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Good morning! We are in the thick of the fall racing season right now and the day-to-day business of coaching is humming along at a relentlessly quick pace. It’s one of my favorite times of the year: the energy is high, races are happening nearly every weekend, and athletes’ emotions are all over the place (and sometimes the coach’s too!). That said, my typical writing windows won’t be open quite as wide the next two months so please forgive me if things are a bit snappier than usual around here. Let’s get right to it.

Quick Splits

— The Chicago Marathon was this past Sunday and unless this is the first piece of running-related content that you’ve consumed in the past couple days then you’re probably aware that Ruth Chepng'etich of Kenya shattered the women’s world record, running 2:09:56 to become the first woman in history to run under 2:10 (and 2:11, for that matter). It’s an eye-popping performance and arguably the most impressive women’s record on the books at any distance. And yet, it’s being met with as much if not more skepticism as excitement, which, in my opinion, is both incredibly sad and totally warranted. I’ve gotten more messages and questions about Chepng'etich’s record than I can possibly respond to so I’ll leave it at this: There’s part of me that’s awestruck by a woman breaking 2:10 in the marathon for the first time in history. Honestly, didn’t think I’d see it in my lifetime. At the same time it’s hard not to have reservations about it. The record itself has taken a head-spinning nosedive in recent years, Chepng'etich’s progression is an interesting one, her association with agent Federico Rosa is unfortunate, and the current doping crisis plaguing Kenya is hard to ignore. Sitting with this tension sucks but it’s the harsh and complicated reality of being a fan of the sport in 2024.

— Coach Jack Mullaney’s charges from HOKA Northern Arizona Elite had solid day in Chicago on Sunday with Alex Masai finishing 9th overall in his debut, running 2:08:51, a new team record, while 38-year-old Lauren Hagens finished 13th in the women’s race, running 2:25:47. Jack’s six mental tools for racing the marathon, whether you’re one of his pros or an age-grouper reading this who’s trying to get the best out of themselves, are worth sharpening before the next time you step on the start line. “I view a marathon as a work of art over the course of four months. And sure, everyone wants to focus on the outcome, but it’s not so much about the time as much as the person you’ve become through that process,” Jack said. “You’re going to get better as an athlete if you continue to show up and own that process every single day.”

— I recently sat down with my right-hand man Chris Douglas and answered reader and listener questions about the updated Boston Marathon qualifying standards, balancing gym sessions with running workouts, how to better manage long runs when you’re an older athlete, what is exciting me most in running at the moment, advice for aspiring coaches, and a lot more. Check it out wherever you listen to the morning shakeout podcast or at this handy link.

— This was a great short Track & Field News profile on double Olympic medalist Grant Fisher that mostly covers his relationship with Mike Scannell, who coached him in high school and took the reins back earlier this year after Fisher left the Bowerman Track Club. The part that jumped out to me is something I wish more coaches would understand: Programming is always a hypothesis, it’s never an exact science. You use a combination of knowledge, experience, and evidence to build out a training plan that you think should work, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll achieve the intended result—and even if/when you do, you still have to go back to the drawing board afterward, polish the strengths, identify weaknesses, fill in gaps, and formulate a new hypothesis for the next go-around. “All by myself in the hotel room at 5 a.m. after going out and all that,” explains Scannell, “and the thing that went through my mind, honestly, was ‘Holy crap. It worked.’ I mean, we laid out all this stuff and said, ‘You know, this should work.’ Holy cow, what are the chances?”

+ The aforelinked article pairs well with this podcast interview Scannell did with Amby Burfoot and George Hirsch for their Running: State of the Sport podcast. It was a great episode that got into how Scannell connected with Fisher’s family way back when, why he was a reluctant coach, how he approaches training Fisher now as a world-class athlete versus 10 years ago when he was a high schooler, and a lot more.

— Last podcast mention for today, I promise: Check out this episode of the FastTalk podcast with guest Dr. Stephen Seiler, who explains what makes “the Norwegian method” of training so successful. Seiler, an exercise physiologist and researcher who has lived in Norway for nearly 30 years and worked closely with their Olympic committee, describes what he calls the Norwegian Mindful Development Pyramid, which, at its base is held up by an endurance-loving culture and at its tip is topped off by what he calls “intelligent failures.” It’s more of a holistic approach to how Norwegians view and approach sport in general, which is far more longterm, layered, and nuanced than thinking that the secret lies in running two threshold workouts in a day and keeping your lactate readings within a certain range of millimoles. In fact, Seiler argues, what’s made Norwegian endurance athletes so successful has very little to do with a specific training methodology at all. “I know that, yes, this Ingebrigtsen model with some of these specific sessions, like the 20 times 400, have become kind of the rage,” Seiler explains, “but I have to say, and I’m just going to be honest, for a lot of athletes who did not have that platform, that base, that they have when they’ve tried to do these double threshold sessions, 20 times 400 sessions, they have initially had improvement and then they’ve either gotten injured or kind of collapsed, because they don’t necessarily have the foundation to tolerate the load and the huge mechanical load of these sessions. So it has not been a universal victory in Norway with these methods.”

— A few years ago when my Nana passed I took a lot of comfort in music, two Mumford and Sons songs specifically, Beloved and Guiding Light. Here’s an awesome acoustic version of the latter from Marcus Mumford, the range of his voice reflective of the mix of emotions he’s experiencing while performing it. This rendition made me feel some things I hadn’t felt in a while—at a time I didn’t know I needed to feel them. Good music will do that to you.

— From the archives (Issue 101, 7 years ago this week): I have a running Apple Notes document that I use to compile this newsletter each week. It’s chock full of links, one liners, extended thoughts and various other ideas that may or may not ever see the light of day. It kind of resembles writer Steven Johnson’s Spark File, which I enjoyed learning more about last week. My own version of this document has proven to be an essential tool in my weekly writing process as I often pull things from it that I first added weeks (and sometimes months) before. “The key is to capture as many hunches as possible, and to spend as little time as possible organizing or filtering or prioritizing them,” Johnson writes. “Just get it all down as it comes to you, and make regular visits back to re-acquaint yourself with all your past explorations. You'll be shocked how many useful hunches you've forgotten.” Do you use something like a spark file in your own writing? Any other tools or tricks that prove consistently handy? Hit me back with a reply to this email.

— A big thank you to my partners at New Balance for supporting my work this month (and throughout 2024). A few days ago they released the Fresh Foam X 1080v14 and I am super stoked to put some miles on this shoe. The 1080 has been my go-to daily trainer for the past 5 years—it’s the shoe that I run 75% if not more of my weekly miles in—and this latest version looks to pick up right where the v13 left off. (Around here we call it the official unofficial shoe of the morning shakeout.) As the workhorse in my stable, the 1080 is durable enough to handle the daily pounding underneath my feet but lithe and responsive enough to run fast when I feel like it. (In fact, it’s the only shoe I took with me on vacation a month ago.) The Fresh Foam X 1080v14 is available at your favorite run specialty store or at newbalance.com (men’s sizes here, women’s sizes here).

Workout of the Week: The Alternating Miles Long Run

The long run, for me, is a fickle beast, with the emphasis changing from week to week depending on what we’re trying to get out of it. It doesn’t always have to be long and slow; sometimes we’ll alternate paces to keep things interesting and get a little more aerobic bang for our buck per mile. The Alternating Miles Long Run, which bounces back and forth between marathon pace and the faster end of your normal training pace, is one of my favorite sessions to assign my athletes, whether they’re in marathon training or not. Here are the details.

The bottom line.

“The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way.”

—Diane Arbus, photographer

That's it for Issue 466. If you found any part of it to be informative, insightful, inspiring, or interesting, 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

P.S. Running CIM on December 8? (Or any marathon this fall, really!) Check out this virtual panel I was a part of recently alongside Precision Fuel and Hydration founder Andy Blow, CIM race director Scott Abbott, and 2:36 marathoner and podcast host Tina Muir. We talked about all things marathon race nutrition to help you prepare to go the distance. It’s chock full of free and useful information that you can apply to your training and racing strategies. (And if you’re interested in trying PF&H products for yourself, check out this link and save 15% off your first order.)

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