Eduardo Diaz Sancha

The best running advice I can give for 2026 is to get good at aerobic cross training. It’s really simple. Just get on a stationary bike or elliptical and move your legs for an hour or two. Listen to music, take a call, watch some videos, whatever makes the time go by. Or go outside on a real bike, swim in an ocean or pool, hike in nature. Aerobic training will contribute meaningfully to your running fitness, while taking away the pressure to run more than your body is prepared to handle. Every day is an opportunity for aerobic training. Add up a year of consistency, and you’ll get a lot fitter. You just need to commit the time, nothing more than that.

When it comes to weight loss, let the fitness do the work. Where most folks go wrong 👇 "Couch dude" in the below example has really shitty metabolic fitness, i.e. fat-burning because, well, he spend a good chunk of his life on the couch. So, when he gets up and starts exercising at ~60% MHR he's only burning ~400kcal/hr. Worse than that, because of his shitty metabolic fitness, only 100 of that is coming from fat! Seeing this measly 400kcal/hr burn, couch dude does the math in his head and realizes he's only burning a cheeseburger. 1 whole hour for a cheeseburger?! Hell no! So, couch dude resolves to go harder and work out at 80% max HR, i.e. approaching threshold. Guess how many kcal are coming from fat now? Zero! That's right a big, fat, goose egg. So, couch dude is burning more kcal/hr but they're not coming from where he wants. They're not coming from fat! Worse than that... After couch dude is done with his hard workout his blood sugar is tanking because the whole thing was fueled with carbs. This makes him ravenous and he completely blows out his planned 500kcal deficit for the day and grabs 2 cheese burgers on the way home that completely offsets the 1 and a bit that he just burned. The long and the short of it... Couch-dude needs to slow the F down! He needs to start at the intensity that he actually is burning fat, even if that is, in the beginning, a tiny amount of energy expenditure. Then, as his base fitness builds, both the overall energy expenditure and the % of that expenditure coming from FAT will go up. But, it's only by initially slowing down that we turn couch-dude into a fat-burning machine! 🔥

@JasonFitz1 I just realized the original post said peaking at 35… that sounds pretty low. My peaks were due to secondary races (marathon and 50k) , so peaked at ~65miles

@JasonFitz1 35-40 miles to cut off 15 mins my PB from 3:14 to 2:59 at 45 y/o. Consistency, keep injuries free and lots of light cross-training helped

A new client just told me, "Just finished my Chicago training block where I peaked at 35 miles/week, but I felt undertrained for the race." What do you think is a minimum mileage level to not feel "undertrained" for a 26.2 mile race?

@jbowes72 @JasonFitz1 I think this is a better indicator. I’d set goals around 6-7 hours a week

@JasonFitz1 Why mileage(distance)? Why not train for duration? (somewhat rhetorical)

@samrunsvt Tbh I don’t really care; but I try to share it as proof to it trust these algorithms much

@edsancha Must’ve felt like a slap in the face

Garmin prediction: 3:11:30 Strava prediction: 3:18:56 Guessing these get down to ~3:05 by race day I’ve consistently crushed these tools’ predicted paces in a 5k, 10k, and 10 mile races this year. So, we’ll see.

@samrunsvt @runliftrunlift 1:25 is not necessary prior to 2:59, I got my HM PB when doing 2:59

@runliftrunlift I haven’t. That’s a helpful benchmark though. My hilly 10 miler pace from 1.5 months ago would put me at 1:29. Seems like it’s going to be close

<4 weeks to Houston Marathon😬 Goal is to go from 3:24:42 to 2:59:59 Or 7:49 to 6:51 pace Seemed much more doable when I was still 12+ weeks out…

Starting my own version of this for this offseason. The other thing I’m adding is setting up a HR limit in the lower Z1 range, and increasing the running efficiency there. #30-30-30

@JasonFitz1 Cut-off 15 mins to PB at 45 from 3:14 to 2:59. Putting together a long post / blog about it as I think it might interest as it was done on relatively low running volume

"How I took 90min off my marathon time in 1 year..." posts are BS. You ran a marathon with poor training as a beginner and then trained properly when you had more experience. This is not impressive. I want to know how you took 5min off your time when you're already experienced!

@Serge400m @anymanfitness Goals!

@anymanfitness Me at 61. Sub 60 in the 400m.

The older you get, the more of a flex being in shape is. A fit 25 year old is admirable. A fit 45 year old is surprising. A fit 60 year old is shocking. A fit 70 year old is like an alien from another planet compared to the rest of his peers.

@BrendanKeefe @InvestigateTV Did you mean the opposite? Some fire trucks are older than the firefighters?

@hankfrank @oakley @Meta @runSRA_CIM Congrats on your PB !! Still amazing accomplishment!

@edsancha @oakley @Meta @runSRA_CIM That’s really interesting. I hadn’t realized how much economy and body composition could change the power side of things!

Final 200m of the 2025 California International Marathon filmed through my Oakley Meta Vanguards.

@hankfrank @oakley @Meta @runSRA_CIM Im pretty bulky, 5’8 182lbs, I just need to work on getting leaner but, man, I love to eat

@stevemagness They could use the mountain biking circuit for XC. I’d love to see the trail run pros on a 10 to 50k races. Specifically in longer distances strategies would become so much fun to watch

Cross country is the best because it introduces uncertainty... It takes the best of a variety of events, from 1500 to marathon and puts them on the same course with lots of chaos. You can't watch a loaded USAs and not want XC in the Olympics. It would be perfect entertainment

In a study on baseball players, the coach's emotional state directly predicted the players' performance. An angry coach didn't make the team "tough." It made them frustrated, error-prone, and more likely to tank. Emotions are contagious; as a leader, you are the super-spreader.

@kilianj This is out of this world! Congrats on a great prject finished!

This September I ran, climbed and biked from California to Washington, linking 14,000ft peaks across the American West, as part of a project called States of Elevation. I wrote a detailed, day-by-day blog post about it: mtnath.com/14ers/

@ToutpourmaSante @Alan_Couzens @inaki_delaparra Blummenfelt publishes all his workouts in Strava, and he does, specially in the off season and general preparation phases, lots of hikes and 5:30min/k runs, easy swims and rides. Easy is also really easy for them

@Alan_Couzens @inaki_delaparra That definitely very low ! There is one thing I do not understand : do you observe the same trend with the very high level top elite athlete (like Blummenfelt, Ditlev, Geens or Laidlow for example) ?

Pretty slow. Before working with me, @inaki_delaparra 's *average* run intensity was 147bpm & 4:54/k When we worked together in the lead-up to his Ultraman World Championship, we dropped that 20 beats & a full minute/k (~1:30/mi slower!) Slowing down made ALL the difference!

@eliana_jordan Love this, also, why not do both! I ship and cook! My wife works at night, and we share the chores. She joins us for dinner!

get yourself a man he cooks so you can ship