the morning shakeout | issue 514
Taking a step back, "the business of running," Devin Kelly on not finishing, and a lot more.
Good morning! I’ll cut right to the chase: Things are pretty full-on right now, both personally and professionally, and it’s all a bit much if I’m being honest. So, I’ve decided that for the next four weeks (starting today), I’m going to put the newsletter on autopilot. It’ll still arrive on schedule every Tuesday, but each issue will feature a short collection of my favorite posts from years past rather than recent reflections on what I’ve been thinking about and paying attention to.
If you’ve been reading me for a while, a few of these might ring a bell, or maybe you’re seeing some for the first time. Either way, it’d be great if they land in a fresh way and give you something to think about and/or explore further. To those of you who are new (or new-ish) subscribers, it’s my intention for this little archival excavation to serve as an extended introduction to the spirit of the shakeout, giving you a better sense of how it’s evolved (or hasn’t!) over the past ten years.
Lastly, I’ll be fine. Life is just a little too full at the moment. Navigating occasional periods of overwhelm is a part of being a human, and, if nothing else, I hope that my taking this step back over the next month helps you to normalize doing the same in your own life when necessary.
Thank you, as always, for the understanding and support. Let’s get right to it.
Quick Splits
— From the archives (Issue 44, 9 years ago this week): Ryan Holiday is a writer who came onto my radar from two different directions this past week. First, I read this piece in the Observer on the timeless link between writing and running and then, completely unrelated to the article, I listened to him on the most recent episode of Michael Gervais’ Finding Mastery podcast. Given the interests of 99 percent of the people who subscribe to this newsletter, I highly recommend checking both of these out. “The nice part about writing is that it’s so hard and it’s never as good as you want it to be,” Holiday tells Gervais on the podcast. Sounds a lot like running, doesn’t it? Both acts fall into the category of things that are hard and, like writers, runners are never fully satisfied with their effort. There’s always a few more miles we should have run or a couple more seconds we could have squeezed out of ourselves. And just as the writer puts his ass back in the chair each day, the runner laces up his or her shoes and also embraces the daily grind. There’s a shared beauty in both acts that I feel fortunate to experience.
+ Further reading: The Business of Running. "A real runner is out there for himself, and no one else,” Holiday writes. “If it was about conflict, about proving superiority, you wouldn’t see them alone on the track at 4am, or on the streets in the pouring rain. I lace up my shoes each night because it’s precisely the opposite of what my body tells me it wants–that’s my motivation."
— From the archives (Issue 253, 5 years ago this week): Devin Kelly, my guest on Episode 119 of the podcast, recently had this piece, “Out There: On Not Finishing,” published by Longreads and I can’t recommend it highly enough. We talked a bit about it at the end of the show and a lot of the themes we discussed in that conversation, namely masculinity, the search for meaning, discovery, contentedness, shame, and self-worth, show up here. “What happens if what you once used to make sense of things no longer helps you make sense of things?” he writes. “What happens if the patterns and habits and metaphors we lean on do not serve us in the moments we need them? What happens if the stories we tell ourselves about our lives leave us lonely, wrestling with meaning? What then? I grappled with these questions for hours on that farm in Georgia.”
— From the archives (Issue 358, 3 years ago this week): Kilian Jornet’s incredibly detailed overview of his training and racing to date this year is worth bookmarking, spending some time with, taking notes on, and revisiting with regularity. He goes full geek mode on his different training blocks, how he thought about them, and the specific workouts he did to achieve what he laid out. There’s also notes on mindset, fueling, recovery, and gear that aren’t to be missed. It’s really great: simple and straightforward, but not easy. “If I have been training well, I know I’m ready and I shouldn’t stress because that will only use energy,” he writes. “If I haven’t been training well, there’s nothing I can do and I should think on how to minimize my weak points and use my strong points to get the best possible result. So at the end, I enter a race in the conditions I enter it and the previous days it’s nothing to do to change it, but just to enjoy — I’m so lucky to have the health and the possibility to do something that I love and to be in such beautiful places — and to compete for the best I can do, the result at the end will make me a bit more or less happier for the couple of hours after the race but will not change anything.”
— From the archives (Issue 410, 2 years ago this week): This is a wonderful essay by Nick Ripatrazone about running and exhaustion and death and being alive that’s part philosophical reflection, part history lesson, and part spiritual exploration. Anyway, it’s a great piece of writing and I enjoyed the hell out of it. “If you run the same hill regularly enough, you get a sense of how to pace yourself, how to read the incline, how to pump your knees and arms and to save some breath for the end,” he writes. “But the exhaustion always comes. When I reach the top of the hill, it sometimes feels like I’m about to collapse. My mind entertains impossibilities: Maybe my flesh will fall from my bones. Perhaps I’ll spontaneously combust. I could vanish. I feel absolutely alive in those moments of exhaustion. They bring me back twenty years.”
— From the archives (Issue 460, 1 year ago this month): This live performance is 20 years old (ed. note: 21 now!), and neither the audio nor video quality are all that high, but Tracy Chapman and Bruce Springsteen singing “My Hometown” together is pretty great.
My good friends at Tracksmith just launched their annual Fall Collection and it looks pretty sweet! The bright colors really pop and I’m stoked about the new Harrier Shorts, which feature a unique Merino blend that’s perfect for cooler temps and don’t smell when you sweat in them. Plus it’s a semi-split with a longer inseam that provides a little more coverage without restricting your range of motion. I’ll be rocking ‘em for long runs and speed workouts alike. If you want to check out anything from the Fall Collection (or buy anything on Tracksmith.com for that matter) between now and the end of 2025, use the code “MARIO15” for $15 off an order of $75 or more. (Note: The code is good for one use between now and the end of the year.)
Workout of the Week: Pardon the (Uphill) Interruption
Tempo run or short hill repeats for your next workout? Trick question. The answer is both! I like to combine different training elements from time to time to keep workouts interesting and help us get a little something extra out of them. In this workout, we’ll “interrupt” a typical 4-6 mile tempo run with some 20-30 second hill repeats at a hard effort. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“Confidence is the freedom to set your own standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself.”
— Ryan Holiday in Stillness Is The Key with a quote that first appeared in Issue 223. (I also needed the reminder this week.)
That’s it for Issue 514. If you enjoyed it, please forward this email to a likeminded friend and encourage them to subscribe at this link so the next issue goes straight to their inbox.
Thanks for reading,
Mario
Mario , To a truly gifted writer and athlete, wishing you nothing but the best as you take this much-deserved pause. cheering you on always. Dena