Cutting-edge advice on how to achieve your personal best, for everyone from casual runners to ultramarathoners. In 80/20 Running , respected running and fitness expert Matt Fitzgerald introduced his revolutionary training program and explained why doing 80 percent of runs at a lower intensity and just 20 percent at a higher intensity is the best way for runners at all levels--as well as cyclists, triathletes, and even weight-loss seekers--to improve their performance. Now, in this eye-opening follow-up, Fitzgerald teams with Olympic coach Ben Rosario to expand and update the 80/20 program to include ultramarathon training and such popular developments as the use of power meters. New research has bolstered the case that the 80/20 method is in fact that most effective way to train for distance running and other endurance sports. Run Like a Pro (Even If You’re Slow) shows readers how to take the best practices in elite running and adopt them within the limits of their own ability, lifestyle, and budget. Praise for Run Like a Pro (Even If You're Slow) “The training of an elite marathoner can seem mysterious to the majority of runners; this book is an excellent inside look into the ways the pros prepare physically and mentally to compete at their best. Every runner can apply these lessons to their own training in order to reach their next level.”--Molly Seidel, Olympic Marathon Bronze Medalist “Fitzgerald and Rosario make a perfect team, distilling decades of in-the-trenches experience into clear and practical advice that any runner who wants to get better can (and should) apply.”--Alex Hutchinson, author of Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance Matt Fitzgerald is an acclaimed endurance sports writer, coach, and certified sports nutritionist. He has authored or coauthored more than 25 books, including The Comeback Quotient, Running the Dream and How Bad Do You Want It? Also an award-winning journalist, he has written for Bicycling, Maxim, Men’s Journal, Outside, Runner’s World, Shape, Triathlete , and other major magazines and websites. An All-State runner in high school and an All-American triathlete as an adult, he continues to compete at a high level as both a runner and a triathlete. He has coached other endurance athletes since 2001. He is a cofounder of 80/20 Endurance, an Internet-based training resource of runners and other athletes. Ben Rosario is the head coach of the HOKA NAZ Elite professional distance running team in Flagstaff, Ariz. His athletes have finished in the top ten of the Boston, Chicago, New York City and London Marathons, and have won multiple national titles including the 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon. Before founding NAZ Elite, he co-owned Big River Running Company, a run-specialty store in his hometown of Saint Louis, Mo. Ben has co-authored two previous running books, Inside A Marathon and Tradition, Class, Pride . 1   Follow the Leaders     Running is a uniquely democratic sport. When you line up at the start of, say, the New York City Marathon as a middle-of-the-pack runner, you are standing on the same bridge (the Verrazzano-Narrows) as the professionals, feeling the same nervous tension they feel and hoping to reach the same finish line in Central Park. Such inclusiveness may also be found at events like the USATF Cross Country Championships, where elite and recreational runners alike have the opportunity to test their fitness on the host course. Even made-for-TV competitions such as the Millrose Games feature races for pros, high school athletes, and club runners of all ages. In running, we're all in it together in ways that professional and amateur athletes in other sports are not.   Away from the racecourse, however, the sport of running is oddly divided. In their training methods, eating habits, recovery methods, and other practices, elite and nonelite runners could scarcely be less alike. The pros do most of their running at low intensity, whereas nonelite runners do most of theirs at moderate intensity. The pros perform functional strength workouts designed especially to meet the specific needs of runners, whereas nonelite runners are more likely to eschew strength training altogether or do it in forms like CrossFit or yoga that were not developed with runners in mind. The pros typically maintain a balanced, well-rounded, inclusive, and shtick-free diet based on natural foods of all kinds, whereas nonelite runners more often go for elimination-type diets (like keto, plant-based, or Paleo) that are all about exclusion.   You get the idea. It almost seems as if nonelite runners are deliberately doing the opposite of everything the elites do, though the reality is that, for reasons Coach Ben and I will get into later, most aren't even aware of how the pros balance their intensities, strength train, eat, and so forth. As that rare runner who, in a sense, has a foot in both worlds, elite and nonelite, I am keenly aw