FRC

🥪🏙️ Road to PB&J/Chicago Marathon Day 20 – Surviving Your Peak Weeks

Peak weeks are where the marathon build gets real.

For Chicago, this is when you’re hitting some of your highest mileage and hardest workouts of the entire training block.

That means recovery becomes just as important as the training itself.

😴 Prioritize sleep
🍽️ Fuel enough to support the workload
💧 Stay on top of hydration
🏃 Keep easy days EASY
🧘 Pay attention to how your body is responding

You should expect some fatigue. Your legs may feel heavy. That’s part of the process.

But remember what we’ve talked about:

Fitness is built on tired legs—not injured ones.

Pay attention to trends in your recovery and don’t ignore worsening aches, declining performance, or signs that you’re not absorbing the training.

For PB&J runners, things are a little different. If you’re using PB&J as your goal race, you’re likely moving into your taper. We’ve already done a full video on tapering, so check that one out on our page for more details.

Two races. Two different points in the training cycle.

But the same goal:

Get to race day healthy enough to use the fitness you’ve worked so hard to build.

👉 Training Gaps Assessment: https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a
📧 FRC Performance Forum: [email protected]

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

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xJim Ruyn Invite 🎥🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️
A little race-day look at FRC at the Jim Ruyn Invite!

The biggest takeaway? Our athletes were 5:36 faster COMBINED than they were in this same race last season. 🔥

That’s not one athlete having a great day. That’s multiple athletes putting together months of consistent work, learning to train at the right pace, and continuing to develop.

And this is just the beginning of the XC season.

Same race. 5:36 faster. Keep building. 💪

Want to find the gaps in your own training? Take our Training Gaps Assessment:
https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a

📩 Email [email protected] for more information about the FRC Performance Forum.

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

📱 IG/Facebook: freedom running club
🎥 TikTok/YouTube:
🏃 Strava: Freedom Running Club

Before → With FRC: Bella Packer 🎓🏃‍♀️

Sometimes it doesn’t take years to make a huge difference.

Bella Packer worked with Freedom Running Club for one year as a senior at Mitchell High School near Tampa, and in that time she dropped an incredible 7:21 of total time across her XC and track events.

Here’s what that progress looked like:

🏃‍♀️ XC 5K: 25:54 → 20:54
🏃‍♀️ 3200m: 14:11 → 12:48
🏃‍♀️ 1600m: 6:31 → 5:54
🏃‍♀️ 800m: 2:55 → 2:34

But the times are only part of the story.

During that same year, Bella earned 4 All-Conference honors—1 in cross country and 3 in track—and ultimately earned a college scholarship to Pasco-Hernando State College! 🎓👏

One year. One athlete. A completely different level of performance.

This is what can happen when an athlete has a personalized plan, trains consistently, and focuses on the right things at the right time.

Congratulations, Bella! We’re incredibly proud of the work you put in and excited to see what comes next! 🔥

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

Want to find your training gaps and see where you can improve?

👉 https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a

📧 Email [email protected] for information about the FRC Performance Forum.

IG/Facebook: freedom running club
TikTok/YouTube:
Strava: Freedom Running Club

🥪🏙️ Road to PB&J/Chicago Marathon Day 19 – Use PB&J as Your Chicago Dress Rehearsal

If you’re using the PB&J Run as a training race for the Chicago Marathon, this is your chance to practice race day before race day.

Use the opportunity to test everything:

👕 Race-day outfit
Wear what you plan to wear in Chicago.

💧 Hydration strategy
Practice your handhelds, fluid timing, and sodium intake.

🍌 Fueling
Use the same fueling products and target the same carbohydrate intake you plan to use for your marathon.

🏃 Race ex*****on
Practice your pacing, warmup, race routine, and everything else you’ll need in Chicago.

But there’s one HUGE rule:

Stick to the plan.

If you’re using PB&J as a marathon-pace workout, then run it as a marathon-pace workout.

Don’t suddenly turn it into a 10K race because the race atmosphere gets you excited.

Don’t run the first mile at marathon pace and then decide you’re going for the win.

That’s exactly what happened to plenty of runners before—and it can turn a great training opportunity into a recovery problem.

If you’re using PB&J to prepare for Chicago, the goal isn’t to prove how fast you can run a 10K.

The goal is to leave PB&J knowing that your Chicago plan works.

Practice the equipment.
Practice the fueling.
Practice the hydration.
Practice the pacing.
Practice the ex*****on.

Then save the racing for Chicago.

Stick to your plan! 🏃‍♂️💨

👉 Training Gaps Assessment: https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a
📧 FRC Performance Forum: [email protected]

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

📸 IG/Facebook: freedom running club
🎥 TikTok/YouTube:
🏃 Strava: Freedom Running Club

FRC | Study Breakdown / Evidence Review

How long should your longest long run actually be?

This cohort study followed 997 recreational runners—556 half-marathoners and 441 marathoners—to examine training volume, longest endurance run, performance, and running-related injuries.

📄 Training for a (half-)marathon: Training volume and longest endurance run related to performance and running injuries
Tryntsje Fokkema et al.
Published: 2020
Full text: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7496388/
PMCID: PMC7496388

One of the most interesting findings: for marathoners, performance was associated with long runs up to the 30–35 km (18.6–21.7 mile) range, but going beyond 35 km was not associated with additional performance benefits. The authors concluded that a run longer than 35 km does not appear necessary for marathon preparation.

The study also found no association between training characteristics—including weekly volume or longest run—and running-related injury, despite more than half of the runners reporting a new injury during the study period.

Higher weekly mileage and faster average training pace were also associated with better performance.

Could there still be psychological or race-preparation benefits to going longer? Possibly—but that’s interpretation, not something this study demonstrated.

The biggest takeaway: this is one cohort study, not a universal long-run rule. The 30–35 km finding is interesting and deserves more research before we turn it into a hard limit.

Evidence → what the study found
Interpretation → how it applies to training

🔎 Training Gaps Assessment
https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a

📧 [email protected] for information about the FRC Performance Forum

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

IG/Facebook: freedom running club
TikTok/YouTube:
Strava: Freedom Running Club

Before → With FRC: Audrey Kujawa 🎓🏃‍♀️

In just one year with Freedom Running Club, Audrey Kujawa made some big progress—and now she’s about to begin her first college season at Suffolk University on scholarship! 🎉

Here’s what that one year of work looked like:

🏃‍♀️ XC 5K: 22:11 → 21:34
🏃‍♀️ 3200m: 13:26 → 12:18
🏃‍♀️ 1600m: 5:54 → 5:31

That’s 2:08 of total time dropped across those three events.

And along the way, Audrey also earned 3 state berths. 👏

The goal isn’t just to get faster. It’s about building the training habits, consistency, and confidence that allow athletes to keep progressing year after year—and Audrey has done exactly that.

Now she gets to take all of that into the next level.

Congratulations, Audrey! We’re excited to see what you accomplish at Suffolk! 🔥

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

Want to find your training gaps and see where you can improve?

👉 https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a

📧 Email [email protected] for information about the FRC Performance Forum.

IG/Facebook: freedom running club
TikTok/YouTube:
Strava: Freedom Running Club

VO2 Max Work 🔥

Another great VO2 max/aerobic power session for our FRC middle and high school athletes!

Our middle school athlete is still learning this type of training, completing 4 × 1000m reps at his current VO2 max/aerobic power range.

Our 3 high school athletes started with 1 mile at their current 10K pace before moving into 3 × 1200m at their VO2 max/aerobic power range. That first mile is intentional—it teaches them what controlled effort feels like so they don’t make the mistake of going out too hard in their XC races.

And the best part? Every athlete hit every target for the workout, and all 4 runners finished with their FASTEST rep of the day! 👏

That’s what we want to see: controlled early effort, quality training, and the ability to finish strong.

Want to find the training gaps that may be holding your runner back?

Take our Training Gaps Assessment:
https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a

📧 Email [email protected] for more information about the FRC Performance Forum.

“Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.”

IG/Facebook: freedom running club
TikTok/YouTube:
Strava: Freedom Running Club

🥪🏙️ Road to PB&J/Chicago Marathon Day 18 – How Should You Pace a 10K?

The big question is: Are you trying to finish close to 1 hour, or well under it?

If you’re racing near 1 hour, you’re likely racing around your lactate threshold—roughly the pace you could sustain for about an hour. That means you don’t want a huge reverse split.

A good approach:
🏃 Mile 1: ~5 seconds slower than goal pace
⚡ Miles 2–9: Settle into goal pace
🔥 Last mile: Start pushing
💨 Last 0.5: Give what you have left

If you’re well under 1 hour, the strategy changes. Acid accumulation becomes a bigger limiter, so you want a more pronounced reverse split.

🏃 Mile 1: Slowest mile
⚡ Miles 2–3: Controlled and slightly conservative
🎯 Miles 4–5: Move toward goal pace
🔥 Mile 6: Start pushing
💨 Final 0.2: Everything you’ve got

The key is avoiding your full race pace early—before you’re close enough to the finish that you can tolerate the buildup of fatigue and acidity.

A 10K isn’t won by running the first mile fastest.

It’s about staying just below the effort that will cause you to redline too early, then using the final miles to gradually turn the effort up.

Have questions about your 10K pacing strategy? Ask us in the comments! 👇

👉 Training Gaps Assessment: https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a
📧 FRC Performance Forum: [email protected]

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

📸 IG/Facebook: freedom running club
🎥 TikTok/YouTube:
🏃 Strava: Freedom Running Club

Before → With FRC: Leah Zainc 🎓🏃‍♀️

Three years ago, Leah Zainc started training with Freedom Running Club. Now, she’s about to begin her first college season at Suffolk University on scholarship. 🎉

And the progress over those three years speaks for itself:

🏃‍♀️ XC 5K: 23:54 → 20:07
🏃‍♀️ 3200m: 12:42 → 11:30
🏃‍♀️ 1600m: 5:47 → 5:22
🏃‍♀️ 800m: 2:54 → 2:33

That’s a total of 5:56 dropped across those events.

Along the way, Leah also earned 10 state medals and, most importantly, built the consistency, confidence, and training habits that helped prepare her for the next level.

Now it’s time for the next chapter. We couldn’t be more excited to see what Leah does at Suffolk! 🔥

Congratulations, Leah! Your hard work over the last three years has paid off, and this is just the beginning.

Empowering runners to safely achieve their goals with proven, customized methods.

Want to find your training gaps and see where you can improve?

👉 https://go.freedomrunningclub.com/apply-a

📧 Email [email protected] for information about the FRC Performance Forum.

IG/Facebook: freedom running club
TikTok/YouTube:
Strava: Freedom Running Club