Matt Campbell's Race Day Formula: Control, Flow, and Commitment

DFW Running Talk: Matt Campbell Part II
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Welcome to DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Deel, so let's get started.

All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel and we do have Matt Campbell on again. Matt, how are you

Matt Campbell: doing all right. How are you

Chris Detzel: doing? Good, man. You got me on a day that I'm just pumped up. I'm excited about talking about running, but also what you bring to the running community.

So you ready?

Matt Campbell: Absolutely. Let's go.

Chris Detzel: Welcome back, by the way.

Matt Campbell: Yeah, thanks for having me back.

Chris Detzel: So it's funny because, I don't know, three weeks ago or so. You showed up to this 5K, which was surprisingly cool, is called the velvet 5K hammer, velvet hammer, 5K or something like that. And you brought some of your guys with you and wearing these amazing shirts.

I was like, oh my God, I know these guys. And so I obviously came up and started talking to you and I said, how do you think you're gonna do? And you were very upfront. You weren't like, you're confident, not oh my God, but. You're like I think we have a good chance of winning.

And when you said we, you met the [00:01:00] whole team, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. And I even talked to Brent Whittle, he was there as well, representing the completely sloth. And I was like, man, these guys just look fit. And I saw you for the first time I met you for the first time. I was like, you look, you look fit.

Anyways, just seeing somebody just, you can tell that just, you don't just run, but you also do other things like just. It's just super fit. I love that. One thing you said to me, and I just want you to talk a little bit more about this is. Chris, I wanna start just going for, when I race, I wanna just go for it, and I wanna put it all out there.

What made you like, help me understand some of that thinking.

Matt Campbell: Yeah, for sure. To back up first, yeah, I think it's always funny pe people see me and assume that I do a lot of like upper body training because, I look a little bit more built for a runner and that's just a complete lie.

You don't. Here's the thing. I was a pretty high level swimmer for a while and like specifically going through puberty as like a teenager, I swam. And so I [00:02:00] feel like no matter what I try to do, I am never gonna be able to shed like this frame. And I will tell you, everyone's always oh no, you look great.

I said, look, you know now that I want to be this fast endurance runner like I would love

Chris Detzel: you are fast endurance runner. Not one.

Matt Campbell: Yes. But it's it's one of those, I don't know, maybe it's body dysmorphia. I just, all I wanna I watch like Connor Manson, Clayton Young, and I'm like, I just need to lose a couple of inches of shoulder width.

But anyway, it's very funny that you mention that. I do zero upper body work is why it's

Chris Detzel: okay. But you look great. Like you look like a swimmer. That makes more sense. Appreciate, I told my wife, I was like, look, this dude looks great. He just looks fit. I wasn't, it's not that I wasn't expecting, like I figured you're gonna look fit, but not

Matt Campbell: Yeah, I hear you.

Chris Detzel: With the upper body. But I liked it. I don't know why. Anybody would like that. Yeah. I, most people would die from that,

Matt Campbell: I say it was funny because I, I think I mentioned in our last podcast, I'd recently picked up with a coach of my own, and I like sent him some videos of me running and he said, yeah, it looks good.

He said, it looks like you do a lot of work, in the gym with the, doing upper body work and just just know we don't need to [00:03:00] prioritize that for now. And I said, dude I do none of that. But thank you for validating that for me. But anyway. But then to go back, so yeah this 5K that we, you know what I was looking for, I think, we've hit that time of the year where unless you were doing Boston right, there's not really a big Yeah.

A big marathon to aim for. And so myself and a lot of other people were transitioning more into that speed season. And so I was looking for, is there a 5K or some race like that, that we could kick off that season? Set a baseline. Yeah. And I'd seen the velvet hammer 5K before.

And honestly, one, the one thing I'll say about it, first off, it was a really well run event. I really enjoyed that day. That was cool. Like Eric

Chris Detzel: Linberg and Sharon, they run these bunch of, these five Ks all around Texas and Dallas. Yeah. They go outside of Dallas as well, and they put on the best five Ks in all of Texas.

I'm not joking, like it's a party. It's very well done. They just, they've been doing it for years. It was just

Matt Campbell: a smooth, run morning and that when it's not like a super high level event, there can be a lot of variability in that quality. So I was really happy with [00:04:00] that. But I also, I glanced at the the route before and just saw, like I said, this is a pretty, I.

It's a pretty nice route. That's like the flattest K in Dallas. And then I saw, as I was looking at the website, I saw that they had these new competitions for the biggest run club and the fastest, and that the winner gets a happy hour. So I quickly messaged that out to all the sloths and said, Hey, can we get four other guys and just go win this happy hour, yeah. And you did. I was fortunate that I had enough people do it. That did two things. One was it helped us win the happy hour. And two, I was able to recruit my own competition for the day. I love it. And no and that go goes into what we talked about and what my goals were for that race.

I think that when we get into the sport and we get really invested in it, we start to identify with it and we start to find some weird objective ways to validate and to benchmark ourselves. We're always, yeah. Worrying about our prs, worrying about our BQs, things like that.

And that can, having goals is great, but yeah. We know it can be, it can sometimes zap the joy out of it. And also sometimes those goals [00:05:00] can if you fixate too firmly on them, can get in your own way. And that's certainly something that I have dealt with. And then, and so there's that internal challenge, then there's the external challenge of worrying about what are other people gonna think.

If I go out there and I just totally bonk on any race, what would

Chris Detzel: Chris say on his podcast if I did,

Matt Campbell: yeah, it, yeah. No, for sure. Especially you live in this Strava world and this social media world. We're all very cognizant of other people being aware of us, and the truth is no one really cares, right?

No one cares. No one cares about your running more than you, but it can hold. These things can. Can, be the best and the worst part of this sport, mental

Chris Detzel: aspect is always

Matt Campbell: the hardest. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: But I think that's in life anyways. Yeah.

Matt Campbell: Yeah, and so what I've been really, and I'll, one person I'll credit for for all of this is Brent Whittle.

Yeah. He's a guy that, that I really, I've known him for a while, but really haven't gotten closer to him until the last year or so. But I would just see some of his. Pre-race, he was, he's always been very transparent about his goals. Yeah. And then his reflections after races when they do go his way or when [00:06:00] they don't, has always just been very honest, balanced.

And I've really appreciated, it really has stuck with me that he's not scared to say, Hey, I wanna run this time. I think I can be this, not, not feel like he has to be disingenuous with anyone or, and by extension himself. And so you can do that with goals.

But I think when we were talking the morning of that 5K, that was one of those days where, it was warm, it was humid. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Let's,

Matt Campbell: that was gonna be a rough day. And that was, there was just no way you were gonna run a.

Chris Detzel: Or like that,

Matt Campbell: right? But that doesn't mean that you can't go out there and really gain a lot from that race.

And so the mindset I had going into that race was like, this is gonna be an experience where I race the competition I brought, and I have a mindset and I need to go execute that mindset. Because if I can set a goal, train towards that goal, but on race day, not fixate so much on that goal, but fixate on racing and fixate on how am I going to just.

Just perform my [00:07:00] best in the conditions on that given day. Like what? Take what God gives me on that day and go do it. And yeah, so I came into that 5K saying that's what I'm gonna do. And I think I told you, and this was my strategy for the 5K, I'm gonna break it up into kilometers. And that first K, my focus, my mantra is stay controlled.

And specifically and I think my buddies who I run with, they'll. They'll probably listen to this, but I knew that my guys, David and Mick were gonna go out faster than I probably wanted to. Yeah. And so I said, let them go. And that's what I said for the first K, let them go.

And then after that, once my watch beeps, then you know, and you can start to really open up a little bit.

Chris Detzel: Oh, you had your watch on to be. Yeah. Yeah. So I had go to the next had

Matt Campbell: I had a set to go off each kilometer. And so once I got through that first one, so

Chris Detzel: calculate it. I love that.

Matt Campbell: Yeah. Yeah.

So let the next two or three, you just wanna get into a flow state. Just run. Yeah. Just don't even worry about how you feel. Don't even worry about the pace is I'm not fixating on catching anyone. I'm not fixating on sticking with anyone. I just run at that point. And then I said, once I hit that fourth k.

The plan is make it [00:08:00] hurt. I'm gonna push at that point, and then once I make it hurt, the whole goal was in that last fifth K to not give up when it hurts. And if I can do those things and who cares what the time was today, yeah. Then I've gained something from this and if you go back and look at my splits, it was, that's exactly how I ran it.

I ran. Probably my slowest K was the first. Then I settled in just a few seconds per, per mile faster. And then you can see there's this bump on my Strava where in that fourth KI, I made a move and I accelerated. And then the fifth k, it was freaking hot that day.

So I think I faded very slightly in the last like quarter mile. I hung on it, it was like going from four 50 per mile pace down to five, 10 per mile pace. That's not a bad thing's, 20

Chris Detzel: seconds. But yeah, on a day

Matt Campbell: like yeah, but not a day like that. When you're, and truthfully, I was in the lead at that point, and I knew David wasn't gonna catch me.

I said, let's not pass out here, right? We have a whole, I got a whole weekend ahead of me. Yeah. I gotta go, take care. I gotta go to a kid's soccer game and do all these things. Let's not be like,

Chris Detzel: don't let a 5K kick your butt. Let's not.

Yeah.

Matt Campbell: Basically, let's not get into rhabdomyolysis right here, right? Let's just get to the finish line. But anyway. Yeah. I think. [00:09:00] I think when you can have those types of goals on execution, what I tell, like the athletes I coach and my friends is again, like I said, you set goals and you train towards them day in and day out.

And then on race day you just have to let it go a little bit and you say, you out there and come up with a game plan that's not so fixated on that, but fixated on knowing what the effort needs to be and knowing how you can sustain that effort. And yeah, it was really fun, really successful and had me, that's been a great jumping off point for kind of this speed season that I'm in right now.

Chris Detzel: That was really cool and I enjoyed seeing you all, you guys there just walk up with all this swagger knowing that, or you had a really good chance obviously, to win as in the group, but you also won that 5K as well, yeah. Congratulations. That's great.

Matt Campbell: It's funny 'cause we, yeah, I think you realize what that's gonna look like when these six fit dudes in like bright yellow and blue singles show up.

Like we were like walking up there and one of 'em, I love that though, man. Someone was like, dude, we look like such tools right now. Like we look like a high school cross country team coming out here. We [00:10:00] also, we said that and then we laughed and said, that's great. That's who we are.

Let's just own it and go have some fun.

Chris Detzel: No, that's pretty cool. How do you think about and, we'll, I wanna shift this a little bit.

Matt Campbell: Yeah. '

Chris Detzel: cause you're a pretty driven guy outside of work, you have a family, you have work and you do a lot of running. How do you balance that out, do you feel like maybe running really helps with your mindset each and every day, to get you through? Or, what's thinking around all that?

Matt Campbell: No, absolutely. I think that's, and that's like the key fundamental question with all of this, right? We, like almost everyone, certainly everyone who's gonna listen to this podcast is.

Probably not a professional runner and you have all those other things. And I'll actually credit, I've talked about this a lot, but I'll credit my good friend Matt Baron, I think he was on, I think he was on your podcast with the guys run in Boston and he had a great Boston. Yeah, he was,

Chris Detzel: he'll be back on soon.

Yeah,

Matt Campbell: no he's like just a of like knowledge, he's got like wisdom, ahead of his years. He's a little bit younger than me, but he talks a lot about your life pillars, making sure you have, more than one pillar that, that [00:11:00] kind of like your life balance is on.

And making sure we maintain each of those, but also knowing that those are all gonna be their strongest maybe at different times. And but making sure you develop them all and that they compliment each other. And so yeah, I think that for me it's always a work in progress. Know.

The other thing that you'll hear other experts say like Steve Magnus and others, is that it's impossible to be completely dialed in to all these things at one time. There's a Yeah, of course you have to period, you have to periodize your life to some extent. When work gets intense, something's gonna have to give.

Yeah. And it's just being clear on what is allowed to give and when. But I find that running, especially the way we, I run with, it's. It's definitely something that sets, sets up the day, because I run like 5:00 AM right? Yeah. My, my friends and I like we're up at 5:00 AM run.

And so it's it sets what the intention of the day is gonna be, and just you're gonna be productive. And honestly, my worst days are when I don't run. If I decide I just need to sleep in and then I feel like my whole day is [00:12:00] less focused. But I will say there's a, there, there's points in my life where I think that running really elevates me professionally.

It really elevates me personally with my family. But, there's also been times in my life where I've gotten a little bit too focused on the running, and I think it has been a little bit detrimental. And fortunately I have a wife who's great about keeping me centered, but also just,

Chris Detzel: that's what it's about is you keep each other centered, yeah.

Matt Campbell: I've learned over time to try to keep all those things, try to make sure I keep myself in check, keep perspective, at the end of the day, keeping family as the number one priority. Being okay with saying, like for example, I, I'd signed up to go run.

The Boston Marathon, I wanted to go run the Boston Marathon, but we just had stuff going on this spring that it was gonna be a really big burden on my family. And probably two or three years ago, I would've been pretty selfish and I probably would've gone and run this year. I said, let's, that's just, I don't need to, I need to keep my priorities in line.

Chris Detzel: Something you said to me once the last podcast that you're on is none of us are professional runners. And so when you put that in perspective, and what [00:13:00] that really means is, yeah, Matt, you're probably faster than most people in DFW. Most, maybe not everybody, but almost everybody from marathon standpoint.

Very close to the fastest, but you're not an elite athlete. As in you're not a two 10 or 2 0 5 or 2 0 1, you're not doing this. Yeah. So yeah, you might be able to do two 20 at some point. That's not, you're not gonna get paid to do this. Yeah. And your family. And you have a family, like what is the most, you have to prioritize.

Yeah. You can still run and do some fast things, but. You miss Boston. Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. There's a lot of people there that, and probably wanna be there with them, but it's okay.

Matt Campbell: Yeah. And I think that, you reiterating that helps to kind of, I was rambling a little there to focus and say, yeah, you're, at the end of the day, your running needs to enhance those other parts of your life.

And if it's not, then we need to adjust that. But I will also say that I think that how you approach one part of your life often parallels how you approach I. Every other part of your life. So if you take, if you're taking, you're being disciplined with your [00:14:00] running, you're taking it seriously, you're planning it, I often see, I.

That leads to you being more disciplined and effective in other aspects of your life. Right? Hundred percent. And so while you don't, while it's not necessarily needing to be the center of your life, there's a lot of ways that, that taking it this seriously, even as an amateur, can be beneficial.

Chris Detzel: I think it is funny 'cause I was telling you earlier, I was on this other podcast earlier today and we were talking about this guy's life, right? He was. He was this executive making a lot of money about to be a partner at one of these cons, big consulting firms and everything else. And he had, he was about a hundred pounds overweight.

And so what he didn't do was take care of his body. He didn't take care of. Anything besides, but he was a, an executive that just did some awesome things at work, but that's all he thought about and that's all he cared about and didn't do anything else. He had some gallbladder problems and then he had to go get surgery because then he had pancreas problems after that.

'cause he didn't get his gallbladder out. And the guy [00:15:00] goes well to the doctors. Hey, what's the, I'm gonna get outta this. All right? The doctor's we don't know. You literally could die from this. 'cause as a doctor, you've been, yeah, you probably at least understand that.

But point is he quit doing that and he quit the job for 15 months. For six weeks. He went to, I. I dunno, some other country with his mother-in-law to teach him more of how to eat better, how to take care of himself. And now he has this whole community. For the last three years, he lost a hundred pounds. He quit working 15 months and now he's fitter than ever.

He's not, Matt Campbell fit, but I'm just saying you know what I mean? Like he's eating, right? He's doing all these, yeah. So the point is that it took him that amount of work and time to just figure out, it almost took him to death to figure out that he needs to, also take care of his himself first, his body and things like that.

So I think, you mentioned three aspects of things in your life. You've got family, you've got your job, and you've got running in a way,

Matt Campbell: those are my three pillars, probably only three things

Chris Detzel: you do. Who needs more than, I don't think. But [00:16:00] I'm sure you eat pretty well. That is as fast as you, look, we all have, Hey, I'm gonna eat a sweet here and there, or whatever, but but

Matt Campbell: yeah. Yeah. The point

Chris Detzel: is, balance is key in everything. Whether it's work or I. Family or whatever. Certainly family should be, I think, number one, but, it just, you got me thinking, man. I just think that's exactly right. I don't know.

Matt Campbell: Yeah, it just makes it sustainable and it makes it, yeah.

I tell everyone, I, you meet so many people who are once we get into the running community, I think that there's it's pretty, a pretty narrow range of personalities maybe, but That's right. When you start to, talk to people outside of it and from the outside looking in, they think it's crazy.

And I tell everyone and a lot of people will tell me, oh, I just can't run. I just hate how it feels. I'm just not a runner. I'll never be a runner. And I tell 'em

Chris Detzel: heard it a hundred times, give

Matt Campbell: yourself two months and just do it. Just do it. Let's set a goal too. Let's not just run for running's sake, let's sign up for a 5K and do some training and go do it.

And then come back and tell me that you don't like running. And I'll tell you, I have a, I, there's a buddy of mine from Fellowship, from my medical fellowship who back, that was back when I was first [00:17:00] getting into running as an adult really. And and he would just always, anytime I talk about it with another friend, he'd always shake his head like, I don't understand why you guys.

Why you guys do this? Yeah, it's so miserable. I hate running flat fa, fast forward, it's seven or eight years now, and he literally was texting me today, Hey man, I can't find the meta speeded sky anyone online, but he, because he started running Yeah. And. And he was consistent with it, did a few races and he got hooked and now he is doing his third marathon.

Wow. This was always stands out in my mind, like I just tell anyone, just, and it doesn't have to be running, but some type of physical activity. 'cause humans what? I, what? What I'll what? I'll just shout from my soapbox. Humans were made to move.

Chris Detzel: Yep.

Matt Campbell: No, we were not made to sit. And you find that activity and you get consistent with it and you'll feel better and you will be happier and it will enhance the other parts of your life within reason.

Yeah. But again, then you get into our group and everyone goes through their phases where they take it a little tooly. We've all been there. And then, and then you go too [00:18:00] far and then it, invariably you probably get injured. You have to cut back. I. Then you realize maybe I need to have a little bit more balance this next time around and there's nothing you can do but experience it to to find it.

That's right.

Chris Detzel: I think injury will humble a lot of us, right?

Matt Campbell: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Especially once you if you try to run through that injury, which a lot of runners do we all do it, done it. And when we realize now that injury has sent me back now for six months or however long you hope that you realize, okay, it was probably better to take off those two or three weeks.

Matt Campbell: Yep.

Chris Detzel: Only rather than the six weeks.

Matt Campbell: Yep.

Chris Detzel: Or six months, so it's

Matt Campbell: so challenging, and I see this so much more with people who got really into this as adults and maybe didn't have like that running career in high school or college where you're so fearful of losing the fitness that you've gained and so you know that you have an injury you probably need to be attending to.

But if that means that I'm gonna scale back and lose my fitness, like what if I'm never fast again? That's right. And I, one thing I've learned as a [00:19:00] friend and as a coach is for a while I was trying to convince people, use my experience as an example. Don't go through what I went through.

'Cause what happened with me, I think I mentioned three, two or three years ago, I just beat my patella tendon into the grit, like into dust to the point where I had to take four months off. And it was awful. But you know what? I eventually was forced to sit down, take a break, learn how to rehab it properly, build back up, and I came back faster, stronger, having more fun, having better perspective.

And I was trying to, and what I'm trying to get at here is I was trying to share that with people so they wouldn't do it. But what I've realized as I've also matured as somebody giving advices, there's really no way to learn better than experiencing yourself. And I give advice, I give recommendations.

I try to work with people, but when it ultimately catches up to them, I realize there is when it's my goal to help them wade through that. But now they've gotten the experience and hopefully if they've developed a healthy enough relationship with running, they will stick with this. They're not gonna.

[00:20:00] Quit because of this setback. Yeah. And if I can help guide them through that setback and then get to their next level, then they'll have that knowledge from their own experience. And I think that's deeper and that's stronger for them. And so

Chris Detzel: I like that it happens

Matt Campbell: to everyone and it will probably happen to everyone again, and myself and

Chris Detzel: I like that.

And I think that, maybe it's also put pushing people to. Additionally, think about, doing some different types of training in addition to running, whether it's basic squats or. Pull-ups or chin-ups, pushups, or electing. Yep. Yeah. Whatever those things are that implement that into your Yeah.

Your daily, because too much running is, too much of anything is just not gonna be great for you. Yeah. Especially particularly

Matt Campbell: like these like activities that are repetitive motion, you see it with runners, obviously with the lower body injuries. You see it with like swimmers with upper body injuries, right?

No strength training is such a, now that's becoming widely recognized and more popular, but it's just a critical element and frankly, one that a lot [00:21:00] of people wanna avoid. 'cause one, all this takes time and we have an economy of time and they'd rather be running. Yeah. And that's right.

They don't feel particularly good at it. And you, we avoid things that we don't feel confident in and it's gonna be an adjustment. But this, this is pretty timely. I actually. And you've probably had a busy day today, but, and part of my coaching, I'm trying to now offer up like more like resources and tools for athletes.

So I've started working on this newsletter That's,

Chris Detzel: I did see that by the way. It's been a learning

Matt Campbell: process for me. But a big part of that is a lot of my athletes right now are asking about strength training. And I'm certainly not a strength coach, but I have my own experiences. I've talked to other people, so I've been putting things together to share with them.

I shared that. And what I'm trying to do is you give, there's two components to helping. Motivate people to, to incorporate this. One is give them digestible rationale. Like why does this matter? Give 'em that carrot. But then you gotta give them the guidance in a simple flip.

Like I can say go do strength training, here's why. And they're like, great. Cool. But then the like, how do we do that? Super overwhelming, right? So the next step is give very [00:22:00] simple, manageable guidance on how to get started on that. Just to get started, there's

Chris Detzel: some lunges.

Matt Campbell: Yeah, exactly.

But giving it to them. Giving it to them. While I'm not a strength coach, if they're starting from ground zero, I'm like, okay, do this exercise. Three sets of 10. Just give 'em like three things. Give somebody a foundation to start on and then ultimately they're gonna be able to build off of that.

But it,

Chris Detzel: and that, by the way, you say you're not a strength coach and Fair enough. That's maybe obviously something that you can start embedding into your. Trainings. Like in learning yourself, right? Yeah. So just as you weren't a running coach, you know

Matt Campbell: Exactly. For all that

Chris Detzel: long you are now.

'cause you do it. Yeah. And so you're a running coach that can embed those things inside your thing. So I think you need to, I. That's my opinion. Think about that because that's what running coaches do. Yeah, for

Matt Campbell: sure. I think there's an entry like you learn as well. Yeah like I said there, there's layers to it, right?

And you just have to be transparent about what you can offer. Stay in your lane to some extent. But

Chris Detzel: yeah, but

Matt Campbell: if you're predominantly a runner, it's all gonna still center around running and I [00:23:00] can help with, at the very least, providing a schedule A suggested this is the time that maybe it would work to do strength.

Here's a good time not to do that. If you need to prioritize, if you can only get in one or two strength sessions, here's what I might prioritize, right? Like I've been telling a lot of my runners who we've all, like I said, moved into the speed season where we're gonna do a lot more things.

There's with a lot of rest, we're gonna do some hill, some hill strides. We're going to, do more of that type of thing. We're gonna try to build explosive power. What I've asked a lot of 'em is, do you do plyometrics? And I'd say that's the one thing most people avoid. Yeah.

Because if they don't know what to do, it feels weird hurts like hell, the first few weeks you do it, you're like, how did I jump around for five minutes and hurt so much? Like I literally, like I do jumping jacks and jump rope. And I

Chris Detzel: remember there's this guy, vial Patel, he or he used to be the DRC training coach or training guy years and years ago, and.

He would make us do we'd go to to hill training, but we'd go up the hill and jump like this with our knee up in the [00:24:00] air and then jump again with our other knee. I was like, I don't know what the hell we're doing.

Matt Campbell: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: But it was hard, but. Yeah.

Matt Campbell: It's hard. And those things like we so rarely when you're, when you just run all the time, which is great for building your aerobic mach, your aerobic engine, right?

You don't build a lot of power and you don't maybe maximize the efficiency of your running form. And those things are what force you to do that to some extent. And the explosive power you can gain from plyometrics is huge.

Chris Detzel: I think, Matt, if, I mean you're speaking the language of. I think that's so important to do these things.

And the reason I say that is because like I've been running for a long time, a pretty long time, and I'm 50 now. I have never felt so stiff in my life as I do today, right? Yeah, I can go run 40 miles in a week, and if that's all I do, like my legs feel stiff. I'm feeling like an old man now.

Like I've never felt like this. I'm serious. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Yeah. That's tough. Yeah. It's, it gets tougher. All I'm saying is if you can learn how to do that at a younger age, and if you're in your thirties or early forties Yeah. Or [00:25:00] whatever, you're that much better when you hit 50 and 60 and 70.

Matt Campbell: No. Yeah. The person who I the two people I have pushed hardest to do strength training and they do it now and it's benefiting them are my parents. My dad is 72. Oh for sure. My dad is 72 and he's never felt better than when he got a personal trainer in his like. Has like on a strength program, it's critical.

There's a lot of research showing too that strength training is one of the most important things to have longevity. It

Chris Detzel: slows down the aging. Yeah. In a way. Yeah. I mean it doesn't, you never stop aging, right? You always age, but it does help. And if you could do it now at early ages and you keep that going for the rest of your life.

You're gonna be that much better. My wife actually hired a, so she had a running coach for a long time. Yeah. And she hired a strength coach, like a weightlifting coach. Yeah. She's 51, but that's probably three or four years ago. And now she's this fit as she has been. Sorry, I try not to cuss too much on this, but.

Matt Campbell: You'd probably have to give it like an explicit writing if you yeah, if you throw too many words in. I

Chris Detzel: don't think bunch of [00:26:00] kids listen anyways, but I don't want some mom or dad like, oh my gosh, this guy just said that for I think there's something there for the strength and for runners and Yeah.

Just. I, I don't know how much these elite athletes, put strength training into, I, I assume they do some of those. They do a

Matt Campbell: ton. If you, yeah, like I said, if you follow Connor and Clayton and they're pretty transparent and they're their strength coach, you can follow him.

The debate now is not if, but what should you be doing? They actually are big proponents. They're a group of lifting heavy.

Chris Detzel: Really?

Matt Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. Which is becoming very popular. Get in there and do 80, like what they call it, like 80 to 85% of your one rep max, wait five, do three sets of five deep squats of that.

Are you

Chris Detzel: doing those?

Matt Campbell: I don't because I'm, one, call you out little bit this access issue. And two, I'll be honest I suck at that stuff and it's, and it intimidates me and I don't wanna hurt that bad from it. So that's like probably the one thing that I have, like I'll, I will, as part of my knee rehab [00:27:00] prehab routine, I will go and do the machines and I will load up, I will load up the single leg squat pretty heavy.

So it's pretty good, but it's not a true like barbell deep squat. Yeah. That I probably could be doing. But then the second thing, there's, so there's what we do and then there's the timing of it. And there's a lot of debate about how much you should back off of your strengths training when you're in marathon training.

Conventional. Conventional thought is, you should back off obviously, but they are pushing like, we should keep doing this now. I would argue there's a difference between amateur runners and our economy of time and a professional runner and everything. I don't

Chris Detzel: disagree with that. I, yeah, so I

Matt Campbell: think that for us as amateurs with full-time jobs and other responsibilities, I think there's too much recovery we can't do to get away with that personally.

But those guys are now,

Chris Detzel: How many of you of us have. Personal massage people to do these, yeah. We get a massage, but think we

Matt Campbell: don't have, I do. I do think actually one thing that's really important to [00:28:00] me, as a coach is trying to develop that toolkit or that resource kit of people to go to.

So physical therapist, chiropractors, massage therapists. But to your point, we have, I think we have those for the general public. Now you can go to them, but like you can't do it the way they do where it's built into your daily, it's built into your weekly professional. That's

Chris Detzel: all they do. Their job is to maybe promote some shoes or something like that.

And plus, yeah. Run, your job is to get massages

Matt Campbell: and do strength work and really sleep. It's like your job to take a nap in the middle of the day. I, exactly. That's amazing. But

Chris Detzel: Here you are doing a hundred plus miles a week potentially. Yeah. And you don't get this nap.

You have to go to work or you have to keep your kid,

Matt Campbell: yeah. We, and we have to be creative. There are though, like you can be creative and efficient with certain things. I know, you can sit on one of your more passive work calls and sit in NormaTec boots.

I'll tell you what I have is like a, I have this device you can look up called a Firefly device that a lot of pro athletes, particularly the NBA use, where you just, basically, it's this little thing that, that is a nerve stimulator down on your, on the side of your calf. Oh, and it [00:29:00] stimulates muscle contraction in your calf, which promotes blood flow, which enhances, I still need this.

And I, so I, so like when I was like in clinic or had a full day of work, firefly device is what it's called, and my legs twitching away and everyone's what the hell's going on, man? But I'm literally recovering like you can get it

Chris Detzel: for 48 bucks.

Matt Campbell: You have to get so it's an investment in the sense that you they last for about a month,

Chris Detzel: really.

Matt Campbell: Technically, you're supposed to put 'em on two legs, but I can't be like twitching around all day, so I put 'em on one leg, but I will say I do think that while there's a lot of pseudoscience out there I have personally found that things like that can work. You can find ways to be efficient with your recovery, but the bottom line is you need good rest.

You need to sleep, right? Sleep hygiene is like. I talk a lot with my friends and other runners about just think it's so important is so many people are focused these days on the 1%, their supplements, their recovery hacks, their cold plunge and sauna and all that stuff's fine.

You can do all that stuff, [00:30:00] but. Please make sure your 99% is rock solid. And that's smart training. I love that. That's good eating habits, that's rest and sleeping and good sleep hygiene. And don't focus on the 1% like life stress loading. The biggest thing I talk about with friends and athletes is that the number one factor, both in like co consist, like in consistent quality training and in race performance is like life stress.

I don't care how like honestly my running is like the most constant, predictable thing. I can really control for that. But it's like work and family things that are stressing me out that are gonna affect my race day more than any of that training and some of that you can't control and you just have to accept that, right?

But then you do your best to have it. In control around the times you really wanna perform.

Chris Detzel: I like that. I like that. Now you said your wife is very supportive. Does she run at all or anything like that? Or She

Matt Campbell: does. Yeah, she does. She like, she's the kind of runner that would be considered very much [00:31:00] a consistent runner, but for the fact that she's married to me and so she feels she's I'm not a runner like mad, but that's like not annoying.

She runs like three or four days a week. She does half marathons. That's awesome. Yeah. Pretty,

Chris Detzel: it's kinda my wife, so for a long time in the running community, I was just known as Leah's husband. Yeah. And yeah. She was the runner. I ran, but nobody really, yeah, I know mean I knew people, so you were like, okay, she's running a hundred milers or all these marathons.

She's done like all these Bostons and Chicago, whatever, and she's just known in the community Yeah. From different people. 'cause she's with them. Yeah. And I was just, oh, is that Leah's husband? So maybe

Matt Campbell: it's tricky. I will say within like my closest running groups, there's usually like it's very hard for there to be two very intense runners in the relationship.

Yeah. Especially when you have kids, because again, there's the economy of the morning workout time. But yeah we joke that like you need to have your spouse like interested enough in running that they appreciate it. And they appreciate what it does for you.

You can't get them so excited about running that. They wanna com, they want to share the time. [00:32:00] They wanna do it as much as you. If we both are training for marathons, like who's gonna watch?

Chris Detzel: Yeah, so you gotta have some parents or something. They're really,

Matt Campbell: I want you to be excited about this, but not too excited.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Can you be excited if something else, go do some weights or something? I don't

Matt Campbell: know. The good news is she hates running with people and she hates and she won't run in the dark. So I get the mornings. So as long as I can be done with my running before the sun rises, I'm liking pretty,

Chris Detzel: I was talking to, was it Brent or.

Yeah, who it was, but I think it was Brent. Oh Jonathan Brower. I don't know if you know him, but he

Matt Campbell: I've heard of him.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. He had a kid, he was pretty fast and I don't think he ever had his true potential, to be honest, but still just a very good runner and. They had a kid and he said, when I was trained for my marathon, I just did it.

I got up at three o'clock and ran earlier before anybody got up and then just went through the day, helped and things like that. So sometimes as a parent, you gotta do what you gotta do. If you want to keep your running going or your hardcore, I say running. Yeah. He just [00:33:00] meant for marathon training specifically.

Yeah.

Matt Campbell: I'll tell you, it evolves too. Yeah, and it took us, it took my wife and me a little bit to sort out like as I was getting more and more intense with it I am for the most part really good about doing it at a time, right? That won't conflict. But when you're like, really in the heat of marathon training, it's hard for there not to be some.

Some conflicts or some moments where I kind of wanna prioritize my running even though it's gonna inconvenience. And for a while I, I was so self-conscious and nervous about that, that I didn't communicate it very effectively. It would just be like, oh, I'm gonna go run now. Did I not tell you that?

Because, basically ask for forgiveness. That's the worst. And over time we've gotten much better at communicating that. Yeah. It's, it's like, hey, like for the next month I'm gonna be a little bit crazy and intense about this. I'm gonna do my best to communicate well in advance if I want to do this thing.

And it helps also that our kids are older now, like getting older, right? They're not like in diapers. They're, wanna play the switch all the day, all the time. How old are your kids? Nine and six.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Matt Campbell: Okay.

Chris Detzel: [00:34:00] Yeah. Yeah. Get a little bit easier. Yeah, get way easier when they're actually teenagers.

Yes and no. When they're teenagers though, they wanna get, like my son, he's 14. Yeah. And he's big time into band. And he's about to hit a freshman and so hardcore band stuff is starting now into they're doing tryouts and they're doing weekly kind of things. And then,

Matt Campbell: yeah,

Chris Detzel: summertime they have, all this other stuff, for over a month they have band camp and stuff, and I'm like, dang, dude.

It's intense.

Matt Campbell: Yeah. It goes back to that whole thing like, I want them to enjoy this and have activities, but maybe not too much. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you really don't realize I've certainly come to appreciate that my parents like their entire like young adult life revolved around their kids act.

While I've come to really appreciate that. I also like wish. To some extent I wish my parents had some of their own things. Yeah. And I think we're seeing that with this newer generation of parenting. It's we're still doing all these activities with our kids, but make sure you have something for yourself.

Because when they became empty nesters, it was [00:35:00] a real struggle for them. Yeah. It was a real challenge. They just didn't have their hobbies and now they've made it there, but it was just like a, I think it took them while our generation watched them not do any of that and decided we're going to.

If we're gonna try to do a little bit more of that and model. And model like kind of healthy balance for our kids. It's

Chris Detzel: funny you say that because people that live close, literally, I live in this condo I've had for 20 years. And people that live next to me are older, they're retired.

And they're bored to death, yeah. They have nothing. Zero. Yeah. And I'm like, man, 'cause this one lady downstairs, I've known her for a long time, and she goes, Chris, I don't know why everybody thinks retirement's so awesome. It's just so boring. Watch TV and get tired of, I was like, I said, maybe you should go do something like go hike or, find some people to do some shit with.

You know what I mean?

Matt Campbell: Yeah, no, for sure.

Chris Detzel: And I,

Matt Campbell: yeah,

Chris Detzel: I think you're right. And, and I think trying, learning how to build community within, whether it's running or exercise or playing. Yeah. Whatever, I don't know what old people do, but [00:36:00] whatever, so I agree. They do all the same stuff as us, Chris, and it would be nice to me.

Exactly. That's why. Why do you think I'm doing this podcast? I'm 50 years old. I wanna retire when I'm 55. And I wanna be able to note, it might not be this podcast that I do, but.

Matt Campbell: Yeah,

Chris Detzel: it could be something creative, it could be something fun. Yeah. It's something within the community or right now.

Yeah. It's all about running, and yeah. Spotlighting people like yourself and yeah. Getting, you gotta find your stuff now, yeah. Running for sure. Money won't last forever necessarily. Maybe jogging will or walk run or whatever, but

Matt Campbell: Right. No, that's a big exercise can, yeah.

That's a big thing for me too, Chris. And what I love about what you're doing is really like elevating and showcasing. This community we have here, which allows for connection. And I think about the same thing. I'm not gonna be probably able to run at this level forever. I can do it for a while, but what am I gonna do with this passion I have 10 years from now when I'm not chasing those prs, when I know that?

That those days are gone and that the extra training might not translate into that. How am I gonna keep this both fun for [00:37:00] myself, but also just like you, building the community is such a big part of this for me. And so what do I do now? How do I start crafting that 10 year plan? I feel like I'm contributing and elevating this community and I don't want to presume to know what that is, but just continue to explore opportunities, do things that I enjoy that fit into that balance with those pillars, be okay with failing.

For example, this newsletter I'm attempting to do, I don't know I don't know if I'm ever gonna put another issue out because it's a lot of damn work and I suck it.

Chris Detzel: I have some tips for you and maybe.

Matt Campbell: Maybe no one cares, but I enjoy it. I'm already spitting a lot of this information out to people all the time anyway, so I figured may as well try to formalize it.

I'm not trying to be an influencer. I'm not interesting enough to be an influencer, but I can still contribute at whatever scale as long as it, it fits all those values and priorities. So I love that you're doing this. And I think that. I think the community is gonna benefit from it all.

Chris Detzel: I think. Look, we [00:38:00] have a great running community in DFW. Yeah. Really good. Fast people. We have lot, not just fast people, but just a lot of people doing running, whether it's marathons, half marathons, five Ks, et cetera. They're just being healthy. They're out. Literally there's 50 groups out there, like 50 running groups.

Yeah. Yeah. Some of these running groups have like hundreds of people.

Matt Campbell: I think it's so great too, is right for a while there I joked about like the rise of the micro club, right? Yeah. Kinda like the rise of the micro brewery. And I rolled my eyes at it and then now I'm part, I'm like leading one to some extent and that's point is that it's just so great that there's something for everyone.

Chris Detzel: There is, and

Matt Campbell: in my opinion, all of those groups are working harmoniously and there's really great relations. Yeah. And you mentioned like fast runners. I think to me, while I acknowledge that, you've pointed out that I'm one of the faster runners, and I wanted to go back to this way earlier, is.

There's always a bigger fish.

Chris Detzel: Always.

Matt Campbell: So if your goal is like notoriety as being the big fish and whatever I will just tell you, you will always fall short if that is your [00:39:00] goal.

Chris Detzel: A hundred percent true. True. Especially in running,

Matt Campbell: Like especially in running, you will always, you will never be sad. You'll be satisfied for a moment and then there'll be the next thing.

That's right. And so for that to be the reason that you run is always gonna fall short for you. But like we've talked about, what's important to me is normalizing and showing how you can make this really intense passion fit into your life and enhance your life. Yeah. No matter what your goal is and whether you are a five hour marathoner or a, a.

Two 20 marathon, or it's all really the same at the end of the day, and we should all celebrate that.

Chris Detzel: I love your perspective. And I think that's right because there's always gonna be somebody bigger and better, yeah. And that's just the reality. And yeah, it's fun to compete.

It's fun to be really good at what you do, and you should. You should do whatever you can to be the best you can at whatever you do if you want. But at the end of the day, the reason I run, for the longest time was mainly because, I was 25 pounds overweight, and all of a sudden I was fairly decent, I could generally get [00:40:00] top 10.

Yeah. Top 15, top 20, in my used to overall. But now it's probably my age group, but usually think at first to my age group are close to, depending on who's there. But the point is. I'm still competing at my age. And something you said is, yeah, you know what happens when you're not as fast as you are today.

You still got 4, 5, 6, whatever years left to be really fast. But you could be fast for a 50-year-old. You could be the fastest of all of 50 year olds, Yeah. You can still, you're not gonna be a 20-year-old forever. You're just not. And Yeah. And you're not gonna keep your PR for, a marathon in your fifties could be a two 40, and that's still pretty darn good. Absolutely. For 50, I don't know. Whatever.

Matt Campbell: Yeah. And what I'll say with that is, while you can have the perspective that there will always be a bigger fish, that doesn't mean you can't go chase that big of fish. Yeah. I, I, and that's one thing to know that at every level people do this, some people talk to me and they're like, gosh, you're just so fast.

And I say, really? Because the only people I focus on are the people who are faster than me. That's right. So I'm slow because I'm not those two twenties guys that we've talked about that I want to [00:41:00] be, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not to be dismissive of everyone. That's not quite at my speed. But it's just to say we all do that and we can have the perspective, but it's also okay to chase those people and to want to go be at that next tier.

And I certainly I've, I said, is I'll be un, I will be very transparent about, that's my goal. I'm running CIM, we got a big crew of sloths running CIM Awesome. In December. I was about to ask

Chris Detzel: you, what are you gonna be doing?

Matt Campbell: I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get under two 30 there, and I'm just calling it right now.

That's what I'm gonna go do. Nice. Nice. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: So what are you doing before that? Are you doing any half marathons or anything to prepare?

Matt Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I'm in a speed season right now. Yeah. So I'm doing a lot of short work. I'll do a couple five Ks or time trials here in the, which five

Chris Detzel: Ks are you're gonna do, like any specific

Matt Campbell: I don't, I haven't signed up for any future ones yet.

I am looking at maybe doing some mile actually time trials on the track. Okay. And get the spikes and go.

Chris Detzel: When will you do that? Who you will you do it with? Oh, no, I'm actually

Matt Campbell: looking at organizing one like the 4th of July getting a crew out there at a track. [00:42:00] And do you should

Chris Detzel: invite me.

I'll come out and, yeah,

Matt Campbell: I'll let you know. And should a mile, I think we'll try to actually even have a clock and we will make it like. It won't be official. Yeah. But it will ha have something out there and make it fun on a holiday. I will say,

Chris Detzel: I know I'll do some interviews or something, like Yeah.

It'll be fun.

Matt Campbell: Yeah, for sure. I will do, I'll for sure do one or two tuneup halfs in the fall. I'll do the Katie 5K. My friend Jody, I'll be there. My friend Jody, she like Thursday night, so she so we'll definitely. There'll probably be

Chris Detzel: some fast people there too.

Matt Campbell: Yeah. I think it's just a fun race for Dallas.

Chris Detzel: It is.

Matt Campbell: So I'll do that one. Done it. What have you done that? I've never done it. 'Cause it's I think it, it's on a Thursday evening. Yeah. Historically that's been a very challenging time for me, but I, yeah. Our schedule with life is getting a little easier where I can pull that off now. Cool.

So I will do it this year and then. I'll do a half. I think I might do one in Houston. I might do one here. Which one

Chris Detzel: here? Drc or,

Matt Campbell: the one I typically do for a winter tuneup is the Toyota Music Factory.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Matt Campbell: It's not, it's not a big race, but it's a decent course at just the perfect time of year.

It's [00:43:00] like the first weekend of November every year. Okay. So it's just a good time to do a training. Half, but. But a training race Half. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: You'll race it a little bit.

Matt Campbell: Not Yeah, I'll race it, but it's with a like we were talking about with the 5K, the develop hammer 5K, it's about focusing on effort and execution, not worrying about my time kind of thing.

Will you

Chris Detzel: get your friends to run it too? Some thewas and.

Matt Campbell: Usually I do. Okay.

Chris Detzel: Yes. I'm gonna go run that, then I'm gonna sign. Okay.

Matt Campbell: You do it

Chris Detzel: well. It'll just be fun to hang out with you guys, but yeah, we have,

Matt Campbell: I mean we have a huge crew doing CIMI think Train Pegasus has a huge crew doing indie and then we'll have a huge crew doing CI.

Okay. So it's gonna be a fun fall of some of these travel races.

Chris Detzel: There's so many people to interview, man it's almost insane. Like I don't even have time to, I could do one a week or two a week, and it's still not enough, 'cause there's so many. Really good runners out there.

Matt Campbell: Yeah, it's just a good time.

Running's on the rise, right? These races are selling out earlier and earlier. They're, it's always like a million people signed up for London or something crazy like that.

Chris Detzel: Yep, that's exactly right. It's insane. Free to get in is impossible.

Matt, did we just, did we miss anything [00:44:00] that you really wanted to talk about?

You're doing some really cool things. Coaching. No, yeah. Like I said, hope a lot of people, it

Matt Campbell: sounds, I think that always love chatting with you. I'm happy to do any time, it'll be fun to, at some point, talk specifics on training as we approach some of these big fall marathons.

I wouldn't mind, we could recap, little bits of the training cycle and where we are and how we're feeling and why we're doing the workouts that we're doing. Okay. Bring in some other, training partners. I don't know if that's a thing that would, that's extremely

Chris Detzel: doable.

I, we could do a round table or something. Yeah. Actually, this

Matt Campbell: guy I ran with in Houston a couple times. Yeah, I saw he was on a friend's podcast and they were just like, they would just recap his training for the week. And I think that's a little bit too granular. But, I think, I do think people would like to hear what our training looks like on a, I have an

Chris Detzel: idea after this podcast and you just tell me if you're open to it, so I like it.

All right.

Matt Campbell: Sounds good.

Chris Detzel: All right. Matt, again, thanks for coming on. Thanks everybody for tuning to another DFW Running podcast. Please rate review us. We do have a substack newsletter, so please go to DFW running talks.substack.com. We have a YouTube [00:45:00] channel. Please go in and watch that if you can.

And until next time, thanks everyone.