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Good morning! My wife, dog, and I are laying low in the high-altitude environs of the Sierra Nevada this week enjoying a midsummer recharge of sorts. Let’s get right to it.

Quick Splits

— Mark Coogan, coach of Team New Balance Boston and a two-time guest on the morning shakeout podcast, recently had a conversation with hosts Ross Tucker and Mike Finch on The Real Science of Sport podcast and it was an excellent listen. (You can check it out wherever you get your podcasts or at this handy link.) The title of the episode is “How to Make an Olympic Athlete,” and while Tucker and Finch really tried hard to pry some novel and eye-opening insights from Coogan, his framework for developing world-beaters can be boiled down to the following 5 no-bullshit bullet points: 1. It’s important that you care about your athletes as people first. 2. Create a family atmosphere on your team and build a fun, challenging environment where everyone supports one another no matter what. 3. Be an aerobic monster and put in honest (but not insane) work for a long period of time. 4. Don’t just be a good runner—be a good athlete that prioritizes health, happiness, and making good decisions. 5. On race day, try to be there at the bell so you can give yourself a shot at doing something special.

— A few months ago a good friend texted me for training advice. He asked specifically about exogenous ketones and power meters, knowing full well that he was poking the bear, and this is a cleaned-up version of the rant (a few have called it a manifesto) that he got back from me. If you think someone might benefit from reading it, please feel free to send them either the web link or the IG post. (It pairs well with my Training Principles For Running post that I shared earlier this year.)

— Is the end of social media near? Marloes De Vries, an artist and illustrator, wrote a compelling essay that doesn’t explicitly answer that question, but that does do a nice job reflecting on the struggles of expressing oneself and creating community in today’s online landscape. I largely agree with most of what she writes—despite advancements in the reach and capabilities of social media, in a lot of ways it can be harder than ever to find meaningful connection online these days—and I’ll add that I’ve long been skeptical of social media as a place to genuinely connect with people online. Sure, it can happen, but the folks who run IG, X, Facebook, TikTok, etc., don’t give a shit if you find connection on their platforms—all they care about is that you spend enough time on them that it puts more money in their shareholders’ pockets by way of you scrolling mindlessly, comparing yourself to others, getting roped into a shouting match, looking at ads, buying something, paying for a subscription, or however else they can squeeze a penny out of you. I don’t believe real community exists on most forms of social media. I don’t believe it can when who sees what you post is influenced by an algorithm that’s tuned for “engagement,” enragement, promotion, commerce, and myriad forms of emotionally tuned content. Building community is the false promise and fool’s errand of social media. That said, it can be an OK tool, at times, to form loose connections with others and let people know what you’re doing, thinking, or selling, but to build community online—that can and often does eventually move offline in different ways—better options exist: group chats, Discord, Slack, email newsletters, and some others that aren’t immediately coming to mind. None of these things scale as quickly or as big as social media, of course, and they’re inherently more private versus public forms, but how many genuine connections can a person actually have in their life anyway? In my experience the connections these non-algorithmically powered platforms help facilitate are more consistent, lasting, and generally more genuine than what you’ll find on social media. You can get to know people on a deeper level, build trust and accountability, and facilitate productive discussions that actually lead to better understanding, change, etc. That ain’t happening on social media—no matter how hard any of us try or how good our intentions are—because at the end of the day we have zero say in who or what purpose that platform is serving. (Ironically enough, most of what I wrote here was left as a comment on this Instagram post by Carolyn Su that I was tagged in a few weeks back.)

— Jason Fitzgerald, who I competed against in college some two decades ago, recently invited me to be a guest on The Strength Running Podcast to talk about why I love the mile so much, returning to racing the mile as a Masters athlete and how I structured my training this past winter and spring, training considerations for older athletes in general, the importance of moving well before you move often, and a lot more. You can find this one wherever you listen to podcasts (just search “The Strength Running Podcast”) or at this handy link.

— Showing my age yet again through some of the music I share, here’s The Notorious B.I.G. performing “Juicy” at MTV’s Spring Break in 1995. Aside from enjoying this song for close to 30 years now, this version, which I only recently discovered, stands out for just how damn good it is from start to finish. Biggie was a true master of his craft: focused, in the flow, and sounding incredible no matter the environment.

— From the archives (Issue 87, 7 years ago this week): I’m not one for reading fiction but I have an appreciation for accomplished writers regardless of the genre they specialize in. John Grisham, who has popped onto my radar a couple times in recent weeks, falls into that category. The best-selling author has penned over 30 novels in the past 30 years. You don’t become that prolific by accident. The guy can focus. “When I’m writing, it’s five days week. I start around 7 each morning in my office. The routine rarely varies, it’s pretty structured,” explains Grisham, who finished his first book at the age of 32. “It’s the same spot, the same computer. The office is a separate building with no phones, faxes or internet because I don’t want the distraction. I don’t work online. I keep it offline. It’s the same cup of coffee, the same type of coffee, the same everything.” These two traits—being able to eliminate distractions so he can work with intent (and take the time to recover after big writing efforts), and establishing a routine that works for him—are consistent with two of the main themes found in Peak Performance, the book I reviewed in Issue 82. “That 4-5 hour period is crucial,” Grisham said in a 2014 interview with Amazon Books. “I never write after noon. I’m done. You write hard for 3-4 hours, your brain is pretty well done.”

— A big thank you to the partner brands that help make this newsletter possible: Tracksmith, New Balance, Precision Fuel & Hydration, and Final Surge. All of these companies have missions I believe in and products that I trust and use myself on a regular basis. One of the best ways to support the newsletter is by patronizing the partners that help keep it going week in and week out. Check out some of the discount codes and special offers available exclusively to readers of the morning shakeout at this link.

Workout of the Week: The Fartlek Session

Fartlek, in its purest form, is unstructured speed work. “Speed play” (n.b. emphasis on “play” is mine) is its literal translation from Swedish. Now, I’m as guilty as anyone else who has ever called a structured interval workout done off the track a “fartlek” session, but if we’re being honest that’s not fartlek: it’s just an interval workout. A fartlek is simply a series of faster pickups with a recovery walk or jog in between. It’s technically an interval workout, yes, but the length and speed of the pickups, as well as the recovery periods in between, are not pre-planned and totally up to you in the moment. Fartlek is my favorite “no pressure” workout that allows you to get some solid work in without feeling like you need to hit a specific pace or stretch yourself further than you’re ready to go. Here are the details.

The bottom line.

“I’m going to die trying today or I’m going to die wondering. I don’t want to die wondering.”

— Jessica Hull describing what she told herself before running 3:50.83 in the 1500m on Sunday at the Diamond League meeting in Paris, where she ran a 5-second personal best to finish second behind Faith Kipyegon, who broke her own world-record with a 3:49.04 clocking.

That's it for Issue 452. If you enjoyed it, please forward this email to a friend (or five!) and encourage them to subscribe at this link so that it lands in their inbox next Tuesday.

Thanks for reading,

Mario

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