the morning shakeout | issue 478

Slowing things down, embracing imperfection, your running form matters less than you think, and a lot more.

Ringing in the new year with some muddy trails. (Shot on my iPhone.)

Good morning! I’m back from holiday break and feeling as good as I’ve felt in quite a while. Not working or having many obligations for the past 16 days was something of a novel experience for me, and even though I knew I needed it, I didn’t know how much I needed it until I had that first week under my belt. The past year had its share of challenges, to say the least, and finally getting the opportunity to take a long pause to rest, reflect, and recharge came at a welcome time. Christine and I were able to visit family and spend time with close friends, enjoy some downtime at home, and even escape up the coast with our dog, Tahoe, for a few days. I slept hard, ran a bit, read a lot (right now I’m in the middle of Wright Thompson’s The Barn, highly recommend), and wrote regularly in my journal, which is something I got away from in 2024. Gratitude is a platitude that’s often overused but I’m incredibly thankful for this time to slow down and reconnect with what’s most important to me. It’s easy (and exciting!) to get caught up in the relentless pace of work, and running, and this or that pursuit, but the past two-plus weeks helped serve as a useful reminder of how essential it is to slow things down from time to time so you can move forward more mindfully, sustainably, and intentionally. (This applies as much to running as it does to life.)

To kick off the new year, I thought it might be helpful to do a re-introduction for those of you who aren’t that familiar with me or my work here. I’m Mario Fraioli and I’ve been writing the morning shakeout since late 2015. My experiences as an athlete, coach, and journalist have all shaped the lens through which I see the world. Every week in this newsletter I share my thoughts on things I’ve experienced, observed, read, watched, or listened to that I can provide further insight on and/or have affected me in some way. A lot of it has to do with running, training, and/or coaching, but I also regularly explore other worthwhile topics that interest me such as philosophy, photography, leadership, creativity, coffee, physical and mental health, music, and more. As I wrote in last week’s issue, it’s my hope that most weeks you’ll come across something that resonates with you, informs you, entertains you, or inspires you in some way.

The name of the newsletter reflects the spirit in which I aim to write it. In running parlance, a “morning shakeout” is a relatively short morning jog that’s meant to shake out the cobwebs before a race or workout later in the day. Keeping it short in duration is key, otherwise it ceases to be a shakeout. We’re not trying to go too long, which is my goal with the newsletter as well. (Every once in a while, however, and this may be one of those weeks, I get a little carried away.) The morning shakeout can be done solo—I write this for me as much as anyone else—or alongside friends, which is why I share it every week. It’s contemplative and/or conversational in nature, which is the vibe I’ve been going for here since Day 1. When sharing a morning shakeout with others, as I do here every Tuesday, you talk about what’s on your mind, or something interesting, informative, or entertaining that caught your fancy. That’s why this missive is in the form of an email—all you have to do is hit reply and boom, we’re in conversation about a topic I’ve brought up that resonates with you. I’ve had countless exchanges over the years with readers from around the world and almost all of them put a huge smile on my face. (And now, if you’re reading this on Substack, you can just leave a comment below the post.) But the beauty of the morning shakeout is you don’t have to say anything at all. Most folks just hang out quietly in the back, take it all in, think about something on their own, and maybe chime in once in a blue moon. No judgement here either way.

As we stumble into 2025 the run of show here will more or less be the same. I’m trying to structure my weeks in a way that allows me to pursue some longer form writing I haven’t made the space for in recent years. (Which I’ll of course share here first when it’s ready.) The podcast will remain on its once-a-month cadence, I’ve got some new workouts coming at ya soon thanks to contributions from some of my coaching colleagues, a few collaborations I’m excited about, and a surprise or two up my sleeve that I’ll share in the near future.

OK, this introduction went a lot longer than originally intended. Let’s get right to it.

Quick Splits

— What happens when a group of Olympic sprinters runs an all-out mile as part of an off-season workout? In a word, carnage. In all seriousness, watching Olympic 200m gold medalist Gabby Thomas, silver medalist hurdler Cyréna Samba-Mayela, world 4 x 100m gold medalist Tamara Clark, and other world-class short-distance specialists go waaaaaay out of their comfort zones was inspiring, and also evidenced just how different the demands of going all-out for half a lap, or even a full lap, is from spreading it out over four full circuits. Watch this video from TRACK: All-Access as the women go out kinda quick, gradually unravel in the middle, and either rally a bit over the final couple hundred meters or completely fall apart. It’s fascinating to watch their mechanics erode from start to finish as strides shorten, arms come up higher and higher, form fades, and cadence slows down. My favorite part of the whole thing is listening to the rhythm of their footfalls and hearing how that rhythm changed throughout the course of the mile. After the mile, the squad did a bunch of cruisey 100m reps and everyone looked much more at home.

— Bad night’s sleep? Don’t beat yourself up about it. Dr. David Lipman comes to the rescue with some pragmatic advice, and actions you can take, to keep both your health and performance (not to mention sanity) on track. “One could easily believe that they should be rushed to hospital after one instance of suboptimal circumstances,” he writes. “Don’t forget you are not a fragile organism, and you don’t need to chase perfection all the time. With this as the caveat, it is worth explaining the consequences of a poor night’s sleep, partially to help nudge you to focus on your sleep if you aren’t already making it a top priority but more so to use this as a vessel to then explain the counter measures we can take to help remedy the situation.” I used to be someone who had a hard time shutting down at the end of the day. My mind would be going a million miles an hour and there was always more to do, which made falling asleep a challenge. Here are the few simple changes that made a massive difference for me: 1. Gave myself a bedtime and try to stick it as best I can. 2. Stopped looking at screens an hour before bed. 3. iPhone/iPad not allowed in the bedroom. (Plug-in alarm clocks with battery backups still exist and work great!) 4. Got a reading light and read physical books in bed instead of on my iPad. 5. Stopped ruminating or beating myself up if I didn’t sleep well. (Also, I don’t wear a watch or sleep tracker to bed. In my experience this f*cks with peoples’ heads more than it helps provide any actionable data. You should know whether you slept well or not when you wake up in the morning.)

— This most recent episode of the Happiness Lab Podcast with Dr. Laurie Santos about how to embrace imperfection—guided by Oliver Burkeman, author of Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time For What Counts—felt like it was made for me. As a recovering perfectionist it never hurts to be reminded that it’s impossible to “whole-ass” (my new favorite term, by the way) everything—more often than not, good enough is good enough. You have to pick your battles, whether it’s knocking things off your to-do list, balancing projects at work, hitting splits in a workout, answering all your emails, or feeling like the house needs to be spotless before having friends over for a meal.

— The headline of this article by Christine Yu—”Your Running Form Matters Less Than You Think”—is provocative, but it’s not inaccurate. For my money, most advice about running form is often overcomplicated, online gurus impose silly or downright stupid “rules” that must be adhered to, and more often than not people end up overthinking it, getting confused, and not really making any meaningful improvements. “Running technique does matter to some extent (when it comes to performance), but certainly not as much as many people try to make you believe,” said Bas Van Hooren, a sport science researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and a semiprofessional runner. So what does matter/help when it comes to “good” form? In my experience, having good general strength, decent movement mechanics, and repetition (i.e. running more frequently) make the biggest difference. As I wrote a couple years ago in Issue 378: Want to improve your running mechanics? Don’t overcomplicate it! Stay tall. That’s the main cue. Executing on that simple instruction will correct 95% of the issues that plague most runners. (It’s like telling a slouching student in class to “sit up straight.”) A smooth stride starts from the top down, not the other way around, so shift the initial emphasis away from what’s happening with your feet. By “staying tall,” you’ll keep your head focused forward, jaw relaxed, and shoulders squared, while also maintaining a healthy tension through the torso, hips, and glutes. As you propel yourself forward, swing your arms in a natural, relaxed way without allowing them to cross the midline in front of your body. Foot strike (there’s no one right way) and cadence (there is no magic number) will follow and fall into place when everything above the waist is properly stacked, aligned, and engaged.

— This live performance of “Texas Sun” from Khruangbin (featuring Leon Bridges) slaps. My friend, host of the Grounded Podcast, and occasional co-conspirator Dinée Dorame, introduced me to this song a few years ago and I’ve loved it ever since. It recently popped up on the Common Ground playlist we created a couple years ago and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect: late afternoon as the sun was setting while driving down the highway. (I wasn’t in Texas, and I’m not from there, but it still fit the mood.)

— From the archives (Issue 426, a year ago this week): I honestly have no idea if this is a new post or not—I feel like these may have been posted elsewhere before—but Kilian Jornet’s training principles should be required reading for any athlete, regardless of discipline, experience level, and/or competitive goals. They’re simple, straightforward, and have been proven to hold true over and over and over again. My favorite is “KISS,” i.e. Keep It Simple Stupid, which he says he stole from the speed skater Nils van der Poel. “We find more fancy to focus on that highlighted 1% that it’s told to us that makes the difference,” Kilian writes. “That’s bullshit. The 99% vs the 1%. Focus on building a great methodology that you find sustainable to do every day, week, month, year.” Now, as far as I know, the originator of the KISS philosophy was legendary Villanova track coach Jumbo Elliott, who popularized it in the 1950s and 60s. But either way, it’s stood the test of time and reminds me of one of my own training principles (which I borrowed from filmmaker Morgan Spurlock): Once you get fancy, fancy gets broken.

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I’m thrilled to share that the morning shakeout will continue to be supported by New Balance, Tracksmith, Precision Fuel & Hydration, and Final Surge in 2025, all brands that have missions I believe in and products that I trust and use myself on a regular basis. I’ve been fortunate to be in partnership with New Balance since 2020 (and have been running in their shoes a lot longer than that). In any given week I run in 3-4 different types of shoes, which is a privilege I don’t take for granted. Even if that’s not possible for you, having at least two pairs in your rotation—one for general mileage and one for speed workouts/races—can help each shoe last you a little longer, lessen the likelihood of injuries, and optimize performance and recovery. Here’s a detailed roundup of the different models of New Balance shoes I use for various types of runs throughout the week: the Fresh Foam X 1080v14, the FuelCell Rebel v4, FuelCell SuperComp Elite v4, and the Fresh Foam X Hierro v8.

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Workout of the Week: Deek’s Quarters

I first read about this workout, made popular by former Boston winner and marathon world champion Rob De Castella of Australia, in Michael Sandrock’s Running With The Legends (one of my favorite running books of all-time, for what it’s worth) when I was in high school. I first wrote about it for Competitor, now PodiumRunner, several years ago. The session’s construction is simple: 8 x 400m with a scant 200-meter float for “recovery” between repetitions. I like to say that this is a threshold run disguised as an interval workout. It’s efficient and effective but it ain’t easy! Here are the details.

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The bottom line. 

“Change. But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed.”

—Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, sharing a similar sentiment to one of my life lessons: “Direction is much more important than location when it comes to progress.” (Which I got from this post by Tommy Rivers Puzey.)

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That’s it for Issue 478. If you’d like to support the shakeout, please forward this email to someone who might enjoy it or post the web link in a high traffic area of the internet where others can check it out. (And if you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time and want to receive it for yourself first thing every Tuesday morning, you can subscribe right here.)

Thanks for reading,

Mario