The Hobby Jogger Podcast

E08 | The Runner's Mindset with Elizabeth Clor

• Hosted by: WeeViews & Branch Sauce • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this episode, we sit down with the 14-time Boston Marathon qualifier, and author of Boston Bound, to unearth the tenacity and strategy behind her remarkable achievements. Elizabeth shares the importance of mental fortitude, some of the training regimens that have propelled her forward, and how she's turned her passion for writing into a tool for race preparation and reflection.

We also explore the delicate balance between nutrition and training, learning from Elizabeth's own journey and how she transformed her approach to fueling as a competitive athlete. Listeners will gain an understanding of why proper nutrition is essential across all training phases and the benefits of having a fueling strategy come race day.

Author of Boston Bound

elizabethclor.com
@elizabethclor

Casey Koza:

Welcome back to this episode of the Hobby Jogger. My co-host, rob and I talked to Elizabeth Klor. She is a 33-time marathon runner, boasting a PR of 3 hours and 15 minutes, a new fresh half-marathon PR of 1 hour and 29 minutes. She has qualified for Boston 14 times. She is the author of an awesome book Boston Bound, elizabeth. Welcome to the show, thank you. This is the first book I have read since when the Red Fern Grows in, maybe the third grade.

Elizabeth Clor:

That is high praise.

Casey Koza:

I want to thank you very much for getting a book into my hand. I'll be honest, I didn't finish all of it because I think there's probably probably makes a little better conversation for me to have with you without going too in depth. But so far I'm about halfway through. Excellent book. Tell your mom Great job on the editing. I will. That was a very well edited book, Great read.

Elizabeth Clor:

Thank you.

Rob Myers:

I second that I finished it last week, great book. So I beat you, casey.

Elizabeth Clor:

I beat you, so Rob has a little bit better full-on synopsis of it. I have to say, if you only made it halfway you haven't really gotten to the inspirational part yet. You've only seen the hardship and the heartache.

Casey Koza:

So it gets better Just from the parts that I've read so far, so it gets better Just from the parts that I've read so far. You do have a very interesting story. What inspired you to write that? I mean, obviously the Boston Marathon did, but what outside of that? Like, I want to do a lot of things. One of them is not writing a book because I can't write nearly as well as you and I don't have an editor like your mother. So what was kind of the basis behind it?

Elizabeth Clor:

Well, I have wanted to write a book since I could pick up a pencil when I was seven years old. I've always wanted to write a book. I've kept a blog, I've kept journals, I've written short stories. I love to write. And then why this particular topic? I really underwent the sort of a I don't want to call it a personality transformation, but it really was a huge transformation in my own personal journey and it was such a huge shift and change that I really wanted to share it with a lot of people. I thought that I had a story that could resonate with people. I thought that many other runners could potentially be struggling with the same things that I was struggling with and that my story and my journey could in some way help them. And when I published it, I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if maybe five people, 10 people, would read it. I definitely didn't think any more than like 50 or 60. So it really has shocked me the reception that it's gotten.

Casey Koza:

We've been shocked as well by how many people have listened to the show. So I guess I can kind of understand and draw that parallel. People listen and people do want to intake and especially following you on Instagram as well just kind of the transformation of looking at you as a runner. And it does give me hope because you and I are about the same age bracket I'm 40, so I've moved on to the master's area of running and you've continually improved every year.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah.

Casey Koza:

That's pretty remarkable, I think especially you know like just the way I look at it at 40 years old to keep getting better. So you give me hope.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah.

Casey Koza:

What is one of your keys to success? If you had to say of how you've continued to get better, improved times throughout the, I don't know how to delicately say this, because we're both the same age but just like aging, it's really about consistency.

Elizabeth Clor:

So I think I was at an advantage because I did start in my early 20s, so running is something that my body is used to. I don't know how it would be if I had started even in like my early to mid 30s, but it's something that I've always done. When I was even younger in high school and college I was a dancer, so I've always been active. And the ability to continue to get faster, I think really comes down to the ability to train consistently and to continue to be able to push your body in different ways in workouts, and a huge factor in that is not always doing the same thing over and over again, because if you can imagine, like every Thursday for the past 20 years I've been doing a five mile tempo run, that's not going to do it. It has to be a lot of different types of workouts fartleks, track workouts, tempos, different kinds of tempos, different styles of long runs.

Elizabeth Clor:

Also weight training, strength training, nutrition. It's the whole entire package, and then what my book focuses on really is the mental aspect of it. So there's lots of ways to improve your running, and something that I talked about in the book is there's really sort of five different areas that my sports psychologist worked on me with, one only, one of which is the physical and the training, and that is huge. Another one is your mindset, and how much fitness can you say fitness? How much better can you perform when you have a stronger mindset? Another is your technique, and that would come down to your form and your stride and your mechanics. And then another is your, your habits that are not related to running, like your sleeping habits and your nutritional habits. It's it's looking at the whole picture, it's not just doing one of those things.

Casey Koza:

Now I want to touch on one of those that you mentioned there your form. This is after I started to do some research, I actually found I guess it would be a troll of talking about your form you posted a video of it's your easy pace, whatever the time doesn't really matter, but it was your easy pace and I was like she looks so smooth. That is like if you drew it up on the chalkboard, that's what you want, and then it goes to you at your 650 pace and I was like there's no struggle, it's the same exact smooth gate. Is that something that you put a lot of time into maybe changing from before, when I didn't I couldn't see a video of that to now? This is something that helped you go forward by changing your gate and changing your gait and like changing your. I guess cadence would be as well. Is that something that you really focused on?

Elizabeth Clor:

I will be honest and say that I have not actually focused on it. I went to a really good sports chiropractor years ago and he said something that was when you try to change your cadence, when you try to change your gait actively, it can often result in injury Because usually the best form and the best gait for you is what is most comfortable for you. So you have to find what stride, what gait, what form works for you and even if you look at like the elite runners, they all have different forms. I mean, some of them heel strikes, some of them lean backwards. You can see them making all sorts of quote unquote mistakes that you're not supposed to do. Yet these are like Olympic level athletes, so there really is no one absolute in form. It's really you've got to find what works for you and I think how I've found what works for me is doing a lot of sort of striding and sprinting 100 meter repeats, 200 meter repeats.

Elizabeth Clor:

When you do that kind of work it forces your body to just figure it out. So you can think of if you're doing like a common workout. That I do will be a set of 16 by 200. The first three or four or five will be not as fast. The first three or four or five will be not as fast and the more I do it, by the time I get to the end I went down from like a 46 seconds down to like 39 seconds. I'm able to be so much faster at the end and I'm more tired. So what I attribute that is to it took me that long for my body to like figure it out. And then you carry that into your easy runs, you carry that into all of your other runs and, as you mentioned, trolls, I used to get a bunch of kind of trollish comments on my form because it looked like a little bit stiff and that was because I did for many years have Achilles tendonitis and it really reduced my range of motion.

Elizabeth Clor:

So I had really forced me into a very high cadence and that was my body's way of adapting it. I realized I could run really fast with a high cadence. I didn't need a long stride. Since then, within the past I want to say six to eight months that has completely resolved. So now I am able to open up a little bit more. So in videos my running does look a little bit smoother, a little bit better. But once again, that's just. I wasn't, wasn't trying to consciously do it. That's just what works for me after having done lots of track workout, strides, drills, things of that nature.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, and it's, it's. It's unfortunate that people comment that I just that's one thing we've. We talked about with Andrew Glaze a little bit the trolls. What did he say, ron? What was his, what was his troll quote? It was great. Yeah, it was fantastic. None of the trolls are ever doing as much work as you are, is the gist of of what he said. But I I saw that I was like she has one of the most efficient strides I think I've ever seen.

Rob Myers:

I mean, you're also a certified trainer. I don't think they should be saying anything, right? The the trolls should shut their mouth. You know what you're talking about.

Elizabeth Clor:

Well, that's right. I mean, yeah, unless they're like a 45-year-old woman who's, like you know, running 129.5, then they probably can't relate.

Casey Koza:

I have no doubt they're not a 45-year-old woman. I have no doubt also that they're not running a 129 guaranteed. Yeah, there's, there's just no way. But I just thought I, I just I just found that interesting because I, like I said, I've, I've, I haven't seen very I've seen a lot of strides running in my day, and it was just. It looked very efficient to me. So I just wanted to see if that was something you know that you had really focused in on to to try and a bit. And that's a very good explanation of why, hey, it works for you and that's kind of the best way to go. I always think.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, it's like I've worked on it, but I haven't consciously worked on it, if that makes sense Like I've worked on it by doing other things that have resulted in that form.

Casey Koza:

And you did say that you ran a 129 XX time.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yes.

Casey Koza:

Incredible. That's awesome. Interestingly enough, I'm signed up for the Cleveland half marathon. I don't often run road stuff, but that's my goal is to run a one sub one 30 here at the Cleveland half. So that's why, like when you say I do 16 by two hundreds, here's my time range. I'm like write this down here this is the workout to do. Is there any other key workouts you have for speed?

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, I mean, and once again, it really depends on the distance that I'm training for. I believe that if you are targeting a half marathon, your training will look different from a marathon versus a 5k. But even when I'm training for a marathon, for me it's really important to keep up my speed, because I have a lot of natural. My natural talent is more endurance, and so I have to work more on my speed. So I find that my training is sort of better spent on speed, because the endurance will kind of make its way there on its own.

Elizabeth Clor:

There's this one workout that my coach always used to give me, and I won't say I like it because I actually hate it. But there's other workouts that you need to do. It's one minute hard, one minute easy times, whatever. So you can start off by doing 10 and then do 12, 15. I've done all the way up to 20. And then, when you're done with that, then do the same amount of reps, but 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy. So I've worked my way up to 20 times. One minute hard, one minute easy, and then 20 times 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy. So that is an hour, a full hour of like hard, easy, hard, easy, hard, easy. And that workout really teaches you to find different gears to get the legs moving really quickly, because it's a one minute interval so you want to be moving but you can't be moving quickly because you only have a minute to recover. So it's great for VO2 max, it's great for leg turnover, it's great for mental endurance and it also actually makes that hour go by pretty quickly.

Casey Koza:

And you do coach as well.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yes.

Casey Koza:

One of the things I've had a difficult time because I run ultra trails. So for me, when you just Google it what speed workout I just get a plethora of opinions and ideas and what you should do and what every runner needs to do. But I think it gets a lot more credence coming from you. So if you just ran a 129, obviously you've qualified for Boston 14 times. That's pretty good. I've qualified for Boston zero times, so it's good to hear you give advice. That's someone I'll listen to, rather than the $5 coach on whatever that service is where you can pay $5 for anything.

Elizabeth Clor:

Well, it's also really knowing what works for you and figuring that out Like if you are a natural, what we call I'm a Macmillan coach, what Macmillan called a speedster that type of workout. You may not need to do as much and you might need to be doing more of these like long tempo runs where you're doing like half marathon or marathon pace for like lots of miles. Another really good workout that I did in preparation for this half marathon and for my marathon that I did in the fall was what can be called a wave tempo, where, instead of just running your tempo run, you alternate between a little bit faster than your tempo pace and a little bit slower than your tempo pace and a little bit slower than your tempo pace. So you could look at it as 10K pace and marathon pace and you alternate that. It could be every half mile.

Elizabeth Clor:

I like to do it every kilometer and there's some research showing that that will help improve your lactate threshold and stimulate your lactate threshold more than just doing a straight tempo run and also it makes it go by faster. So if you can imagine running a six mile tempo run, that just sounds very mentally grueling. Or you could do a six mile tempo run, alternating paces, and it just goes by a lot faster because you're getting a little bit of relief with those sort of marathon pace recoveries and it makes your marathon pace feel easy. So there's many, many benefits of that workout as well.

Rob Myers:

So, as a Macmillan coach, do you follow their system or do you incorporate everything we've been talking about with your clients?

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, so a little bit of both. So I am a Macmillan coach and I follow some of the system, but I really think that every athlete is unique, and part of Macmillan is knowing that every athlete is unique. There are what we call endurance monsters, what we call speedsters, but I also like to incorporate just a lot of variety of different coaches that I've worked with throughout the years. I've worked with Greg Macmillan himself personally. He was my coach for a while. I've had a few other coaches and I've kind of taken what I think is the most effective from each of them, while I've had a few other coaches and I've kind of taken like what I think is the most effective from each of them and I've made them into my own. It incorporates a lot of Macmillan, but it's also just what I have found works.

Casey Koza:

What is your approach for finding what works for someone, because that's something I've even had a difficult time diagnosing myself. I'm obviously not a coach I should never coach anything, probably so how do you go about diagnosing what you think? Do you just like, hey, I'm going to dump their Strava data, take a look, see what they're lacking? What is your mindset when it comes to diagnosing how to help someone?

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, it's not easy, I will say that, and I've only been coaching for about eight or nine months, so I'm relatively new to it.

Elizabeth Clor:

But what I do is when I first start onboarding a client, I do ask them extensively about their history and like the types of workouts they do. I ask them what they like and what they don't like. And then when I start prescribing them workouts, I kind of ask them like how did this feel, or did you enjoy that, or did you like that, or did you prefer this workout or that workout? And I'll try to find where their sort of weaknesses are and I'll sort of look at their previous race times and I'll try to determine if they're more of a speedster or an endurance monster or kind of a combo runner. And once I kind of figure that out, then I'm able to better orient. Like, one athlete came to me and she said that she wants a faster marathon time but she also just loves running really hard and really fast and when I give her these speed workouts she absolutely crushes them. But her longer distance times don't line up with what she can do at the shorter. So that's someone I know I need to work on endurance with.

Casey Koza:

And is there any key I don't know what we call it now like vital statistics? I guess I've seen HRV that's the heart rate variability mentioned quite a bit. That's kind of a, I guess, a newer thing.

Elizabeth Clor:

Well, I mean, it's relatively new to me. I started looking at it in my Fitbit like a year or two ago.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, and I had never I mean I'm talking like within the last probably three or four months I've seen so people that seem very well-spoken speak about it. That always makes me wonder as well. When it's just kind of like the new fads, we always we have fads that come in and out and go. Is there any vital things that you look at for a runner as well when you begin coaching them?

Elizabeth Clor:

Well, I don't look at their vital signs too much. I mean, for me I always have a Fitbit on all the time, so I always am looking at my resting heart rate, sleeping heart rate, sleep patterns and things like that. I think it is really important to monitor sleep and to ask athletes how they're sleeping and understanding how they're feeling overall. As I said earlier just a few moments ago, there's that big picture and so, in terms of vitals, how are you sleeping? What are your energy levels like during the day? What is your life stress? Do you have a stressful situation at work, stressful family situation? What's going on?

Elizabeth Clor:

Because if there's a lot of extra life stress that will take a toll on your runs and that can really just drain you. Intuitively it doesn't seem like well sure, but I can just put that aside when I go for my run. You actually really can. And one time I DNF'd a marathon while I was in the process of changing from one job to another and I was interviewing and it was stressful, and during all that interviewing process I ran a marathon and I just had to stop halfway through because it just wasn't in me. I had just too much. So I think, in terms of vitals may not necessarily be a number, but you can look at sleep patterns, energy levels, life stress and how much is the athlete enjoying their run. Because if they're like I dreaded this, this was a death march again and again and again, then it's like then they need to, like take a step back or you need to do something to reinvigorate them.

Rob Myers:

Yeah, yeah, sleep seems to be number one for me and trying to figure out that math problem is so challenging because there's times you go out for a run, I know personally I feel great, but my time is terrible. You know, pace is terrible. Towards the end I start feeling terrible, even though I had a good night of sleep. Nutrition's on point, I mean, just trying to dial that in is just a constant struggle.

Elizabeth Clor:

It really is. And one thing I've noticed too is that sleep is cumulative. So even if you slept really well last night, if you hadn't slept well the night before and the night before and the night before, then it's like your sleep debt, you're indebted to it. You still have to make that up over a few more nights.

Rob Myers:

That's a great point.

Casey Koza:

My biggest inhibitor of sleep definitely is alcohol. Yeah, man, the damage that does to your sleep is I was telling my girlfriend about it. I was like my heart rate is like 40 42 when I sleep it and if I go out and we have some drinks and I go to bed I've woken up with like 60, 65 range sleep and it's just that's a huge increase and you're just not resting. If you're going out and you know I'm not one to talk because I do go out and have a few beers from well often, or margaritas or you know, gin and tonics, whatever, but it's such a big factor in sleep and I don't think a lot of people realize that. Is that something you've seen with athletes that you've worked with? Have you broached that subject with someone like, hey, if you have a six pack, you're, you know you're probably not going to sleep on things aren't going to feel great.

Elizabeth Clor:

The athletes that I coach I don't think are doing that too often, but I do notice it when and I'm not a heavy drinker, but like even if I'm like my husband if he has, like you know, a few beers, even just a few, he'll notice it will make his resting heart rate go up. It's absolutely true. So I think that, though everything in moderation, I think if you're training for a goal race and you want to have like one or two drinks, I think that's totally fine. I wouldn't recommend that every night and when you do it maybe, as I said, in moderation, but I don't necessarily think you have to cut out, like all, alcohol during training. I just think you need to be sensible about it.

Rob Myers:

I was going to say I mean there is kind of a sweet spot. I be sensible about it. I was going to say I mean there is kind of a sweet spot. I have had that kind of one beer before a run not a race but just a run. And if you're really really sore and I'm not recommending this to anyone, but sometimes you know, if your ankle's bothering you, your knee's bothering you, one beer before the run you don't feel anything.

Elizabeth Clor:

So last resort, yeah, Sometimes I amaze myself Like there've been a few times where my husband and I no-transcript completely dragging.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, I haven't got that one honed in yet, so it's work in progress. Now, this is one thing that I have completely changed, as an athlete, my thinking on over last three years as I've started to run nutrition.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yes.

Casey Koza:

The importance of nutrition I don't think can be understated.

Elizabeth Clor:

Absolutely.

Casey Koza:

It's just the free run meal, the post run meal, the meal the night before are, I think, every bit as important as the actual training, because if you don't set yourself up right with the right fuel, it doesn't matter how well you trained, the wall's coming at you and it's coming at you hard.

Elizabeth Clor:

That's true.

Casey Koza:

Yeah. So do you have any advice for people of what to eat? Things that you've done with your track record of success that stick out to you as? Hey, let's do this.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, I mean, nutrition is also one of those really hard things because it's so personalized and unique to the individual. I have a sensitive stomach toward many things like dairy, things like that. I try to eat very bland foods the day before a long run or a race, so avoid dairy. I just eat a lot of like refined carbs, pasta bread, like white bread, white pastas. Tomato sauce is fine with me. Some people it's too acidic for them. But I'll do like just a plain chicken or salmon with tomato sauce and pasta.

Elizabeth Clor:

And my go-to meal the night before a race is chicken parm but no cheese, which is so weird because cheese is like half the meal. But then you're just getting like a good, nice piece of chicken with some breading, some pasta and some sauce and then you'll eat the bread with it and then for me that really works. But I think what's most important is that you're getting enough carbs. I know a lot of runners are also sort of maybe trying to lose weight or thinking that like they can be faster if they lose weight, or maybe one of their reasons for running is weight loss, so they may try to limit carbs. But that is absolutely not the right approach. You need those carbs and that's going to change how you feel.

Casey Koza:

You said something very important that I think needs highlighted. If you're trying to lose weight, running a marathon is not the ideal situation.

Elizabeth Clor:

That's correct.

Casey Koza:

Because you have to consume a lot of calories in order to put the miles in, in order to perform a marathon, especially if you're trying to drop time 100%.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, I saw you had a recent post and it was the eating disorder awareness post. Yes, I thank you very much for bringing that up. It's something that I see a lot. I hear people say things. That kind of upsets me and I don't think it gets as much attention it should in the running community because I think it is an issue specifically with female runners.

Casey Koza:

I was at a, just a local turkey trot and there was a girl uh, wasn't very you know, obviously wasn't very big, but she was cross-country, clearly at her college, and she was like, yeah, I heard her telling someone else like I need to lose another pound or two. I was just like, please don't like, no, like you're she. She was like third or fourth place, probably crushed it, killer time. It's just that does not make you a better, a better runner. Losing a pound or two will not. It'll it'll hurt you, you'll get injured. But I I would just like to get your opinion on that, because you were so outspoken in it, and just give you a chance to kind of go into detail of really dangerous you know how dangerous it is and anything you'd like to say.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, Underfueling is detrimental in so many ways because chances are if you're underfueling your runs, you're doing it not just for one run but you're in this sort of constant state of not getting enough calories and over time that can cause lots of problems. It can cause osteoporosis, you can end up with stress fractures, you can end up being really tired and I think and this was the case at least for me is that like unfortunately, you can sort of quote unquote, get away with it for a little while. That like athletes may find that like well, I can, I got away with that. I set a PR and I only ate X amount of calories, so I'm just going to keep doing that. And even though sure you can get away with it in the short term, it will come back to bite you. It is not sustainable. So I wasn't sort of running for PRs and for time competitively back when I was sort of deep into my eating disorder. Then I was actually running for weight loss.

Elizabeth Clor:

Once I started running to run marathons and for distance, I knew that I needed to have fuel because I really wanted to complete the marathon and I didn't want to have a situation where I had gotten through half of the run and like collapsed or didn't feel good. So there's lots of dangers. There's short, the short-term danger of collapsing or not having enough energy, and then the long-term ones, which you may not see immediately, which may trick you into thinking that what you're doing is okay. It's really not. You need to be consistently fueling your body every day, Even if you, you know, let's say, you run a marathon and now you have a week and you're not running as much.

Elizabeth Clor:

Some runners may think well, I'm not marathon training right now and I'm not running this week, so I'm going to cut back the calories. That's also wrong, because that's when you need calories the most, because your body has to recover. You need a lot of protein to rebuild the muscles and to heal the damage that the marathon has caused in those muscles, the damage that the marathon has caused in those muscles. So, making sure you're getting enough calories, no matter what phase of training you're in. If you're tapering once again I've cut back on the training. I'm tapering I don't need to eat as much Wrong. I'm recovering I don't need to eat as much Wrong. You always need to fuel yourself. It needs to be consistent and if you are sort of struggling, I'll say to anyone if you're struggling with how much should I eat?

Casey Koza:

I don't know, Just take a leap of faith, follow your hunger and it will normalize over time. Thank you, and I think it's something that's so important. You don't get as much out of it when you do and, like you said, elizabeth, you don't recover. And that's ultimately what we're training for. You train to break down your body and then you need to recover so that you kind of go up the little steppy graph right.

Rob Myers:

Yeah, I know there's times that I just don't eat enough. I don't think about it. It's not that I'm purposely not eating, I just don't think about it. You know, you get used to eating so many meals a day and you go out for a run, you're in a race and you have to eat every mile or every other mile, or take a gel, whatever it may be. I just forget. And then you know, four miles in, I'm starting to slow down. Why am I slowing down? Oh, it's been forever since I've eaten anything.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, when I start a race, particularly a marathon or half marathon, I know the times when I'm going to fuel, so I don't fuel by mile marker, I fuel by like every 35 to 40 minutes.

Elizabeth Clor:

And one of the ways I really like to fuel is with UCAN and I've talked a lot about UCAN on my Instagram because it's a slow release energy.

Elizabeth Clor:

It's not like any other sort of gel out there, and so when I ran the half marathon over the weekend, I took a gel at 15 minutes and then at 55 minutes.

Elizabeth Clor:

So when I was at the start line and this also helps reduce your anxiety, because if you have a plan and you're just focused on what you're going to do, you're not really worried about your time or things like that you just focus on all right, I'm going to go into this race, this is the pace I'm going to target. When it gets to 15 minutes, I'm going to have this gel and then I'm going to drink this, and then, when it gets to 55 minutes, then I'm going to have this other gel and then I'm going to do this. If you're just focused on that, the process of running, it also reduces your anxiety about like worrying and the pressure of it, cause you just you're so much focused on what you're doing that that's um, they can take some of the pressure off too. So I like to have a plan like that and just be 100% focused on my fueling strategy.

Casey Koza:

Great advice. So now I got to figure out how to add all that up together. So 15 minutes, another 40 minutes, that's okay. See, I'm sticking with your plan for this.

Rob Myers:

Can you send me your notes, Casey? I will.

Elizabeth Clor:

And once again, that's what worked for me. You know you got to try it in training. I mean, I think everybody should practice their race fueling during training and figure out what works for them. I've run probably 40, 50 half marathons so I've had a lot of opportunity to fine tune when to take those gels.

Casey Koza:

Now you did mention UCAN, do they have a free race drink, because I know that's now a popular thing with the guys at our local running store? Morton makes one.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yes.

Casey Koza:

And I apologize if you're sponsored by UCAN, we will cut that out. That we mentioned.

Elizabeth Clor:

I actually you know what. I'm a partner with both Morton and UCAN.

Casey Koza:

Okay.

Elizabeth Clor:

And I think they both know that and I think obviously they're both okay with it because I think that they both have. I do both. They both have a place in my training regimen and I wrote a blog post on how I use them and when I'll use what and for what. But, as I said earlier, ucan is that like slow release energy. So when I'm training and I'm doing a long run, I will take the UCAN drink. It's just the UCAN energy powder. For me, it will last to 90 minutes, which is pretty long, and then I'll start taking those UCAN gels and then so UCAN has a gel and a powder you can gels and then, um, so they had you can has a gel and a powder.

Elizabeth Clor:

When I ran the half marathon, I took a you can gel like 25 minutes before, because those take a little bit, cause it's a slower release energy. Those take a little bit longer to kick in. 25 minutes before I took that gel, gave it time to kick in and then I what I assume happened, what I would. The goal was to have that you can give me some steady energy all the way up through for like the next 90 minutes, but also pumping it in with extra Morton as I went along to give myself extra bursts of fast that sugar rush. Ucan doesn't currently have a gel with caffeine, so if you want to add that, I go to Morton for that. So I had to be very specific. A you can gel 25 minutes beforehand and then 15 minutes into the race a caffeinated gel by Morton and then at the 55 minutes a non caffeinated gel, and that did just fine for me gel and that did just fine for me.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, I have one of the white packets of Morton, so we'll see how how that goes with all the caffeine. I'm used to caffeine. I drink a lot of coffee, you know. Never try something new on race day, but right. You know, gotta be bold to make to do bold things, rob right.

Rob Myers:

Indeed. Well, if we can maybe pivot to your book, I mean fantastic and honestly, the level of detail when you're describing the races at every mile. How do you remember that level of detail from every single race? I mean, I felt like I was in the race with you. It was outstanding.

Elizabeth Clor:

Well, thank you, that's some pretty high praise. I just have a very active mind and I'm a natural, as I said, storyteller and writer and as I go through these races, I make the observations, I make mental notes and I write a race report in my blog. I try to write it the same day of the race, like when I'm done, for a number of reasons, mostly because it gives me closure. I think that, like when you go through a race and you have you're trained for something so hard and there's a lot of buildup, you need to process it mentally and you need to sort of know where you stand.

Elizabeth Clor:

What did you get out of it, what are the key takeaways? What did you learn? What are you going to bring into the next? How are what are you going to bring into the next when you look back on this experience? How are you going to frame it? And I think that that's really important to learn and grow as an athlete. So I've been doing that since 2005. For every race that I've run, I've written a race report, and purely because I enjoy writing, that's great.

Rob Myers:

I think I'm going to start a blog just so I can remember everything, because looking back, I'll remember where I was at and the overall feeling of the race, but not that level of detail.

Elizabeth Clor:

It's so helpful when I go back and I run the same race again, because I ran the one city half marathon on Sunday and I had run that same race in 2020, four years ago. So reading my blog from 2020 was very helpful. I knew where the turns were, I knew where the hills were, I knew how I felt, I knew everything to expect. And then, while I was running at this past time, I'm like okay, this is in 2020. This is where I let it fall apart. That's not today. That's not today, and you can kind of come back with a little bit of a vengeance when you do it again. So writing everything down will really help you, especially if you're going to run the same race again.

Rob Myers:

The epilogue of the book. When you were, was it climbing up what Heartbreak Hill Right before you got to where the bombings were? I mean again, I know I'm repeating myself at this point, but just the level of detail, it was amazing.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, I usually can't remember anything after hey. Did you see that canyon we went to? Yeah, I missed that. Maybe we were on different courses, I don't know. That's awesome that you can keep that level of of detail after a race. I, my mind, doesn't work that way, which is probably why I'm not an author.

Elizabeth Clor:

Well, sometimes I I, you know, I don't necessarily take in the scenery, I'm more taken my my own mental script. I'll remember what my thoughts were and what my feelings were and what my observations were, and a lot of like when I ran. I know I keep going back to it, but that's just because I ran it two days ago. When I ran that race two days ago, we ran over a bridge and there was a river and there was water and I'm like I do not remember this, Like in 2020, I had no idea that I was running like right next to water. I had no idea. I had no idea that I was running like right next to water. I had no idea.

Casey Koza:

So, that was kind of a surprise and I did notice. Also in the book Elizabeth you talked about your mindset.

Rob Myers:

Yeah.

Casey Koza:

It sounds corny. If you talk about it, people think I guess I don't know. I'm not people, so I don't know, but you hit some dark places. So how do you keep that mindset? How do you develop it? I know that's part of your book which I will finish. Like I said, I try and pretend that I'm somebody else or I'm in a movie. That sometimes usually doesn't work. But how do you do it?

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, it's, it's a lot. It was not easy and that's, once again, one of the reasons why I wrote the book was because I was able to change the mindset, and once you're able to change your mindset, it's like a whole new world. A lot of it was just intellectualizing it and knowing what are the thoughts that I want to have and even though I don't actually automatically have these thoughts, what thoughts should I have? And even though I don't actually automatically have these thoughts, what thoughts should I have? And I knew that intellectually, I should be thinking positively, be not worried about what other people thought about me, be confident, keep focusing on pushing, keep focusing on the process, all of these positive thoughts that I wanted to have and just practicing that over and over again until one day it became more automatic and when you're racing it hurts right, like everyone's going to have some level of doubt, because you just don't know if you're going to be able to continue at that intensity until the end of the race. So you just have to really have that confidence and trust your training and tell yourself this moment, right here, this is the moment I've trained for, and then you have to remember that you've spent like weeks and months and all of this time just for this one moment. Are you really going to like, let it go right now. Like this is, you're here, it's right now. Like don't, don't waste it? And you got to kind of impart that sense of real importance on that moment, like I remember I think one of the first times I did it was when I ran the Myrtle Beach Marathon.

Elizabeth Clor:

This was back in 2017. And I knew I had an hour to go and the race was going well and it started to get hard and I was like, look, it's one hour, it's just one hour and it's an important hour and this is going to be whether or not you get this huge PR or not and you really want it. So just come on. And that mindset really helped me during that race and from then on, I've learned to use kind of that trick of making sure that you know how important it is in that moment to stay strong and to stay positive and not just to hang in there but to really push, to really show yourself what you're made out of.

Casey Koza:

It's again probably the most important is met the mental aspect of it. I think just you know, rob and I have now run together for the last couple of years ultras and they break you and it's just like a marathon, same thing. I mean marathon's more intense because you're you know speed faster. I mean marathon's more intense because you're you know speed faster. But the stuff we do, like it, it just and it's the ones that break versus the ones that don't break is kind of there's a reason you qualified 14 times and obviously the mental stamina is is a big part of it. So it was. It was really good to hear your take on that, because that's something I need to improve to push through. I guess now that the word is pain cave.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yes.

Casey Koza:

But you do, you get into it and it's like well, I'm here, this is what I signed up for. I gotta gotta keep taking steps.

Rob Myers:

We need to have a plan, first, Casey, and then execute on the plan instead of just run the mile you're in. Run the mile you're in, you know, but actually stick to a plan. That's the hardest thing to do.

Casey Koza:

Well, we're good at planning the trip, rob. That's what's important. Mostly is we. We were good at getting that Airbnb and the beer to the house. Maybe this next one will focus on actually running the race with a plan. That's a good plan.

Elizabeth Clor:

Yeah, there's so many mental tricks.

Elizabeth Clor:

One thing that I learned just this past fall, last November, when I was running Richmond, was I just decided to focus more externally whereas from my almost my entire running career was focused more internally and to pay attention to what the what are the trees look like, what are the other runners doing, what's the scenery all of that.

Elizabeth Clor:

This is something that my husband he's a runner too and he always would focus on, like oh, there's a bird, there's a tree, there's this, and I'm like, how can you think about that? You've got to be so focused on what you're doing and I could never understand those people who would like notice those types of things, because I was just always so focused on pushing really hard. But I realized last time I ran the Richmond Marathon that if you relax, have a relaxed mindset and just look at what's around you, whatever it is, whatever the scenery is, and think about it and just keep doing what you're doing, it really helps. It's a good distraction. You don't think about the hurt as much if you kind of externally focus. So I've learned to do that very recently and I think that's going to be my approach going forward.

Casey Koza:

And you mentioned that your husband's a runner as well. That helps out a lot, I know you know, having support of my girlfriend, she goes and she understands kind of now everything involved in it. That's a that's a big help, I think. Especially gives you a little bit mental clarity, stability to to get into a race. So that's huge. That's good to hear that he's supportive. He gets out there and runs with you. Is he as fast as you?

Elizabeth Clor:

You know what's interesting? So in the family of the two of us he had a half marathon PR of 129.49. And then yesterday I ran 129.50. So I was one second shy of his half marathon PR. So by one second he has the faster half, but I have the faster full marathon and he has the faster 5K 10K. So we're pretty well matched.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, that's great, that's what I mean. You probably train at the same pace as them. That gives you a long run partner. Yes, that's great, that's what I mean. You probably train at the same paces. Then that makes it gives you a long run partner and, yes, that's awesome.

Elizabeth Clor:

He's my first coaching client.

Casey Koza:

So, and you've done well with him, I'm, I'm sure. Now, what shoes are we going to be wearing for for Boston?

Elizabeth Clor:

I'm wearing the Adidas Adios Pro.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, so that's cool. I like Adidas and I do like those shoes. I think I have the Adios Pro 2s, I believe.

Elizabeth Clor:

That is what I have. The 3 has been out for like a year now and I have not yet tried them, because apparently they have a six millimeter drop which is not friendly to my chronic Achilles tendinopathy, whereas the previous version had a higher drop, I think it was like around nine millimeters. So I've stocked up on the version two, the Adios Pro 2, and I'm going to use those until I can no longer use them.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, one thing I do when the new shoe comes out, I buy the old shoe in bulk. Yeah, I do that I like the Mach 5 by Hoka and I have now four or five pairs of Mach 5s now that I'll go get now that they're discounted to half price, so I don't need the Mach 6. Sorry, marketing team.

Elizabeth Clor:

It's hard to find a shoe that really works for you, and that Adios Pro 2 has just been amazing for me. I love it, it fits me perfectly, it's fast, it's great, and so I definitely wouldn't want to move to a version of it where it's going to potentially hurt my Achilles.

Casey Koza:

Hey, if it works for you, you don't fix it right, right. But thank you so much for this, elizabeth. I appreciate it. This is the first one we've done where I've been nervous to do it. Oh why? Well, you're an author and that's. I've never talked to an author before, so it's something new. And yeah, I was just like man she's going to have, I have to bring a thesaurus out or something.

Elizabeth Clor:

I promise I'm not going to start throwing all of my SAT words at you. Author's intimidating. You know it's like doctor.

Casey Koza:

Yeah, I my SAT words at you. Author's intimidating. You know it's like doctor. Yeah, I know doctors, I go see doctors, that's fine. But an author I don't know any authors. I'm pretty sure I've never spoken to an actual author so well, thank you very much for that. Sure Rob, you got anything else?

Rob Myers:

No, fantastic. We really appreciate you being on the pod. It was great.

Casey Koza:

It's a first for me as well, you know reading a book and then talking to the author like box checked. Hey Elizabeth, just to ask real quick, where can we buy the book? And also, where can we find you out on the internet Website, instagram.

Elizabeth Clor:

What's your handle? Yeah, no-transcript.