Bolota Asmerom is an Eritrean-American who has called the United States home since the age of 10. The 43-year-old represented his home country of Eritrea in the 5000m at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. In 2004, he finished third in the 5000m at the U.S. Olympic Trials but couldn’t go to the Games because he didn’t have the Olympic A standard, and in 2008 he finished fourth in the 5000 at the Trials after some last lap contact. All these years later, running is still a huge part of Bolota’s life: he still trains and races locally in the Bay Area where lives, he coaches and advises a handful of athletes, and he’s also the co-founder and co-owner of Renegade Running, a specialty running shop and community hub in Oakland, California.
Kate Grace is a lot of things, not least of which is 2016 Olympian in the 800m and one of the top middle-distance runners in the U.S. for much of the past ten years. At the age of 33 she’s running faster than ever and isn’t showing signs of slowing down anytime soon.
I recently got on the mic with my friend Dylan Bowman, who first appeared on the podcast back on Episode 14 in 2018, and we caught up with one another about all sorts of stuff. In this episode, we talk about where we’re at in our respective lives right now, what we both have going on athletically and professionally, where we see certain parts of the industry going in the next few years, and a lot more.
The 50th and final episode of the year is a “best of” compilation of highlights from 12 of the most impactful conversations that I’ve had over the past 12 months. In this episode you’ll hear from 13 people whose experiences, insight, and/or advice stood out to me. They are, in order of episode release date: Alexi Pappas, Craig Curley, Dinée Dorame, Nathan Martin, Keith Kelly, Jorge Maravilla and Stephanie Howe, Mark Coogan, Christine Gould, Alison Mariella Désir, Jon Green, George Hirsch, and Alex Varner.
We’re taking the next couple weeks off to recharge so we’re re-running one of my favorite episodes from the early days of the podcast, a conversation I had in May of 2018 with Aliphine Tuliamuk. It was episode 15, I am fairly certain it was Aliphine’s first podcast, and at the time not many people knew her story despite the fact that she was nine-time national champion! Since then she’s added another national championship to her resume—the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials title—and now she’s a household name in American distance running. This is a great episode to revisit if you listened to it a few years ago and certainly one to check out if you didn’t. You’ll learn all about Aliphine’s upbringing in Kenya, how she got into running, what it was like coming to the United States and assimilating to a new country and culture, how she deals with pressure, and a lot more.
Ken Rideout is the most requested return guest in the history of the podcast. He first appeared on the show almost exactly two years ago on Episode 91 and before you listen to this conversation I recommend going back to check that one out if you haven’t already to get Ken’s backstory, which will help set the foundation for this second go-around.
Tempo runs tend to get the best of you? You’re not the only one. This classic workout tends to intimidate a lot of runners because of its stop-free nature, e.g. 3-8 miles at half-marathon pace is a popular prescription and anything but an easy assignment during a heavy training week. The Broken Tempo Run serves as a nice alternative, especially early in a training block when you’re just not that fit or if you tend to have a hard time wrapping your head around a long workout.
I use some version of this short-medium-long format for all of my athletes depending on who they are, what they’re training for, and where they are in a training block. This hill workout is as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one and there’s probably a place for it in your program.
Looking for a challenging but not-too-hard workout to knock out before your next race? Look no further than the 5-4-3-2-1 halftime fartlek. It starts fast and finishes even faster but it will be over before it really starts to grind your gears down.
