the morning shakeout | issue 482
What aging can teach us about sustainable success, relatable running diaries, adaptable perfectionism, and a lot more.
Good morning! How is it February 4? Last month flew by in a frenzy and I can hardly believe we’re this far into the new year already. This seems like as good a time as any to share my recent appearance on the Freetrail podcast alongside my friend Dylan Bowman, who hosted me for what I believe is our fourth annual life, running, and career check-in. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts (search for and subscribe to “the Freetrail podcast”) or at this handy link. Set some time aside for it though as we spoke to one another for nearly two hours reflecting on the year that was for both of us in 2024 and trying to look ahead to what might be in 2025.
The one part of our conversation that I want to call out and expand upon more here relates to my own personal running goals for 2025, which, unlike the past few years, have nothing to do with competition. The second half of 2024 was challenging on a number of levels, which we talk a bit about on the podcast. On the running side of things I felt like I was tolerating my training but not absorbing it, while muscling my way through races that I just really didn’t want to run. After a rouggggggh go at cross country nationals to round out 2024 the overwhelming feeling I had was of relief not to have anything else on my schedule, which told me a lot. The last couple weeks of the year I took a handful of days off that I normally wouldn’t and kept whatever runs I did do pretty short. This coincided with an extended period of time off work and it was the hard reset I needed heading into 2025. Last month I got back into a steady groove because 1. I was ready to, and 2. Having a regular training routine is the foundation that every other aspect of my life is built upon. That said, I’m not thinking about racing anytime soon (if at all this year, we’ll see). What I am doing is running 5-6 days a week for 30-90 minutes at a whack, doing something kinda hard on one of those days, hitting the gym 2-3 times a week, and, for the first time in my life, embracing a rest day every week whether I feel like I need it or not (a novel idea, I know!). So far, so good, and best of all I’m feeling better than I have in many months. In a lot of ways my current approach reminds me of 2020, which, despite the lack of races and myriad challenges that year brought to everyone, ended up being some of the most enjoyable and meaningful running I’ve done in my entire life. So, we’ll see where things go from here—maybe I’ll race, maybe I won’t—but either way I’ll keep training because the goal for this year isn’t to hit a time or land myself on the podium — it’s to be ready for whatever life throws at me.
Quick Splits
— There are two things I want everyone to pay attention to while watching double Olympic bronze medalist Grant Fisher work out on the track in this video: 1. Just how smooth and composed he looks throughout the entire workout. Fisher is running pretty dang hard in this one—2K at around 5K pace, 4 x 800m around 10K pace, 1600m a little faster than 5K pace—but he is in control from start to finish. Obviously he’s one of the best in the world at what he does, and has years of practice and experience under his belt, but please note how he’s not trying to beat the workout. You can adopt this same approach, no matter what level of athlete you are. 2. His coach, Mike Scannell. Scannell, who first coached Fisher in high school and started working with him again last year, gives good, helpful feedback throughout the session and provides simple, but useful cues for Fisher and training partner Sam Gilman. What he doesn’t do is say too much or get overly excited—and that energy clearly helps his athletes stay calm and focused.
— A big thank you to reader Jana N. for recommending this piece by art historian, professor, and runner Kim Beil about her running diary for The Paris Review—which I thoroughly enjoyed. Beil’s entries feel relatable, not just because I recognized (and have run at) a few of the Bay Area spots she mentions, but because, like one’s relationship to running, they evolve over time. The blend of objective data, subjective feelings, existential musings, and silly thoughts serve as a meditation on time, place, and self over the course of a couple years. This entry in particular made me chuckle: “January 23: Cross-train; spinning 40 min. high hamstring better (no green chair for 4 days),” she writes. “My writing chair: friend or foe? Usually, I think running helps my writing, but now it hurt to sit. I blamed it on the chair.”
— Along the lines of what I shared in the introduction to this week’s newsletter, my friend and colleague Steve Magness recently wrote about what aging can teach us about sustainable success. He shares four strategies he’s learned and applied to his own approach as a 40-year-old dad who’s still running fast (and most importantly, having a lot of fun doing it). They’re all great but I’m going to highlight one here that I’ve personally subscribed to for a while now and promise will save you a lot of trouble, whether you apply it to workouts, work, your relationships, or anything else that is important to you: Stop short. Almost always. If you’re a Type-A pusher like me then you’re probably wired to go the extra mile or do one more for good measure. You can get away with this from time-to-time, especially when you’re younger, but it will eventually bite you in the ass if you’re not careful. Learn how to be OK with stopping a rep short (as I wrote above about Grant Fisher: don’t try to beat the workout), or leaving the table a little hungry so to speak, so you’re not forced to take an unwanted break due to injury, burnout, or the like. “It takes true confidence and self-awareness to stop short,” Magness writes, “so that you’ve got a better chance of coming back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”
— The University of North Carolina’s Ethan Strand shattered the NCAA indoor record in the mile on Saturday at Boston University, running 3:48.32 for the win, making him the first collegian ever to run under 3:50. How’d he do it? By not overdoing it in training, according to his coach, Chris Miltenberg, and also by not trying to chase a fast time during the race itself. There’s so much insight in this 5-½ minute post-race interview with Coach Milt that I’d go so far to say it should be required viewing for any coach at any level of the sport. “We don’t over do it,” explains Miltenberg, who coached the aforementioned Grant Fisher at Stanford. “It’s just steady and consistent. Ethan, just like Grant Fisher, has this incredible ability when you say, ‘Hey, this is what we need to get out of this workout,’ he doesn’t try to do any more than that…I do think if you’re gonna be great, like that’s the skill more than overdoing it all the time, and [Ethan’s] really good at that.”
+ In case you missed it the first time around, check out the conversation that Coach Milt and I had for the podcast a few years ago. It’s a banger about the path he’s followed in coaching, the challenges he’s faced, and who he’s learned from along the way. Also, be sure to keep an eye out for next Tuesday’s Workout of the Week, a special contribution from Coach Milt. Without ruining the surprise, here’s what he told me about the session: “We always emphasize the ability to raise your intensity within a race and pride ourselves on being a team that competes well over the second half of any distance. Almost every workout we do is reinforcing raising intensity throughout. Your body learns that habit pattern and will wire it in as you reinforce it more.” (Case in point: Watch Strand compete in the mile at BU. He’s in fourth place with a few laps to go and is still in third at the bell before the intensity gets raised a couple notches, as if it happened automatically or something.)
— The FireAid L.A. Wildfire Benefit Concert took place last week to raise money for the devastated communities of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades. The entire show—5+ hours long!—featured an all-star lineup of various musical genres (and generations) and you can check out the show in its entirety on YouTube. (And if you’d like to make a direct donation to help with relief efforts, you can do so here.) I haven’t watched the whole thing but I can’t not link to 80-year-old Rod Stewart singing “Forever Young” because 1. I mean, c’mon now, he’s 80 years old and still bringing it. 2. Stewart lived in L.A. for 50 years so this is a cause that’s deeply important to him. 3. Somewhere in heaven I know this performance is making my Mom, who saw Stewart play live a dozen times if not more, smile a mile wide.
— From the archives (Issue 12, 9 years ago this week): Adaptable perfectionism. Not only is middle-distance maestro Phoebe Wright most likely faster than you, she’s one of the most open, honest and hilariously entertaining professional track athletes lacing up a pair of spikes today. Her most recent blog post, “The Art of Keeping The Main Thing The Main Thing” is a must-read for any athlete, coach or recovering perfectionist, really. “Being a slave to the details is a terrible habit,” Wright writes. “It puts the fate of your race into the environment. And the environment is fickle. So don’t do it!” Good advice on not sweating the small stuff—or at least not sweating it to the point where it becomes a problem.
Thank you to Tracksmith for supporting my work throughout 2025. The brand recently launched its all-new Fieldhouse Collection, apparel designed to handle all the non-running work you put in to reinforce your foundation: the strength training, mobility routines, and ancillary exercises that help make you a more durable athlete. Inspired by classic sports silhouettes, these cotton and mesh pieces are crafted specifically to support the supplemental sessions that mostly take place in the gym. If you buy anything from the Fieldhouse Collection, or anything on Tracksmith.com for that matter, and you’re doing so for the first time, use the code MarioNEW to save $15 on your order of $75 or more. If you’re already a Tracksmith customer, use the code MarioGIVE and you can get free shipping on your next order (and 5% of your purchase will go to support the Friendly House in Worcester, Massachusetts, an organization that is near and dear to me).
Workout of the Week: Ks for Days
If you’re training for longer races like half-marathons or marathons, it behooves you to do regular work at or around threshold intensity, which, according to renowned coach and exercise physiologist Jack Daniels, is the effort you can race at for 50-60 minutes. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say this is slower than your 10K pace but faster than you can go for a half-marathon. These workouts require a lot of focus while improving the physiological and psychological endurance you’ll need to race well at longer distances. One of my favorite threshold workouts is a bunch of 1-kilometer repeats with a short rest (30-60 seconds) in between intervals. We start at half-marathon pace if not a touch slower—better to start on the side of too slow than too fast—and get a little quicker as the workout goes on without ever going too crazy. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”
— Brendan Leonard, quoting some saying, in this recent post, “Don’t Quit Playing Your Music”
That’s it for Issue 482. If it made you smile, think for a second, or reflect upon something you hadn’t considered, and you know someone else who might like to do the same, 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. I’m enjoying my experience over on Bluesky if you want to follow me there for quick quips on all sorts of stuff, along with photos of my dog (OK, mostly photos of my dog).
For a whole bunch of reasons, this post really resonated with me - I am 62 and still figuring out these lessons (without ever having the bit where I run fast!) Thanks Mario