Should Runners Crosstrain? Josh Sambrook has an ANSWER (Season 2 Ep 7 #16)

Josh on running, training load, and why the marathon rewards honesty

This episode follows Josh, Avery, and Stoddy through a wide-ranging conversation about endurance sport, with a strong focus on running, triathlon, fueling, and how training actually translates into race-day performance. It matters because the discussion gets into the practical stuff most runners wrestle with: what makes you faster, why injuries happen, when cross-training helps, and how to think about pacing with less guesswork.

Key topics

• In this episode: Josh tells the story of how he moved from childhood triathlon and a range of sports into serious marathon running
• The direct feedback loop of running: Josh explains why he loves running because training and performance have such a clear cause-and-effect relationship
• Why overuse injuries happen: the conversation centers on training load, gradual progression, and how injury risk rises when the body gets more load than it is ready for
• Why not all volume is equal: Josh distinguishes between distance, intensity, and training response, and explains why elite athletes often get more from the same workload
• Tapering and race-day psychology: the group discusses how runners can be physically fit but still underperform because of pacing errors, motivation dips, or poor taper management
• Berlin’s impact on training: Josh says Berlin changed his running by giving him more access to track work and more social running, which improved his shorter-distance speed
• Cross-training gets debated: Josh argues that if your only goal is faster running, more running usually beats cycling, swimming, or lifting, though he acknowledges cross-training can help in specific cases and for specific athletes
• Fueling becomes a mini conversion story: Josh says he used to race without fuel but now takes fueling seriously, including making his own gels and experimenting with practical options
• Race stories go off the rails: Josh shares marathon blowups, including vomiting on Berlin Marathon day and at the finish of a fast race where he paced a friend
• Kaizen in one sentence: the app connects to training data, predicts race performance, and adapts training plans dynamically based on load and recent work