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.
Sid Baptista is a lot of things: he’s a husband and a father, a runner, a community builder and leader, and also an entrepreneur. He’s the founder of the PIONEERS Run Crew, which is based in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, and he’s also the creator of PYNRS performance streetwear brand, an apparel line with a focus on serving diverse people, with diverse body types from diverse communities.
My guest this week, making his second appearance on the podcast, is Simon Freeman. Simon is the co-founder, editor, and publisher of Like The Wind magazine. In this conversation, we mostly geeked out about all things publishing and media. Simon told me about how Like the Wind has evolved over the past four years, the exciting position the magazine is in right now, and where he and Julie hope to take it moving forward. We also talked about the current running media landscape and how it’s changed since our last conversation, the current state of Simon’s relationship with running (and the big goal he has on the horizon), and a lot more.
In this episode, Tommie Runz talks to me about the period of time he lived in Massachusetts, his troubled relationship with alcohol, and the journey he’s traveled to sobriety. He told me about when and how running came into his life and the path he followed to qualifying for the Boston Marathon. We discussed identity and how that’s shifted for him over the course of his life, what it’s like being a Black runner in his hometown of Detroit, and so much more.
In the fourth installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinee Dorame of the Grounded Podcast, Dinee has a lot of exciting updates as they relate to her professional life and athletic pursuits, we talk a little bit about a few of the high school track athletes that are exciting us right now, we discuss National Running Day, which is coming up on June 1, and a lot more.
This week we’re kicking it back to Episode 64 with Frank Gagliano, one of the greatest track coaches of all-time, which was recorded three years ago at his home in Rye, New York. Gagliano, who is now 85 years old, has coached at every level of the sport over the past 60 years—high school, college, and professionally—and he’s had great success at all of them. He has a love for the sport, his family, his athletes, and his country that is unmatched. This is a conversation about coaching and life that had a profound impact on me—and I know it will do the same for you.
Laura Schmitt was the longtime cross country and track coach at Redwood High School in Larkspur, California, where she was at the helm for 35 years and led some of the best teams and athletes in the state. She’s also a wife, a mom, and grandmother—not to mention an entrepreneur who founded a play-based preschool that’s still going strong today as well as the first treadmill studio on the West Coast. In this conversation, we talked about running, community, coaching, family, parenting, and entrepreneurship—all things Laura knows a lot about and has had a lot of success in over the years.
Jinghuan Liu Tervalon is a mother and a runner from Southern California. She started running 14 years ago to deal with heartache and to do something for herself before she eventually found a community that she connected with and started training in earnest for races. She’s also a writer whose work has been published in Runner’s World and Women’s Running. In fact, last year she won a creative grant through the Brooks RunFulness Project to create a multimedia book project that showcases runners from the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. She serves on the board of Bras for Girls, and is an advocate for creating social change through running.
This episode with Tommy Rivers Puzey is a long, winding, and at times heavy conversation with someone I deeply respect and admire about life, death, cancer, identity, hope, potential, love, gratitude, and more that I feel privileged to have had in person and that I am honored to share here with all of you.
In the third installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinee Dorame of the Grounded Podcast, we catch up on all things Boston Marathon, talk a little bit about the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, look ahead to what’s exciting each of us in the month of May, and more.
I’m excited to share the Racers’ Roundtable I hosted at Tracksmith’s Trackhouse this past Friday with guests Tommie Runz, Erica Stanley Dottin, Mick Iacofano, Caroline Williams, Ken Rideout, Katie Kellner, and Colin Bennie. A mix of first-timers and veterans, elites and age-group competitors, locals and out of towners, we talked all things Boston Marathon: how the Boston mindset is different from other marathons, dealing with pre-race excitement, lessons learned from past Boston experiences, what they were most looking forward to on race day, and a lot more.
