There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
From Marathons to Mile Races: Kitty Musante's Fitness Evolution
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...
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Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name there is a method to the madness.
Speaker 1:Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. All right, we have a special episode again today. I'm bringing back in Miss Kitty Masante, one of the top local runners in my area of Volusia County and really you could say countywide, statewide, nationwide, worldwide in her age group. She's pretty amazing and we're going to talk about why the mile, the mile event is coming back and why that is very impactful for her. All right, Without further ado, we have Kitty here and we're going to talk about the big mile. So, Kitty, what got you into wanting to do the mile?
Speaker 2:Well, from the beginning of my running career 45 years ago, the push was always to go. Distance that made you an official runner. It was the running boom, so everything led to the distance that made you an official runner. It was the running boom, so everything led to the marathon, and so that was my goal for many, many years. I ran a lot of shorter races, nothing on the track but the marathon, the half marathon, the full Ironmans. That seemed to be where the glory was.
Speaker 1:How many marathons have you done?
Speaker 2:I have done approximately 35.
Speaker 1:35 marathons wow, Any of the real big ones.
Speaker 2:Yes, boston 12 times Chicago. New York the year it was canceled so I didn't do it. Year it was canceled so I didn't do it. Other than that, mostly Florida marathons.
Speaker 1:What is your PR in the marathon?
Speaker 2:for those that don't know that's personal record. My PR is a little bit of a heartbreak it's three hours and 27 seconds.
Speaker 1:All right, so you almost wanted to die. Right that final 27 seconds.
Speaker 2:All right, so you almost wanted to die right that final 30 seconds. I had run a 5k the day before sub 18.
Speaker 1:So I think I didn't have that little last bit in my legs to quite pull it off All right. So, um, so yeah, I was kind of showing the guests here that you quite an experienced long distance runner with the marathons, with the half marathons. I know you did some Hawaiian Ironmans. For those that don't know, that's a lot of miles it's 26.2 after 112 miles of biking and 2.4 miles of swimming. So now though you have I mean, you're still doing 5Ks. I know that You're still doing 5Ks. I know that You're still doing maybe a 10K here and there.
Speaker 2:For a mile or maybe.
Speaker 1:But now you're really focused on the mile, so I mean that sounds like quite a change. What brought?
Speaker 2:that on Two things Injuries that kept me out because I was doing too many long runs. My body's somewhat fragile I'd say my mind is not fragile, but my body is Also. Living in Florida nine months of the year, it's basically uncomfortable to run, and so I thought why don't I jump into some legitimate road miles, especially during the summer months, and see how I do and how I can lower my mile time?
Speaker 1:What was the first one you jumped in? How long ago was that?
Speaker 2:The first one I jumped into was up in Rochester, new York. The first one I jumped into was up in Rochester, new York. It was USATF Masters National Road Model Championship, which is pretty competitive. That was the first one. That was, I think, three years ago. I won my age group so of course, at that point I was hooked.
Speaker 1:Right, it helps.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What was your time in that?
Speaker 2:one 630.
Speaker 1:630. Okay, and then what is your PR thus far in the mile?
Speaker 2:It is 630. Okay, I have run several after that. I'm very consistent, though. I've run a 6.34, 6.37, and another 6.35.
Speaker 1:Now, if I'm correct, you just won some kind of championship, though right for your age group for the mile.
Speaker 2:Yes, Last month I ran two road miles a week apart. One was the USATF Florida chapter championship open championship, not just for masters and I ran a 3.37 there. It was 100 degrees, but I won the top money prize. I'm kind of proud of that $250.
Speaker 1:Was that the one in Jacksonville? In Jacksonville?
Speaker 2:And the biggest money went to the best age-graded performance, which has a formula which takes your age and extrapolates what you would have run in your prime. So my 637 was a 451.
Speaker 1:So what do they consider your prime when they do that? Does it depend on the distance, like, is there a prime for 5K? I think?
Speaker 2:they just do it off stats of world-class runners. Okay, and it's just data built into that.
Speaker 1:So that probably would have been your 20s. I'm guessing right.
Speaker 2:Probably 20s or early 30s. Okay, so I had a I think right under a 90%. So 90% and up is world class. So that's kind of thrilling. So I virtually won the race.
Speaker 1:Men and women together, I had the fastest time, and so I can say, like you're 68, right Age 68 will be 69 in six weeks, man, so that's some pretty, that's like that's some impressive times. I mean, that's pretty darn quick. I mean, not too many people are running a sub-seven-minute mile, you know, at any age.
Speaker 2:And then the next week I ran the uh usatf master's national mile in indianapolis and how did that one go? That went great. I ran a 6 34. It was only 90 degrees, fast course, beautiful course, downtown Indianapolis. The best in the country were there and I ended up fourth, fourth in age group, or fourth, fourth in age group. The other three that were ahead of me had just turned 65, had just come into the age group, so they're youngsters. Yes, so you know, we were all within 30 seconds of each other, pretty much.
Speaker 1:Is your goal to win that maybe next year? Is that one of your goals?
Speaker 2:I think next year will be hard. As a 69-year-old, I'm at the wrong end of the age group.
Speaker 1:When.
Speaker 2:I'm 70, I think I can clean up pretty well if I'm still able. It's always you know, you never know. Right still able. It's always you know, you never know right. But uh, I was pleased with it because I've held up from last year when I ran, uh, the fifth avenue mile in new york city in september are you doing that this year?
Speaker 1:yes, I am okay, I ran a 635 there, that sounds really cool and and placed in my age group.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking I haven't lost anything. If anything, I'm actually in better shape right now.
Speaker 1:And maybe you might luck out some better weather in September in New York. You never know, it could go either way, but most likely cooler, all right. So yeah, you mentioned that the first reason was frailty of body, which I don't know if that's true because you do a lot, but I know what you mean. The distances of long-distance running. There's sort of a myth out there that we still hear a lot that, oh, intensity leads to injuries and it's really the long stuff that just beats the tar out of your body. I mean I haven't seen you injured in a while since you've been focused on 5K, 10k. I mean it's not really the intensity you run track, it's really the long miles, right, that just beat your body up.
Speaker 2:For me, I had to come to the realization that I start to break down. Really anything over 10 miles on long runs, I just start. Things just start to break down.
Speaker 1:Muscles are tired.
Speaker 2:And then they pile up. Yeah, and then something happens and I have found that for me the sweet spot is 35, 40 miles a week, one day off, sometimes two days off. If I'm really beat up, like I was this past week, I had run two 5Ks back to back, took a day off, then ran track and felt destroyed, couldn't hold my numbers, and so I said okay, take another day off. And now I feel fine and I think you can do that when you're doing shorter distances, you can recover faster.
Speaker 1:You can control it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and yeah, we were always taught speed kills and maybe the kind of speed you have when you're younger maybe that's the case, but it's all relative. I'm not running sub-six or five-minute pace, I'm just trying to hold on to some leg speed. So I find that if I don't do more than an average of six miles a day, if you average it out occasionally, a 10-miler training run maybe once a month and that's that.
Speaker 1:And I know that fitness is a big part of this course and you are very interested in raising your VO2 max or at least maintaining it, which really raises it. And talk to everybody a little bit about that, because me, as an exercise physiologist, I tell people all the time I'm like, look, it's intensity that builds your fitness. There are a lot of people that go out and do long races, long runs and that's great. You know, whatever you do makes you happy, whatever, but it's the intensity that builds the fitness right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I have found that getting on the track and just repeat 200s, 400s, not even 800s, to really go as red line, total red line, you have to stop when you cross that stripe on the track and bend over. It's probably the best way if you do it consistently, week in, week out, and also do all the other stuff to hold on to your VO2 max. You know you can run forever for three hours at a 12-minute pace. I don't think that's going to contribute to increasing your VO2 max Right, and it doesn't.
Speaker 1:The literature points out that the more fit you are, the actual higher percentage of your VO2 max you have to train at are the actual higher percentage of your VO2 max you have to train at. So if somebody say, for example, has an elite VO2 of 70, 80 in that range, they're going to have to be at like 95% of that to even budget and that's not easy and we can only do that for intervals. Obviously you can't hold your VO2 max pace for anything longer than five minutes. You know studies show VO2 max pace for anything longer than five minutes. You know study shows.
Speaker 1:So you know I think people do miss out on a lot of fitness when they get too married to the really long distances and I think with a lot of. You know it's good for everybody to listen. I mean it's not trying to sound like, you know, elitism, snob, you know, with runners talking, but it's important to understand that the name of the game is trying to improve your health and fitness and a lot of times that's not happening. When people have fallen in love with the super long distances, it almost seems like people are doing it for other reasons, which is fine, but it's not always fitness. And I can remember when I was younger and a lot more competitive via age group, people would say you know, oh, you know, you're doing a 5k like it was a snub right, like it was too easy.
Speaker 1:And I and I'd look at him, I'd say I would rather run a half marathon this morning than go do a 5k, because in this half marathon I can just pace and not slow.
Speaker 2:But I mean it's it's a lot easier to run at 85% than it is to run at 99%, absolutely true, and I, yeah, and I think that that is again back to, like I said, what we were all like gearing at when we were younger. We were competitive, but we still were gearing to the longer stuff. And you know, I didn't go to the track regularly. Elite marathoners do go to the track.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:They don't just go out there and jog their 230 or their 210 marathon. They do a lot of intensity, a lot of threshold work, as well as their long runs.
Speaker 1:For sure. That's what kind of makes them elite outside of genetics is their mindset and their training. So you sent me an app, you sent me a website to look at what was that called.
Speaker 2:again, Bring Back the Mile, bring Back the Mile, bring Back the Mile.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of like what we're here talking about today, to get people maybe excited about learning that they can shorten their distances. You know, and you know, maybe we can bring some mile events here to Central Florida because I think, you know, we have a big health and fitness problem in our country, in the world, but mostly our country, and it's like if we can get more people understanding that they have the time to go out and push with some intensity. You know, everybody not everybody, but a lot of people can run a mile and it's subjective. You know how fast you run it. I did one with you guys a month or so ago. I was behind. It's like it's subjective. So what's fast for you is different for me, and fast for me is different from Jim. And we had a guy there that was one of the elite in Florida. What was his name? Again, keith.
Speaker 2:Brantley. Keith Brantley was olympian olympian and, and I think he's my age group.
Speaker 1:We're very, very close and it's like okay fast for him.
Speaker 2:He's in his 60s now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's olympian, yeah, way different for him than me, but we're both running at a mile intensity, like we're both pushing ourselves the best of our ability, because we all know there's different levels.
Speaker 2:It's not. You know, if you're somewhat fit you can run the whole mile, right? You see so many people now in 5ks that walk and that's fine. But if you're wanting to run and you still can't even run a whole 5k and you're doing the run walk or the galloway, that's wonderful. But the mile is achievable for almost anyone that they can run. That really want to push themselves to be more fit. Yeah, and I and I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1:it's like, um, you know, we're. We're almost like being careful because we don't want people to not do races. But at the same time, you know you've been doing this longer than me and I've been doing it since the early 90s. You started in the 80s. I mean we've seen a switch in races.
Speaker 1:It's gone from people really really trying to improve their health and fitness to a lot of people and I know this is going to sound judgmental, but there is maybe there's a problem with it. There's definitely an issue with it. But there's a lot of people that do it for other reasons. They might be doing it to tell their friends, they might be doing it to post on Instagram, they might be doing it to take their selfies, and it's like that's okay. But we do have a fitness problem in this country and how can we get people encouraged, maybe, to just improve their fitness? It's great to go out and do it, but maybe we go out and do it and say I'm trying to make myself better, I'm trying to be more fit, trying to be more healthy, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean we've seen a big change right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely change right, absolutely back in the day. You know the first race I ever ran easter beach run. No one was walking right. I can say that not one person it that races were races. They weren't all fast, but they were all there to run to be their best and I, I, I like that. That. You know the in general sense, the sport is opened up and we, we get all. You get a 5k every weekend.
Speaker 2:You can find one right and and you can walk it and that's great. You can walk three miles, that that's definitely good, but like to see someone, if they want to actually get fit, to run, not just walk.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And the mile again is a great way to start to feel like well, I just ran that mile. Whether you ran it in 10 minutes or you ran it in 12 minutes and so on, that's right, or 14.
Speaker 1:Yeah or 5. Yes, because there are people out there that will run it in five, right, I mean there's people that will go sub five and you know the world record I think we were kicking it around but might be something like 343 for a mile. I mean that's insane to me to think about. I remember reading in college that you know some of the fun reading we would do, but they would talk about how the mile was actually the hardest event to train for. Like it is so freaking hard. It's a sprint that you're holding for three or four or five, six, seven minutes. Like it's a sprint.
Speaker 2:It's a sprint, but you have to, but it's aerobic, it's not anaerobic in that sense.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:And so it is at that that sort of in the crosshairs between the two where you cannot turn to the person next if you're racing your car Right. And utter a word you want to quit, you cannot, and so, yeah, it's kind of that. You know what it's always been the model's always been the magic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the magic model right.
Speaker 2:The magic model, the four-minute barrier. Women are getting very close to now. The top women are just a few seconds away. We might see it in our lifetime. I hope we do.
Speaker 1:I think we could, with all the experimentation and stuff that they're doing and the push it really is, making a comeback and again like so. This being a fitness podcast, you know what. What we're trying to do here is talk about the importance of the mile Cause what you said was you're fit. I mean, you're obviously fit, you want to remain fit, you want to remain healthy and you're finding a way to challenge yourself in a cardiovascular way and not beat the tar out of your body. Like you know, we just see so many people that I get it, they want to become more fit, but sometimes they go on social media and they see everybody talking about the marathon they did and that's great, but maybe that beats you up and then you can never run again.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe you go, you know what, maybe I'll find a mile or event or a 5k you know, and and understand that there is as much fitness there, if not more, than the longer distances I can promise the listeners that there is more fitness in trying to reach the mile.
Speaker 1:Maybe not as many calorie burn. Maybe you're doing it to burn calories. No, but if you're really trying to build your fitness, I'd love to see people really sign up for a shorter event like a mile or a 5K. And you know that's kind of what you're here talking about. You've gone from the great long distances, you know, and I know you loved it.
Speaker 2:I mean that's great. Yes and I and I, you know, I'm sure if they uh took uh samples of my muscles, I am definitely would be in the endurance.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Uh but I don't have a vertical jump period? I never have. So no, I'll never be good at the 100 meters or the 200 meters or the 400 meters or probably the 800 meters, but beyond that it's a mixture of the two and that's you know. That's kind of the sweet spot.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you were saying earlier about the distance and you know, I think maybe listeners might be surprised to hear that like the mile and 800, like that's considered middle distance, like people don't understand. Like you said, it is aerobic, it is not a sprint, it is the aerobic muscle fibers being worked, it's the aerobic part of the cardiorespiratory system. It is in between and it's really really hard, you know, but worth it and I think it's kind of cool. You know that it's coming back. You know I think it's cool that the mile is being pushed a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I was just on that website today actually because I'm always searching for another legitimate road mile not a little kitty race, right and I found one in Georgia that I'm trying to convince my husband to go to in a couple weeks In Athens, georgia.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's ironic.
Speaker 2:Athens, yes, yes yes, and it's a legitimate. While I looked up the results and yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:What time of month? August? No, this month. Oh, this month, yes the 26th.
Speaker 2:I think it is Okay, but we're considering it. It's USATF certified distance and I looked at the past and I'm like, yeah, this might be good.
Speaker 1:And then you have the Fifth Avenue Mile coming up.
Speaker 2:Yes, the New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile is September 7th.
Speaker 1:And you literally run down Fifth Avenue, New York.
Speaker 2:You run from 80th to 60th on the east side of the park, and I will be 69 years old.
Speaker 1:That'll be awesome. I looked into that and it was full.
Speaker 2:It filled up in about two hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 10,000 people, 10,000 people running a mile. That'd be fun, though, to go and just watch, so I imagine I haven't seen it. But do people line the streets?
Speaker 2:Do people? Yes, absolutely. The streets are all lined and there's there's, uh, different start times with not all 10,000 people are running together, so you do get an open road, okay, so they'll do a couple age groups together, so maybe there'd be a couple hundred, uh, and so you know where you are and they have big signs every quarter mile, big digital signs, and it is amazing and it has you know, the top in the world are there as well. They run last, so you get to stay around and watch them running. Sub-4s.
Speaker 1:Is there cash prizes to them?
Speaker 2:There is money for them. Yes, I think especially if they're sponsored by New Balance.
Speaker 1:Do you know how much maybe?
Speaker 2:I don't know but Josh Kerr, who I think was a I can't remember if he was an Olympic champion, but he's one of the top runners. He's from the UK. He won it this last year.
Speaker 1:All right. So, as we finish this up, we're trying to steer people in the direction of you know, like you said I love what you said you know, whether you run a six-minute or a 12-minute mile. You know, if you really want to improve your fitness and I hope everybody does, because it really makes you feel better when you're more fit how do you want to try to? What would you say to people? How are you going to like try to get people to try the mile? What would be some advice for you to get people off the couch? So saying, into the mile?
Speaker 2:or if you haven't, yeah, if you haven't, I'll say two different things. If you, if you already run and and you've done your, your, you know your bucket list, your marathon, then you jump into races here and there, try running a really fast mile. You know you can run the mile, so it's not an issue anymore of the distance, that's not it. But now let's see how fast you can really go and I think it's just a good boost, a good boost for your fitness, your wellness, also competitively with yourself. You know, if you run a marathon and you're a four-hour marathoner and you know you can extrapolate what your mile average was and just see how much you can reduce that in the mile.
Speaker 1:So that would be like a nine-minute mile then, yeah, is that an example?
Speaker 2:Sub-eight, maybe a seven, if you are new to running and thinking about running and the whole thing just seems like it's overwhelming because everyone's running hundreds of miles everywhere. Uh, try to find a road mile that's completely doable for you, uh, and go from there and then maybe you want to go up after that. But it's a really good way to get started and not feel overwhelmed with the distance. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know I was thinking back to one of my principals. I don't know, you didn't go to school here, but Horace Brandon, you remember.
Speaker 2:I know Horace Okay Very well.
Speaker 1:So he was my principal in seventh grade.
Speaker 2:And I can remember him being you know he's a runner for years and years.
Speaker 1:But I remember back then, when he was younger and I was in seventh grade, he made us all, made us like the whole school one day run the mile, Good for him I know I look back. I still tease him sometimes on Facebook, but it was like we dreaded it, but it was like how cool that was to try to get the whole school to run the mile. So the mile has always kind of been that thing right, yes, so it's like can you run a mile?
Speaker 1:Can you run a mile? And I can remember I think I walked part of it. I have pretty much no idea, but I can remember running my first mile and going. Oh man, I ran a mile and so that might be just. That was a great piece of advice you just gave. Maybe go out and challenge yourself Just. Can I run a mile?
Speaker 2:And how good you might feel about yourself.
Speaker 1:And then try to take it from there. Can you bring the times down? Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You don't need to have a track background. That's intimidating to a lot of people. They don't want to go race on a track. That's a road mob.
Speaker 1:You can measure it out in a car if you need it to. Everybody's got a GPS. Go out to a trail, turn around after a half mile or whatever. All right, well as usual, kitty. This has been very interesting, I love having you on. All right, well as usual, kitty. This has been very interesting, I love having you on, and I know we'll do this again in a few months because I know we wanted to talk about the state of racing, which we sort of touched on a little bit today, but we wanted to keep it to the mile. So, thank you so much, kitty.
Speaker 2:Thank you again, Rob.
Speaker 1:I want to thank everybody for listening to today's show. Please follow the show and if you can hit automatic download, it just really helps me. Also, I want to thank our other wonderful sponsors. Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, zach and Jeff Hawk, give the best customer service there is and they already have the best product, so if you need any help with your garage doors, please give them a shout at 386-222-3165.
