Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown

As runners, we are naturally driven individuals.  We like to challenge ourselves to see what we are capable of - a faster time, a longer distance, a new achievement.     We don’t want to feel left behind or like we are missing out on the next race or the newest trend.   While this might be a good thing sometimes, running FOMO does have a dark side.  If you are constantly looking ahead to what’s ne...

  Guess what - your running form is not as important as you might think it is.  SAY WHAT?!?  While it’s true that there are plenty of experts out there telling you about the importance of running form, there are some things that they might be leaving out, things that we believe are much more important than spending time trying to “correct” your form during your runs. So many runners think that the...

Invest Wisely in Your Running   If you want to improve in any area of your life, you must invest in yourself.  Investments come in two main forms: time and money.  So many runners get into running thinking that running should be easy and free, and this leads to a lot of disappointment when they don’t see the results that they want.   The truth is, anything worthwhile requires an investment from yo...

I just need to find the motivation... If only I could be more motivated... I want to go run (or strength train), but I'm not feeling motivated...   Ever been there? So many runners have.   I would venture to say that every runner has felt unmotivated at one time or another. Here's the thing... Motivation is a feeling, and like any feeling, it comes and goes. Sometimes you're happy,...

Be a Stronger Runner Why is it important to be strong as a runner? Most people just want to get faster or improve their endurance, but not as many people think about strength.  By neglecting strength, they often hit plateaus or get injured when they try to increase training load.  In this episode, we talk about:  Common Myths around strength training for runners The importance of physical strength...

Lessons from the Boston Marathon We just finished watching the Boston marathon, and like any big race, there were so many amazing moments.  Today we want to talk about some of the highs and lows and what lessons we can all take away from the race, because as runners, even if you’ve never run a marathon before, there are some important truths that we can all learn from today’s event.  Today we talk...

RACE MORNING CHECKLIST - 10 points to get you from the alarm clock to the starting gun   Have something to eat depending on your stomach tolerances.  Last night’s dinner is still fueling you.  Aim for 200-300 easily digestible calories about 2 hours before the race.   Fats and proteins take longer to digest and can lead to stomach issues later.  If you normally skip breakfast, try some sports drin...

Today we want to examine the idea of suffering  - why do we put ourselves through it?  What is the cost, and is there a benefit? How can we use suffering to our advantage, knowing that we can’t avoid it, but also not put ourselves through unnecessary suffering that does not benefit us in some way? Some people try to avoid suffering and make their lives and their training as easy as possible, which...

So many runners think they need a race on the calendar to “train”.  Today we want to talk about 3 different reasons that you might be training, and we want to encourage you to adopt reason #3 for your long term success and more satisfaction in your running.  What are those 3 reasons?  Stay tuned to find out - and if you like this podcast, please screenshot it and share it on social media or send i...

Holy moly - It’s episode 300!  Over the past 5 ½ years we have had a lot of fun, and we’ve also learned a lot along the way.  That learning has helped us to continuously refine our method and the way we coach our runners.     Today we want to teach you the way we approach training (and actually a lot of other areas of our lives!) with the RLR Method.  It’s a 3 step approach that we use to achieve...

Why does easy sometimes feel hard?  If you’ve been listening to our podcast for awhile or you’re a part of our coaching program, you know that we teach the concept of easy running and the 80/20 principle, which means that most of your running, about 80%, should be done at an easy effort level.     But why is this so hard for us sometimes?  Why does the idea of easy running seem hard to wrap our he...

How to Pace Your Race  Not all races have to be about performance.  There are multiple reasons you can run a race, and each of those should be approached differently.  Unfortunately, we see so many runners think that every race they run needs to be an attempt at a PR, and they feel disappointed when they don’t set a new personal record at every race.  That can really suck the joy out of running pr...

Freedom & Running We’re continuing our series about how running is connected to our core values, and today we want to talk about how we connect freedom and running.  We believe that running can bring so much freedom to our lives and help us live a life without limits.  Unfortunately, we see so many runners actually losing that freedom because they are training without intention and direction. ...

Family & Your Running We’re starting a new series about how running is connected to our core values, and today we want to talk about how our family is part of our running journey.  We can grow closer to our family as well as create a running family of our choosing.   Some runners see their running as something that can separate them from their family, maybe they even use running to separate th...

Today, we have a special highlight episode from our recent five day running challenge. What we've done is we've taken the content from all five days of the challenge and just pulled out the highlights in the clips. If you were not able to join us on the challenge, this is going to be a great episode for you to catch, to kind of get the highlights in the summary of what we covered in the...

We’re starting a new series about how running is connected to our core values, and today we want to talk about how faith can connect us to our running and help us improve as a runner. Some runners see their running as separate from other parts of their life and who they are, which can lead them to feeling unsatisfied or like running is a chore.  Today we want to talk about how faith is one of the...

 What is MEL and why is it important?  MEL is your Minimum Exercise Level, which is the absolute lowest amount of exercise that you will settle for each week.  It's your fitness floor that you don't want to fall beneath.   Why should we be thinking of this?  Consistency and Identity.  We know that real life gets in the way sometimes.  Most of us set goals, but we don't actually defi...

Doug Barna has been running for most of his life, starting out competitively as a young teenager. He uses his running to push himself both physically and mentally, increasing lengths and difficulties throughout the years. Running is his meditation time as he transitions the lessons running teaches over to life. When he isn’t putting in the miles, Doug heads up Acclaimed Summit, LLC where he suppor...

In today's episode, we are talking about insecurity because we want to show you how insecurity likes to hide itself in your training, and even more importantly, how it is actually hurting your progress. When we feel insecure, we try to do something to make us feel secure again.  The brain is wired for security, so when we aren’t feeling this way, we often try to change our circumstances to ge...

Today we are talking about 10 tips for treadmill running because we know that a lot of people are finding themselves in extreme temperatures and needing to spend more time on the treadmill.   Here are 10 tips to make the treadmill work for you. How to keep it safe.  How to stay in control.   Keep it flat…or not.  Should you run with the treadmill on an incline? How to avoid boredom, or use it as a...

So you want to train for a race?  Time for a training plan!  Open browser, go to Google, type in "half marathon training plan".  Or maybe you download a free training app and find a plan in there.  You add it to your calendar.  You're all set.  Follow the plan and run your sub-2 hour half marathon, right?  Not necessarily.  There are a lot of mistakes that runners make when followin...

It's the new year, time to get on track towards new goals.  But what should you do if you've been inconsistent?  How do you safely get back into it?  What about those runners who are consistent and are just looking to improve?  Today we talk to 3 groups of runners: 1. People who have been inconsistent for 3 months or more 2. People who have been inconsistent for less than a month 3. Peop...

Today we talk to Elizabeth, a health coach and nurse practitioner about how we can prioritize our health AND improve our performance.  We talk about how health and running performance are not always complementary, how prioritizing our overall health can improve our performance, and how focusing on only performance can sometimes jeopardize our health.  You are going to love this conversation.  Than...

Time for a new year and that means time to start looking into plans and goals for the new year.  Sure, January 1 is arbitrary, but the brain likes to start at the beginning, whether that is a new week, month or year.  So don’t resist the impulse, take the time to think about what you would like to accomplish in 2023.  Big goals take dedication and planning. How did 2022 go for you?   Did you have...

What is the vicious running cycle?  After working with runners for over a decade, we have realized that there is a cycle that so many runners find themselves in, which we call the Vicious Running Cycle.  There are 4 main steps to this cycle that we talk about today.  We also talk about how to break out of this cycle and make the progress that you want as a runner.   What are your thoughts??  Come...