the morning shakeout | issue 499
Thoughts on the 2028 Trials standards, the curse of Kenya’s long-distance runners, standing out in the "Who Cares Era," and a lot more.
Good morning! The 2028 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon standards were announced yesterday and I’m happy to see the return of ‘A’ and ‘B’ standards, using chip times for qualification, and a generous qualifying window that opens on September 1 of this year. This all seems pretty straightforward and fair to me.
The women’s ‘B’ standard remains the same as the 2024 qualifying standard (2:37:00) while the men’s mark is 2 minutes faster than before at 2:16:00. This is where I take issue.
In 2024 there were 228 men's qualifiers (219 via marathon times) and 173 women's qualifiers (158 via marathon times). Back in February USA Track & Field held a “town hall” call for athletes, coaches, and other interested parties, and the consensus was that there should be as big a field as possible. The primary reasons cited for this were talent development—Molly Siedel talked about making the team in 2020 after qualifying for the race via the half-marathon standard, while Clayton Young shared his experience of finishing 136th at the 2020 Trials and then making the team in 2024—and creating more media coverage and excitement around the event. In short: It would be good for the sport.
Bringing back ‘A’ and ‘B’ standards helps manage logistics by limiting travel stipends to top qualifiers and clarifying who gets access to personal bottles on course. So why not keep the ‘B’ standards the same as the 2024 qualifying marks? Or, if anything, ease them up by another minute or two to 2:39 and 2:19. You’d get, what, maybe a couple hundred more qualifiers on each side? This would only serve to amplify the event, not dilute it. And with very clear lines for who gets what in terms of travel and course support, whether you had 400 total athletes or 800 total athletes, what difference would it make from a cost and logistics perspective? I understand lapping on a criterium course with several hundred athletes could get tricky, but that seems like a solvable problem. (See: Atlanta 2020, where there were nearly 700 total athletes on course and no major issues that I am aware of.)
I think this is a big miss on USATF’s part. The 2028 Olympics are on U.S. soil and the hype heading into those Games is only going to grow over the next few years. Marathoning in the U.S. is booming right now, especially at the elite and sub-elite level. This feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put on an event that not only picks our Olympic teams, but also creates excitement and elevates the sport in a meaningful and lasting way. It would be a shame to squander it over a matter of a couple minutes.
Quick Splits
I raced at The Marin Mile on Saturday afternoon and finished 7th in Heat 22, running 4:32.72. (Congratulations to readers John B., Jordan E., and Rachel R., who guessed 4:32.83, 4:32.45, and 4:32.27, respectively, to win the prediction contest and a free pair of New Balance shoes!) The short of it is that I competed well and I’m happy with how I executed my race plan. Time-wise, it was a little slower than I was aiming for, but it was also 90 degrees at race time and that took its toll on everyone. It felt like having a hairdryer blasting down your throat for 4-½ minutes. The kids and younger adults took it out pretty fast, as I expected they would, while I hung out in the back for a lap and then started moving up. I ran strong from 400-1400m before unraveling a bit over the final 200 meters, but I didn’t lose any spots down the stretch. Upon finishing I collapsed into a nearby high jump mat while my body temporarily shut down and oxygen slowly came back to my brain. I had gone broke at precisely the moment I no longer needed my coin (n.b. name that reference!), the most agonizingly satisfying feeling in the world. It was a great way to wrap up the spring racing season. There’s a small part of me that wants to keep the ball rolling for a few more weeks to see if I can scrape a few more seconds off my mile time, but the burnout I experienced last summer and fall is still fresh and I have zero desire to go through that again. The last five months of training and racing were a lot of fun and I feel as good as I’ve felt in a long time, if not better in many ways, so I’m going to quit while I’m ahead and lay low for a bit. To quote my Nana Fraioli from the list of life lessons I shared in last week’s issue: “Don’t be afraid to work hard, but know when to take a rest. Otherwise you won’t last very long.”
— Stu Holliday, who had me as a guest on The Focused Mind podcast back in March, sent me this article yesterday on “The Curse of Kenya’s Long-Distance Runners” and it’s not an easy read. Written by Jonathan W. Rosen, the piece was published in The Economist, of all places, and it takes a fairly deep and detailed dive into the darker side of what happens when many Kenyan distance runners make it big, literally going from rags to riches in an instant. Rosen centers the narrative around Kelvin Kiptum, the marathon world-record holder whose promising career was tragically cut short by a car accident in early 2024, and the mounting pressures and expectations he faced as a byproduct of his success. He goes beyond the headlines to explain how sudden fame and fortune can bring with it a complex mix of opportunity and hardship, including financial mismanagement, personal struggles, getting taken advantage of, and navigating the expectations of others. “Although the sport brought long-term wealth to some, others kept little of their winnings,” Rosen writes. “I’ve met world-class runners who were tricked into buying properties with fake title deeds or had businesses they’d built usurped by swindlers. Some were conned by their lawyers, others by their own spouses. Over time, many slipped back into the poverty they’d once escaped from, with the added psychological toll of having briefly known a better life.”
— As I do every few months, I recently sat down with my good friend and frequent collaborator Simon Freeman of Like the Wind magazine for an unscripted conversation on a topic(s) we’re both eager to explore. In this episode of the podcast, an excerpt of which appears in Issue 45 of LtW, we discuss the idea of “peak running,” the seemingly ever-growing hype around events, fundamentals over fads in training, why chasing optimization is a fool’s errand, and a lot more. Check it out wherever you listen to podcasts or at this handy link.
— This 13-minute video of Grant Fisher from Roll Recovery in which he talks about changing his training setup in 2024 and going back to working with his high school coach Mike Scannell is really well done. Fisher’s the real deal—two-time Olympic medalist, double indoor world-record holder, and a threat to be in the mix every time he takes the start line—but he’s also gracious, humble, and, perhaps most importantly, relatable to runners of all ages and ability levels. “I think in life in general, when you know it’s time that you need a change, you’re right,” he explains. “You don’t need to second-guess it—if you’re heart’s in the right place, you will find the ways to make it work. I’ve found that if I’m happy I’m running well, not the other way around.”
— This blog post by writer and podcaster Dan Sinker titled “The Who Cares Era” pairs well with what I wrote back in February about the same topic, i.e., how the world would be a better place if we all just put in a little more effort. “In the Who Cares Era,” he writes, “the most radical thing you can do is care.”
— Hat tip to longtime reader Mark V. for sharing a couple of videos of Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame) recently performing live in Boston. It immediately sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole, which led me to this live performance of Morello and Bruce Springsteen playing The Boss’s "The Ghost of Tom Joad" together at the 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert in 2009. It’s an arresting rendition of an iconic song that feels even more relevant today than when Springsteen first dropped it 30 years ago.
— From the archives (Issue 134, 7 years ago this week): Our obsession with performance data is killing performance. This article deals mostly with business, education and other professional areas but many of the points the writer makes about what he calls “metric fixation” apply to data-heavy sports like running just as well. The two main takeaways that I’ve observed many times over as an athlete and coach: 1. Being too tied to numbers all the time (e.g. “I’m going to stay at 160 heart rate on race day—no higher”) discourages taking initiative, experimentation and risk taking, which can ultimately stymie a potential breakthrough in performance; 2. Relying on numbers as a sole measure of success (e.g. “If I don’t break 3 hours in the marathon, the race is a failure, or if I can't run these mile repeats under 6 minutes, the workout is a waste) means you’re only playing to the numbers and not thinking about how you're feeling, how you're reacting to the various variables you might be dealing with, or the appreciating the progress you made in other areas of the race or workout that aren't tied to time. Now, this doesn’t meant that performance metrics aren’t important or useful—they are and they can be—but the numbers you’re looking at are meant to be a guide on the path to achieving your goal, not the goal itself. Remember: You are not a programmable robot. You are an experiment. And almost every experiment worth its salt is prone to failure before it realizes success. It's a part of the process: Analyze, understand, adjust, improve, repeat. “The source of the trouble is that when people are judged by performance metrics, they are incentivized to do what the metrics measure, and what the metrics measure will be some established goal,” Jerry Z. Muller writes for Fast Company. “But that impedes innovation, which means doing something not yet established, or that hasn’t even been tried out. Innovation involves experimentation. And experimentation includes the possibility, perhaps probability, of failure.”
It’s not available for purchase just yet, but I am super excited about the upcoming launch of the New Balance FuelCell Rebel v5. I’ve run in every previous iteration of this shoe and it’s my go-to for faster workouts on both the track and the roads. As fast and fun as carbon-plated shoes can be, it’s important not to be overly reliant on them for all your track sessions, fartleks, hills, and tempo runs. The Rebel allows your feet to do what they want to do while providing plenty of protection underfoot when you’re putting a lot of extra force into the ground. The new blend of PEBA and EVA foams in the midsole should provide a snappy ride underfoot, helping make the miles go by quickly. I’m excited to take ’em for a ride soon! (Click here to get notified when the FuelCell Rebel v5 is available.)
Workout of the Week: The Reverse Michigan
I first wrote about The Michigan Workout several years ago for Competitor.com. That article now lives in Outside’s Running category—you can read it here—but the gist of the session is that it blends a set of descending intervals on the track (each one gets a little shorter and a little faster) with longer stretches of steadier tempo running off the track. It’s a great mix of strength and speed that can be beneficial to nearly any runner whether they’re training for the mile, the marathon or anything in between. “This is something that is very unique,” legendary Michigan coach and creator of the workout, Ron Warhurst, told Lope Magazine a few years ago. “It’s not just an interval session. This gives the athlete an opportunity to explore where his or her head is at. Where their emotions are. When the grinding starts, it tests your mettle.” A couple years ago I got the idea to assign some of my athletes what I call a “Reverse Michigan,” where we’ll do an ascending ladder on the track—starting with a fast 400m, ending with a strong mile—interspersed with longer stretches of tempo running off the track between intervals. At the end of the day, the Reverse Michigan is the same volume of total work at the same range of intensities—just distributed a little differently than the classic version—but it provides some unique benefits of its own. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“The color of truth is gray.”
— André Gide, French author and Nobel Prize laureate (n.b. This is Gide’s second appearance in the bottom line. He also said (or maybe wrote?) one of my favorite quotes of all-time, which I shared back in Issue 388.)
That’s it for Issue 499. Enjoying the shakeout? Please do me a solid and forward this email to someone else who might also appreciate it. (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
I agree with the point about the marathon trials. Similarly I think USATF outdoor nationals/olympic trials has massive untapped potential to become a week long track and field festival that leads into the finals.
Brutal race conditions. Good work!