The Fast and Free Podcast

Zone 2 training has become one of the most popular topics in endurance sports. Runners are constantly told they need to spend more time in Zone 2 to build their aerobic base, improve their mitochondria, burn more fat, and become better athletes. But what happens when you actually look at the evidence behind those claims? In this episode of the The Fast And Free Podcast, I sit down with exercise ph...

Internet running advice wasn’t designed for the person who started running at 35, 45, or 55. It’s built for athletes who generally already have years of training history behind them. In this video, I wanted to break down the biggest mistakes I see newer runners make when they enter the sport later in life. We’ll cover why your aerobic fitness improves much faster than your connective tissue, why s...

A lot of runners think injuries just happen because of bad luck, poor biomechanics, or flawed training plans. But in many cases, the real mistake happens in the moment you feel something isn’t right and convince yourself to keep going anyway. In this video, I break down the four most common psychological traps runners fall into when they ignore injury warning signs: the Rationalization Loop, the S...

A lot of athletes don't know how to train for the half marathon properly, and blow up around mile 10. I break down the 6 week plan I use with athletes racing their first to elite half marathons. 🚨If you wish to purchase my 6-Week Half Marathon plan, you can do so at the link below🚨 https://www.trainingpeaks.com/coach/brantstachel#plans 🚨 Want me to be your Coach? Sign up below 🚨 https://teamru...

Most marathon training plans are failing runners because, at their core, they assume you’re starting with something you may not have built yet. In this video, I wanted to break down what I call "The Marathon Hierarchy": the five layers that sit underneath every successful marathon build. Whether you’re following Daniels, Pfitzinger, Higdon, a stock plan, or working with a coach, every training sys...

Today, we’re breaking down one of the most common reasons runners get injured, plateau, and stop improving: poor intensity discipline. Most runners think they’re being disciplined because they show up every day, push through fatigue, and rarely miss a session. But effort without precision is where a lot of runners get themselves into trouble. They run easy days too hard carry too much fatigue into...

Get ready to take your HYROX training to the next level with the definitive HYROX masterclass, featuring expert insights from Brant Stachel, Maria Fecik, and Mike Fecik. Happy Training! 🚨 APPLY TO WORK WITH US🚨 https://theholisticathlete.fitr.training/t/THA/ ⸻ Relevant Links Follow Mike and Maria Fecik & Holistic Athlete Fitness Consulting https://www.instagram.com/holisticathletefc https://...

Today, we're breaking down one of the most misunderstood training concepts in distance running: double threshold training. Get Coached by Me: https://teamrunrun.com/coach/brant-stachel-kingston-ontario-running-coach/ Most runners hear "double threshold" and assume it means doing two hard workouts in a day. But that's exactly where many athletes get themselves into trouble. The real lesson behind t...

Today, we’re breaking down one of the most common ways runners get hurt. In this video, I break down why the classic 10% mileage rule is far too simplistic for most runners, what the research actually says about injury risk, and why your body cares far more about the gap between what you’ve consistently handled and what you’re suddenly asking it to do. After coaching more than 1,500 runners rangin...

Today, we're breaking down one of the biggest misconceptions in running injury prevention. In my experience, recreational and age-group runners most commonly face intensity problems, not mileage problems. So I wanted to look at what the research says about injury risk, why training load spikes matter, and how hard workouts create far more mechanical stress than most runners realize. I also walk th...

Today, we’re breaking down one of the most repeated pieces of running advice… The 10% rule. This "rule" gets thrown around everywhere: don’t increase your weekly mileage by more than 10%. Training apps reference it, plans are built around it, and for many runners, it’s treated like gospel. The issue is.... In my experience, it’s often wrong in both directions. In this video, I wanted to break down...

Today, we're breaking down some of the biggest reasons runners miss the mark with tempo training. NOW WITH BETTER LIGHTING hahaha. After my last video explaining tempo workouts and how to structure them, I wanted to follow it up with something even more practical: the most common mistakes I see runners make when executing tempo sessions. After coaching more than 1,500 athletes ranging from 2:09 ma...

Today I wanted to break down how I actually build tempo workouts across an entire season and why most runners are either progressing them too aggressively… or not progressing them at all. One of my most popular videos ever here on YouTube was explaining what tempo running actually is, but in this video, I wanted to go way deeper and show you the real structure behind how I scale tempo sessions fro...

This is Part 2 of my mental performance series for runners, and today, we're gettin' practical haha. In Part 1 I broke down why so many runners train like one athlete and race like another. In this video, I wanted to walk you through one of the most powerful tools I use in my mental performance practice as a registered psychotherapist: the Competitive Identity Exercise. Happy Training! ➡️ Watch my...

Today I wanted to break down something I’ve seen over and over again across more than 1,500 athletes I’ve coached: the gap between the runner you are in training and the runner who actually shows up on race day. In this video, I walk through the full IGNITE Framework from my book Fast and Free, a six-step mental performance system built from sports psychology, psychotherapy, and real-world coachin...

In this episode of the  @FastAndFreePodcast  , I sit down with masters runner Henry Walker after a huge performance at the Boston Marathon, where he ran 2:57 and hit the qualifying standard for the Abbott World Masters Championships. We break down how Henry approached Boston without a watch after it died at the start line, and how years of experience, effort-based training, and race discipline all...

Today I wanted to break down why pushing your easy days into that “kinda hard” grey zone is where progress dies. It’s the most common mistake I see across my clients at every level, and it sabotages a runner's ability to actually improve. I dove into what “easy” actually means (and why most runners get it wrong), why your brain keeps pulling you to go faster, and how the best runners in the world...

HOW?!?! Breaking 2 hours in the marathon used to feel impossible. Then Sunday happened… and we got to witness not once, but TWICE! I'm still in shock. ⸻ Relevant Links 🚨 FREE TOOLS I CREATED FOR RUNNERS 🚨 https://www.runfastandfree.com/free-tools ⚠️ TAKE THE MARATHON READINESS QUIZ NOW ⚠️ https://marathon-readiness-quiz.scoreapp.com Get Your First Month of Coaching with Brant for just $20 https:...

Runners can spend years trying to force progress without ever really addressing the thing that keeps setting them back. They train hard, race hard, deal with the same injuries, the same anxiety, the same frustration, and quietly start wondering whether they’ve already hit their ceiling. In this episode of the ‪Fast And Free Podcast‬ , I sit down with Sophia Rodriguez after a huge half-marathon bre...

Yasso 800s have become one of the most popular “predictors” in marathon training. Clean, simple, easy to follow… buuuuuuuut in most cases... completely misleading. ➡️ Sign Up For My Newsletter: https://brantstachel.activehosted.com/f/30 ⸻ Relevant Links 🚨 FREE TOOLS I CREATED FOR RUNNERS 🚨 https://www.runfastandfree.com/free-tools ⚠️ TAKE THE MARATHON READINESS QUIZ NOW ⚠️ https://marathon-readi...

In this episode of the Fast and Free Podcast, I sit down with Jess Donohue to talk about her return to high-level marathoning and the breakthrough performance that followed. After years of battling injuries, stepping away from the sport, and rebuilding her relationship with running from the ground up, Jess has gone from simply wanting to run healthy again to qualifying for the Olympic Trials and d...

I’ve always believed that the time vs mileage debate creates waaaaay more confusion than it should. Runners are constantly asking whether they should run for 60 minutes or 10 miles, what elites are doing, and why every training plan seems to pick one without ever explaining the reasoning behind it. What a lot of runners don’t realize is that these two approaches can create completely different tra...

In my years of coaching runners, I've found that many tend to think that the taper is when things should start feeling easy. However, in reality, it’s when everything starts to feel wrong. Your legs feel heavy, your fitness suddenly feels VERY questionable, small aches feel like catastrophic injuries, and your confidence starts to spiral right before race day. What I wish these runners would reali...

In this episode of the Fast and Free Podcast, I sit down with Jessica Hadley after her breakthrough performance at the Tokyo Marathon, where she ran a 3:20 at 42 years old and set a new personal best. We talk through what changed in her training, how she worked through the belief that she may never PR again, and why this build felt different from the ones that came before it. This is a conversatio...

When I started the YouTube channel, I figured I’d be talking into a camera and maybe a few of my athletes would watch. Instead, I've been blessed to have runners from all over YouTube almost daily send in in a wide range of thoughtful, specific, and genuinely phenomenal questions, so I wanted to use this this channel hitting 2500 subscribers as a chance to give something back A big part of this ch...