Podcast: Episode 215 with Marielle Hall

Mario Fraioli | October 24, 2022

“I want to win races, I want to compete in the Olympics again, I want to be able to see myself as a major player in this sport but it really is just [that] I want my body to be able to do what I feel like it’s capable of doing. That’s what excites me most—maybe that’ll be a day, one race, maybe it’ll be a couple a year, but it’s just if I could get back to the one race where you feel like yourself or you feel like the work that you’re doing accumulates to a version of yourself that you believe in, then I’d be pretty pleased.”

This week I spoke with Olympian Marielle Hall, who represented the U.S. in the 10,000m at the Rio Games in 2016. She’s also a four-time world championship qualifier, finished 8th in the 10,000m at the 2019 world championships in Doha, and won a national 15K title on the roads in 2020. This episode came to be a few weeks after I was introduced to Marielle last month in Mammoth Lakes, California, where she’s been training at altitude in preparation for her half-marathon debut later this fall.

In this conversation, Marielle and I talked about how she’s using this training camp as an opportunity to re-center herself and set the tone for the year ahead. She told me about traps that she’s gotten stuck in over the years and how she’s trying to maintain focus and keep the main thing the main thing. We discussed how she’s feeling now versus a year ago when she left the Bowerman Track Club, and when she knew it was time to change her training environment. Marielle talked to me about moving up in distance over the years and the differences between racing on the track and on the road, how she sees herself now that she’s out of the hole of injury and uncertainty, and what she thinks she’s capable of when she’s healthy and firing on all cylinders. We also discussed the ways in which her relationship to running has evolved over the years, what she hopes it looks like moving forward, and so, so much more.

Marielle Hall: Instagram

the morning shakeout: Instagram | Twitter

Mario Fraioli: Website | Strava

This episode is brought to you by:

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Music and editing for this episode of the morning shakeout podcast by John Summerford. Episode cover photo of Marielle Hall by David Bracetty for the 4 Years Ago Project used with permission.