Aaron and Joshua Potts are the guys behind The Running Report, a media outlet produced “for culture and by the culture.” They also co-host the 2 Black Runners podcast, where each week they recap the most recent running news, host insightful interviews with athletes from across all disciplines of track and field, and offer up their perspective on the running world as two black runners in the sport. They first came across my radar a few months ago when they interviewed one of my earliest running heroes, Michael Johnson, and I’ve been following their work ever since.
Stephanie Howe and Jorge Maravilla are quite the power couple and it was a treat to sit down with the two of them recently at their home here in Marin County, where we all live. A little on their respective running backgrounds: Stephanie is the 2014 Western States Endurance Run champion, she’s finished in the top 10 at UTMB, and won numerous other races at various distances over the course of her career. Jorge is two-time national champion on the trails at the 100 mile and 100K distances, he won the Masters national cross country title in 2018, and he’s also got a 2:21 marathon personal best to his credit.
Anthony Costales recently won the Canyons 100K in Northern California in 9 hours, 11 minutes, and 40 seconds, defeating a stout field, which earned him a Golden Ticket to this year’s Western States Endurance Run. He’s only a few years into the trail and ultra game and is really starting to make a splash in the sport. A graduate of Chico State, Anthony has a 2:13 marathon personal best on the roads, he won the U.S. Trail Marathon Championship in 2018, and also represented the U.S. that year at the World Long Distance Mountain Championships in Poland, where he finished 10th overall. Anthony’s a native of Fairfield, California, he now lives and teaches middle school P.E. in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he’s a relatively new dad.
Hillary Allen is a professional athlete, coach, teacher, and author of the new book, Out and Back: A Runner’s Story of Survival Against All Odds. She’s a returning guest to the show—be sure to check out her first appearance back on Episode 49 if you haven’t already—and she’s just one of my favorite people to talk to in general.
Mario Fraioli answers listener questions in the first Ask Mario Anything episode of 2021. On the other side of the mic for this one is sponsorship director, Chris Douglas, who you’ll get to learn a little more about at the beginning of the show. We got some good questions about this summer’s Olympics, returning to running postpartum, balancing running and training with the rest of your life, how the podcast and newsletter get made, and more.
Steve Magness wears many hats in the worlds of running and performance. He’s been the head cross-country coach and assistant track coach at the University of Houston since 2012 and he’s also worked with numerous professional athletes at the Olympic and world championship level. He’s the coauthor of Peak Performance and The Passion Paradox, both of which he wrote with former podcast guest Brad Stulberg, and he’s also the author of The Science of Running. Steve also co-hosts two podcasts, On Coaching, which dives deep into the art and science of training and coaching for runners, and The Growth Equation, a weekly no-bullshit discussion on well-being and performance. As an athlete in the early 2000s, Steve was one of the top scholastic runners in the country, running 4:01 in the mile—which, at the time, was the 6th fastest high school mile in U.S. history.
One-mile repeats are a bread-and-butter session for distance runners prepping to race 5K, the marathon, or anything in between. Every once in a while I like to mix up the intensity and recovery a bit to work on both stamina and speed while also keeping my athletes more engaged throughout the workout.
