the morning shakeout | issue 501
The rocket science of calculating training load, the superpower of belief, prioritizing outcomes over outputs, and a lot more.
Good morning! A big thank you for the generous response to last week’s 500th issue. I’m overwhelmed in the best way and will eventually get back to everyone who took the time to send me a nice note.
I’ve gotten quite a few messages in recent months from folks asking me about the morning shakeout cap that I’ve been wearing in some recent photos. Well, I’m excited to share that I finally have a few (50, to be exact) available for purchase! Stylish and functional, this 5-panel, limited-edition running cap—made in collaboration with Fractel—is built for fans of the morning shakeout who value and appreciate simplicity, quality, and high-performance. It’s lightweight and breathable, adorned with the morning shakeout logo in front, and a partial silhouette of said logo under the brim. This cap is great for any type of running or outdoor activity, and it’s easy-to-clean and machine washable. There’s only one size but it will fit most.
There are two options available: The first has a plain white panel on the back, while the back panel on the second says “stay on it.” (n.b. This is my go-to mantra, and you can read about its origins in Issue 123.) The hats are completely identical otherwise.
You can purchase a cap at this link. The cost is $50, which includes free shipping to anywhere in the United States. (Please note: I’m currently only able to ship orders within the U.S. Hopefully I’ll be able to offer international shipping in the near future.)
Quick Splits
— Nico Young broke the American outdoor 5,000-meter record last Thursday at the Diamond League meet in Oslo, but more impressive (to me, anyway) than stopping the clock at 12:45.27 was the fact that he won the race against a murderer’s row of international athletes that went in targeting the world record. The way Young competed over the final 600—he was patient, methodical, and confident—was exciting and inspiring to watch. Also, big credit to George Mills for Prefontaining it with a K to go and making the race en route to a British record (12:46.59 for 4th). You can watch the entire race in its entirety here, or fast-forward to the final 1000 meters if you haven’t been blessed with Young-like patience.
+ Fellow American Graham Blanks put up a hell of a performance as well, finishing 7th in 12:48.20, an 11-second personal best and the third American ever to run under 12:50. He was equally impressive in this post-race interview: happy with his improvement, but hungry to keep getting better and establishing himself amongst the best in the world. “It’s awesome to run U.S. #3 (of all-time),” he explains, “but I’m U.S. #3 right now, this year, and there’s guys coming up on me quick. You know, this type of stuff motivates me a lot. Happy to get a PB, happy to be out here, but I just wanna keep training—and you know, just try to beat Nico in Paris and win that race, but at this point I just gotta focus on that U.S. team. I gotta make this team, and I’m confident that I can, but the competition is stiff.”
— Calculating training load and how hard your last workout was actually is rocket science—but not in the way that you might think, Alex Hutchinson writes in his latest column for Outside. Hutchinson takes a look at this new study from Mattia D’Alleva and his colleagues at the University of Udine which compares seven different ways of assessing the training load of different workouts, from various metrics and equations to subjective ratings of effort and a simple NASA questionnaire. The questionnaire, which is “simply a set of six questions that ask you to rate the mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand (how rushed were you?), performance (how well did you do?), effort, and frustration of a task,” i.e., essentially a slightly more involved way of asking, “How hard did that feel?” proved to be the most accurate means of assessment. As I shared a few weeks ago in Issue 498 at the end of a mini rant on a similar topic: The most common question I ask my athletes is, “But how did you feel?” The answer often tells me more than just about any data point.
— It doesn’t matter when you graduated college, or if you even went to college at all, taking 15 minutes sometime this week to watch Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford is time well spent. (n.b. I’ve watched this video or read the transcript dozens of times over the years.) Jobs, who never graduated from college himself, was reluctant to give the speech. He’d be flattered to know that over the past two decades it’s been viewed over 100 million times and probably cited just as many—heck, this is at least the second if not third time I’ve shared it in the morning shakeout. This post from the Steve Jobs Archive celebrates the 20th anniversary of the speech and shares a collection of notes, outlines, and drafts of ideas that Jobs sent himself while preparing for it. It’s pretty cool to get a peek into his thought process and how he shaped the message he wanted to get across to the graduates that day. The speech is often remembered for how Jobs closed it, encouraging those in attendance to, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” But for me, the best excerpt from the whole thing came at the end of the first story he told, when he said, “You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference.” I’ve leaned on this advice more times than I could ever count: in my running, in my work, in my relationships, and in numerous other areas of my life when doubt would try to get the best of me. Belief is a hell of a superpower.
— I’m having a hard time articulating exactly what my friend
did in this essay entitled “Why Are We All Eating So Much Protein?” but I was nodding my head the entire time I was reading it. The best way I can describe the piece is that it’s part cultural history of the protein bar, part meditation on what society’s current infatuation with this macronutrient actually represents in 2025. “There aren’t many lunch breaks left in America. The slacks and emails keep arriving. The logistics warehouse items keep stacking. Our burdens, delivered ping by digital ping, only increase with the fantasy of AI automation—merely another set of skills we have to learn during our leisure time. Small wonder we turn to packaged nutrition,” he writes. “The pensions are gone. The U.S. retirement system rests on erroneous assumptions of perpetual market growth. Social Security won’t survive the fertility crisis. Maybe we’re lifting and chomping protein in the hopes strong muscles will keep us healthy and hale into our sixties and seventies. We pack in the protein because we fear we’ll be working until the day we die.”— I’ve linked to performance specialist
’s work a few times here over the past year or so because it’s consistently solid: no bullshit or unnecessary jargon, just sound information and applicable advice for improving performance. His latest post, “Outcome Over Output,” provides a helpful framework for keeping the bigger picture in mind when it comes to measuring performance versus measuring effectiveness. He says Measures of Performances (MOPs) are outputs, i.e., what happened, while measures of Effectiveness are outcomes that should answer the question: Did it matter? “Metrics are tools, not trophies. They should help guide your actions—not define your worth, your progress, or your purpose,” he writes. “When we confuse outputs for outcomes, we risk optimizing for the wrong things. More reps, higher HRV, better scores—they’re not bad. But they’re only meaningful if they move you closer to what you actually value.” (Note: I got a notification yesterday that my copy of Rob’s first book, Check Engine Light: Tuning Body and Mind for Performance Longevity, is arriving today and I couldn’t be more excited to dive into it! You can read a preview of it here, and order a copy for yourself through this link.)— In honor of Brian Wilson, who passed away last week at the age of 82, here’s The Beach Boys playing “Good Vibrations” at Live Aid 40 years ago in Philly. Whether you’re a Beach Boys fan or not, you have to appreciate the coordination of every aspect of this performance. Pretty incredible.
— From the archives (Issue 449, 1 year ago this week): In last week’s issue I led off with a short entry about not majoring in the minors when it comes to performance. This recent post from author, performance coach, and friend of the shakeout Brad Stulberg about the false promises of protocols, magic exercises, supplement cocktails, and other quick fixes for optimizing health and performance complements it well. I know I keep hammering on this topic, and on some level it seems silly because I feel like most of this stuff should be common sense, but it works me up to no end what “sells”—quite literally, but also in terms of ideas, beliefs, and practices—in this area. “With consistency and community, you can become very good at nearly anything,” he writes. “At the tippy top, it’s also about having the right genetics. Few professional athletes wake up at 5 AM to cold plunge and gaze at the sun. The same goes for health. It’s shocking the number of bizarre things people do to ‘optimize’ their health and longevity and yet they don’t exercise regularly, eat fruits and veggies, build community, commit to meaningful relationships, or ever relax. They obsess over the 0.1% but not the 99.9%.”
Summer’s here and I’ll be spending quite a bit of time in Tracksmith’s Run Cannonball Run shorts from now until mid-September or so. These swim-friendly running shorts are pretty sweet: versatile enough to log warm-weather miles and/or go for a cold-water dip. If you want to try the new Run Cannonball Run shorts, or pick up anything on Tracksmith.com between now and the end of June for that matter, use the code “MORNINGSHAKEOUT20” for $20 off an order of $100 or more. (Note: the code is good for one use between now and the end of June.)
Workout of the Week: The Mixed Bag
Variety, it’s said, is the spice of life. It can also be the key to spicing up some of the same old workouts you do week in and week out. Can’t decide between hill repeats, a tempo run, or an interval session? Try rolling them all into one workout! I call this cover-all-your-bases butt-kicker “The Mixed Bag” and it will help to stimulate fitness gains that you didn’t even realize were stuck in stagnation. It’s perfect for summer when many runners are between training blocks and the workouts don’t need to get too specific just yet. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“The ideas aren’t uncomfortable, we are. You don’t have to like the weather to acknowledge that it’s raining.”
— Seth Godin on uncomfortable ideas
That’s it for Issue 501. If you enjoyed it, please forward this email to a few friends and encourage them to subscribe at this link so that it lands in their inbox next Tuesday. (You can also respond directly to this email or leave a comment leave a comment below this post if you’re so inclined.)
Thanks for reading,
Mario
Hmm - you probably know this as a coach and an interviewer, but the quality of the question determines the quality of the responses. Asking a novice athlete 'How did you feel?' might elicit responses that aren't very useful, like a chipper 'Good!', or 'That felt hard' with no context.
From the athlete point of view: As an athlete I get confused when my coach asks me 'how did you feel?' Yeah, I can tell her how I feel right now, while I'm riding the post-workout buzz, or later, when I'm disappointed by my performance, or even later, once I've had time to process something. But what is she really asking? Mentally? Emotionally? Physically? I can provide a whole page of notes or a one-word answer, what do you need to coach me properly?
That's why I kind of like the NASA framework (sounds useful for my own journaling too!):
Mental demand: what were your thoughts going in? coming out?
Physical demand: how did your body feel before, during, and after your workout?
Emotional demand: how did you feel? Anxious? Frustrated? Flow state?
Performance
Effort
...and fun!
Damn I loved that protein bar article.