the morning shakeout | issue 497

Why it's hard to be humble, normalizing rest days, the best thing ever written about work-life balance, and a lot more.

Trail dogs. Photo: Tahoe’s mama (aka, my wife, Christine)

Good morning! I hit pause on work for a good chunk of the day yesterday, so this week’s issue of the shakeout is a bit more stripped-down than usual. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next Tuesday. Let’s get right to it.

Quick Splits

— Why is it hard to be humble? As she does, philosopher-runner Sabrina Little explores the answer to this question in her latest column for Psychology Today. “Culturally, we seem confused about humility, equating it with being mousy or performatively modest,” she explains. “We are sometimes made uncomfortable by striving and self-confidence, and we praise those who deflect compliments and explain away their abilities, counting them humble. But these are not instances of humility. They capture self-deprecation—the vice of excess with respect to assessing our weaknesses. Self-deprecation is a vice because it involves a misperception, or inaccurate assessment of our capabilities. It can prevent us from accomplishing the good work we are capable of.”

— A few months ago on the podcast I had a conversation with my good friend Simon Freeman, publisher of Like the Wind magazine, about the importance of making time for quiet, creating space for ourselves, and slowing down in both running and in life. In that episode we got on the topic of how platforms like Instagram and Strava glorify work and ignore rest, as if the former is all that matters in the pursuit of performance. For example: You can log virtually any and all manner of activity on Strava, from running to cycling to swimming to weight training to walking to the mailbox and back to yoga to canoeing to kite-surfing, and even badminton, for crissakes. But you cannot log a rest day—at least not intuitively or “officially,” anyway. But rest is an important part of training, right? I believe so, as does any experienced coach or athlete worth their salt. Needless to say, this has generated some good dialogue, so, along with longtime shakeout reader Henrik Wist, we’re starting a little movement that attempts to normalize rest days. Here’s how to join it: If you’re on Strava, manually add a generic “workout” with a duration of 00:00:00 to denote whenever you’re taking a rest day. (I just started doing this last week.) It’s our hope that if enough people start doing this Strava will create an easy option for athletes to share a big fat zero (along with whatever other notes/details/photos you might want to share) in their “activity” feeds.

— Trendy I am not when it comes to running shoes, apparel, accessories, and/or style but I’ve been reading Cole Townsend’s Running Supply newsletter since late last year and it helps keep me in the loop with what’s hot, what’s not, what’s new, and what’s raising eyebrows amongst the gearheads and fashionistas out there. I ran into Cole last month at the New Balance Indoor Marathon Relay and it was fun to talk shop for a little bit. If you're into the design side of the sport—or just want an informed, non-influencer perspective on new products—be sure to check out Cole’s weeklyish roundups (you can read the latest one right here).

— I’m going to see Ice Cube (amongst others) in concert on Saturday and it will be a good day if this classic is on the setlist.

— From the archives (Issue 392, 2 years ago this week): Listening to BYU coach Diljeet Taylor on this episode of the Citius Mag podcast talk about how she balances the demands of her coaching job with being a wife and mom reminded me of this post the author Austin Kleon published a few years ago called “The best thing ever written about ‘work-life balance.’” Kleon is referencing a poem by Kenneth Koch and he writes that “this is one of those poems you tape to the fridge.” The gist of Koch’s poem is this: In life there’s love (i.e family), work, and friends. On a day-to-day basis you can devote yourself to two of those, but there’s not enough time for all three. Kleon goes on to comment that you can have them all, just not at once, and I think that’s accurate. The point of the poem is that you can’t give your all to everything all the time: you have to prioritize. (And those priorities can, should, and will change over time.) The truth is that balancing everything equally at any given time is impossible—but over a long enough period of time, the distribution of devotion should look pretty even.

— As a coach, one of the most popular topics of conversation between me and my athletes, especially as we head into the summer months ahead, is dehydration. We all sweat, some of us more than others, and despite our best efforts it’s inevitable that we’ll need to operate in a bit of a deficit as our body tries to keep itself cool. But how much dehydration can we tolerate before performance starts to suffer? My friends at Precision Fuel & Hydration tackled this question head-on in a recent edition of their newsletter, which you can read for yourself right here. It’s chock full of history, expert insight, and science-backed advice that you can use to measure your sweat rate and keep that deficit within a safe and workable range. (And if you’re interested in trying any PF&H products for yourself—they’re what I’ve used to keep myself fueled and hydrated for nearly 8 years now—check out this link and save 15% off your first order.)

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I recently got a sneak peek at Tracksmith’s new Meridian Collection and it’s pretty dang sweet. The sleek silhouettes and cling-free comfort are made for summer and I can’t wait to put some of these new pieces through their paces. The Meridian Shorts, with their 8 pockets and subtle shirt loop on the back, are at the top of my wishlist. If you want to try something from the new Meridian Collection, or pick up anything on Tracksmith.com between now and the end of May for that matter, use the code “MarioSpring” for $20 off an order of $100 or more. (Note: the code is good for one use between now and the end of May.)

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Workout of the Week: Fartlek

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. Try it sometime, especially if you’re feeling a little fried! Here are the details.

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The bottom line. 

"Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood."

— Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek philosopher and writer. (I take this to mean that we should be careful with what we desire—even, and especially when, it’s good for us. If we don’t develop good self-awareness or practice restraint, and I believe this holds true whether it’s training, work, or virtually any other aspect of life, even the sweetest things can “drown” us before we realize it.)

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That’s it for Issue 497. Forward it along, pass it around, or reply at your own risk.

Thanks for reading,

Mario