What a Pro Soccer Player Learned About Running Smarter | Greg Pearson

[00:00:00] Daren DLake: Every time you skip recovery, you’re leaving future progress on the table. In this episode, we’re diving into the secrets to smarter training because every runner can improve one step at a time. Here’s what we’ll cover to make you a slightly smarter runner. Why pacing is your superpower and how to nail it.

[00:00:17] Daren DLake: The often overlooked role of easy runs and building your best fitness. How structure and habits turn running into a lifestyle and not just a chore. And the one mantra that can keep you going even when the road gets tough. And I’ll be joined by Mr. Greg Pearson in this episode. Dude. Good to finally meet you in real life, man.

[00:00:35] Daren DLake: Greg is an ex pro English soccer player slash footballer turned running coach. Who’s helping everyday folks just like you around the world run the best times. He has had to change his identity from pro soccer player to running supporter, and that’s not easy, but he’s now a sub three hour marathoner, ultra marathoner and has done an Ironman.

[00:00:53] Daren DLake: I just found out in the conversation that we had. We were just in Bondi. We’re. We’re in between Bonai Centennial Park right now going on a nice run for Conversation Zone 2. If you’re tired of trial and error or you’ve been sidelined by injuries or you just are like, I can’t progress any further. I’m not getting faster.

[00:01:10] Daren DLake: This might be your guide to becoming a better runner, not overnight, but sustainably for life. That’s how we do it. Let’s get into our chat while we do an easy run through Sydney, Australia.

[00:01:24] Daren DLake: If your kids who are very special to you or your wife, you can pick either one. Were to coach you knowing the limited amount of knowledge that they know but knowing you as a human Coach you to do a 5k 

[00:01:36] Greg Pearson: Yeah, 

[00:01:37] Daren DLake: what do you think they would say? That you should do. What one thing you think they would, they would focus on?

[00:01:41] Greg Pearson: Now, five, five K’s are tough. I typically only use them for benchmark testing as opposed to racing. But, um, it’d be to, to start off a little bit more conservatively. And this is something I preach to everyone. This is not, this is something I need to take advice on from, from myself. Um, starting out too quick.

[00:02:01] Greg Pearson: And that, I think that’s easy to do or easier to do maybe in a five K, something like a five K cause it’s such a short. A value, in a sense, compared to 10k, half marathon, etc. You’ve got less time to, to keep it conservative, because you need to, you need to push through it. It’s a tough, it’s a tough 

[00:02:21] Daren DLake: distance to get right.

[00:02:23] Daren DLake: And you, you pay that price. 100 percent agree on that. That’s something I need to work on, because you can pay that price at k number 4. You pay the price and it’s too late. On the flip side, if you’re trying to run your best time, you start off too slow though. You It’s really hard to make it up because you’ve got that dead of lactate that it’s like you’re digging deeper into it.

[00:02:40] Daren DLake: Yeah. So it is, it is a perfect pacing, not too slow, not too fast, but I think most people end up going out too fast. If you’re not pro, if you’re pro, you can play games on the track and, uh, they’re, they’re on a whole nother level. 

[00:02:53] Greg Pearson: Yeah. And it comes down to practice as well. Like, like with any race, it’s going to come down to practice pacing.

[00:02:59] Greg Pearson: Uh, any distance is difficult if you haven’t practiced it enough. And I think that’s what a lot of. Runners get caught up in is that they feel like the, the pacing needs all the pacing strategy needs to be spot on in that first race, which, you know, so you want a pacing strategy in there, of course, but there’s always going to be something to learn from the strategy that you put into one race into the next.

[00:03:22] Greg Pearson: And like for five Ks, for example, how often do people actually run a fast, hardest effort five K or any race. So a lot of it just comes down to practice. So. Yeah, just practicing. If I was being coached by John Anarol, the kids, it’d be a case of you know, just keep putting the practice in to get your pacing right for the for the 5k.

[00:03:48] Greg Pearson: I love that. Thank you for, 

[00:03:50] Daren DLake: for turning the tables on yourself. I know it’s awkward. Cause you’re like, wait, what am I? And then you’re like, my wife doesn’t know that much about running. You’d be surprised though. You’d be surprised. You were a professional soccer player, which is amazing, in your teens, late teens, early 20s?

[00:04:07] Daren DLake: Yep. Late teens, yeah. You obviously had to do a transition into running. Soccer requires a lot of running. Yep. But getting into the distance running that you’re doing, the racing, what one thing did you take from soccer? The structure. 

[00:04:25] Greg Pearson: Structure. Structure of training all my life. I’ve been, I mean I say all my life pretty much, you know, starting football as a kid.

[00:04:34] Greg Pearson: Uh, you know, training local teams like Saturday morning, game on Sunday. I played cricket as a kid, so that’s like Tuesday, Thursday nights. Um, so I always had some form of training, a specific time, specific place. That’s That’s what we needed to do. And with football in particular, obviously that became, as I got older and older, then the training frequency increases.

[00:04:57] Greg Pearson: Then it’s Tuesday, Thursday night, Saturday morning and a Sunday game. That turns into, well, being at school, taking a day out of school on a Tuesday to go and play football. Full time training that day, uh, to then transitioning into full time training, um, all through the week, games, et cetera. So there’s always been that element of structure in my life, which is, gives me that easier transition because I’m like, okay, well, I know automatically.

[00:05:27] Greg Pearson: It’s not even something I really think about. I just know I need to run. On a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, because that’s my structure and that’s what works best for me and it’s convenient and it makes it easy for me to To get it done because it’s just impulse. It’s just like That’s I just know I need to do it Mondays Wednesday strength training cope like that’s my that’s my week And then I manipulate that obviously based on family life and the rest of it.

[00:05:52] Greg Pearson: So I don’t I don’t struggle with that. Uh, so yeah, what I took from football is 100 

[00:05:59] Daren DLake: percent structure. It’s like part of your DNA now. It’s your identity. And like you said, you don’t have to think about it. You just do the thing. It’s not like, you know, talking your way out of it. And funny enough, as we talk about football, soccer, as Americans, most Australians say.

[00:06:16] Daren DLake: Little, uh, pick up soccer game, football game in Queens Park. Got to tell you where we’re at play a bit of tour guides and we’re in Queens Park, which honestly is actually one of my favorite parks in Sydney. I love Centennial. This park has got a huge hill in it and Centennial Park does too, but just something very open about this one that I like, I know it’s got a purpose.

[00:06:35] Daren DLake: So we’ll transition into Centennial Park in the next few minutes, which I call it the central park of Sydney, a nice. 3. 6k loop running. 

[00:06:46] Greg Pearson: Might 

[00:06:47] Daren DLake: be a little bit smaller. I think it’s 3. 6k riding. I think it’s like 3. 4 running. 

[00:06:51] Greg Pearson: 3. 7, it’s gotta be 3. 

[00:06:54] Daren DLake: 7. We’ll get into the next question when we hit the park.

[00:06:59] Daren DLake: Future Darren here, and I won’t do that thing. You know the thing where people go, Hey, you should subscribe, rate, share, give a thumbs up. Now, while I’d love for you to do that anyways, please go ahead and do it. The next steps will be for you to transform your running life. With our free 1 percent better runner, 30 day base training habits, plan, and newsletter.

[00:07:17] Daren DLake: Unlike other running plans and newsletters, we do not do motivational quick fixes and hacks. Instead, we focus on long term success that lasts from 30 days to 30 years. and more. It’s not just a training plan, but a mental shift. Think of it as your personal running therapist. Sign up for free at either DLakeCreates.

[00:07:36] Daren DLake: com forward slash news, web search 1 percent better runner newsletter, or get the link in the show notes or video description below. All value, no fluff, cancel anytime. Let’s get back into it. Just got into Centennial Park. All the runners are here. Shakeout runners. For the uh, marathon maybe. I don’t know.

[00:07:56] Daren DLake: Running clubs. Not everyone does the marathon. I’m not doing it. Are you doing it? No. Yeah, no. Just supporting. Just supporting, exactly. He’s got a lot of runners here that he coaches. Alright, so obviously you moved from the UK to Canada. Sydney, I know you’re in Byron now. When we met a few years ago, you were in Sydney and that’s quite a transition.

[00:08:16] Daren DLake: And especially, I think you might’ve been, yeah, it was around that time when you were getting away from soccer, professional soccer. So a lot of identity with that. Yep. Um, what was one identity shift? That was quite apparent and I’d say like impactful that happened from professional soccer player to runner to running coach.

[00:08:36] Greg Pearson: I’d played football all my life. Uh, you know, as a kid, it’s your favorite thing, favorite thing to do. You just want to be a footballer when you’re, uh, when you’re a kid for a lot of lads in the UK. And to, to kind of transition out of that was tough because all of a sudden you actually don’t have that football structure.

[00:09:02] Greg Pearson: You don’t have the lads around you in your team have. You know, 15, 20, 20 guys who you see every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, towards the end, because I was playing semi professional towards, uh, well, at the end there before I moved to Australia. But at that point I’d kind of lost the love for it. I was ready for like the next, next move, like that was it.

[00:09:30] Greg Pearson: 24. Moved to Australia. So I was just like, right, Australia, I want to travel, enjoy myself. Never done anything like that before. And then, I’ll figure it out from there. I’ll book a return ticket, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. Set off, did, did all my travel, etc. And actually, that’s probably when, before, before I left.

[00:09:51] Greg Pearson: Uh, so we’re talking, 8, 9, 8 to 10 years ago, I started getting into more endurance sports like trail 10ks for example. I do the Edinburgh Marathon. Okay, so you, you 

[00:10:04] naturally 

[00:10:05] Daren DLake: started into rugby. That was actually one of my questions. You naturally gravitated towards running. Yeah, exactly. Whereas running is the punishment for a lot of sports.

[00:10:12] Daren DLake: Yeah, yeah. I’m 

[00:10:13] Greg Pearson: sure a lot of soccer players do not go to running. Well, that was always, that was always one of the key components of my game was that I was fit. I was like the fittest one on the team type of thing. And I used to do that because I was at home, lived in a hilly sort of countryside area.

[00:10:28] Greg Pearson: Yeah. And, uh, I would always run to keep fit. Talking probably back then, I didn’t have a watch or anything. He was just, and I’m talking when I was a kid at this point. It’s when I was building it. He was probably only a few Ks at the end of the day, but, um, I thought it was the one way since I was a kid. So yeah, kind of naturally gravitated into endurance running.

[00:10:51] Greg Pearson: And then when I got to Australia, that was like my means of fitness when I was traveling and so on. Passive soon, you know, cans, whatever. I’d keep it by going on a run and so on and as I, as I got into, as I got into sort of getting back to Sydney and finding work, et cetera, that’s when I got into the likes of city to surf and half marathon and, and so on and getting into more races that way.

[00:11:19] Greg Pearson: Uh, from there, I mean, I was, I was just working in hospitality here, but once, uh, I met my partner, and, uh, I brought a baby on the way. I was like, right, I can’t be I’m doing these events. I know it’s hard. I was doing Ironman 70. 3 and so on. Oh, you did 

[00:11:40] Daren DLake: Ironman? 

[00:11:40] Greg Pearson: Oh, nice. Not, not full, but you did triathlons.

[00:11:44] Greg Pearson: Yeah. That’s cool, man. We got even more coming. Here you go. So, uh, running events, triathlons, uh, and I was just like, you know, I’ve got a child on the way. I don’t want, I don’t want to just have a job. I want to, I want to help people and I’ve got a baby on the way. Obviously, eventually had Lily, uh, I was like, I need to, I want to help more people do the things that I’ve been doing.

[00:12:11] Greg Pearson: Yeah. As in half marathons and Ironman 70. 3s. How can I do that? Oh, well, I need to get into. coaching. That’s how I’m going to help people because I can work with them to get them to where they want to be. Uh, so my background is not, you know, I’m not an ex Olympic runner. I haven’t been running specifically for my whole lifetime thing, 20 years.

[00:12:34] Greg Pearson: But my, my position on coaching is helping people fundamentally to achieve big goals because I know how hard it is, but I also know. How fulfilling it is to accomplish those goals. Having put all that time in, put all the work in. There’s a lot of personal development there. It’s not just the running aspect and the physiological and physical stuff.

[00:12:57] Greg Pearson: It’s like now mentally what you can gain from training for your first 5k. 4th marathon at sub 3. 30 or whatever it is is so beneficial for people and I think that sometimes it’s that’s kind of lost because we get caught up in these time goals and we must hit a certain pace because of Strava That’s why people, how people go to run too fast during sessions and so on.

[00:13:26] Greg Pearson: But I think that’s really important to acknowledge the, yeah, the, the, the personal development aspect. Um, because that’s where a lot of you. Your growth physically, mentally, or, or come from. Uh, so I’m pretty sure I’ve digressed from the actual question there. No, you do. But, uh, it’s important, it’s important, like, context.

[00:13:50] Greg Pearson: Yeah. For, for coaching, trip working with people. Uh, Because everybody’s, everybody’s very different, right? And if I’d have come from a professional marathon background or whatever, maybe as an Olympian, maybe I wouldn’t have the perspective I have now, being a dad and two kids and training for these events while working and so on.

[00:14:12] Greg Pearson: Which I think is a really important component of working with athletes of all different backgrounds, different ability levels, different circumstances, single parents, uh, you know, three, four kids in the household. Um, you know, there’s so much to, to think about when you’re coaching athletes and that, and in that transition from football into travel, into work, into endurance sports, into helping people.

[00:14:41] Greg Pearson: Has, uh, yeah, it’s given me that perspective. 

[00:14:45] Daren DLake: Look, that’s a great perspective. And the one thing that I’ve learned is that we’re actually more like life coaches, man. And it’s so much easier to empathize, sympathize, empathize, and adapt training plans. Uh, for people with their life stuff. Then like you said, if you were coming from that marathon, professional runner background, you might be more like, get it done.

[00:15:08] Daren DLake: You know, like figure it out. Yeah. If you didn’t have a kid, you didn’t know the logistics of having two kids and different activities on the same day with your partner and all that type of stuff. Which, perfect dovetail into kind of a, you know, I love this. Would you change anything in the past type of mentality?

[00:15:29] Daren DLake: So if you were to go back to when you first started run coaching, which I don’t know, maybe three, five years ago, what would you tell, would you tell yourself anything different to do? And if so, what would that be as a run coach? Yeah. 

[00:15:46] Greg Pearson: I mean, I think, uh, fundamentally. As a coach, you’ve got to, you can have all the, all the certifications, all the experiences of runner as you want, but there is nothing that can compete with working with a variety of athletes.

[00:16:05] Greg Pearson: As I said previously, different backgrounds, ability levels, circumstances, because otherwise It’s like a, you’ve got a huge backlog of evidence and understanding of different points of view and different perspectives, how to overcome certain obstacles, injuries, um, you know, potentially working around the kid’s schedule and all that kind of stuff that you can give a little bit of insight on or tips on, or this is how I did it with.

[00:16:39] Greg Pearson: This is how we did it with so and so. This is how we did it with this athlete. This is how you could maybe do it. I’m not, I’m not telling people what to do. I’m giving them the guidance and saying, oh look, here’s a few options. Could do it this way, this way, this way. What, what would work potentially best for you?

[00:16:55] Greg Pearson: Oh, this one. This, this could work really well. So, back to the question, uh, There’s no, there’s nothing I wouldn’t necessarily do differently in a sense of like coaching qualifications and so on. Um, you just got to like trust the, the, the process and it’s a bit of a cliche thing to say, but you’ve got to, you’ve got to, I’d, I’d, if I was to tell myself something, I’d be like, look, you just got to put in the work, get the experience, do your research and your reading and, you know, have a look at how.

[00:17:32] Greg Pearson: Different programs are set up, uh, how, and how to work with different people and that all come with the experience. You just got to put yourself out there and develop that experience because it’s not going to, all of a sudden, you’re not just going to build trust with, 100 people after you’ve been coaching for a week.

[00:17:52] Greg Pearson: Yeah, you got to coach two people or one person Then you go, you know turn that into five and then you know work with more and then they’ll tell if you’re doing a good job They’ll tell their friends and you’ll start working with more people You know if you can get your perspective across on the likes of social, then that’s, you know, you’re gonna be trusted by more people and you’ll just start working with, you know, naturally just start working with people from all over the world, which I do now.

[00:18:23] Greg Pearson: But it’s all going to work out as long as you’re persistent and you keep learning, you keep failing, you keep improving, you keep going, okay, well that didn’t work there. Okay. How can I improve that? How can I prevent that from happening again? And so on. I don’t claim to have all the answers because I’m not the expert in certain fields that require and, uh, have a different expert than me.

[00:18:47] Greg Pearson: Um, but it’s just, yeah, constant evolution. 

[00:18:52] Daren DLake: The evolution is real and I love how you said, you know, don’t scale. Don’t scale the people. Try to get the one or two right first. Learn from them and then go from there and that’s, you know that, obviously as a coach, most people listening, watching, aren’t coaches but that is applicable to pretty much everything in your life is get the one thing right.

[00:19:16] Daren DLake: You know, I wouldn’t say perfect but get it as right as you can iterate on it, then scale or make it efficient and improve so take that as you want.

[00:19:26] Daren DLake: But speaking of life stuff, I’ll end it with, uh, the existential big life question that I like to end this one percent better runner podcast with. Cause again, we’re all about incremental gains one step at a time and training, racing life. And, uh, If you had a billboard, I don’t know, what’s, what’s a running version of a billboard?

[00:19:46] Daren DLake: If you had a, yeah, you had a billboard, right? I had a billboard at a marathon that everyone ran past and it said Greg Pearson saves. What would you tell everyone? You, you had just a little space with a whole bunch of words. What would you say? And it has to be in the vein of, Habits consistency anything of that.

[00:20:03] Greg Pearson: Yeah. Well, this is actually a quote from Alex Olmos here. This sits with me literally every single day But this is it You cannot fail if you do not quit And it’s so you can use that across Anything business you’re running Uh, relationships, whatever, if you, if you, if you don’t quit on marathon day, or you cannot quit, you cannot fail if you do not quit, and that, even if you don’t hit your goal time, there’s still, even if you don’t hit your goal time, there’s still a lot to get out of a marathon.

[00:20:40] Greg Pearson: It’s not just about the time like, how can you use that marathon to then improve for next time? So unless, unless you want to quit running on a whole, you can’t, you can’t fail. Just got to keep chipping away at your training. 

[00:20:56] Daren DLake: I love sharing miles with you today, man. Uh, finally got to meet in person for many years.

[00:21:01] Daren DLake: Hopefully I get to Byron soon and you can show me around if you got an hour or so. Uh, but yeah, man, all the best with whatever races you have in the future, you’re coaching. It’s a pleasure, man. Thank you time time time. I’m obsessed with it as it’s the one thing we can’t make more of But ironically, we as humans, we made the whole concept of time.

[00:21:20] Daren DLake: Thanks for giving us your time by listening, watching, or reading this. We love helping runners get 1 percent better each day, one step at a time, and can only reach more runners by people like you sharing us out to runners like you. As I might’ve mentioned early in the episode, if you haven’t already, you can get a free step by step 30 day base training and habits guide to getting 1 percent better in running and life each day by signing up for our email newsletter.

[00:21:44] Daren DLake: Unlike other running videos and podcasts. We are not about the quick hack and fluffy motivational quotes. Instead, the 1 percent Better Runner focuses on how small daily habits ripple into broader life success, helping runners perform better on and off the road or the trail or track, wherever you want to be doing your workouts all in five minutes per week.

[00:22:03] Daren DLake: This episode and all this content is produced in Sydney, Australia, and I’d like to acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, who are the traditional indigenous custodians of this land. Much, much, much respects. If you want to contact us about anything, email talk at D lake creates. com. We’re also on the socials, mainly Instagram and Strava right now.

[00:22:23] Daren DLake: Just search one better run or D lake runs small steps. Now lifelong impact later. Peace.