Brian: 0:00

So you're thinking about running, but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's Rompod. Hey there, running enthusiasts and beginners alike. Welcome back to another episode of Brian's Ramport, where we unlock those secrets to injury-free running and effective training methods. Today we're diving into part two of my interview with none other than Denny Cray. Yep, you don't want to miss this one.

Brian: 0:46

In this episode, we're digging into how mastering the fundamentals of easy running guided by heart rate training can transform your fitness journey. We'll chat about how it sets the perfect stage for more advanced techniques like intervals and tempo runs. Plus, we're going to dispel some common myths about running form and cadence, so you can stop chasing cookie cutter advice and start focusing on what works best for you. Let's be real we're busting that old pain, old, no pain, no gain myth wide open. Instead, we're focusing on smart training, strategic recovery and the power of patience.

Brian: 1:22

Whether you're a weekend warrior or a marathon veteran, this episode is packed with tips that'll have you running stronger, longer and with more joy. So lace up, hit play and let's get into it, and I really hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did so? Do you in terms of, obviously you may have approached coach to different levels, let's say, if someone was a beginner, when do you feel that you can sort of type of introduce a much more technical aspects of your coaching sort of thing, things like doing intervals or tempo, that kind of thing different you know doing?

Denny: 2:05

intervals or tempo, that kind of thing. So it's, it's a it's a hard one to give a firm answer, and kind of one of my my most common refrains on the podcast is it depends when people ask questions, because there's not much variance between you know somebody might've been running for. You know you might have three people that have all been running for for three months, but the level of development in those three months is so dramatically different in terms of what their history was beforehand.

Denny: 2:23

Were they were they involved in other sports or were they active or doing other things, or were they fairly sedentary? And they're just their first three months in the couch to 5k, which is great, but like they're just at different at different points along the timeline. But but I think, I think without, without trying to totally dodge the question, um it's.

Denny: 2:40

It's hard to give a firm answer to that, but it's, it's kind of one of those that that each situation kind of kind of dictates yeah, um, so so it's, you know, it's, it's, it's it's kind of reading I don't want to say reading between the leaves, but it's like for each person, like how are they feeling? Like kind of getting the vibe of like how do they feel after the run? If they go out and run for whatever for 30 minutes and they feel absolutely exhausted, like struggling to get through 30 minutes, then we probably don't want to start getting. We still need to build more foundation.

Denny: 3:10

We still need to work on the base, fitness, a little bit more which probably involves more of the kind of easy running, the low intensity running zone, to whatever kind of buzzword that you want to put on it, and quite frankly, that's my bread and butter anyway.

Denny: 3:23

I'm very much, personally, a heart rate training guy. I don't force anybody that I coached to follow heart rate training principles, but it ends up being a lot of zone to a lot of easy running, um, but I definitely lean in towards most of the miles should be easy or low intensity because that builds the foundation and then and then when we do mix in some workouts, we're able to really like, have that firm base to push off of and really propel forward. But at the same time, like I said earlier, I want my athletes to have fun and I want them to enjoy the process and and for. For a lot of folks not everybody, but for a lot of folks, like you know, throwing down a good hard workout and getting all the endorphins and sweating and panting and being out of breath, like like there I mean I won't, I won't deny like that feels more like there's something more to that than just going out and running an easy effort for for 45 minutes or an hour.

Denny: 4:11

Like like I still feel good when I'm done with running easy for an hour, but like when I go out and hammer some repeats or hammer a good hard workout, like there is a little bit more of a sense of accomplishment, of like, yeah, all right, we got after it today and I'm going to feel it tomorrow, but but that's a good thing, so it's it's. It's kind of it's the art, part of the art and science. Like it's the art of when to start putting in the workouts and what to and what level of workouts to do. But there needs, I believe there needs to be a decent level of base there to get the most out of the workout. So I mean, you could do the workout any old, any old time, but you're not going to get as much out of it and maybe the injury risk would be higher if there's less of a base there. So it's, I don't have a. Sorry, that was a long way to get to.

Brian: 4:50

I don't have a really good answer for doing it okay but I mean I, it's a moving target yeah, yeah, because as I, as I've kind of got older, I, if anything, there's kind of like, uh, sometimes bit of frustration because of either injury or something like that. But then the thing I have enjoyed recently is, I mean, I'm a member of a gym and then doing kind of intervals on the gym. You know it could be it's only 3K or something like that, it could be 3 to 4K or something like that. But if you do, let's say, intervals, you know you feel like you've, because treadmill running is so inherently hard just to run consistently but to do something where you're having to work with speed, I think it sort of comes into its own there. So that really helps.

Denny: 5:41

I don't know if you agree with that, yeah no, I, no, I do, and I, I, I again, my, my personal biases are that I, I do not like the treadmill and and it's a great training tool and and I, I have no issues with people using it, and certainly plenty of the athletes that I coach do a lot of their their running on the treadmill. But me personally, I mean you can, I can tell myself I'm going to go run for 30 minutes on a treadmill. I'm lucky if I get three minutes on the treadmill.

Brian: 6:08

That stock.

Denny: 6:08

Button is right there and I'm just not going to do it. And I'm also fortunate enough, like I said, we lived in Florida for a while. We live in Georgia now where the winters even where we are now, the winters aren't real bad. I mean, it gets cold, we get a little bit of ice here and there, but nothing, nothing that I don't feel comfortable running outside in pretty much year round. So, um, I'm able to do that and our neighborhood is pretty quiet in terms of traffic, so like I could run in the streets, you know, at least in the early mornings, before people get up and get going to work and stuff. So I don't, I don't have a, I'm not in a situation where the treadmill is a necessary evil for me. But, yeah, if, if, if and when I have to run on a treadmill, like there is a pretty good chance, I'm going to, I'm going to do something to mix it up a little bit more.

Brian: 6:51

Yeah, speed yeah.

Denny: 6:53

Yeah, yeah, that's right Hills or something, just to keep it a little bit more interesting than just run along looking at the same spot.

Brian: 6:59

hats off, though, to the people that do yourself, and to other folks that run on the treadmill, or even I mean, I mean if I struggle, yeah, I mean even if there's I mean I run on the life fitness ones and they have those kind of you know you're running along a trail, that kind of thing. But even that that can, that can be a little bit, but it still doesn't.

Denny: 7:19

Yeah, it doesn't yeah, it stills.

Brian: 7:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I know I was listening to one of your podcasts the other day, sort of one of your short ones, the one sort of about you know some people can get a bit kind of head up or kind of a bit confused about sort of technique and that kind of thing you know about you know, running on your toes you were high-sighting an example of someone who's running on their toes or running in their midfoot, that kind of thing. So, as opposed to running on your heels where you know you could get, you know, the forces going up through your hips and that kind of thing. So I just wanted you to sort of explain to the audience as to is, you know, because I know there's this kind of so-called, I know, strides per minute, 180 strides per minute and some people you know it's kind of a set as a, a guideline. You know that you should be running as that, what, how, what do you tell your um, your runners or about that?

Denny: 8:24

there's a lot there. There's a lot there. Yeah, that's all right.

Denny: 8:28

Cut me off if I get going too far, but uh the 180 steps per minute thing is is like a like, a lot of, I'm gonna say like I guess like a lot of. There's examples beyond just running, but a lot of examples where we take something and then maybe over, like, like, oversimplify it so it kind of loses the meaning. Yeah, and in this example, you know, the the 180 steps per per minute was was kind of came about without getting too deep into the weeds, by people studying elite and sub elite owners and how fast they were, what their cadence was, how many steps per minute they're taking during a race effort, like during a race. So this is, you know, and it's the average. So anyway, but as soon as you take an average, well, now, it's not a perfect thing for anybody because it's the average of a bunch of people, but the average athletes, exactly, exactly, they're elite athletes running whatever at five minute pace or six minute mile pace or some some faster pace than what I'm running for, a marathon certainly, and so so the average is 180 steps per minute at race pace.

Denny: 9:29

Okay, Well, like in in, quite frankly, 180 steps per minute. It doesn't necessarily have to coordinate specifically with with overall pace. Like you can take 180 steps per minute at 10 minute pace at nine minute pace, eight minute pace, whatever. But but the important thing to remember is that's that's a race effort and it's an average, so you know just as soon as you take an average, if you, if you know how maths work. It's like I mean, some people were 182, some people were 186,.

Brian: 9:54

Some people were 172, 177.

Denny: 9:56

Like, like they were probably all close to 180. There probably weren't too many that were 150. There probably weren't too many that were, you know, 210 steps per minute, like. I mean, there might be a couple of extreme outliers, but for the most part most people were in and around. You know, probably I don't know what the exact numbers are but probably between 170 and 185, something like that was where most people ended up. But then we've, you know, over the course of you know, dumbing it down for the masses and runners, world articles that were probably well-meaning, but it's like 180, 180, 180, 180. And so, you know, people I've had. People were like man, my, my cadence is a little bit low. What do you think I should do to pick it up? And I look at 176 and it's like you're good, 176 might as well be 180.

Brian: 10:36

Like it might as well be 180.

Denny: 10:38

Yeah, and then it's, and then it's oh well, oh well, my cadence was, was, you know, is 160, and I look at things with like, but how like? It was an easy run. You know, we weren't trying to like, we weren't at race pace, like. So maybe we want to pick it up a little bit, maybe we could. But also like, how are you feeling if you're not feeling bad, if you're not having aches and pains and niggles and things like that?

Denny: 10:57

And and again, we're talking about an easy, an easy four miler like, do we need to stress out about bringing your cadence up from 160 to 170? Like, probably not. Like, I mean like it might help, but it's, it probably won't make much of a difference. And then like, well, let's throw down a harder run and see what your cadence is there. And then it's like oh, it's, it's 177. Like, all right, perfect, we're good. When we're trying to run faster, the cadence picks up because that's just naturally what's going to happen. So so, yeah, I think that that sometimes for well-meaning you know, it's well-meaning to say, hey, maybe a cadence around one, 80 is going to be your best situation, but we lose the details, we lose it. That's a race pace we lose it. That's an average and it's not going to be an exact science for every single body type.

Denny: 11:40

Somebody that's got really long legs is probably going to have a lower cadence because their stride length is much longer and somebody who's got shorter legs is going to have probably a higher number because their stride length is shorter. So there's biomechanical things to think about in terms of landing on your toes, heel strike and things like that. That was another one that kind of got maybe oversimplified in terms of don't heel strike, but it was like don't heel strike with your foot out in front of you. So if you do that, then you're landing with your legs straight and that's where you, like you said earlier, all the force comes up your leg and your knee and your hips and you're asking for all these problems.

Denny: 12:20

But if you're landing with your foot most you know for the it really doesn't matter if your heel strikes first, if your forefoot strikes first, if your midfoot strikes first, because your knee is naturally going to be bent in that position. You're going to be in a position to absorb the shock, to create elastic tension through your Achilles tendon, through your calf muscle. That's going to spring you forward. But again, we dumbed it down to say don't heel strike, but what we really meant was try to land with your foot underneath your body and sit out in front of you, and so it's kind of like the message got lost, the details got lost in the headline, and then it was just like oh my God, don't heel strike. Well, heel strike, don't heel strike out in front, but just don't land with your foot out in front and it doesn't matter.

Denny: 12:57

Land with your foot underneath you and you're good to go yeah, I know that can be a little bit technical, but that's that's you know trying not to get make this a three-hour episode of the podcast.

Brian: 13:05

Yeah yeah, I think it's very easy to get caught up in, especially if you are, you know, even for someone who may be running, you know three, four years or something like that and doing the old 10k fun run, or we have a thing called park run over here which is 5k, but yeah, you can sort of get caught up in it.

Brian: 13:30

So yeah uh, it's, it's very much like you said. You know, if you are, you know, running at quite elite levels, then maybe it's something to look at. But it's certainly, you know, for, you know, the colonel garden runner, maybe not, maybe, maybe not.

Denny: 13:50

So yeah, well and, and you know again, it's one of those it's, it's, it's an example to me where it's like like there's, there's so many ways to improve your performance or whatever, whatever your performance metric is, you want to improve your performance, or whatever whatever your performance metric is, you want to improve your endurance, you want to run faster, you want to run longer distances, like whatever it is. There's so many ways to improve it, and maybe cadence. Maybe increasing your cadence or locking on your cadence might be one of them, but it's probably not. You're probably not gonna get.

Denny: 14:17

The biggest bang for your buck is maybe you would from running more, more easy volume or taking care of body more with foam rolling and stretching, yoga, things like that, that are going to reduce some of the niggles and help you recovery, so you're going to be able to be more consistent with you. There's probably lower hanging fruit that has more of an impact on your performance. But yeah, sure, once you're up at the elite levels, once you're running for marathon wins and world major wins and life-changing amounts of money, well then, sure, then maybe every little detail is worth analyzing and seeing what it does for you. But for you, me and probably everybody listening, there's probably other factors that would have a bigger impact on our health and our fitness and our performance than if we're taking 170 steps per minute or 176 or 182. Like and and again personal bias there. Take it for what it's worth, but that's just. That's just kind of how I feel that we're.

Brian: 15:12

we're, you know, looking for for pennies when we're when we could be looking for dollars and you know, look for the dollars, you get ahead a little bit quicker, yeah, so I mean, on that I mean because you've been coaching sort of a range of athletes has there only been one thing which has helped running? I know it's very difficult to to pinpoint that, but has there been being sort of like you know, you've taken all your, all your, the people you've coached, and you thought, well, there's one thing that will help improve their times or, you know, their enjoyment of running?

Denny: 15:49

yeah, I think, I think that, that and again, you know, my sample size bias of of folks that I work with. But I think that the biggest factor has been embracing, running easy most of the time, and I don't know if this is as much of a thing over in the UK and Europe as it is here with some of our sport culture, especially starting with youth levels and whatnot, but there's a lot over here.

Brian: 16:12

It's getting better, but there's been a lot over here of the no pain, no gain mentality and everything hard, hard, hard.

Denny: 16:17

And if you're not just pushing yourself to the limit every day, you're not making as much progress as you could and and there's. There's been multiple times where I've I've worked with folks and I'm like, yeah, like let's stop trying to to set PRs and PBs every day in training, like let's just, you know you might, you might, could race it you know, whatever, at eight minute pace for the marathon, eight minutes per mile pace, but like, let's try to slow those runs down to nine minute pace, let's try to slow those runs down to nine, 30 to 10 minute pace.

Denny: 16:47

And it takes a little while to kind of adjust and get used to it. But then, like you know and I'm not going to pretend like the numbers, I've heard this hundreds of times, but dozens of times where it's like my gosh, like I did my, my 12 miles on Saturday morning and like I felt good, like after I finished I was able to work in the garden, I was able to to go for a walk with the kids, I was able to do this, I was able to do that, and before I would I would run 10 miles or 12 miles and I would just be exhausted, like I couldn't, I couldn't hardly get up and function the rest of the day Cause I was so just spent physically, cause they were, they were trying to run too fast or or work too hard for every single run. And and uh again, without getting too deep into the physiology weeds for most of us and especially for those running even even quote unquote shorter distances, like the 5k, like those are still, you know, anything longer really than like 800 meters. And you could make an argument that even 800 meters is is an aerobic event, like cause, you're just out there. For the amount of time that you're out there you need to have a good level of aerobic fitness. But certainly you get off the track, you get into anything that's again 800 meters or longer, certainly road races, 5ks, 10ks, halves, fulls, whatever. Your aerobic fitness is the key.

Denny: 17:54

And so many folks are like I want to run faster. But if you say, hey, how fast can you run a mile and just make up numbers here, but like, oh, I can run a mile in seven minutes. And their goal pace is to run four hours for the marathon, which means that they need to run seven minutes or, I'm sorry, nine minute miles for 26 miles, well, they're fast enough, they can run a seven minute mile, they're fast enough to run a nine minute mile. They don't have the endurance to run nine minute miles for 26 miles. So the way to build that isn't to run a bunch of seven minute miles, it's to slow down, it's to run 10 minutes, 11 minutes, 12 minute pace even, and just build up the endurance, the time on feet.

Denny: 18:27

You get some physiological changes that we don't need to get into, but the way your physiology evolves so that all of a sudden, running nine minute pace, which is whatever, maybe 85% effort, 80% effort, when you could run a seven minute pace all out you're able to maintain that for four hours, to get to 26 miles, to break that four hour number, yeah and so so again, all that that to say I'm long-winded as a podcaster. But to answer your question, I think in my experience getting people to embrace the idea of not every day is race day. I can run easy most of the time and and not get slower and not forget how to run fast. I can still run fast and sometimes even faster because I'm not always fatigued. I'm actually rejuvenated after each one.

Denny: 19:08

Has really been a game changer for me.

Brian: 19:10

I mean, on a couple of those points I mean I'd really agree with you. And because I was watching someone on TikTok about running and whatever, and they said I think there were three tips for beginners and I think she said, you know, kind of work into your schedule. And also I think the last one was run slow. You know, if you're getting into it, just running slow. And also I know one of the things that when I used to do heart rate training it was, you know, you'd kind of pick a heart rate you know which was kind of you know, either 80 percent or 65 percent or 70 percent of your maximum heart rate or whatever.

Brian: 19:55

And I used I used to in those days I used to use polar. I mean there's polar still around but it used to go off, you know if it going up. And then I think there was that frustrating. Well, I can go faster, but then it was kind of you know it was getting you. I know there's that heart rate drift anyway the longer you go, because of you're getting hot or depending on the conditions, but you I think at the end of the day or the end of the run you feel a hell of a lot much better for it, because you're focused on keeping your heart rate down and that, in turn, is getting you to run slower.

Denny: 20:33

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think that that not only is there sometimes that frustration for folks that are first getting into it, but I feel like I could run faster, Um, but I've also had to push back or I've had. I've heard the argument of like but but it, you know, it doesn't look as good on. You know, people on Strava are going to think that I'm slower and it's just like nobody on Strava cares. They're giving you kudos because you ran.

Denny: 20:55

They're not giving you kudos because oh, you ran seven minute pace today instead of nine minute pace, like nobody. But but there's just that. There's that little bit of ego, and you know I, especially if you've been running for a while you know, months, years some folks get into heart rate training that they've been running for for years and years and years and there it is a hit to the ego when you, when you're like all, right, I want to keep my heart rate at whatever at 145 beats per minute and you set out and you're starting off and it's good, and all of a sudden, two miles in, you're at 155 and you feel like you're running pretty easy, but you know the heart rate's high.

Denny: 21:25

So, like you have to, you have to be willing to go. All right, I'm going to run a minute slower, two minutes per mile, slow, whatever it is Like, I'm going to be willing to back it down and keep my heart rate where I want it to be and trust in the process, which you know I mean it's that's. That's a tough thing to do Sometimes. You're trying to build.

Brian: 21:40

And also, you can make, you know if you, if you do log your, you can make comparisons. You know, like you know well, I did five miles at this heart rate range and you know, two or three months later I did the same distance, this heart rate range, I did the same distance, this heart rate range.

Denny: 22:01

But I ran faster there yeah.

Denny: 22:02

No, I mean that's a great way to measure it and to monitor it. And, again, I mean, it takes some time, it takes some patience, but quite frankly, that's what endurance activities? There's no endurance activity where you're like, oh, I did three good workouts, I'm ready to go. Now it's months and it's years and it's decades long process to to, you know, to to just to continue to build that fitness over time and, and I don't know, I mean, like I said, I, I, I, I'm all in on it, I believe it I've seen gives you a better chance for longevity, in which, for at least for a lot of folks, like at least for myself and maybe some other folks as well, you know, it gives you a longer the longer. The longevity in the sport gives you a chance to achieve a lot more goals than just one goal in the next two months, and then I'm going to call it a career, which hopefully is not what too many people are.

Denny: 23:09

You know, hopefully not. Not many people are willing to make that trade off of like I want to, you know, get this three-hour marathon. And then I'm done like it's like I want to get three-hour marathon, but then I want to keep going.

Brian: 23:18

I want to keep running more, yeah.

Denny: 23:19

Even if the next race maybe doesn't get to that big time goal.

Brian: 23:24

Do you think because I think, your background being sports medicine, do you think that's kind of you know, that's been the strength in your coaching, because you have that background.

Denny: 23:35

I think so. I think that's been another area that's evolved a little bit, though, as well. I mean, I think that was a big focus when I first got into it was trying to prevent injuries and minimize them and speed the recovery process, and obviously that's still part of it. But I think that and again, hopefully for better there's a lot more information out there. There's some less good information.

Denny: 23:54

There's a lot of really good information out there in terms of exercises and the value of strength training, the value of of you know yoga and soft tissue work and running, like there's a lot of other good information that helps on the injury front, um, but I, I, you know, I guess, I guess I would say that when, when I do have an athlete that's that's got some type of niggle or some type of something, that's not quite right, I do think it's probably helpful to have that sports medicine background to kind of dig into things and go well, it could be this, this and this, and, like you know, without just assuming that every foot pain is plantar fasciitis, a lot of times foot pain might be plantar fasciitis, but there's a dozen other things that it could be as well, you know. And same thing, if it's, if it's a knee pain, well, your, your, your calf hurts, so it's Achilles tendonitis, like maybe it is, but maybe it's a strain, maybe it's a this, maybe it's a that.

Brian: 24:46

So you're able to sort of diagnose that you know, as opposed to I mean it's it's tough because all of my coaching is is virtual. So like I don't get, my hands on.

Denny: 24:55

I can't test anybody and really feel, but at least I can kind of typically most of the time touch wood. You know, give, give some good like try this, try that, try this, try that, and then when they report back and go, all right, well, that kind of eliminates this thing, that kind of eliminates this thing, all right, probably this. And if and if we don't see some progress in the next two, three, five days by by focusing that, that's what it might be, then it might be a good idea to go see a physio, go see a you know sometime, go see a doctor, go see a therapist, go see somebody who can get hands on and can test you in person, because that's always going to be better than what I can do virtually. I mean getting the feeling, and testing strength and testing range of motion is always, almost always, going to give a more like likely scenario than what I can try to come up with when we're going back and forth right, good, well, we're nearly coming up to the end of the end of the podcast.

Brian: 25:46

Um, I did want to ask is obviously you? I mean, I don't know how many episodes you've done, like 1700 or something, because they're not quite 1700.

Denny: 25:55

I think we're at 12 oh right 60, 12, 70, something like that yeah great.

Brian: 26:00

Um, so you're still going to be doing it. I mean, how do you see it evolving in the future?

Denny: 26:05

Yeah, I, you know, don't plan on on stopping anytime soon. Certainly it's evolved over the years. It used to be very much interview focused and now I do like an interview every month, or one to have a month and a lot more kind of just shorter coaching type of of singular episodes. And so I don't know, I mean, I don't, there's not usually a big plan of like I'm going to evolve it here, I'm going to evolve it there. Like you know, I may have a few more interviews here and there, but at least plan to keep keep going once a week with, with a coaching now, and so I'm just going to kind of plan to keep it there. But you know, as as the business evolves, as as as podcasting evolves, could it be, could there be more? Sure, could there be less, I suppose? But I enjoyed enough that I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.

Brian: 27:08

Yeah, right, I know, um, I sent you a schedule beforehand, but I just come up with an idea and do some quick fire questions, first one being is do you have a sporting icon?

Denny: 27:25

Oh, I mean probably not in running so much, but, like I said, I grew up as a hockey player and so there's probably some hockey players.

Brian: 27:32

I don't know how well that would translate to you. Well, the only one I know is Graeme Gretzky, but I mean Gretzky's great Going to where the puck is yeah, yep, yep, you, I mean Gretzky's great Going to where the puck is yeah, yep, yep.

Denny: 27:40

You know I grew up with a big Detroit Red Wings fan. Like I said, I'm from Northern Michigan, so Detroit's kind of our hometown team. So like Gordie Howe from way back in the day before my time, but like Steve Eisenman was the captain of the team when I was growing up and many great memories of him playing.

Denny: 28:02

But yeah, I, I mean probably more hockey. Probably eisenman is probably my number one, but I don't know, I I like athletes of all of all flavors in all sports, so it's, it's. It's hard to nail down just one or two, okay got a couple more just come to mind.

Brian: 28:11

I'm quite impressed. I'm remembering this only because I was listening to another podcast where they did the same thing and they uh, the other one would be is do you what's your preferred playlist if you're going out running, or do you listen to a playlist?

Denny: 28:26

all right. So I usually listen to podcasts, but they're like I save music for when I need it. Um, like if I'm really struggling, music I can like. Podcast, I feel like I'm trying to listen and engage and music I can just kind of turn my brain off and just run. So if, if I'm gonna go to music route, I'll either go to like dave matthews band is like one of my probably my favorite favorite band, kind of kind of jam rock kind of like yeah, uh I don't know.

Denny: 28:50

I mean kind of acoustic, but there's a little bit of rocky stuff to it yeah or just just go to like a 90s, 1990s rock, so like grunge, nirvana, okay, um, but I mean kind of anything from the 90s, like like any, any, that's. I mean I grew up in the night like I was.

Brian: 29:03

I was I guess I was coming of age in the 90s.

Denny: 29:05

So that's kind of my default. If we're just going to go with, let the music play, bring it on to 90s rock and, and we're good to go. We sing along to just about every song that comes on, and you kind of touched on my next question.

Brian: 29:17

The final one would be if you, apart from your own podcast, which you'd like to listen to, which which is your kind of favorite podcast at the moment? I know it's just that's a difficult one, but yeah, that is a difficult one, so I have.

Denny: 29:30

I have different podcasts, like it's. I'm such a podcast junkie, I guess like different podcasts for different things I have podcasts when I'm running, podcasts when I'm walking the dogs and like I won't listen to the dog walking podcast when I'm running and vice versa.

Denny: 29:42

It just depends on what I'm doing and where I go. But but one of my favorites is is the Jocko podcast. I mean and Jocko Blink is is a ex US Navy SEAL. I mean sometimes he talks to military officers from from. I mean not just military members, not just from the United States, but there's been UK on the show, canadian military, but it's a lot of lessons on life.

Brian: 30:06

Oh, right, interesting.

Denny: 30:07

They kind of come through military stories sometimes or lessons learned in battle. Sometimes they go deep into World War I lessons, World War II lessons.

Brian: 30:16

Sometimes it's from Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever.

Denny: 30:19

But it's just, it's just like that's. That's kind of my my Saturday long run podcast.

Denny: 30:23

They're usually two, three hour long episodes and I usually dial one of those up when I start my my long run and it's just, you know, I get, like I said, there's there's enough business lessons in there, there's enough life lessons in there that, and I think a lot of times, even though he doesn't talk about them as running lessons, there's a lot of running lessons in there about being consistent and showing up and being disciplined and just the value of hard work. That that's one of many that I would quickly recommend. But it's not everybody's cup of tea, because there is sometimes some military stuff that can. They're not super graphic, but I mean, some of the stories of war are not pleasant stories, but there's usually one or two things that I take away from every episode that I'm like oh yeah, this was, this was. I'm thinking about something different because I listened to this episode today yeah, good, there's, um.

Brian: 31:06

Well, if you want to know a couple, a couple of mine, which I listened to at the moment I'm listening to by on the it's on the by the bbc a mathematician called hannah fry, but she does these very short 20 minute ones and she kind of analyzes charts, but that's really like. She did one on the Challenger which was interesting you know about the O-rings and she did. That's a really good one. And there's another really good one which is called Ghost Story, which is that's a really good story, really really good story.

Brian: 31:41

I'm always, always looking for new podcasts yeah, yeah, maybe I'll send you the, send you the links. So yeah, that's good. I just wanted to say you've been a fantastic guest and well, thanks to morelli for bringing us together and she was a brilliant guest as well, and I I'm, you know, I'm really pleased that you came on and I really, really do hope you enjoyed it.

Denny: 32:01

Oh, I did, Brian. I appreciate the opportunity and thanks for giving me a chance to come on and talk about running, which I could clearly talk about all day, just about anything, so I appreciate it.

Brian: 32:10

Great, so okay, cheerio.

Denny: 32:15

Take care.