The Morning Shakeout Podcast

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.

Podcast: Episode 211 with Brendan Leonard

Brendan Leonard is an ultrarunner, writer, award-winning filmmaker, speaker, and creator of one of my favorite websites on the internet, Semi-Rad.com. On top of all that, he’s also a new dad, which we talked quite a bit about in this conversation. Brendan is someone whose work I’ve admired for quite a while now. He’s got an unmatched ability to tell stories, use humor, and share drawings that convey many of the things we all feel and experience as runners, and as human beings in general. In this conversation, we bounced all over the place, covering topics like ultrarunning, creativity, storytelling, self-employment, parenthood, where and how all these things overlap and intersect, and a lot more.

Podcast: Common Ground | Episode 7

I’m excited to bring you the 7th installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinée Dorame of the Grounded Podcast. In this episode, we catch up on what we’ve both been up to of late personally, professionally, and athletically, we talk marathons, discuss music, and a whole lot more.

Podcast: Re-Run with Katie Arnold

This week, I’m bringing back an incredible conversation I had a little over three years ago with Katie Arnold. Katie is mom, a heck of an ultrarunner, and a great writer, whose memoir, Running Home, really spoke to me on a number of levels. In it, we talked about “smile” and “flow” and why those words are important to her when she races, reverse goal-setting and how this strategy sets her up for success, and balancing competitive running with the rest of her life. We also discussed the importance of observation and paying attention, how death can wake us up to the powerful realization that everything is changing all the time, and how her book came to be and what she hopes readers take away from it.

Podcast: Re-Run with Karen Boen

This week’s re-run episode is an incredibly special one to me. It’s with my college cross country and track coach, Karen Boen, who is someone that’s had a profound and lasting impact on my life. Coach saw qualities and abilities in me 20 years ago that I didn’t know I had, and she helped me to not only become a better runner, but she taught me a lot about hard work, leadership, caring for other people, and what it means to be a good teammate and human being. A lot of how I think about training, and coaching, and life in general is due to her influence and I am incredibly grateful to have run for her during my time at Stonehill College.

Podcast: Re-Run with Lindsay Flanagan

I do not have a new conversation to share with you this week but I am going to re-run a previous episode of the podcast with Lindsay Flanagan that was recorded in early 2020, just a few weeks before the Olympic Trials Marathon, where she ended up finishing 12th. Since that day in Atlanta, Lindsay has made some huge breakthroughs in the marathon and as a fan, it’s been super fun to watch. This past April she was 11th at the Paris Marathon in a personal best 2:26:54, and then, just a few months later in July, she won the Gold Coast Marathon in Australia, breaking the tape in a new course record, and another personal best, 2:24:43. It was fun to revisit this conversation and hear Lindsay’s thoughts on the marathon and what she’s learned from it over the years, dealing with injuries throughout her career and navigating periods of time when she couldn’t run, what she’s learned as a coach of age-group athletes, and a lot more.

Podcast: Episode 210 with Peter Gilmore

This week’s episode is a long one but it’s a pretty special conversation with one of my first post-collegiate running heroes, Peter Gilmore—who, incredibly and ironically enough, is now my teammate on the West Valley Track Club Masters racing team. In this conversation, we talked about all of that but what I was really interested in was his path back to the competitive side of the sport a few years ago after an 8-year break from serious training and racing. We got into how and why he came back in 2018, as well as why he retired in 2010 in the first place, and that part of the conversation went in a direction I didn’t expect it to go. We also talked about what’s different for him now as a Masters athlete now versus when he was younger, what it was like spending six weeks training in Kenya right after college and what he learned from that experience, and a whole lot more. 

Podcast: Common Ground | Episode 6

In the sixth installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinée Dorame of the Grounded Podcast, we shared our respective personal updates before geeking out on all things World Athletics Championships, which just wrapped up over the weekend. 

Podcast: Episode 209 with Steve Magness

Steve Magness makes his second appearance on the podcast. In this episode, Steve opened up about his struggles with OCD, which isn’t something he’s ever talked about publicly before. We talked about the idea of toughness, and “tough love,” and how his perceptions of both have changed over time. We also discussed different leadership styles, what works and what doesn’t, and a lot more.

Podcast: Episode 208 with Diane Nukuri

In this episode, three-time Olympian Diane Nukuri talks about her childhood in Burundi and how running came into her life. She told me how she’s used running as a vehicle for exploration and opportunity from the time she was a teenager and also what it was like to leave her home country for track meet when she was 16, knowing she wasn’t going to go back. Diane talked openly about adjusting to life in Canada and then the U.S., she me told some good stories about her partner, five-time U.S. Olympian Abdi Abdirahman, we discussed how having a good “off” switch has helped her have a long competitive running career, and a lot more.

Podcast: Episode 207 with Marquis Bowden

This week’s conversation is with Marquis Bowden, who you may remember from Episode 132 back in the fall of 2020. In this episode, we talk about that transition and what it’s been like for him. We discuss trauma, hardship, reaching out for help, and prioritizing mental health. Marquis told me about trying to take his running to the next level, navigating injuries from both a physical and emotional standpoint, the importance of leaning into his community, especially during tough times, and a lot more.