The Aerobic Edge

Joost Dekker
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Fitness
  • Semiweekly

The Aerobic Edge, by Pacebuddies I'm Joost, running coach at Pacebuddies. This podcast is for runners who are tired of cookie-cutter plans and training hard without getting faster. No generic advice. No copy-paste schedules. Just honest, no-nonsense conversations about what actually works — from the SRA cycle to smart pacing, recovery, and real progress. Whether you're training for your first 5K or your tenth marathon, this is coaching that fits your life, your goals, your body. New episodes every two weeks. 👉 pacebuddies.com

  1. 2d ago

    Proper Running Form: Why Pushing Off Makes You Slower | Fredrik Zillén

    Most runners have tried to fix their form at some point. Push off harder, use your glutes, land under your hips. It feels awkward, it feels harder, and after a week you go back to how you always ran. In this episode of The Aerobic Edge I talk with Fredrik Zillén, a running technique specialist from Stockholm who has filmed runners with 3D motion-capture cameras in his studio since 2014, from people coming off the couch to national-team athletes. His view: a heavy landing or a short stride is usually a consequence of something happening higher up in the body, so that is where he starts. In this episode Why trying to push off harder can work against you, and what your glutes are actually doing near toe-offThe muscle Fredrik would train if you could only train oneWhere your speed goes when you get tired, and as you get olderWhy a good technique change should feel easier right awayWhy the same pace can feel so different on a treadmillHow to run downhill faster without wrecking your quadsWhat you can check yourself with just a phoneChapters 00:00 How Fredrik got into running technique 07:30 Who walks into his studio 11:05 Power from the hip and core 15:50 What he sees in the first four seconds 18:35 Same knee, two ways of running 22:15 Running technique as a dance 33:45 Why engineers struggle with running form 36:40 Cadence, energy and pace 38:25 Push-off and the glutes 48:10 The soleus: the muscle for distance runners 53:25 Film yourself 56:55 Getting tired, getting older 59:55 Why the treadmill feels different 65:05 Downhill running 72:30 Where to find Fredrik About Fredrik Zillén Running technique specialist based in Stockholm. Former journalist, athletics coach since his teens, and full-time running biomechanics coach since 2010. Website and online course: fredrikzillen.com YouTube: Fredrik Zillén – Running Technique Specialist Disclosure: I have taken Fredrik's online course myself. Train with me I coach recreational runners one-on-one, mostly for the half and full marathon. We build your aerobic base first, then add speed, with your easy running guided by heart rate. Book a free 30-minute call · pacebuddies.com Tymewear A chest strap that measures your breathing as well as your heart rate, so you can see your thresholds without a lab. I'm an affiliate partner, and I only work with products I believe in. tymewear.com/PACEBUDDIESTW · Code: PACEBUDDIESTW Follow The Aerobic Edge YouTube · Instagram If this episode helped you, follow the show. It helps other runners find it. Fredrik's views come from his coaching practice and his own measurements. Some of the studies he mentions, including the treadmill environment and feedback studies, we could not verify. This episode is for education, not medical advice. If you have pain, see a qualified professional.

  2. Oct 23

    Are Your Easy Runs Still Too Fast? Alistair Brownlee Explains

    Two-time Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee on why easy runs should be truly easy, why he thinks hard sessions are only the icing on the cake, and how he learned to simplify fueling after a tough race in Kona. In this episode: Alistair's path from age-8 triathlete to Olympic gold, including finishing 12th in BeijingWhy he ran easy at 5:00/km while running a 28-minute 10K, and his view on volume and dose-responseWhy he thinks many amateurs do too little easy training and don't make it easy enoughHis view of hard sessions as the "icing on a small cake"Heat training: how he got into it, how he thinks it works, the risks, and why you should never do it aloneHow recreational runners can think about core temperatureSimplifying fueling: practice it at least five times at race intensity and race rateHydration and sodium: weigh yourself before and after, and what Alistair does and doesn't replace Links:⁠True Fuels⁠ (Alistair's own brand) ⁠My conversation with Arnar Lárusson about training by ventilation⁠⁠ Get Tymewear⁠ (coupon code: PACEBUDDIESTW) The advice in this conversation is Alistair's personal view as a former professional athlete. It is not medical advice. Ask a professional before you change your training or fueling. Disclosure: I'm a Tymewear affiliate and may earn a commission if you buy through my link. ⁠Download the free Super Base starter plan Chapters: 0:46 Alistair's Start in Triathlon2:53 Three Olympics: From 12th in Beijing to Gold5:21 Aerobic Base: Easy Runs That Are Truly Easy7:48 How Much of Training Was Hard?8:38 Why Slowing Down Is Hard and Key10:06 How Alistair Judged "Easy"11:45 Hard Sessions Are the Icing on the Cake13:52 A Word About Tymewear15:05 The Pyramid and Consistency15:32 Training for the Ironman17:38 Heat Training: Where It Started19:51 How Heat Training Works22:09 Heat Training for Hot Races24:32 Heat Illness and Knowing When to Stop26:01 Practical Ways to Heat Train27:50 Monitoring Core Temperature30:42 True Fuels and Core Control32:55 Alistair's Experience With Core Control35:10 Staying Cool on Race Day38:15 Kona Ironman: What Went Wrong With Fueling41:22 Practice Your Fueling Five Times42:57 Hydration and Sodium47:52 Building a Fueling Plan Into Marathon Training50:40 Alistair Today51:56 Where to Find Alistair About Alistair Brownlee: two-time Olympic triathlon champion (London 2012 and Rio 2016), professional athlete for 18 years and founder of the sports nutrition brand True Fuels.

  3. Oct 16

    Is Your Zone 2 Really Zone 3? Training by Ventilation - Arnar Lárusson

    How accurate are training zones built on a percentage of max heart rate or VO2max? In this episode, Arnar Lárusson, founder of Tymewear, explains why he thinks those zones can land in the wrong place, what VT1 and VT2 are, and how ventilation can be used to guide training. In this episode: Why percentage-based zones can put you in the wrong zone, according to ArnarWhat VT1 and VT2 mean for fuel use, CO2 and your training zonesWhy heart rate can drift while ventilation stays steady (Arnar's example comes from cycling research)Lactate versus ventilation as a window into your effortHow VT1 and VT2 are measured, and why the talk test is unreliable for finding VT1How to use VT1 for easy runs and VT2 for marathon-pace workHow fast Arnar's users report progress after changing their zones (4 to 12 weeks, anecdotal)5:34 Engineering Meets Physiology 8:55 Why Ventilation Matters for Runners 15:09 Why % of Max Zones Miss VT1 and VT2 19:12 Personalizing Your Training Zones 26:20 Ventilation vs. Heart-Rate Drift 31:41 Lactate vs. Ventilation 35:45 Measuring VT1 and VT2 39:46 Practical Training with Ventilation 54:30 How Fast Can You Improve? 57:49 What's Next for Tymewear? About Arnar Lárusson: founder of Tymewear, a chest strap that measures heart rate and breathing. Background in mechanical engineering, including prosthetics and exosuits. Links: Get Tymewear (coupon code: PACEBUDDIESTW) Tymewear on YouTube Tymewear on Instagram Note: the figures in this conversation (non-responder rates, sensor validation, fatigue data) are Arnar's own claims. Check the research yourself before changing your training. Disclosure: I'm a Tymewear affiliate and may earn a commission if you buy through my link. Download the free Super Base starter plan

  4. Oct 2

    What If You're Not Overtrained, You're Just Under-Fuelling? | Dr Trent Stellingwerff

    Not overtrained – under-fuelled? Dr Trent Stellingwerff, a lead author of the IOC's REDs clinical assessment tool, explains the signs to watch for and what to do about them. Your easy runs feel hard, you're getting sick more often and your sessions are inconsistent. The usual advice: you're overtrained, back off. Trent thinks that advice is often wrong. In his team's review of the classic overtraining studies, 18 of the 21 that reported nutrition showed an energy or carbohydrate shortfall during the overload period. We cover what energy availability is, why the diagnostic tool doesn't measure it, symptoms you can spot without a lab, how under-fuelling leads to stress fractures, and the one simple equation worth knowing. Free 30-minute call with JoostWant a coach to look at your training and fuelling with you? Book a free 30-minute call at Pace Buddies, online running coaching for recreational runners. We'll talk through your goals, your current training and what's getting in the way.Book your free call · pacebuddies.com Timestamps 00:00 Cold open: a month of not eating00:30 Intro01:48 Trent's background04:00 Why Trent studies under-fuelling06:30 Pregnancy, breastfeeding and under-fuelling10:17 Overtraining vs REDs14:01 A quick word about Pace Buddies15:42 18 out of 21: what old overtraining studies missed19:48 What energy availability actually is22:38 Spring classics: bad race days, fine weekly average25:31 Why you shouldn't calculate it yourself28:57 Fasted running: risk and reward31:52 Race weight and the weight-loss trap34:30 The symptom list39:14 How under-fuelling causes stress fractures42:20 What a runner can actually do47:20 Why your watch is off by 30%49:48 Why the diagnostic tool ignores energy intake51:47 One calorie per kilo per kilometre55:30 How long does recovery take?57:28 REDs and eating disorders are not the same59:19 The study he'd run with unlimited fundingThe quick version Energy availability = energy intake minus the energy cost of training, corrected for fat-free mass. It is not the same as a calorie deficit: one low day is fine, the pattern is the problem.Rough cost of a run: 1 kcal per kg body weight per km. It dates from the 1960s, was built on a flat treadmill, and falls apart on hills and when walking.Don't try to measure your way out: watch and app calories can be off by about 30%. Watch the symptoms instead.First step: add roughly 300–400 kcal of carbohydrate around training, spread food across the day, and see how you feel after a week.Key papers Overtraining vs REDs: shared pathways, symptoms and complexities (the 18-of-21 review)IOC REDs Clinical Assessment Tool (CAT2): scientific rationale2023 IOC consensus statement on REDsLow energy availability and bone injury in elite distance runnersMore of Trent's work on PubMedFind TrentWomen's Health and Sport Performance Institute (Boston) · Canadian Sport Institute Pacific (Victoria) DisclosureTrent previously spent six years in R&D at PowerBar (Nestlé Research Center) and has no current commercial interest in anything discussed. This episode touches on eating disorders. REDs and eating disorders overlap but are not the same thing. Nothing here is medical advice or a diagnostic tool. If several of the symptoms sound familiar, see a physician.

  5. Sep 25

    Return to Running After Injury - Mark o'Mahony

    You've done the rehab. The exercises feel fine. But running still doesn't — and nobody seems to own that part of the process. Irish running coach Mark O'Mahony works with recreational runners in exactly that gap: sometimes alongside a physio, sometimes long after one has signed them off. He came to running sideways — he fought Muay Thai professionally, then finished a hundred-mile race on seven weeks of training, which he does not recommend. He won't hand out a list of exercises, and he explains why. What he gives instead is the layer underneath: how he reads pain as information, why morning stiffness is his main signal, what he does when someone's response is worse than expected, and why he only ever changes one thing at a time. In this episode: Why the gap between doing the exercise and handling running is where comebacks failMorning pain as a baseline — settled versus fluctuatingWhy pain-free during the run tells you less than the next morningThe runner whose foot wouldn't settle until they counted their steps at workWhat he does when rehab gets skipped, or a race no longer fits the timelineWhere his job as a coach ends and a clinician's beginsMark is a coach, not a clinician, and he's clear about that line throughout. Nothing in this episode is medical advice. If something isn't improving, get it looked at. Find Mark coachmarkomahony.com Instagram: @mark_omahony_running About Pace Buddies I'm Joost, a running coach working with recreational marathon runners — mostly people fitting real training around a job and a family. Aerobic-first, and adjusted to how your body is actually responding rather than to what the calendar says. Free 30-minute call, no pitch: cal.eu/pacebuddies/freecall Coaching and training plans: pacebuddies.com

  6. Sep 18

    Iron Deficiency in Runners: And How to Actually Fix It - Dr Alannah McKay

    Most runners who think they have low iron have never had the right test. And most who supplement for it never needed to. Dr Alannah McKay is a Senior Lecturer at the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University, where she studies iron metabolism in athletes. She trained full-time as a ballet dancer from twelve to eighteen and thinks she was iron deficient through most of it — never tested, never treated. Her PhD, done in partnership with the Australian Institute of Sport, was awarded the Dean's List honour, and she now works alongside Professor Louise Burke on female athlete physiology. In this episode: What ferritin actually measures, and why a haemoglobin test alone tells you almost nothingThe three stages of iron deficiency — and where you can still interveneWhy the duration of your run matters more than the intensityHepcidin: the hormone that blocks iron absorption for hours after trainingThe thirty-minute window after a run when absorption is bestWhy "100mg" on a supplement bottle is often 20mg of what countsFerrous sulphate vs bisglycinate — and what the evidence actually supportsWhat happens to your iron across a hard training block or at altitudeHome ferritin tests, and why she's not ready to recommend them yetHow often a recreational runner should realistically get screened ⚠️ Educational only — not medical advice. Supplementing iron without testing carries real risk, including for people with undiagnosed haemochromatosis. Talk to your doctor before changing anything. Chapters01:00 From ballet to iron research02:00 What iron does in the body05:00 Ferritin, haemoglobin and the three stages08:00 How iron is absorbed — and what blocks it11:30 Who's most at risk16:30 Hepcidin: why training blocks absorption20:00 The window after your run23:30 Low carb, keto and iron25:00 Haem vs non-haem, and vitamin C32:00 Can you have too much iron?34:30 Supplement forms37:00 Symptoms, and why fatigue is a poor signal39:30 How often to get screened40:30 Home ferritin tests43:00 Hard training blocks and altitude47:00 Dosing: elemental iron, timing and alternate days54:00 What she'd study next Find Dr Alannah McKayLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alannah-mckayACU profile and email: acu.edu.auGoogle Scholar: scholar.google.com Book a free 30-minute call I'm Joost, running coach at Pace Buddies. I coach recreational runners using an aerobic-first approach — building the engine properly before layering speed on top, instead of the other way round. If this episode left you wondering whether something in your own training is holding you back, book a free thirty-minute call. No pitch deck, no pressure. We look at what you're actually doing now, where the gaps are, and whether coaching would help — and if it wouldn't, I'll tell you that. Book your free call at pacebuddies.com The Aerobic Edge is an evidence-based endurance podcast for recreational runners. New episodes with researchers, coaches and athletes who actually know what they're talking about. Follow the show so you don't miss the next one. Instagram: @pace.buddies

  7. Sep 11

    You only need 10 grams an hour - Prof Tim Noakes

    Every fuelling guide tells you to take as many grams per hour as your gut can handle. Prof. Tim Noakes has spent four years arguing the number you actually need is closer to ten. His position is contested. Prof. Louise Burke argues the opposite, and they published a three-part debate against each other in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in May 2026 — her case, his case, and a joint consensus. All linked below. Tim Noakes is emeritus professor at the University of Cape Town, author of Lore of Running, and has been in the field since 1976 as both researcher and runner. His 2026 Endocrine Reviews paper works through 160+ studies to argue that endurance performance is limited by blood glucose and the brain monitoring it, not by muscle glycogen. We go back further than the paper: the day in December 2010 he changed his mind about carbohydrate, what it cost him, his own type 2 diabetes diagnosis despite decades of marathons, and the graph he'd shown hundreds of times without noticing what was in it. Also: what hypoglycemia actually feels like and why it reverses in ten minutes, what "low carb" means in real grams, fat oxidation above 1.5 g/min, industry funding in sports nutrition, and what any of it means at 40 to 50k a week. THE PAPERSEndocrine Reviews review: https://doi.org/10.1210/endrev/bnaf038The 10 g/h triathlete trial: https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpcell.00583.2024 THE BURKE DEBATE (Am J Clin Nutr, May 2026)Burke — Yes: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2026.101268Noakes — No: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2026.101269Joint consensus: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2026.101271 Prof. Noakes co-founded Nutrition Network and The Noakes Foundation, both built around low-carbohydrate nutrition — discussed openly in the episode. For information only, not medical advice. ABOUTThe Aerobic Edge is an evidence-based endurance running podcast hosted by Joost, running coach at Pace Buddies. Aerobic-first marathon coaching for recreational runners. Book a free 30 min consultation on: https://pacebuddies.com

  8. Sep 4

    Deena Kastor: How To Train The Mental Side Of Running

    There comes a point in a race where it stops being about fitness. Deena Kastor — Olympic marathon bronze medallist and American record holder for nineteen years — is unusually specific about what to do when that moment arrives. We cover where her mental training started under coach Joe Vigil, the hill where she changed the words in her own head, and the practices she kept for decades:a daily gratitude list, and building joy into the sessions she dreaded. She also explains what an easy run is supposed to feel like (her Kenyan teammates called it a massage), how she handles start-line nerves with three memorised reasons she should succeed, and what she does in the last third of a marathon when it starts to fall apart. She also pushes back on the usual line about comparison, and on what to prioritise when you get injured. 0:00 Intro 1:53 Who Deena Kastor is 5:22 Where the mental training started 10:57 What an easy run should feel like 16:09 Building joy into your week 27:02 Reframing disappointment 33:29 Start-line nerves 36:11 The last third of a race 44:01 Comparison 48:21 Injury 55:01 One takeaway Book: Let Your Mind Run. Instagram: @deenakastor Website: deena-kastor.com Coaching: pacebuddies.com

See All (28)

About

The Aerobic Edge, by Pacebuddies I'm Joost, running coach at Pacebuddies. This podcast is for runners who are tired of cookie-cutter plans and training hard without getting faster. No generic advice. No copy-paste schedules. Just honest, no-nonsense conversations about what actually works — from the SRA cycle to smart pacing, recovery, and real progress. Whether you're training for your first 5K or your tenth marathon, this is coaching that fits your life, your goals, your body. New episodes every two weeks. 👉 pacebuddies.com

Information

  • Creator
    Joost Dekker
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Joost Dekker
  • Show Website
    The Aerobic Edge

You Might Also Like