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 190 with Bolota Asmerom

Bolota Asmerom is an Eritrean-American who has called the United States home since the age of 10. The 43-year-old represented his home country of Eritrea in the 5000m at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. In 2004, he finished third in the 5000m at the U.S. Olympic Trials but couldn’t go to the Games because he didn’t have the Olympic A standard, and in 2008 he finished fourth in the 5000 at the Trials after some last lap contact. All these years later, running is still a huge part of Bolota’s life: he still trains and races locally in the Bay Area where lives, he coaches and advises a handful of athletes, and he’s also the co-founder and co-owner of Renegade Running, a specialty running shop and community hub in Oakland, California.

Podcast: Episode 189 with Kate Grace

Kate Grace is a lot of things, not least of which is 2016 Olympian in the 800m and one of the top middle-distance runners in the U.S. for much of the past ten years. At the age of 33 she’s running faster than ever and isn’t showing signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Podcast: Episode 188 with Dylan Bowman

I recently got on the mic with my friend Dylan Bowman, who first appeared on the podcast back on Episode 14 in 2018, and we caught up with one another about all sorts of stuff. In this episode, we talk about where we’re at in our respective lives right now, what we both have going on athletically and professionally, where we see certain parts of the industry going in the next few years, and a lot more. 

Podcast: Episode 187 | Best of 2021

The 50th and final episode of the year is a “best of” compilation of highlights from 12 of the most impactful conversations that I’ve had over the past 12 months. In this episode you’ll hear from 13 people whose experiences, insight, and/or advice stood out to me. They are, in order of episode release date: Alexi Pappas, Craig Curley, Dinée Dorame, Nathan Martin, Keith Kelly, Jorge Maravilla and Stephanie Howe, Mark Coogan, Christine Gould, Alison Mariella Désir, Jon Green, George Hirsch, and Alex Varner. 

Podcast: Re-Run with Aliphine Tuliamuk

We’re taking the next couple weeks off to recharge so we’re re-running one of my favorite episodes from the early days of the podcast, a conversation I had in May of 2018 with Aliphine Tuliamuk. It was episode 15, I am fairly certain it was Aliphine’s first podcast, and at the time not many people knew her story despite the fact that she was nine-time national champion! Since then she’s added another national championship to her resume—the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials title—and now she’s a household name in American distance running. This is a great episode to revisit if you listened to it a few years ago and certainly one to check out if you didn’t. You’ll learn all about Aliphine’s upbringing in Kenya, how she got into running, what it was like coming to the United States and assimilating to a new country and culture, how she deals with pressure, and a lot more.

Podcast: Episode 186 with Ken Rideout

Ken Rideout is the most requested return guest in the history of the podcast. He first appeared on the show almost exactly two years ago on Episode 91 and before you listen to this conversation I recommend going back to check that one out if you haven’t already to get Ken’s backstory, which will help set the foundation for this second go-around. 

Podcast: Episode 185 with Ryan Holiday

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.

Podcast: Episode 184 | Ask Mario Anything

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.  

Podcast: Episode 183 with Alex Varner

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.

Podcast: Episode 182 with J.M. Thompson

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.