5 Running Tips to Crush Your Fears & Help You Succeed with Frank Walsh! Ep133

Richard Conner: [00:00:00] Hey, my friend. Today we have a great conversation for you as I sit down with an athlete and coach who not only shares his inspiring journey, but also how he helps others and their fitness journey, whether they’re just getting started or they’re just kind of along their fitness journey. He shares five powerful, actionable things that can help you have a successful fitness journey.

Hope you enjoy.

Intro/Outro: Welcome to inspire to run podcast. Here you will find inspiration, whether you are looking to take control of your health and fitness, or you are a seasoned runner looking for community and some extra motivation, you will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts.

Now, here’s your host, Richard Conner.

Richard Conner: Hi, my friend, welcome to inspire to run podcast. I’m happy to sit down with Frank Walsh today. He’s an athlete and CrossFit coach and has a proven track record in OCR, hybrid and CrossFit. [00:01:00] Frank discovered his true passion in helping others reach their goals and is armed with a CrossFit level one certification and multiple other qualifications.

He has earned a respected reputation in the community and also founded a local run club, supporting both runners and non runners alike in achieving their personal fitness milestones. Welcome to the show, Frank.

Frank Walsh: Thank you for having me, Richard.

Richard Conner: Yeah, of course. You know, we’ve known each other for, you know, I, I think it’s been a couple of years kind of through DEKA and races and through underdog.

And it’s really cool to have you on the show finally, and just learn a little bit about you and learn a little bit about what you’re doing in terms of CrossFit coaching and your run club and all that. So you’ve got a lot of exciting things going on and, you know, it’s just a pleasure for me to have you on the show and chat with you for a few minutes.

Frank Walsh: Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, I think it’s been since the Underdogs first, DEKA Strong was when we first met, which was what, 2019 when that first kicked off

Richard Conner: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It was a long time ago. [00:02:00] Yeah. Post COVID. So maybe 2020, but that’s, it’s been a while. Feel time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.

Frank Walsh: exactly.

Richard Conner: So yeah. So let’s hear a little bit about yourself. You know, you’re, you’re CrossFit coach. You started the run club. You’ve got a lot of great things going on.

You’re, you’re an excellent athlete. Like I’ve seen you perform many times and you’re just incredible. So love to hear a little bit about your story, like kind of a little bit of your journey that led you up to this point.

Frank Walsh: Yeah, perfect. So, , back when I was probably in elementary school, you know, I did soccer, baseball, basketball, kind of everything. All the sports that everyone did. , and then once I hit middle school, I kind of started to fade off, stop really performing in sports. I biked with my friends around town. It’s kind of the only exercise I got.

And then once high school hit, my parents wanted me to get into sports and. I would try out and not make it because I didn’t do these sports for so long. And, , my, my mom and dad used to do track in high school and they’re like, why don’t you try [00:03:00] track? Like you used to run soccer and, you know, you used to bike.

So you got that endurance and like, I mean, I guess. Like I am the complete opposite of what I used to be in high school, but, , my friend and I just decided to do it together. , it was sophomore year of high school, it was winter track and I just fell in love with it. I did the 200 meter dash and I also did the, , the relay.

And, , I just, I just fell in love with it. I, I didn’t really have the most amount of friends growing up. , I was bullied quite a bit. So I think I fell in love with the sport just because of that competition side, like, you know, being able to beat someone and, , hold yourself to that. And I think that that’s what really started to kick off my fitness journey.

Uh, that led me into cross country, which. Um, I was able to hit my first sub 25 K, uh, right out of high school, which was awesome. , and since then I’ve been trying to find other [00:04:00] things to replicate that. So I found DEKAfit, which as you know, there’s the teams where it’s that relay style. You go, I go, um, same thing for Hyrox, that relay, , doubles race.

And the thing that really kicked it off for me was Spartan back in the mountains doing that. , you know, it was a lot of running and obstacles and just kind of everything mashed together. And, you know, here I am now, it’s been 10 years since I graduated high school already, which is insane. And I’m now coaching at, , Strive CrossFit up in Norwell and Duxbury, Massachusetts.

And I started my own run club, which, you know, a senior in high school. Wouldn’t have imagined this for myself. So

Richard Conner: Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, you know, it’s, it’s interesting that you talked about, you know, your other sports like soccer and everything else that you’re doing. And then, you know, your parents encourage you to try track and then eventually cross country. And [00:05:00] it’s really funny because, you know, a lot of guests we have on the show and they have some other sport other than running, uh, as our main sport running is usually not like their favorite.

Right. And it’s, you know, they may look at it as something they have to do to kind of support their, their main sport, or maybe in some cases, maybe a punishment, but you really embraced it and you moved on from track to cross country and kind of here you are, which is, uh, which is incredible. And, you know, for me, my sport was cross country in high school.

So. To hear you, you know, go progress the way you did and get a sub 20 is like incredible. Like that was my main sport. And I don’t know if I ever hit sub 20 in my, uh, cross country, but, uh, that’s, that’s really incredible. And that kind of led you to where you are here today.

Frank Walsh: exactly. And it’s, I’ve, I’ve had so many friends from the sport to, , a lot of healthy relationships, something I didn’t really have in high school. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s growing. I’m meeting so many more great athletes, coaches at CrossFit, at these races. , and I was just actually [00:06:00] volunteering at the Hyrox booth at the Boston run expo and met so many incredible individuals that walks by and we’re like, Oh, what’s Hyrox?

Or Oh, I’ve been I’ve heard of this for years and never done it. Just so curious. And, you know, there’s so many amazing people out there that haven’t found their itch yet. And. You know, it’s, it’s my goal to try to get them to find something that’ll, you know, motivate them or get them on the right path.

Richard Conner: I love that. I love that. And I think we share the same goal. So, you know, the more of us doing kind of this work, I think the more people that we can help. So, you know, I love that you’re doing that. And, and then, you know, let’s, let’s talk about that for a bit, you know, so. Like, you know, you mentioned that your coach and, you know, I, I’m sure you have a lot of experiences with your clients and folks that are getting into fitness, whether it’s running or otherwise.

And, you know, I’d love to hear from you, like, what are the types of things that you trends or things that you see with your clients that you think others who are, maybe you’re just getting started with benefit from,

Frank Walsh: Yeah. [00:07:00] So let me go to the run club that I started. So when I was coaching at CrossFit 1620 down in Plymouth, um, I had a lot of people come up to me cause you know, they knew I did all these races and they’re like, like, I don’t run Frank, like, well, you know, most CrossFitters, they don’t, they don’t like running, even if it’s in their warmup, if it’s a hundred meter run, they’re like, uh, , but.

They always came to me for advice and then I went to the owner and was like, Hey, I think there’s a really cool opportunity here where we can get a run club. You know, we can get a group of people. We could do a track workout on Saturdays. Um, just try to get people out of their comfort zone, , out of CrossFit and just focus on running.

And he was like, yeah, let’s do it. And the first group I had It’s like two years ago. I think we only had like eight people. It wasn’t that much, but we were gearing toward the Cape Cod marathon, which they have a marathon relay. I don’t know if you’ve heard of a marathon relay. Have you?

Richard Conner: uh, I just heard of a half marathon relay, which ironically I’m going to run my first one at [00:08:00] the end of this month.

Frank Walsh: Oh, awesome. Yeah. So it’s, it’s just like that. So it’s, it’s spread out in different legs. You know, there’s a leg that’s, that’s the shortest, usually at the end. And then there’s like the longest leg, which I think is like seven miles, but you split it however you want. And they did that each year. So I was like, Oh, perfect.

We can train toward this. Um, and everyone ended up PR and they’re just there. They’re set distance anyone from my age. So at the time, well, I was 26, um, to people that were in their fifties. They’re PR and like for forever, like, you know what I mean? They had, they haven’t done a race in forever and they PR.

So that was, that was an awesome feeling. And then that led into the spring and then we were gearing toward Murph. So like, this is another opportunity, you know, you got Murphy, got two miles of running, plus you got, um, muscle endurance, a little bit of gymnastics. So we did that a lot of people PR there.

And then that kind of just. You know, got the fire going and the [00:09:00] third cycle, I think we had almost 20 individuals.

Richard Conner: Oh, wow. Wow. It really grew.

Frank Walsh: So I really grew. And , since then I’ve moved toward, I moved up in Weymouth, Massachusetts, so bit of ways away from Plymouth. So I found a great gym, Strive, they’re part of CrossFit Southie. , you know, everyone that’s in CrossFit and Mass knows CrossFit Southie. You know, there’s a reason for that. They got, they got a lot of, um, great athletes, great coaches and amazing owners.

So, um, those are great opportunities. So I got in there to coach a couple times a week and for this cycle I’m doing. , this upcoming spring, I’m going to do an online version. So that’s just going to be, you know, come to me, we’ll do a free, , we could talk on the phone a little bit, kind of see what your goals are. , and I can make a program for you. And, and then I’m going to try to get a group on Saturdays, again, at the track, um, for our work that we can all do together, it’s growing and evolving. , you know, trying to always change it. Um, our first [00:10:00] cycle we worked on nasal breathing, second cycle we worked on, , a lot of bike work.

So a lot of non impact work. And then the last cycle we just did was, um, power outage on the rower, which a lot of people, you know, it’s hard, it’s hard to slow down someone on a rower. So that was a good challenge and a lot of people benefited, always trying to change it up.

Richard Conner: I love that. I love that. So, you know, I have a lot of questions, but I’m really curious, you know, so you start, you said you started with a people in the beginning and it grew to 20 over a period of time and like what inspired the eight to kind of keep with it. And then what do you think helped inspire the other 12 right over time to kind of join the group?

Like, how did that kind of go?

Frank Walsh: I think for a lot of people, they. You know, they found something that wasn’t in their comfort zone. You know, a lot of people, like I said, kind of are scared of running. [00:11:00] Um, there’s a lot of myths, you know, it’s bad for your needs, bad for this, you know, all, all these different myths, but you know, there’s different ways to get around that.

, so there were always five things I kind of worked with everyone. You know, if, if, oh, my knee hurts, oh, let’s work on that. Or I can’t run a mile in this workout. Okay. That’s totally fine. How about we do the bike or the rower or even the biker, the bikers also not awesome, um, alternative. So it was always, you know, it wasn’t, I’m trying to, wasn’t trying to make it challenging for everyone, and I think that’s.

After they saw the first cycle and they saw how everyone had so much fun, they were like, no, I think this is for me and I can try it out.

Richard Conner: That’s great. So you helped them kind of overcome whatever obstacle they had in their mind or whatever fear they had of running. And you really kind of went after that. And then once I get over that, it sounds like they embraced it and went through the other cycles.

Frank Walsh: Exactly.

Richard Conner: So then how did the group grow? Like, was it just kind of word of mouth or, you know, is it like, [00:12:00] Hey, I told my buddy over here or they saw me and they were inspired.

Like, what do you think really kind of drove the growth of the group there? Yeah.

Frank Walsh: Definitely a lot of word of mouth. We had probably like 85 percent of members do my running club. And then there, the other, you know, other 15 percent were people from outside the gym. So, you know, someone that saw it online and came in and was interested. And that, or someone that was related to someone or had a friend, you know, Hey, I’m doing this run club.

Do you want to do it with me? , I didn’t believe it was the cycle of, , the 20 individuals we had, uh, for four people that weren’t members. Um, and two were, it was, it was funny. We had, we had two that were in high school that had cross country. Um, so they did it for like a conditioning piece. And then I had an individual who is, um, I can’t speak on his age, but I know he’s, he’s over 60 and, [00:13:00] you know, he was keeping up with everyone.

And so that’s the thing, you know, it doesn’t matter on your age. It was just having that group together. It was just incredible.

Richard Conner: I love that. I love that. So let’s talk more about your process. Um, because I’m really interested in this and you know, the goal for, for this show is to help inspire others to run as part of their fitness, but also kind of help them along the journey with the three pillars that we talk about. So mindset, movement, and motivation, and you touched on the topic of, you know, movement a little bit.

So they have this fear, you helped them really kind of get over the fear, but You know, sometimes things do happen, right? So sometimes, you know, maybe we go about our training and not the right way. Maybe we don’t have good form. Maybe we’re not, you know, kind of doing the things to have a holistic program.

And that could lead to burnout, could lead to injuries. It could lead to a whole lot of things. So like, As you’re working through your clients and as you’re kind of progressing in your, your coaching career, like what are the things that you’ve seen or what are [00:14:00] the things that kind of you talk to your clients about to help them avoid those things and really have a healthy kind of fitness journey?

Frank Walsh: Yeah. So there were five things I always worked with everyone. Uh, first thing, you know, nasal breathing, that is so beneficial. And I think there’s a lot of individuals that have been doing running for years that, you know, never really thought of nasal breathing. No, it helps with everything, opening up your, your second airwave where, you know, if you’re in the middle of a race and you’re dying instead of gasping for the earth through your mouth, you know, just take a breath into your nose, but obviously don’t do it without training for it.

Um, so then there’s a lot of benefits to that. Um, especially for lung capacity. What I had everyone do for our first cycle was, you know, do a 10 minute run and just try to nasal breathe the whole time. Don’t open your mouth. Just even if it’s a 13 minute mile, 15 minute mile, just. Go slow and [00:15:00] just work on breathing into your nose. a lot of people were shocked. They were like, wow, like that was, that was extremely hard. Um, and then from there, you know, maybe do some intervals with it. And then when you rest, you can breathe through your mouth. Um, so it’s little things like that to try to get everyone, um, get their breathing better.

And then from there was just, you know, work on your aerobic base. So same thing. So once you got your nasal. Breathing in, you know, just go for 10 minute easy run, or even if it’s an inclined walk on the treadmill or stair master, just something easy because that’s another thing. I feel like a lot of people, especially crossfitters, right?

They always want to go for intensity all the time. They can’t just, you know, slow it down, you know, get on a bike for 30 minutes. Easy, um, to work that zone work and, you know, it improves longevity to with your endurance. Um, it’s something that I’ve added in my, my training recently, and I’ve seen a [00:16:00] lot of benefits from it.

And then from there, you know, running, running mechanics too. So, running mechanics of there’s a lot of individuals that, you know, he’ll strike, right? So they, they could heal strike when they walk, run, you know, whatever. So, so there’s a lot of just, yeah. fun warm up exercises of working on that midfoot, and even if you’re not running on your midfoot for say that easy run for 10 minutes, just, you know, add it in for maybe 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, play around with it.

Frank Walsh: , it’s going to help with knee pain. It’s going to help with your stride, , and prevent injury too. That’s huge. that’s the thing you could get injured. You could get injured once from running. You’re like, I’m never doing that again. I can’t or I can’t afford to get injured again.

Richard Conner: Right, right. Or you run through it, right? You run through the pain and then it gets to a point where, you know, you need to take some action and that kind of undermines, right? Your, your [00:17:00] progress and undermines your future and till you take care of it. So yeah, totally understand that. So talk more about

Frank Walsh: exactly. Yeah. And then the 2 other things once you’ve gotten those 3 things down, , R. P. E. training is huge. I use that a lot too, because, you know, you can wake up 1 morning and, you know, say you went out the night before or you didn’t get the best sleep, Because say you’re getting your kids ready for or for school, um, or you know, you stayed up late for work or what, whatever it is.

RPE is just that feel. So, you know, if it’s a seven outta 10, that’s a moderate effort of how you feel. , so you know that seven outta 10 might be different on another day, depending on obviously how we feel. , so you don’t need a device, which is huge. ’cause there’s a lot, there were a lot of people that did the run club like.

I can’t, I can’t afford a, a Garmin watch or I can’t this, I can’t that I’m like, well, for this, you don’t even need that. It’s just how you feel. Just go how you feel.

Richard Conner: [00:18:00] Workout. Maybe I’m going to do like a, You know what I would call a zone two run or an easy run where I’m able to have a conversation. Like how would that fit kind of within that RPE kind of scale?

Frank Walsh: yeah, so I would say like zone one and two is just conversational. So say we’re on a run together and we’re just having a conversation like this, right? Or not, we’re not gasping for air or anything. Zone three is when, you know, that’s kind of like the, um, the magic. Okay. The magic juice or whatever you want to call it.

Like that’s the, that’s the zone where you’re going to get a lot of benefit from, , for that aerobic base work. Um, but that’s, you know, you’re having a conversation, but might have to take a couple breaths in between. , and then zone four is when you get into that threshold. Um, so, you know, you’re not able to have a conversation comfortably.

And then up there, that’s when you’re in that anaerobic. And then obviously you got max heart rate [00:19:00] after that. That’s more VO2 max training. Um,

Richard Conner: So how does that relate to like RPE, like, you know, for someone using the RPE scale and is it like one to 10 or like, how does

Frank Walsh: Yeah. So think, so think of think, think of like seven out of 10 effort, 70%. So it’s a 70 percent out of 100 percent or 10 out of 10, which you would see for like, you know, 30 seconds on 30 seconds off. That’s 100 percent effort out of 100 percent or, you know, one, one to four is typically like, If you are walking or walking, you know, in Stairmaster or whatnot, that’s usually when you’ll see that, but most of the time you’ll see like six out of seven or, or even eight at a time.

Richard Conner: That makes sense. And it’s, and the way you described it, it sounds like it’s based on your effort, not necessarily your performance or the outcome.

Frank Walsh: Exactly.

Richard Conner: Right. So it’s how you feel. So if you feel like, hey, On this day, this feels like max effort for me, but it [00:20:00] may not be like the max of what you can do, like your PR kind of thing.

So, so that’s interesting for someone to know, like, Hey, if my training today is supposed to be like a six or a seven, it’s based on how you feel and the effort you’re putting in, not necessarily what your watch is saying,

Frank Walsh: Exactly. Cause like I said, your watch could say, you know, your heart rate’s at 180 and you’re like, you’re like, oh crap. Like I’m, I’m just going easy.

Richard Conner: right?

Frank Walsh: So it’s, it’s nice to kinda, you know, not have to always look at your watch. Especially during a race too. That’s the thing, like being able to go into a race and go off how you feel is so important because if you look at your watch and your heart rate’s a little off than what you want it, you’re going to get in your head and it’s just going to overtake your, your race mentally.

So it’s, it’s good to get comfortable with how you feel.

Richard Conner: Yeah. No, that, that makes a lot of sense. And if I’m being honest, like I try not to look at my watch too much when I’m racing, like I do it just for maybe the mile time, but you’re [00:21:00] absolutely right. Like even that on its own. Like, I remember I just had a race maybe about a month ago and I hit my first mile and I was, I don’t know, five to 10 seconds slower than what my target Okay.

Per mile pace was going to be so already in the first mile, like, Oh my gosh, I’m already behind in this race. I got two miles to go. Like, what am I doing here? But then I had to kind of walk, you know, walk myself off the ledge. I’m like, look, it was the first mile you’re getting warmed up. You’ve got two miles to go.

Like now’s the time to push it. And Hey, by the way, negative splits are pretty cool too. So, you know, it’s not the end of the world. You can make up the five or 10 seconds. So, so I totally, totally get that. And I try not to use my watch and especially in the races, but you know, you know, that’s hard to do.

So I guess you have to

Frank Walsh: It is hard.

Richard Conner: yourself.

Frank Walsh: We’re so used to it. So we just want to get all the benefits from it. Um, but yeah, that’s, that’s huge. If you’re just getting used to how you feel during a race or even during a training session, , and then the [00:22:00] last thing is elastic threshold training. So that’s going to improve, .

Intensities for longer periods. So say like Hyrox, for an example, you know, you got the, the best of the best doing was like, I think 54 and change now. Um, and then you got an average individual doing it like an hour 30. So that’s a lot longer, but that intensity. you know, you’re at, you’re at threshold for over an hour.

So that’s when you really want to start to work on that. , You know, that feeling in your legs when they cramp up that lactic acid build up. That’s kind of what you want to start to work on. , boost stamina, agility and all that. Um, but obviously, you know, you can’t, you can’t just work on that. You got to work on everything else, especially that aerobic base.

Like think of a house right you want you want to work from the ground up you can’t work from the the roof First you got to work on the base just like with anything. So

Richard Conner: Yeah. And I think the aerobic piece of it [00:23:00] is, is. Easier to understand. Cause you’re like, Hey, I assume that you’re, you know, your RPE is going to be relatively low. You’re going to keep your heart rate low and you’re going to do maybe those low intensity, maybe for longer periods of time to build the endurance, but tell me more about like the lactate kind of training.

Like what, what are one of the two things that someone would do to kind of train that piece?

Frank Walsh: so for that I’ve I always had everyone go to the assault bike for that Right because you’re working your whole entire body working your your your grip your shoulders your back your legs so something like that I would do, you know, 90 seconds max effort, , 30 second rest and do that for, for five times.

Right. So it’s that it’s that long, , interval with a short amount of rest. Same thing for running too. Like I was doing recently., what was it? I was doing like 4, uh, no, sorry. It was 5 minutes. Um, [00:24:00] at my race pace and then my rest was 3 minutes. Right? So it wasn’t wasn’t half and half. Um, it’s just that short amount of rest and you’re going right back into it.

Um, so if that’s a float in between meaning, you know, you’re jogging in between or if that’s just a complete rest. So those are things to kind of get that electric threshold up because during a race, you know, your legs are going to start to blow up and you got to get comfortable with, with running at your race pace.

Um, under fatigue.

Richard Conner: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So that’s super helpful. So I’d love for you to just kind of list out those five things again.

Frank Walsh: Yeah, of course. So nasal breathing. I think is the first thing everyone should work on. There’s a great book out there called breathe. It talks about the benefits of just breathing in general. Um, you know, working on, um, breathing exercises with your nose, you know, there’s now nasal strips. I don’t know if you’ve seen those.

at Overture. Uh, you put them on your nose. It like opens up your nose. Uh, a lot of athletes are starting [00:25:00] to use those. So it’s a lot of people are, you know, trying to find the little things to help them perform better. So yeah, nasal breathing, get that aerobic base work in, right. So going for those easy bike rides, runs, even walks, um, work on your running mechanics after that.

So really trying to work on, you know, running on your midfoot, um, hips forward slightly, keeping your arms down, shoulders relaxed, right? Sometimes we just like tense up. Um, that’s not the case at all. And then RPE training, like I said, go by how you feel and then lactic threshold training should be, that’s a, that’s something that I think a lot of people could benefit from.

Richard Conner: excellent. Excellent. This is really helpful. I appreciate you sharing those tips and, you know, a little bit of background, like how to actually do it. Cause it sounds nice, I guess in theory, but you know, I appreciate like the practicality of like, here’s how you can, you know, do those things. So, you know, Kind of as we [00:26:00] wind down here, you know, I’d love to ask you a couple of questions.

So like, number one is, you know, kind of throughout your journey, I’d love to hear a little bit from you. Like what was probably the most difficult obstacle that, you know, you encountered kind of in your journey and how did you overcome it?

Frank Walsh: That’s a great question. Yeah, it was two, it was, it’ll be two years this December. Um, I was at DEKAWorlds, my second DEKAWorlds, it was in, um, it was in Dallas, Texas, and a few weeks out, I started to feel ankle pain and I was like, Oh no, like I’ve been doing this.

training cycle for, for, you know, the biggest race of the year, I was partnering with my buddy, Kiefer. Um, everyone underdog knows Kiefer. Um, but I didn’t want to let him down. I was fighting with a lot of battles and, you know, it’s just like, no, I just gotta keep, keep trucking, got to the race, didn’t perform how I wanted to, ankle still really hurt.[00:27:00]

Um, for some reason, the, the mild teams, we got fifth out of 15. I don’t know how with my ankle, but we made it work. And then for months and months after, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t find what was wrong with it. And I think that’s what really started, you know, going back to the basics of Frank, you can’t go hard all the time.

You need to go easy some days or. Or I got to work on my my running mechanics like my ankles obviously, you know, screwed up. Why does it hurt? So I got a looked at and noticed that my my foot caves in a little bit on my left side Worked on that started doing yoga. So started stretching more Nasal breathing like I said, so kind of that’s where You know, I found, wow, I took a step back and got all these great results from just [00:28:00] getting back to the basics.

So that’s what really kind of started this like philosophy that I have.

Richard Conner: I love that. I appreciate you sharing that. And it’s really important because you know, the way we’re talking about this was maybe in the context of folks that are beginners, right? So they’re just getting into fitness or they’re just getting into running and like, here are the things to set up the right foundation for your, your fitness journey, but in your case, right, you’re a coach or an athlete, you’re a deck of world champions, championships, and here you are. back to the basics. So, you know, what you shared and how you approach your training is really. Great for everyone to really think about and how they’re approaching their own training plan and program.

Frank Walsh: Yeah, exactly. And, um, like that was the other thing too. I was going in and out of jobs around that time too. So it was just hard to find. I could train and it was just like, you know what? Like let’s just take a few months off. Cause I was, I was still [00:29:00] injured my ankle. So I was like, no, let’s just take time off, get the stress away from an event coming up and just work on my base.

And I run a mechanics, like I said, and all this, and, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of benefits from it, which is awesome.

Richard Conner: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing your story here. Thank you for sharing the tips. And last question for you is, you know, what’s the what’s next for you? Like, what are you excited about in 2025? And what are you working towards this year?

Frank Walsh: Yeah. So, , I just started at Strive CrossFit. Um, they’re, they’re awesome. They got a lot of great opportunities there for me, which I’m really excited about. , I got Hyrox DC coming up at the end of the month. Really excited for that. I’m doing individual, my first open individual, which is exciting.

I’ve always done pro, , didn’t always get the best time. So same thing, took a step back. You know what, let’s just, let’s, Let’s do some lighter weight, try the open division. Um, see how that goes. They got the [00:30:00] doubles and relay too with my friends. And then I just signed up for Atlanta. So that’s an April goal is to get to world championships.

If that’s not it, you know, always next year. Um, and then probably for the fall season, just trying to get my run club to kind of., I’m trying to get everyone back. , I’m trying an online format this time for the spring. In the fall, I really think, , you know, there’s some cool opportunities there that I can try out.

So, so yeah, I know it’s, we’re only, what, it’s March, so three months in. , but still a lot of ways to go and a lot of opportunities, so really excited.

Richard Conner: Awesome. Awesome. Well, I’m rooting for you. It’s always great to see you, Frank. You know, when you come down for the underdog events or just kind of when we have these chats, I really appreciate you and everything that you’re doing to support the running community. So for our listeners, why don’t you share a little bit about how they can find you and follow you online?

Frank Walsh: Perfect. Yeah. So, uh, my personal Instagram is, uh, It’s, it’s, [00:31:00] everyone always laughs at it, WICNARF. So it’s just Frank W. Backwards. , so that’s my personal one on there. It has the gym, um, slash gyms that I’m working at. So they have two locations in Duxbury, Mass and Norwell, Mass. I have the links on there.

So if you want to follow them, see what they’re about. And then I also got my personal, , uh, running account, which is, , frankly fit PT. I love puns. So. That’s what I’ve been trying to name my, my running, um, programming, frankly, fit, um, and you can follow it on there as well. So

Richard Conner: Awesome. Awesome. So I’m going to put that in the show notes to make it easy for our listeners to find you. And I’m also going to put in the information about the book that you mentioned, breathe. So I thought that was a really great recommendation. So thanks again, Frank, for, for coming on the show and you know, with that, have a great day.

Frank Walsh: Thank you so much, Richard.

Intro/Outro: That’s it for this episode of inspire to run podcast. We hope you are inspired to take control of your health and fitness and take it to the next level. Be sure to click [00:32:00] the subscribe button to join our community. And also, please rate and review. Thanks for listening.