Episode 649: Alyssa McElheny

Your questions have been pouring in and we do our best to knock a few good ones out today! Do we get far too bogged down in semantics and “it depends” scenarios? You betcha!

Less than a year ago, Alyssa was a marathoner solely focused on preparing for the Olympic Trials. Today, she is the reigning Hyrox World Champion. Come for her story, stay for a surprise drop in from the man behind the scenes who orchestrates her training program.  

Life is uncaring and unpredictable. We’re in two very different places with our training right now, both of which took us by surprise.

College track & field recruiting is noisy, expensive, and stacked against families who don’t already know how the system works. Most high school athletes apply blind — no real sense of where their marks make them competitive, what a program actually needs, or how NIL works in their state. Trackbeast replaces that guesswork with data. Former professional runners Eric Avila and Adam Dailey pair one of the most complete databases of programs, coaches, rosters, and performance marks anywhere with the tools a family needs to run their own recruiting: find the programs where an athlete’s marks fit, reach the right coaches, and track every step.

Our most dreaded workouts, hill running for Easy Days, “super trainers”, and how much should you expect to improve?

What exactly is Running Economy and how do we improve it?

We all have blind spots with our training. Here’s how to find yours and remedy them!

You keep sending in questions so we’re going to keep answering them!

If you are limited to lower volume training due to time constraints, this is what we would prioritize when preparing for longer races!

There was a big movement towards under fueling and under recovering during your race build and then resting up and peaking like crazy. Now, the in vogue route is to fuel for every workout and recover to the max on a daily basis. Which is superior? Is there room for both approaches?