Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is about how to find time to get faster.
Speaker 1: Lots of people have athletic goals that involve pushing past
Speaker 1: their current limits. Finding time to do that in a
Speaker 1: busy life can be challenging, but it is not impossible.
Speaker 1: I believe that even people with jobs and families can
Speaker 1: decide to get in what is perhaps the best shape
Speaker 1: of their lives. Today's episode was inspired in part by
Speaker 1: my co host on my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds.
Speaker 1: Sarah Hartunger, a practicing physician and mom of three, has
Speaker 1: long been a committed recreational runner. However, like many people
Speaker 1: in the busy years, she hadn't been training particularly seriously.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, she ran a five k at
Speaker 1: about a nine minute mile pace. For many of us,
Speaker 1: that would be perfectly fine, but Sarah had a long
Speaker 1: time goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. For any
Speaker 1: non runners listening to this, the Boston Marathon famously requires
Speaker 1: people to get a fast enough time in another marathon
Speaker 1: in order to participate. For women in their early forties,
Speaker 1: this time is three hours and forty minutes for twenty
Speaker 1: six point two miles, which works out to about an
Speaker 1: eight minute and twenty three second mile. In other words,
Speaker 1: Sarah is going to have to get significantly faster than
Speaker 1: her nine minute mile pace and be able to sustain
Speaker 1: that pace for many more miles than she was doing.
Speaker 1: It sounds daunting, but she decided to try. She hired
Speaker 1: a coach to help her plan out her workouts. Then
Speaker 1: she did them mostly in the morning before going to work.
Speaker 1: By being out the door by about five thirty am.
Speaker 1: On any given day, she could run until six forty
Speaker 1: five am and be back in time to help get
Speaker 1: her three kids ready for school and get herself to
Speaker 1: the office to start seeing patients. On Saturdays, she would
Speaker 1: often run from five thirty am to eight am or
Speaker 1: so in order to do her long runs. Sundays were
Speaker 1: generally off from running. On some level. This is a
Speaker 1: lot of running. In seventy five minutes on a weekday morning,
Speaker 1: she could run eight to nine miles, depending on the pace.
Speaker 1: On a weekend long run, she could run fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty miles, depending on what the coach asks for. If
Speaker 1: she was doing about eight miles on five weekdays and
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty on weekends. That is fifty five to
Speaker 1: sixty miles per week. On the other hand, it's not
Speaker 1: that much time either. Seventy five minutes times five is
Speaker 1: six hours and fifteen minutes during the work week. Add
Speaker 1: another two point five hours for a long run, and
Speaker 1: we are still under nine hours for the week. According
Speaker 1: to the annual American Time Use Survey, the average American
Speaker 1: spends two point seven nine hours per day watching television,
Speaker 1: which comes out to more than nineteen hours per week.
Speaker 1: Shift less than half of that over into the running category,
Speaker 1: and serious training to get faster becomes a possibility. Now
Speaker 1: it's not quite that simple, of course, people tend not
Speaker 1: to watch TV at the same time when they would
Speaker 1: be running, but time can be malleable with some planning.
Speaker 1: Rather than watching TV at night, Sarah would go to
Speaker 1: betterly like by about nine thirty or nine forty five
Speaker 1: pm most nights in order to be up on time
Speaker 1: to run. Shift time around a bit, and passive evening
Speaker 1: leisure time turns into active morning leisure time. Some days
Speaker 1: Sarah couldn't run because of travel or illness, but mostly
Speaker 1: she did, and as she increased her mileage and did
Speaker 1: the speed work her coach prescribed. She did start to
Speaker 1: get faster. Over the course of a year or so,
Speaker 1: those nine minute miles became her leisurely pace. She built
Speaker 1: up her endurance. Then in May she ran the Bayshore
Speaker 1: Marathon in Michigan in about three hours and thirty five minutes,
Speaker 1: five minutes under the Boston qualifying time, and at a
Speaker 1: pace of approximately eight minutes and twelve seconds per mile.
Speaker 1: All this was while taking care of her patients, running
Speaker 1: her family, and of course co hosting a podcast with me.
Speaker 1: I find this very inspiring. We often think of exercise
Speaker 1: as a good thing to do for health or stress relief.
Speaker 1: People train seriously when they are young, or if they're
Speaker 1: doing some sort of competitive sports. We don't train seriously
Speaker 1: as middle aged people with a lot of responsibilities, but
Speaker 1: we can. I am not personally aiming to qualify for Boston,
Speaker 1: but I do think with some work I could get
Speaker 1: significantly stronger and significantly faster than I am now. Indeed,
Speaker 1: if we devote nine hours to anything in life each
Speaker 1: week with a desire to get better, we probably will.
Speaker 1: It's always easier not to, but it is always a possibility.
Speaker 1: We all have twenty four hours in a day. It's
Speaker 1: just a matter of what we do with them in
Speaker 1: the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite show. Yes