On a weekly basis, host Mario Fraioli gleans unique insights and inspiration from a wide range of athletes, coaches, and personalities in the sport of running through compelling longform conversations you won’t hear anywhere else.
In this episode, which was recorded in August while the men's 1500m final at the Paris Olympics was taking place—if nothing else, listen in for our live reactions during that race—we spoke about pressure: what it is, where it comes from, and how we navigate it in running, work, and other aspects of our life. It was an insightful one, and we hope you feel the same way, so tune in wherever you listen to podcasts.
This latest episode is my quarterly conversation with Like the Wind magazine co-founder and editor Simon Freeman. We recorded the episode back in April and I put it out yesterday. Ordinarily it coincides with the release of a new issue of LtW, in which an excerpt of the conversation usually appears, but the latest edition of the magazine is “by women, about women, for everyone,” so Simon and I sat this one out. (You can buy a copy or subscribe here.) We still had a great chat, however, about a few topics that both of us have spent quite a bit of time thinking about: how we handle change, shifting priorities over time, defining our values, and emphasizing quality in our work. We quite enjoyed it, and hope you do to, so tune in wherever you listen to podcasts.
In this episode Simon Freeman and Mario Fraioli talk about what it means for an amateur athlete to adopt a "professional" mindset when it comes to training and racing: being intentional with your time and workouts, taking the work seriously, not giving into your feelings, eliminating excuses, not overcomplicating things, and a lot more. We also discuss what professionals and elites can take away from us amateur athletes: the benefits of a well-rounded life, having interests, hobbies, and other "productive distractions" outside of the sport, dealing with failure, maintaining a healthy relationship with running, and a lot more.
This week's conversation with Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows is a follow-up to Episode 226, which was released back in August. In this one, we discuss how Jennifer spent her sabbatical over the summer and what she experienced visiting various run crews around the country (and even a couple internationally). She told me about what she hoped to get out of the trip, the feelings of culture, connection, and belonging she experienced along the way, how it all impacted her, what surprised her, and a lot more.
For this episode of the podcast, Simon Freeman proposed a philosophical discussion about seasonality and consistency and I was all about it. We talked about when to rest and when to build, running as a means to an end versus running as a lifestyle, the “flywheel effect,” and more.
This week, I sat down with my right-hand man Chris Douglas and answered questions about the Olympic Trials Marathon start-time controversy, things I’ve changed my mind on, the importance of the weekly long run, time versus distance-based training prescriptions, and a lot more.
In this conversation, coach Megan Young talks about where her insatiable appetite for learning comes from, the importance of establishing effective communication strategies with athletes and colleagues, and what she means by living a high-performance lifestyle. Megan told me who and what opened her eyes toward coaching as a career path, what that path has looked like for her over the past 15 years, and why she believes coaches need coaches. She also talked about the importance of care and connection in the role of a coach, understanding the difference between passion and purpose, her personal goal to impact 100 million lives through her work, and a lot more.
This week's episode of the podcast is with Stuart McMillan, CEO of ALTIS, and widely regarded as one of the best sprint coaches in the world. In this conversation, which easily would have gone another couple hours if we hadn’t run out of time, Stu and I cover a wide range of topics, from coffee and music to Stu’s former life as a DJ. We get into all things coaching, including how Stu got his start and how his approach has evolved over the past 30 years, creativity and how it influences his approach to coaching, the “philosopher-coach” and putting an emphasis on critical thinking and question asking, taking a systems approach to working with athletes and life in general, and so, so much more.
This week I had an awesome conversation with Don Swartz, who coaches at North Bay Aquatics in Marin County, California, and is someone I respect, admire, and try to emulate in my own life. I recently sat down with Don for a couple hours at his kitchen table to talk about his coaching journey, how he approached working with swimmers despite never being a competitive swimmer himself, founding the Creative Performance Institute in the 1970s and teaching the mental side of sport to coaches and athletes, how he stays sharp, what keeps him going, and a lot more.
This week I had a wonderful conversation with my good friend Brad Stulberg. In this one, the first installment of a new series I’m calling Coach to Coach, Brad and I discuss the craft of coaching and highlight the parallels and through lines that exist between working with athletes and working with executives and entrepreneurs. We also dive into his new book, Master of Change, and talk about how to navigate change: personally, professionally, athletically, and societally. Brad explains the concept of what he calls “rugged flexibility,” he differentiates between responding and reacting to things that happen to us, and a lot more.
