This week on the podcast I’m answering listener questions in the first and last Ask Mario Anything episode of 2022. (Fear not! You can still submit questions for me to answer on the podcast but this monthly installment of the show will be taking on a new format the rest of the year, which I go into more detail about at the beginning of this episode.) On the other side of the mic for this one, once again, is Chris Douglas, my right-hand man and sponsorship director for the morning shakeout. In this episode, I answered questions about some of the more challenging guests I’ve had on the podcast, strength training, drills, long runs, and a lot more.
Luis Grijalva tells his story of coming to the U.S. as a baby, growing up in Fairfield, California, and how getting into running at the age of 14 changed the course of his life. He told me about his experience qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics, navigating the challenges of traveling outside the country as a DACA beneficiary, and what it meant for him to represent not only his home country, but over half a million other Dreamers on the world’s biggest stage. We also discussed his relationship with coach Mike Smith, where he he draws his confidence from, and a lot more.
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.
One-kilometer repeats are a pretty standard workout for many runners training for the mile all the way up to the marathon, and no matter how you slice ’em, they tend to make for a tough session.
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.
So what do I think about the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon qualifying standards? I’ve gotten this question at least a dozen times in the past few days and here’s where I’ve landed: I personally believe the women’s field at the 2020 Trials in Atlanta was way too big (511 athletes) while the men’s was just about right (260), so the existing standards needed to be evaluated and adjusted accordingly. The main purpose of having an Olympic Trials race is to choose the Olympic team; the secondary purposes are to create opportunity and experience for up-and-coming athletes and, as Sarah Lorge Butler wrote in the aforelinked piece for Runner’s World, "to connect elite running with a broad audience.”
