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.
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.
I recently sat down with my good friend and three-time podcast guest Simon Freeman, the co-founder, editor, and publisher of my favorite running magazine, Like The Wind, for the third installment of our yet-to-be named quarterly conversation, which you can listen to wherever you get the morning shakeout podcast. An excerpt of this exchange can be found in Issue #36 of LtW, which comes out later this week. In this one, Simon and I talk all about defining yourself a runner, why many runners tend to identify themselves in a particular way, how identity influences the products you buy and the content you consume, the importance of diversifying your interests and pursuits in the sport, and a lot more.
Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows is a runner and serves as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis. I’ve always appreciated her perspective on running, the industry, and this beautiful and messy path we’re all navigating called life. This is actually the first of what will be a two-part conversation. In this one, we set the table: Get to know Jennifer a little bit, learn more about her paths to becoming a runner and a member of the clergy, and hear us talk about running, community, belonging and the various ways those things all intersect and interact with one another. It left me excited for part two, which we’ll record later this year and I’ll release in November sometime. In that one, we’ll talk specifically about the crews and clubs Jennifer visited with, who she met, what she experienced, and what she took away from it all.
This week, my right-hand man Chris Douglas serves me up some listener questions in an old-school Ask Mario Anything episode of the podcast. In this one, I answer inquiries about my favorite books, “lighthouses” in my life, breaking through in the marathon, returning to running after a stress fracture, and a lot more.
I recently sat down with my good friend and three-time podcast guest Simon Freeman, the co-founder, editor, and publisher of my favorite running magazine, Like The Wind, for the second installment of our yet-to-be named quarterly conversation, which you can listen to wherever you get the morning shakeout podcast or at this handy link. An excerpt of this exchange can be found in Issue #36 of LtW, which comes out later this week. In this one, Simon and I talk all about coaching: our experiences with being coached and what we got out of them, the different forms that coaching takes, the impact a coach can have on an athlete, and a lot more.