Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for joining us today on this body
Speaker 1: insul podcast called Healthy Ish. I am Felicity Halley. Now
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you press play because you want to run
Speaker 1: faster for longer. Oh a lot of us do well
Speaker 1: to help us out. Today, I'm joined by a former
Speaker 1: NRL player and owner of Sydney's Flow Athletic, Ben Lucas.
Speaker 1: Now he has run a truckload of marathons, almost fifty,
Speaker 1: and he's here today to share his own experiences and
Speaker 1: also those of the people he has trained. If you
Speaker 1: do want more running tips from Ben, listening to extra
Speaker 1: Healthy Ish, where he shares his top ones for improving
Speaker 1: your running technique, among other things, you can search for
Speaker 1: that where you get your podcasts. Ben.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, he Felicity, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is what fifth time.
Speaker 2: I don't even know you are a regular. Yeah, thanks
Speaker 2: having me. I love coming here seeing you. I've talking
Speaker 2: all things help and fitness.
Speaker 1: Yeah now I want to talk about running. Yeah today,
Speaker 1: you are a runner. Now, in fact, you are a
Speaker 1: marathon runner. You are like extreme marathon runner.
Speaker 2: Funny, I don't I don't even think of myself as
Speaker 2: a runner, but I guess I.
Speaker 1: Am, yeah, well you want to do forty between before
Speaker 1: forty Now you're forty five, what are you up to?
Speaker 2: So I've done forty six marathons. So after New York
Speaker 2: two thousand and eighteen, I saw actually a doctor that
Speaker 2: you would known from the Swans and he had a
Speaker 2: look at my press. Yeah, I look at my body
Speaker 2: and he said, Benny Buyer canoe, you are done for running.
Speaker 2: So I kind of took his advice for about eighty months,
Speaker 2: and then we had lockdowns and blah blah blah and whatever,
Speaker 2: and I got to my heaviest weight of all time,
Speaker 2: plus probably my least favorite mental health space I'd ever
Speaker 2: been in my life. So I just started jogging again
Speaker 2: and then I'm just back into it where I've meant
Speaker 2: to be source, not even that sort, but I just
Speaker 2: placed my mental health over my physical health, not one
Speaker 2: or the other. I think they both. And now I'm
Speaker 2: back into a healthy weight range and hopefully a healthy
Speaker 2: mental health space. And a big part of that for
Speaker 2: me is running.
Speaker 1: For people listening. You know, running running is cool, so
Speaker 1: cool right now, run class et cetera, et cetera. You've
Speaker 1: got your own at flow. You know, even if a
Speaker 1: listener is thinking, Okay, I'm fine with a five k,
Speaker 1: or if another person is thinking I want to do
Speaker 1: a marathon, how can we run faster or pick up
Speaker 1: our speed for longer.
Speaker 2: I speak to people every single day about this. I
Speaker 2: have a gym myself where I've got lots of people
Speaker 2: that I either run ands I want to become runners,
Speaker 2: or I do a bit of work for Sydney Marathon
Speaker 2: as well. And I think, especially with how much running
Speaker 2: is all over social media, all over the streets, people
Speaker 2: place too much pressure on themselves to be a certain pace,
Speaker 2: to run a certain distance, to look a certain way.
Speaker 2: And I just think you need to, you know, remove
Speaker 2: yourself from that and run your own race.
Speaker 1: I love that, you know, it's so refreshing to hear that,
Speaker 1: because it's quite when you get out and run. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm also a runner. I'm actually having for a half
Speaker 1: marathon in October. I can't help but want to increase
Speaker 1: my pace. And with all your metrics and you can,
Speaker 1: I'm like, am I running fast enough? Oh? No, I
Speaker 1: can run faster than people passing you. It's hard not
Speaker 1: to place that pressure, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's what I try to tell you know,
Speaker 2: I've got I help some new runners and they go, ane,
Speaker 2: only run five k's today or only running at five
Speaker 2: thirty percent. I'm like, that's good.
Speaker 1: Thy paces quite far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like, who are you comparing it against?
Speaker 2: Like your journey is different from everyone else's, and your
Speaker 2: body is different and your whatever. Just block all that out.
Speaker 2: Let's just focus on on you for you, you know.
Speaker 2: So I think that that's my best piece of advice
Speaker 2: is don't put pressure on yourself to be a certain
Speaker 2: pace or running a certain distance from day one. Start slower,
Speaker 2: run less initially, but consistently, you know, and you'll actually
Speaker 2: end up getting there quicker by then saying I need
Speaker 2: to run this many k's and you to run this pace,
Speaker 2: and then getting injured overtrained over it.
Speaker 1: That's really the keys in it. Consistency. If you do
Speaker 1: want to build up your k's or lessen your pace,
Speaker 1: then getting out consistency is how many times a week
Speaker 1: do you run? I mean, what's the kind of good amount?
Speaker 2: I mean, or I run five times a week, but
Speaker 2: I think even two to three is still great and
Speaker 2: you will get benefit and will be able to see
Speaker 2: incremental change with that.
Speaker 1: What about in the gym if we do want to. Actually,
Speaker 1: from my own personal experience, when I started lifting heavier
Speaker 1: weights and I really I do more yoga my running,
Speaker 1: I was actually stronger at running and it was amazing
Speaker 1: shift for me because I had always just gone out
Speaker 1: and run and not worried about the weight side of things.
Speaker 2: I encourage my runners to do strength training, and it's
Speaker 2: more from like a prehab space, so just working on
Speaker 2: the joints that you may potentially get injured. A lot
Speaker 2: of people get itb issues, so that's the outside of
Speaker 2: your legs. So what can we do. We can do
Speaker 2: some deep lunges that work. They're inner quad so that
Speaker 2: will lessen that. We'll do some calf phrases so you
Speaker 2: don't get any ankle or calf troubles. We'll do some
Speaker 2: hamstring curves to negate any hamstring issues. So that's kind
Speaker 2: of what I'd recommend for my runners. So therefore you
Speaker 2: can run longer is in weeks, months, years without injury.
Speaker 2: So that would be my biggest piece of advice which
Speaker 2: I follow myself, is that we do the strength training. Yes,
Speaker 2: it helps you with your running, but it also lessens
Speaker 2: the chance of injury. So then you have to take
Speaker 2: time out from your running as well recovering.
Speaker 1: What about recovery? What's your go to? I mean, do
Speaker 1: you jump in the ice bath or do you just stretch?
Speaker 2: Or yeah? I am time poor like the rest of it,
Speaker 2: like everyone. So you know, between we're kids, exercise bl
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, and we all are. So two biggest
Speaker 2: ones for me sleep okay, then two cheapest ones to
Speaker 2: hydration and I just have an ebbso salt bath, you know,
Speaker 2: because I.
Speaker 1: Can you have that after your run like the same
Speaker 1: day or the next day or where? How does that look?
Speaker 2: I just try to have two a week, okay. And
Speaker 2: it's just when can I get.
Speaker 3: Thirty minutes at home no one coming in? Or can
Speaker 3: I jump in the bath with your data? And I'm like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 3: which I love it. I love my family kids, that's
Speaker 3: the honestly. And then a phone roller for me on
Speaker 3: those sort parts. So three things that cost minimal to
Speaker 3: nothing that I can do them in my off times
Speaker 3: and that you know, actually make the biggest differences. I
Speaker 3: love ice baths, I love infrared saunas, massages, massages, all
Speaker 3: those things I think are very important. But I can't
Speaker 3: do them regularly enough to actually make them worth while.
Speaker 3: But sleep, soft bath, phone rolling and stretching I can
Speaker 3: do consistently. So with it's you're running, your strength, training,
Speaker 3: your recovery. To actually make it worthwhile, it needs to
Speaker 3: be done consistently, not once every now and then. You know,
Speaker 3: So what can I commit to consistently?
Speaker 1: I like that. Ben, thank you for coming on healthy Ish.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I'll look a little shout out because Ben is an
Speaker 1: ambassador for Sydney Harbor ten and five K. If you
Speaker 1: do want to do that run, I will label link
Speaker 1: to it in the show notes. If you enjoyed this chat,
Speaker 1: jump on rate and reviewed. Of course, you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to this podcast anything else head to body insoul dot com.
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Speaker 1: is out in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow,
Speaker 1: Happy running and stay healthy is