Ryan Holiday is a runner and #1 New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. I’ve long been a fan of Ryan’s writing, most of which centers around Stoic philosophy, and his work has personally had a huge impact on me and how I live my life. His latest book, Courage Is Calling, was one of my favorite reads of 2021 and served as the basis for the conversation we had for this episode of the podcast.
This week on the podcast I’m answering listener questions in the final Ask Mario Anything episode of 2021. (You can check out the first three here, here, and here.) On the other side of the mic for this one, per usual, is Chris Douglas, my good friend and sponsorship director for the morning shakeout. Some exciting news before we get into this one: These AMA-style episodes will become a more regular thing in 2022! We’ll be producing them on a monthly basis in the new year in addition to the usual interview-style show. This week, we talked about my New England roots, getting over mental blocks in marathon training, transitioning to trail racing, coaching trail and ultrarunners, creating multiple race plans, and more.
This week's episode is with my friend and sometimes training partner, Alex Varner, and we recently sat down at his kitchen table to continue a conversation that started a few months ago on some runs together about moving on from the sport of running, or at least reevaluating our relationship with it. Alex has been running competitively since high school and has done some pretty amazing things in the sport: he’s won a national title in the 50K, he’s been top 10 at Western States, he’s won and broke the course record at Lake Sonoma, he’s put up the fastest time at the Dipsea Race a record 9 times, he’s run a 2:21 marathon, and he’s also won the Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh, NC. After 20+ years of being a competitive athlete, Alex’s relationship to the sport is in an interesting place and we spent this entire episode talking about identity, motivation, letting go, and a lot more.
This week’s episode is with J.M. Thompson. He’s an ultrarunner, a clinical psychologist, and author of the new book, Running Is A Kind of Dreaming, a powerful, mind-bending memoir about how running saved him from a life of depression, drug addiction, and suicide attempts. This conversation was fascinating and one of my favorites that I’ve had for the podcast to date. In it, we discuss J.M.’s book, how it’s structured, and how it came to be, but also what it’s been like for him, as a mental health professional, to open about his own issues so publicly. We talked about ultrarunning, his evolving relationship to it, and the types of personalities the sport tends to attract. Jason told me about what he called the “waking dream state” that he experiences in long races, the process of reorganizing our past experiences with trauma so that we can move forward, the importance of learning to ask for help, and a lot more.
This week’s episode is with Jenny Maxwell. She’s the founder and CEO of JAMBAR, an energy bar for promoting community and eating healthy organic nutrition. This isn’t Jenny’s first foray into the energy bar market: she and her late husband Brian practically created it in the mid-1980s when they launched Powerbar, which they worked on together for 15 years until it was acquired by Nestle in 2000. Jenny is also a runner, a drummer, a nutritionist, and a mom of six kids. In this conversation, we talk about launching JAMBAR after 20 years away from the energy bar industry, how the space has evolved and grown over the past two decades, and what she’s doing to make her new company and product different from the rest. Jenny and I also discuss playing the long game and taking a patient, sustainable approach to both business and life, aligning yourself with the right people, the similarities in how athletes and musicians approach their respective crafts, and a lot more.
This week’s conversation is with Leidy Klotz, a professor at the University of Virginia who studies how we transform things from how they are to how we want them to be. He’s the author of the book Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less and he’s also a runner himself. In this episode, we talked about Leidy’s relationship to running and the place it holds in his life before getting into a discussion about subtraction and why it often gets neglected in favor of addition in so many aspects of our lives, including running. We talked about subtraction as it relates to coaching, writing training programs, and even running shoes, how to overcome our instinct to add to things all the time, looking at life through an editor’s lens, and a lot more.
This conversation with New York Road Runners chairman George Hirsch was a real treat for me. We spent half of it talking about the New York City Marathon, its history, its stories, its allure, and more. We also discussed how all of those things went into a new book called The New York City Marathon: 50 Years Running, which is a coffee table keepsake that I’m really enjoying right now. I also got George to tell me more about himself, his legendary career in publishing, which included a stint at Runner’s World during its heyday, how he got his start in running back in the 1960s, what keeps him running six days a week at the age of 87, how his relationship to it has evolved over the decades, and a lot more.
My conversation this week is with Dana Giordano. She’s a top middle distance runner on the track who competed in the 5000m at this summer’s Olympic Trials. She also hosts the popular podcast More than Running with Dana, where she sits down and talks with some of the most inspirational and insightful women in running from athletes and coaches to insiders and advocates.
This week on the podcast I’m excited to share a wide-ranging conversation I had this past Saturday with the legendary Bill Rodgers at Tracksmith’s Trackhouse in Boston. Bill is a hero of mine and I’ve long wanted to have him on the show and Boston Marathon weekend turned out to be the perfect opportunity for it. In this conversation, we talk all things Boston, of course, but also get Bill’s thoughts on his career, talent, training, how his own relationship with running has evolved over the course of his lifetime, and a lot more.
This week on the podcast I’m answering listener questions in the third Ask Mario Anything episode of 2021. (You can check out the first two here and here.) On the other side of the mic for this one—once again—is sponsorship director, Chris Douglas. We talked about my training for this year's Boston Marathon, how to know whether or not you’ve got too much left in the tank at the end of a race, training while on vacation, warming up for workouts, diversity and inclusivity in my work, and a lot more.
