supports your running and the mindset required to stay consistent long enough. For real change to happen. It’s not extreme, it’s not obsessive, it’s not complicated. Just clear, structured, sustainable coaching, so you stop spinning your wheels and start building some momentum.
If you want running to feel easier, if you wanna feel stronger in your body, if you wanna plan, you can actually stick to without burning yourself out. Just go to my website, running lean coaching.com/ready. Read through it. Take your time, see if it feels like the approach you’ve been missing, because once you stop trying to rush progress and start following a process designed to work, you’re gonna be surprised at how much changes.
Cool. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.
In The Leaner, Stronger Runner Framework – Part 3: Why Motivation Isn’t the Problem (And What Actually Creates Consistency), we’re talking about the missing piece that determines whether anything …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 316 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the leaner stronger Runner framework. Part three, why motivation isn’t the problem and what actually creates consistency. So in this episode I’m gonna be talking about the missing piece that oftentimes determines whether anything you’ve learned so far actually sticks.
Most runners think they need more motivation, more discipline, or more willpower, but if that were true, you’d already have the results that you want. The real issue is an effort. It’s the system you’re relying on to stay consistent. When life gets stressful or motivation fades, or things just don’t go perfectly.
So in this episode, I’m gonna break down why motivation always runs out, why starting over feels so normal for runners and what actually creates long-term consistency. Without burning yourself out. This is about identity, structure and learning how to trust yourself again, not about trying harder or being perfect, so if you’re tired of resetting and ready to build something that lasts.
This episode is gonna bring everything together for you here. Okay. So this is the final part of a short but powerful series. Um, and if you haven’t already listened to the first two parts of this series, go back and and do that now. This is part number three, and today we’re talking about the piece that determines whether everything you’ve learned so far.
Actually sticks or just kind of quietly fades away like it always has in the past. Okay. And what we’re talking about to today more than anything else is gonna be consistency. Okay. Not motivation, not discipline, not trying harder, or you know, trying to force more willpower onto the situation we’re talking about.
Consistency. If you’ve ever felt like you know what to do, but you still struggle to follow through on that. Or if you’ve ever started strong and then you kind of drift off track over time, um, or maybe you’ve wondered why you keep restarting all the time instead of, you know, keeping the momentum going.
Then this episode is going to be for you for sure, and I wanna say this very clearly, upfront, that motivation is not your problem. Okay? So for the three part series that I’m doing here, this is probably the most important one of the series. In part one I talked about training. You know, why doing more often makes things worse.
Um, in part two, I talked about fueling and why restriction often backfires for runners, and those are. Tactical problems. I mean, they’re, they’re real issues and everything like that, but they’re, they’re strategic problems. Okay? This episode is about a foundational problem, okay? Because you can have the perfect training plan.
You can know exactly what to eat. And you can understand everything intellectually and still fail to change. And it’s not because you’re lazy, you’re a runner. You stick to your trading plan. I know you’re not lazy. It’s not because you don’t care. I know you care. This stuff is important to you because you’re relying on the wrong mechanism that’s actually driving your behavior.
Okay, so most runners believe something like this. If I could just stay motivated, then everything would work perfectly for me. Okay? So they think, you know, I need, I need more discipline, I need to want it more, or I need to stop falling off track. And when things don’t work perfectly, they blame themselves.
They beat themselves up, okay? But the truth here is that motivation. Is an unreliable resource. Willpower is a finite resource, and if you have discipline, that’s great, but discipline without structure is just gonna lead to confusion and eventually burnout. Okay, so motivation spikes. Sometimes you feel super motivated to do stuff, but then it fades and it, it will always fade.
Okay? When motivation fades, a lot of runners are thinking. You know, it must be me. Something is wrong with me. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with you, okay? I wanna talk about what is actually happening here, okay? ’cause runners and the people that I work with, and the people that I talk to every single day.
Oh, you guys are great at starting things. Okay, you got a new training plan. You got this new race that you signed up for, or maybe it’s a new distance. Instead of like a A 10 K, you’re going for a half marathon. Instead of a half marathon, you’re gonna train for that new marathon. You got a new goal. I’m gonna PR this time.
And you have this newfound motivation. And the first few weeks of this always feel pretty amazing, right? You’re focused. You’re super energized. Uh, you’re doing all the right things, okay? And then something happens. Life shows up, you get stressed out about work, uh, family stuff. Um, maybe you’re not sleeping well.
The weather turns super bad. You miss a run or two. You skip a workout, you eat off your meal plan, and instead of just adjusting and course correcting or pivoting or whatever you need to do, you’re like, I’m off track. Uh, and, and you try to snap back harder. Like you just try to, you know, force more energy into the situation.
Um, doesn’t really work right. Or a lot of people I talk to, they tell me that over time they just quietly give up. Right. They just lose that motivation and that’s it. They’re done. And then their, their idea is that they’re gonna restart later. Okay. And they’re going to, you know, pick it up again in a few weeks or a month, or when things calm down, or when you’re not stressed, or when you’re sleeping better, or when the weather turns different, or when the kids are outta school or whatever the thing is.
Right? And it’s not about, you know, being inconsistent or not caring or anything like that. It’s just you’re relying on a very fragile structure. So most runners have a plan. That assumes a few things. That assumes perfect weeks, like everything’s gonna go perfectly all the time. How’s that working out for you?
Your most plans assume some sort of high motivation factor, like you’re always gonna feel like. Doing the speed work or doing the long run in the rain, or the snow, or the wind or, or you know, a combination of all those things. Uh, most plans assume no stress and, uh, no setbacks at all, but that’s not reality.
Okay. ’cause real life is not perfect. It’s messy. Training is imperfect. Your energy levels fluctuates. Um, mo motivation comes and goes, right? And if your plan only works, when everything is perfect and everything is going right, it’s not going to work okay? It’s just not so one of the most important concepts.
That I wanna share with you in this episode is this id, this idea of identity versus behavior. Okay? ’cause most runners try to change their behavior. Their actions, what they’re doing without changing their identity. You know who they are at their core or how they see themselves at their core. So someone might say like, I’m trying to lose weight, or I’m trying to be more consistent, or I’m trying to eat better, and this is all very fragile.
Okay, because trying depends on mood. It depends on your motivation, it depends on circumstances, and, and again, it assumes everything is going perfect. Identity is different. Identity is who you are at your core or how you see yourself. So identity is. Usually it’s everything that follows the words I am.
Okay, so identity sounds like. You know, this is how I train now. This is who I am. This is how I eat now. This is who I am. This is how I take care of myself. This is just what I do because this is who I am. So identity removes the questioning of the decision. It removes the negotiation with yourself. Right, because if this is who you are and this is how you train, this is who you are, this is how you eat, there is no question, there’s no decision to be made there.
Do you see how much more powerful that is than just trying to change the behavior? I’m going to try to eat better, versus this is how I eat. You know, I eat like an athlete because I am an athlete. That’s very, very powerful and it’s an empowering statement, and it’s taking that, that power that you have about decision making about.
Uh, behavior about, you know, shifting and transforming yourself and improving yourself, and it’s putting it all on you, which is the good news end, the bad news. Because guess what? It’s all on you, but you know what, it’s all on you. Um, so when you’re, when you’re saying like, I’m trying to do this, uh, that’s very weak.
It’s a very fragile, it’s a very, um, disempowering statement to make. Okay. Instead, start thinking in terms of shifting your identity into, Hey, I’m an athlete. I train like an athlete. I eat like an athlete. I, uh, run like an athlete. Okay? So it removes the negotiation when you start shifting your identity.
Now a lot of runners I talk to, they, they, uh, haven’t got this part dialed in yet, and they end up, uh, starting over a lot. And runners are very good at starting over. In fact, they’re so good at it that it feels normal to them. Like every Monday they have to start over with their diet. Um. You know, uh, uh, I’m gonna start my new training plan on Monday, or, you know, my motivation hopefully will come back on Monday.
Uh, so new plans, new motivation. Hopefully they make new promises to themselves. They’re just starting over constantly. Um, stopping and starting over, stopping and starting over, and it feels. Productive. It feels like you’re doing something good. It feels hopeful. It’s a way of kind of exerting some control over the situation.
If you’re constantly starting over, then you’re constantly feeling that initial surge of motivation. Right. But starting over is also a sign that nothing was built, nothing was established, you didn’t create some momentum, um, and you didn’t really fail. It’s just like you didn’t, you didn’t give it long enough to actually, you know, um, have legs.
Okay, so you didn’t give it, uh, uh, enough time to where it could become stable and create that momentum. It’s kind of like. Uh, the plane takes off, right? There’s a lot of energy required to get that plane off the ground, but once it’s off the ground, you get some momentum going and you can just get up to cruising altitude and you can just, uh, glide almost.
You could turn off those engines. You could fly for quite a long time, or you don’t need as much energy once you’re, uh, in that, uh, gliding mode, you know, once you’re up at altitude. But. So many people give up before they get to that place. They love the surge, they love the, uh, energy and that motivation that comes at the beginning of something and, and they like starting over constantly subconsciously.
It’s not something they’re super consciously aware of. They’re like, why do I keep starting over? But underneath the surface, they kind of enjoy it. Maybe they’re a little addicted to that adrenaline, you know, of constantly having to start over again. Okay. And listen, I’m not talking about being perfect here.
This is where a lot of people, um, get this wrong or they, they misunderstand. They think that being consistent means never missing a workout or never overeating, or never sneaking a cookie or a cupcake. Never getting tired, never falling off track. That is not consistency. That’s perfectionism. You know, and perfectionism is.
Not based in reality, let’s be honest. Okay. When I’m talking about consistency, it looks like this. It means that, you know, maybe you fall off track a little bit, but you return quickly, like you course correct quickly, you adjust instead of. Quit like in, instead of giving up and starting over, you make a course correction, you adjust.
You’re staying in the processed, right, you’re staying in the process of training, in the process of, uh, making a food plan, whatever that looks like for you, and you are making the next best decision. You always tell people, um, don’t, don’t miss two workouts in a row. Don’t have two bad meals in a row. In other words, if you eat off plan.
At the very next meal, get back on track. If you miss a workout, don’t worry about it. Stuff happens. Sometimes we get sick or you know, the kids were demanding your attention or you had to, um, deal with some work stuff and you miss a work. Okay? No, no problem. Don’t worry about it. Just next workout, you’re back on track.
Don’t miss that second workout. Okay? Consistency is about. Continuity, not perfect compliance. All right? There’s no such thing as perfection. Nobody’s gonna do this stuff perfectly. So let’s talk a little bit about some emotions, because this is where a lot of runners, um, get themselves stuck because they, they get emotional about some things and.
We have to, we have to address this, okay. And talk about it. A lot of coaches out there aren’t really talking about this stuff, okay? And this is kind of subtle, but it’s very important, okay? Most runners, uh, their decisions are not super logical. They are emotional. Alright? You don’t skip a run because you decided to, you didn’t make that decision.
You skipped it because you were overwhelmed or stressed or tired, or something got in the way. You didn’t overeat because you’re careless. Uh, you overate because your nervous system is fried for whatever reason. Okay? If your plan doesn’t account for emotions, it will fail. And when I’m talking about emotions, I’m talking about things like stress and overwhelm and frustration and anxiety and boredom.
Is an emotion. Um, fear, uh, these are all emotions, sadness, grief. Um, these are all the kinds of emotions that drive us to, uh, go off our plan, that drive us to engage in behaviors that maybe aren’t aligned with our long-term goals. Okay. Um, so we have to understand that emotions are part of the process and that it’s okay.
To feel these things, it’s okay to, um, you know, have some sadness because something happened or to be stressed out. Like it’s okay that you’re stressed out. It doesn’t mean you have to give up the ship just because you’re a little stressed out. Okay. Okay. I wanna talk a little bit about willpower. ’cause a lot of people think that they just need to exert more willpower to fix a situation.
Willpower is a finite resource. Okay? It works when you’re rested, when you’re calm, when you’re motivated. Um, but it’s a, it’s a tank that’s kind of full at the beginning of the day. By the end of the day, it’s. It can be empty, right? Because you get stressed out, you get tired, you get overwhelmed, stuff is going on in your life, and by the end of the day, your willpower tank is drained.
Okay? So if your entire plan is relying on willpower, as soon as things start to happen, it’s going to dissipate. And, and things are going to get difficult for you, okay? It’s not a weakness, it’s biology. This is why so many people do well during the day as far as their eating plan goes. You know, they, they stick to their plan, they’re great, and then later in the evening they blow it.
Can you relate to that? I used to do this all the time, and I can’t tell you how many people. Tell me this, that, oh, I did great during the day, but it’s at night. When I, when I struggle. It’s because you’re relying on willpower, not structure, not a system. You’re relying on willpower. It’s a finite resource.
By the end of the day, it’s gone, and that’s why you eat chocolate cake for dinner. Okay, so when I talk about structure. I’m talking about the kind of structure that creates freedom for you. Like we hear structure and we think, you know, rigid and, um, controlled and you know, very, um, narrow focus, but structure can create a ton of freedom for you.
Okay? There’s a shift in your mindset that I need you to make here, okay? And this is to stop trying to be more disciplined and start building. Better structure. Structure removes that decision fatigue that I talked about. You know, it removes, or I’m sorry, it creates pre predictability, right? Structure creates something that is reliable and predictable, and this is very important.
Structure makes consistency feel automatic, right? You probably don’t rely on motivation to brush your teeth every day. You just do it. Why? Because you have a structure in place. Um, you know, you get up in the morning, maybe you eat your breakfast, you brush your teeth, then you go to work. You’re not leaving the house without brushing your teeth, right?
That’s what I mean by structure. Okay? You’re not, you’re not disciplined because you brush your teeth every day, right? You’re not motivated to brush your teeth. You’re not relying on willpower to brush your teeth. You do it because that’s what you do, right? You’re the kind of person, again, we’re talking about identity here.
You’re the kind of person who brushes their teeth before they leave the house. And I appreciate that. I think we all do. I hope everybody’s that kind of person. Um, but our training and our nutrition plans should work the same way. We wanna have that same kind of structure in place around strength training, around our, our running and around nutrition.
So when runners finally get this part right, they say things like, you know, I don’t stress about food anymore. I just do what I do. It feels easier. Everything feels, um, you know, just much calmer. And I don’t feel like I’m constantly starting over or, or trying to figure out what to do. Right? And it’s not because they’re more disciplined or they have more willpower, it’s because they removed all the friction.
And that structure, uh, helps to do that. It removes that friction. Okay. And something that a lot of people I talk to, they don’t really want to admit, but it’s true. They don’t really trust themselves. Okay? ’cause they’ve quit before. They’ve fallen off track. They’ve restarted too many times and they’re constantly waiting for that other shoe to drop.
Okay? And what happens is they make a promise to themselves. They don’t keep that promise to themselves, and then they beat themselves up and they, and they break down the trust they have in themselves. And if you keep repeating the cycle over and over and over, you basically cannot trust yourself any longer because subconsciously you’re telling yourself.
I cannot rely on myself. I know I said I was gonna do X, Y, and Z instead. I didn’t. And you would never, I hope anyway. You would never do that to a family member or a friend. Constantly tell them you’re gonna do something and then not follow through on it. Like, think about that with your partner or uh, somebody at work.
Maybe you’re not gonna tell somebody you’re gonna do something and constantly. Uh, fail on that or let them down because you know, that’s gonna break down the trust in that relationship and they’re not going to wanna be friends with you anymore or married to you or whatever it is. Okay. So we do it to ourselves though all the time, right?
We break down that trust in ourselves, right? And that lack of self-trust creates a lot of anxiety, internal anxiety, internal turmoil, and this creates burnout really, because you’re constantly sort of stressing yourself out. Okay? Instead, we want to keep. The promises we make to ourselves. We make a plan.
We stick to the plan. We build a little self-trust. We make a plan, we stick to the plan. We build more self-trust. Keep doing this, and you build tons of trust in yourself. You build confidence, you recover quickly from mistakes. You stop making rules that you can’t keep, like you do what you say you’re gonna do.
And this is built through tiny little wins, not big giant promises that you make to yourself. It’s built through daily repetitions. You gotta get your daily reps in, okay? A lot of small, little, you know, commitments that you keep to yourself. They add up over time. And I’m telling you all of this because this is why the leaner, stronger runner framework actually works.
Not because it’s extreme, not because it’s rigid, not because it demands perfection, but because it’s designed for real runners with real lives who have real stress and experience real setbacks. It assumes imperfection and it survives it. Now when I talk about structure, again, I’m not talking about rigidity, right?
I don’t mean rules that make your life harder, and I definitely don’t mean some perfect plan. You follow until the first thing that happens that blows everything up for you. Okay? I mean, simple guardrails that remove decision making and keep you moving forward even when life gets in the way or motivation is low.
So I’m gonna give you a couple of examples of what structure can look like, things that you can put into practice starting today. Okay. The first is a default training week, right? We’re gonna take the guesswork out of this one. Okay? And one of the biggest mistakes that runners make is deciding what they’re going to do every single day.
That is exhausting. Okay. Structure instead looks like having a default week, uh, not a perfect week, but a default week that you can always fall back on, um, or at least something you can use as a template. So, for example, these are my run days. These are my non-running days. This is when I do my strength training, and these are my recovery days.
Okay? Even if your mileage changes, even if the intensity changes, your training, whatever, the framework stays the same. So when life gets busy, you don’t think, oh, what should I do today? You already know it’s written down. Okay, you have a, a default training week. It’s penned in ink and it’s non-negotiable.
Okay? Um, and you just execute the plan to the best of your ability. Okay? Again, you may not do it perfectly. Stuff gets in the way sometimes, but have a default training week. Um, number two. Is having a non-negotiable minimum? This one is huge. Most runners think consistency means doing everything exactly as they planned.
It does not. Consistency means knowing that your minimum standard, the smallest version of the habit that you’re trying to establish still counts. Okay. For example, if a full run feels like too much. The minimum might be 20 easy minutes. Okay. If a full strength session feels overwhelming to you or you don’t have time, the minimum might be, you know, one circuit.
You know, one full body circuit takes you 15 minutes. If your nutrition feels off, the minimum might be three solid meals instead of, oh, I’m just gonna start over tomorrow. Okay. Again, having a non-negotiable minimum prevents the all or nothing trap. Okay? ’cause you’re never quite off track. You’re just operating at the minimum, and that still counts, and it still builds trust and confidence in yourself.
Okay, and then number three, a simple food framework, right? Not daily decisions about food. That’s a recipe for disaster right there. I’m telling you right now, you need structure around food. And it doesn’t mean eating the same thing every single day. It means removing that daily negotiation, for example, um, getting protein in every meal.
Eating regularly, you know, at regular times instead of just eating whenever you feel like it or eating reactively, you know, because you’ve had a stressful day, um, fueling your training days intentionally stop trying to make up for what you did yesterday, right? When food decisions are made in advance, stress goes down, consistency goes up.
You’re not relying on willpower, you’re relying on the plan that you put in place. Number four, having a reset rule instead of constantly starting over. Okay, this one might be the most important one. Structure includes a reset rule, a rule that says if I miss a workout, I’m not going to punish myself. I just get back on track.
If I overeat, I don’t restrict myself. I don’t try to make it up. I just normalize what I’m doing again. Or if a week kind of gets outta control, things go a little bit sideways. I don’t quit. I just simply come back to home base. I reset. Right? No drama. No guilt, no restarting from scratch. You simply return back to your structure and this is how consistency is built over time and, and if you have a reset rule in place, this might be the most important thing that you can do starting today.
Get this in place because you are going to have setbacks. You’re going to fall off your plan. You’re going to eat the chocolate cake for dinner or whatever that looks like for you. And if you beat yourself up and you have to start all over again, every time that happens. You break down the trust, you break down the confidence, you don’t get the results that you want.
Um, you end up quitting and we don’t wanna do any of that stuff, okay? We wanna get back to normal and start building that consistency. Okay? Again, consistency is not perfection. Okay. And then number five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay. Finally, structure means tracking the right thing, not your scale weight every single day, or perfect weeks or flawless execution.
Um, maybe tracking things like how often did I return back to normal? Um, did I follow the structure more than I didn’t, you know, did I, did I hit like a, a a b plus instead of an a plus? Um, did I get, you know, 25 out of 31 days where I stayed on track? Um. Am I building momentum instead of stopping and then starting over all the time?
Because this stuff actually matters. This is what’s actually going to move the needle for you. Okay? So that’s what structure can look like for you. Um, and again, these are just examples, but I’ll, I’ll recap these really quickly. One, a default training week instead of guessing two, a non-negotiable minimum.
Uh, three, a simple food framework for a reset rule instead of starting over. And then five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay, now here’s the important part. These examples work, but they’re, they work best when they’re part of a complete system, okay? So when training, nutrition and mindset are all structured together, consistency stops feeling like something you have to force.
It just becomes something you do, okay? Again, it becomes part of your identity. This is who I am, this is what I do, and that’s exactly what the Leaner, stronger Runner Project is designed to give you. So I wanna zoom out a little bit here. Um, in part one of this series, you learned how to train without breaking yourself down.
Uh, part two, you learn how to eat without fighting your bio, your, uh, body and your biology. And in part three here today, you learn how to stay consistent without relying on motivation. This is the system. It’s not a bunch of hacks or shortcuts or, you know, contests to see how disciplined you are. It’s a framework.
That actually works with you. Okay. If you’ve listened all the way through to this part of the episode. I want you to hit pause for just a second. Okay. Because getting to the end here tells me something important about you. You care. You want this to work. You’re tired of starting over. You’ve probably tried pushing harder.
You’ve probably tried being more disciplined. You’ve probably tried relying on motivation to carry you through and now. You know the truth, motivation isn’t the problem. You don’t need more willpower. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay? What’s been missing is structure a system one that works in real life, not just on perfect weeks, okay?
And that’s exactly why I created the Leaner, stronger Runner project, right? It’s not about grinding more being perfect, it’s about having a clear framework for how you train. How you eat and how you stay consistent, especially when life gets busy, stressful, or unpredictable, because it always will. It’s all about building strength without breaking yourself down, fueling in a way that supports your recovery instead of fighting your body and your biology, and it’s finally trusting yourself to be able to follow through.
Okay, so if you’re ready to stop resetting and you wanna start building something that actually lasts. Go to running lean coaching.com/ready, okay? That’s where everything you’ve learned in this series all comes together. Okay? That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
