Stop Blowing Up Every Run (Do This Instead)

[00:00:00] Whether it’s your first 5K or your goal marathon, the same thing happens. You head out feeling great. A few minutes in, your legs feel heavy, your breathing falls apart, and you walk away thinking you didn’t train enough. You did. You just trained the wrong thing. Here’s why you blow up when you run I’ll be going over why the first minutes of any hard run, they lie to you, a real time body check so you know when you’re absolutely cooked, the one workout that fixes this for good, and a free eight-week training plan guide and learn to run by feel cheat sheet so you can stop guessing on race day and start running your best times.

[00:00:40] Most runners think they need more volume, kilometers, miles, et cetera. They do not. To help me explain this, I’ll be joined by Mike Treese. He’s an ex-pro runner and triathlete now turned internet famous run coach with almost half a million followers on Instagram. Hit him on Instagram at run.energy. I’m Daren DLake, certified run coach and runner of almost 30 years.

[00:01:01] I’ve blown up at every distance on the track from 400 to 800 meters way back university level 20 years ago all the way to the marathon at the end of my Ironman triathlon. Absolutely blew up on that. Turns out I’ve been training hard for years and missing one thing the whole time. So Mike Treese has a line I love when people ask what to do when they go out too fast.

[00:01:22] Before we go into any science or physiology, excuse my French, you’re pretty screwed. You’ve gone too fast. You’ve got to slow down. That’s the only thing you can do. You, you can’t get enough oxygen in. You’ve got to slow down until you can get enough oxygen to cope, uh, and then start again. Once you cook yourself early, your legs fill with burn, AKA lactate, and you have to slow down whether you want to or not.

[00:01:44] You can’t power your way through it. Here’s why that happens. Your body has three energy systems. I did a whole deep dive on energy systems up here so you can go further or link below if you’re listening or watching somewhere else, but here’s a simple version. You got the first system is let’s call it the 5 to 10 second system or also properly known in the science world as the ATP system.

[00:02:04] Uh, that’s adenosine triphosphate creatine or ATP c- system. Getting a bit nerdy. This is stored fuel sitting in your muscles right now. It fires for you to stand up. It fires at the start of a race, a hill, the kick at the end of the finish of your races. It only lasts for anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds.

[00:02:21] System two, the anaerobic system for simplicity. This burns sugar, AKA glycogen stores in your muscle and liver without oxygen and can fuel you anywhere from like 70, 90 seconds up to two minutes of hard work. So you have to actually be sprinting at 100%, like you’re sprinting from a dog or a lion or something or dinosaur.

[00:02:41] It’s, it’s a joke. Uh, but you need to be going as hard as possible and you’re using ATP plus anaerobic. And this is the system that floods your legs with that nasty burn called lactate because it piles up in your blood faster than your body can clear it. So 400, 800 meter runners go out and run on the track one lap as fast as possible.

[00:03:01] Or you know what? Go out and run up a steep hill For 70, 90 seconds, you are toast, and that is lactate. And then system three, the aerobic system, and this is the system that all distance runners need. And ironically, even 100-meter dash people that run it in nine, 10 seconds, the pros, Usain Bolt, they actually still use 9 to 10% aerobic, so everyone uses it.

[00:03:20] But this burns fat and carbs with oxygen. Obviously, people that run marathons are using 99% aerobic. 5K is still anywhere from 75 to 85% aerobic. It’s quiet, it’s steady, and it’s slow to wake up. It’s the one you actually want for pretty much any run longer than two minutes. And another little caveat asterisk to the three systems, they’re not like this one’s on only, this one’s off.

[00:03:43] They actually all three are firing at the same time. It’s just a mixture of how much certain systems are firing depending on how hard you going or as long as you’re going. Paul Gastin, uh, sports medicine scientist, laid this out in a 2001 review in Sports Medicine. If you sprint a hill, mostly system one and system two.

[00:04:03] If you’re cruising an easy three, five mile or 5 to 8K run, that’s like mostly system three. Keep your heart rate in zone two. If you race a 5K properly, all three systems are actually firing at different doses. So it’s, it’s a blend. You need to understand how to actually train that. All right, before I get to the workout that fixes this for good, I built a free eight-week pace plan and a learn to run by feel cheat sheet to go with it.

[00:04:28] It walks you through the exact race pace workouts and teaches you the body checks that I just covered. So you’ll get it right in your email for free again. Uh, scan the QR code here or link below in the show notes or description wherever you’re watching or listening. And if you want to help another runner, self-coach runner, person just like you who’s blowing up every weekend on their races, so simple, just drop a comment with your worst pacing disaster.

[00:04:52] We all got one. Uh, I’m not gonna share one anyhow. I don’t wanna make this video too long. But hit me up if you actually wanna hear mine. Uh, email me, Daren@onebetterrun.com if you want. Uh, if you’re feeling spicy though, you know what? You’re like, “I don’t wanna do the comment” something ah, just like, subscribe or watch this to the end.

[00:05:07] And if you know all this information, just hit 2X speed, mute me, and go scroll Strava if you’re impatient. That signals to YouTube that this content actually will help other runners. So you’re paying it forward, and it pushes to people that might need it. Now, check this out. Brian Hanley looked at over 1,200 elite marathoners across nine Olympic and world championship races.

[00:05:25] The medalist ran even pace from 10K onwards. The runners who faded and dropped off the lead pack, they cracked right around halfway every single time. And we just saw this play out in real life. So I think maybe the last month or two, depending on when I release this, Sebastian Sawe- From Kenya ran the first legal sub-two-hour marathon at London in April 2026.

[00:05:48] And 11 seconds behind him, Yomif Keljelcha also ran sub two hours. Two first ever, two sub two hours. It’s crazy. The first half of Sawe’s was 60 minutes and 29 sec- … Yes, he ran 21Ks, 13.1 miles in 60 minutes, 29 seconds, and then he followed it up with a negative split in the second half, 59 minutes and one second.

[00:06:07] Craziness. He ran the back half faster than the front half. That’s how the best in the world race. So why do you think the start feels so easy? Think of system one and two like a credit card you didn’t know was in your wallet. The gun goes off, you swipe it for about two minutes. You just ra-ta-ra-ta-ra.

[00:06:22] You’re like, “I’m rich.” Everything feels free. You’re flying, and then the bill comes in. So instead of 30 days later, it comes in within, like, three to four minutes. The interest is brutal though. Instead of 29.9%, it’s like 100% interest. Lactate floods your legs, your breathing falls apart, and you spend the rest of the run paying it back at a rate way worse than what you saved on earlier.

[00:06:43] Runners think they’re being smart by banking time early. They’re actually maxing out high interest loans. So here’s action for you. I love actions ’cause it’s a lot of theory and hypothetical just information. Go and do this right now. On your next race, hard run, or even if you’re doing a fast long run, count to 60 in your head before you even glance at your watch.

[00:07:03] That’s your free energy window, and don’t max it out. It’s as easy as that. All right. How do you know if you’re doing it in real time though? The 30-second body check. All right. You don’t need a fancy watch for this. You need three checks, and they work for any run, any race, any distance. Check one, the talk test.

[00:07:19] Can you say a short sentence without gasping? We’re racing here, so it’s not fully Chatty Cathy mode. You shouldn’t be able to talk like I’m talking right now and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and take a breath. Busta Rhymes mode or Eminem or whoever, J. Cole, whoever you listen to that raps a lot really fast, whatever, a SoundCloud rapper that you listen to, Lil Baby, whatever.

[00:07:36] But this is the limiter so you don’t smash yourself and question why you signed up for this whole race thing. The first five to 10 minutes of most races, they should feel conversational for most people. Elite 5K and 10K runners won’t fit this, and I don’t even know if you’ve been watching this. So this is people that are running 13, 14 minutes in the 5K, even 16, 17 minutes, and, uh, people that are running 30, 34 minutes in the 10K.

[00:07:58] You probably won’t fit this. It might be a bit hard in the beginning. But anyone running 23, 25, 30-minute 5K, 45, 50, 60-minute 10K or slower, you can use this check. It actually works really well. Check number two, the breathing pattern. Try a three-three rhythm. So you wanna do three steps breathing in, and then three steps breathing out.

[00:08:20] Most runners can hold this in the first mile of their 5K or 10K if they’re pacing it right. And if you can’t hold the three-three without panic breathing, you might be going too hard. You might. You wanna do all three checks. It’s kind of like a scan. They should all kinda equal out. You get data points from everywhere.

[00:08:34] And then you wanna drop to a 2-2 rhythm, two breaths in, two breaths out mid-race Once it gets hard, that’s normal and that’s expected, and you also can kind of control your breathing with that. Everyone’s different though with breathing, so all you breathing police people, uh, feel free to comment if I’m wrong.

[00:08:52] “If it doesn’t work for me,” blah, blah, blah. People love breathing and running and arguing about it. All right. Check number three, this feels too easy. Check. Here’s the one that messes people up. The start of a race, a hard run should feel almost too easy. Not like you’re walking, but you should feel like you’re holding back because with adrenaline, caffeine, crowd energy, your too easy pace will actually be your goal pace.

[00:09:14] I promise you, if you are training right, which I’ll talk about how to train in this episode shortly in the next minute or two, and you know what pace is right, again, which I’ll talk about, you have experience, this will be the exact thing that you need. This is the trick. If it feels just right at minute two, you probably are going too fast because you’re like, “Oh, I feel, I feel like I’m right.”

[00:09:32] No, no, no, no, no. You know, you should not be there from a, you know, half mi- even 10K. Like it’s a 45, 50, 60-minute race. Like you should not feel like, “Oh my God, this is exactly where I need to be. I’m breathing hard and I…” No, you won’t be able to sustain that for 50 minutes. You’re already cooked. Slow down. I know it’s counterintuitive.

[00:09:48] Stick with me. All three checks, they take 30, 40 seconds. Use them and you might catch yourself before you blow up. All right, now back to the body checks. Sometimes things don’t work out. You don’t do them right. It happens. You ignored the first three or whatever. You forgot them, and now you’re four minutes in and your legs are screaming, your lungs, your brain, everything.

[00:10:06] You got that metallic taste in your mouth. Google that metallic taste though. Um, it actually doesn’t mean you’re dying or AI it. Um, I thought it meant I was dying and something was happening. You just went out too hot. What now? Slow down hard right now. I don’t mean ease off a tiny bit. I mean back the pace down to something stupid easy.

[00:10:23] If you’re going up a hill and you’re blowing up, just walk 30, 45 seconds. I promise you, you’ll be fine. You’ll get oxygen back into you. You’ll let the lactate dissipate, that burn. You actually can clear it out of your blood and then start running again slowly. You’ll be shocked. Even though you’re losing 30 seconds, a minute, after that minute of you starting and then once you get back into it, one, two, three minutes in, you’ll be able to pick it back up to the pace you were properly supposed to go in and be able to finish strong if you can- Pace it right the whole race.

[00:10:53] It’s not over. You just need to reset. I promise you can even negative split it and do the last 5, 10 minutes way faster than you did the first 90% in. It happens to a lot of people because you gave yourself the chance to actually do the whole tortoise and the hare thing and run the race at the proper pace.

[00:11:10] The longer the race, the less this will affect your time. So if you’re doing half marathon, marathon, five-hour, six-hour marathons, you actually can do this. Probably gonna be doing walk, run if you’re doing a six-hour marathon anyway. And you might even finish with a smile which honestly I tell runners and myself, I’m like, “I just wanna finish certain races feeling good with a smile on my face like I gave it my all,” but not like it was the worst thing ever and I’m questioning my life’s decisions.

[00:11:34] All right. So that mid-run reset, that’s damage control. The real fix happens in training. The workout. The workout that you wanna do, it’s race pace repeats on a track or any measured stretch. So you should know about how long it is. Usually I can’t get to the track in the mornings ’cause here in Sydney, Australia, the tracks are not open for some reason in the city where I am.

[00:11:54] Just like, ugh, they open in the afternoon. I can’t train in the afternoon. I don’t wanna train. So I just know a c- couple places that are flat, and I know exactly how long they are, but here’s how it works. Pick your goal pace. Say you want to run a 25-minute 5K. That’s five minutes per kilometer or five minutes per .61 miles for you American people, or eight minutes per mile.

[00:12:14] There you go. So American people will get that. I did a whole video on actually the sub 25-minute 5K. If you want even more details, go up here. There should be a little thing you can click up there, or if you wanna wait till the end of the video, just click the links below in the show notes or description wherever you’re watching or listening.

[00:12:30] All right. You’re at your location that you know the distances of. You’ve been validated. Now just run one kilometer or 2.5 laps on a track. Again, .61 miles at exactly that pace. Five minutes per kilometer or eight minutes per mile pace. Not faster, not slower. You wanna rest three minutes. Do it again five times total.

[00:12:49] If it sounds boring, it is. That’s the point. That’s training. That’s 1% better. That’s the whole thing. Let’s say after two weeks you’re like, “Cool, I feel great. How do I get better at this? How do I get fitter?” This is how you progress it. There’s four ways. You can go longer with each interval. You can add more intervals.

[00:13:05] Obviously, if you’re doing the 5K, I wouldn’t go more than six intervals or six kilometers worth of efforts. Uh, you can go slightly faster each week, or you can shorten the rest. And you can mix them all around. So let’s say you have 8, 12 weeks. Uh, you have- four different levers you can pull every week and you change them and then you can…

[00:13:24] It’s pretty cool. Do not do all of them at once. I wouldn’t even say do two of them at once. That’s how you get injured and burn yourself out before you even get to the start line. Be careful. It’s a slow progression. Little, little, little. And you wanna have a off week right in there at the three, four-week mark.

[00:13:38] You take a off week where you just do about 50, 60% of the load, and then you start again even higher than you were from week three. At week five, you’re even higher. So it’s like do, do, do, kinda off week, and then do, do, do, kinda off week. That’s the way you progress it all, and it’s actually in that training plan that you can get for free.

[00:13:53] I actually outlay all this stuff and show the sequence of how we do progressive overload. Here’s Mike Treece take on the workout. The aim is you’ve got to get quicker each subsequent kilometer. So the last kilometer’s gonna be the quickest, and you’re gonna go quicker than the fourth. So the first kilometer’s got to be the slowest.

[00:14:12] We look at the data. First, we’ll say they’re after A 20-minute, we’ll raise the ante a little bit after a sub 20-minute 5K. So the first kilometer, 330. Second kilometer, four minutes. Then 415, 430, down to five minutes. They’ve gone too fast. And we just keep doing this until we get it right. The only rule is I don’t mind what time they do on these so long as each subsequent kilometer gets quicker.

[00:14:36] All right. Why does this work? Your legs learn what race pace feels like. Your lungs learn it. You build up your anaerobic system so it can use oxygen first and then handle lactate as fuel for as long as possible. So that lactate thing that everyone thinks is really bad, it’s actually can be used for fuel if you train yourself properly and then it becomes what’s called the Cori cycle and it uses lactate as fuel and then it’s like you can boost it.

[00:14:59] It is amazing, but you have to stay in this beautiful, almost like low zone three heart rate to really utilize that. And you can also utilize in races early on so then you don’t burn out later. And guess what? I actually talk about threshold and lactate and all that stuff and I go really deep. Click the episode up here or get the link below wherever you’re watching, listening.

[00:15:16] But your brain learns this too. It learns all the racing and pacing stuff. So on race day, when the adrenaline tries to drag you out at, I don’t know, four minutes per K, which is like a six-minute mile, your body says, “Wait, this feels wrong.” You back off. You save the credit card for the kick. Pacing isn’t a guess.

[00:15:32] It’s a memory. All right. Here’s a dope thought to take with you if nothing else. Pacing is the skill that separates train runners from fit runners. You can be the fittest person at the start line and still blow up if you can’t pace and you don’t have a good race strategy. You can also be less fit than the people next to you and beat them by holding your own pace while they cook themselves in the beginning.

[00:15:52] The tortoise and the hare story goes extra hard right here. Fitness gets you to the start line. Pacing gets you to the finish. If you want the fix right now and you haven’t already, because I’ve asked you and I’ve attempted to give it to you over the last episode, you can grab it right here at QR code.

[00:16:07] It’s the eight-week race pace learn to run by feel training plan and cheat sheet guide and all that fun stuff. It walks you through these exact race pace workouts and teaches you the body checks that I just covered so you stop guessing on race day. You can also get it at the link below or in the show notes wherever you’re watching, listening.

[00:16:25] And you’ll also sign up for, this is a huge bonus, a free email course that gives you the tools to coach yourself. Yes, I’m giving you the full playbook. It’s five minutes a day for six days and then five minutes a week forever until you unsubscribe. That’s fine. Real training tactics, no fluff, and a lot of kind of mental and psychological stuff that we all need.

[00:16:47] Get that brain right. And if you want to go deeper on the energy systems I mentioned earlier, watch this next video, my full breakdown of the three energy systems every runner uses. The link is below or you can click the video if you’re on YouTube right here. That’s the science layer behind all the stuff that I just covered.

[00:17:04] Happy start of your race and make sure you don’t blow up. Peace.