the morning shakeout | issue 516
A double-dose of Haruki Murakami, some wise words on solitude and leadership, endurance tools for navigating life, and a lot more.
Good morning! As mentioned a couple weeks back in Issue 514, the newsletter is on archival autopilot for a bit. What you’ll find below is a short collection of some favorite posts from years past rather than recent reflections on what I’ve been thinking about and paying attention to. I’ll be back to my usual musings and meanderings on running, coaching, music, and whatever else is rattling around in my brain on October 14.
If you’ve been reading me for a while, a few of these timeless treats might taste familiar, or maybe you’re sampling some for the first time. Either way, it’d be great if they land in a fresh way and give you something to chew on for a little while. 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.
OK, let’s get right to it.
Quick Splits
— From the archives (Issue 96, 8 years ago this month): It’s fair to say that writing and running play important roles in my life and have each influenced me in profound and unique ways. The two activities share many parallels, and even connect and overlap with one another from time to time. Running and writing both take some degree of desire, diligence, discipline and planning for it to go well; occasionally, however, I’ll fly off the cuff and go with the flow, sometimes resulting in a pretty special outcome (and sometimes not!). At times, both activities will fill me with feelings of dread and drudgery but I almost always feel better after finishing a run or wrapping up a writing session. Writing, like running, can be chock full of unexpected hurdles and frustrations, and there's struggle and sacrifice inherent in both activities, but you learn to stick it out and work through your problems even when the process isn't enjoyable. I don’t have a set time to run or write each day, but generally prefer to run early and write late (it’s nearly 11 PM as I type these words); more often than not, however, I get going when the schedule dictates or the mood strikes. Writing is an activity I always partake in alone, even if the finished product gets read by thousands of people. When I write, I prefer for no one else to be around so I can get in tune with what I’m trying to feel, learn, discover or understand. Running, on the other hand, always goes one of two ways: I can share the miles with others or I can have them all to myself, depending on what I want to get out of it that day. There’s a time for camaraderie and a time for independence, and I like that I can usually choose between the two.
So where am I going with this? No idea if I'm being honest, but I was inspired by this short piece from Outside and decided to see what I could catch from my little stream of consciousness. Hope you enjoyed it. For what it’s worth, I think Haruki Murakami said it best: “Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life—and for me, for writing as well.”
— From the archives (Issue 199, 6 years ago this month): Oldie but a goodie on solitude and leadership. “Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think,” William Deresiewicz lectured to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009. “Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube.” The advice contained in this transcript is timeless and even more poignant today than it was 10 years ago. And while Deresiewicz’ lecture was geared toward military cadets, the lessons are applicable to anyone who wants to learn to improve their ability to focus and lead others, whether in sport, business, or other areas of life.
— From the archives (Issue 255, 5 years ago this week): This story is about Philip Carcia, a native of the the fine city of Worcester, Massachusetts, and how long-distance hiking has helped him navigate the pandemic. It pairs well with what I wrote back in Issue 237 about using the tools we hone as athletes to help us get through various types of difficulty and uncertainty we face in life. The last paragraph of the piece, which, for Carcia, is specifically about hiking, could be said about any endurance pursuit. “Hiking,” Mr. Carcia said, “is hard, but not for the reasons people tell you it’s hard. It’s hard because these mountains are mirrors, just like Covid is a mirror, and they force you to look at yourself. But I love that. I love getting into that underbelly and still having the grit to keep moving forward.”
— From the archives (Issue 463, 1 year ago this week): I’m not sure how or when I first came across this 30-year-old article on legendary coach Percy Cerutty from Australian Runner Magazine but I’m glad it now lives on the internet and I have it saved offline for regular reference. Written by Tony Wilson, it’s part Cerutty bio and part explainer on how he trained his athletes, which included 1960 Olympic 1500m champion Herb Elliott, amongst other global medalists and record-holders. Cerutty was known as a bit of an eccentric, but he got results and influenced how his athletes lived off the track as much as how they raced on it. And while some of his training methods could be called outdated, Cerutty was arguably ahead of his time when it came to the importance of recovery as a part of the training process, as well as the influence of strength training and a healthy diet on not only performance, but overall well-being and longevity. “He saw a deep thinking mind and a powerful personality as the only factors that can make for the uppermost levels of success,” Wilson writes. “Ceaseless thought and experimentation are what Percy saw as necessary. Cerutty did not believe in half measures. He expected 100 percent commitment from his athletes.” (Ed. note: This pairs well with what I wrote about Cerutty just a few weeks ago in Issue 513.)
— From the archives (Issue 408, 2 years ago this month): Gregory Alan Isakov has a new album out that I’ve yet to listen to, but this low-key, live cover he did of Iron and Wine’s Trapeze Swinger last December is just beautiful. I’ll leave it at that and encourage you to watch/listen to it.
— I’ve used Final Surge to run the coaching side of my business since 2017. It’s been a game-changer for how I plan training, analyze data, and communicate with my athletes. One of the additional benefits of my partnership with them has been getting a front-row seat to watching the platform develop and mature over the past 8 years. Case in point: FS recently rolled out customizable workout types and colors, plus new sorting and filtering tools for the workout library, all of which make it easier to organize and find sessions. I’ve been using them for the past couple of weeks, and they’ve further smoothed out my weekly workflow. Fellow coaches: whether you work with a high school or college team, a club, or a roster of individual athletes, head over to finalsurge.com to check out the full slate of features and start a free 14-day coaching trial today. Use code MORNINGSHAKEOUT at checkout to take 10% off your first purchase. Questions? Just reply to this email and send ’em my way.
I’m not racing a marathon this fall, but if I were I’d be doing it in the new FuelCell SuperComp Elite v5 from New Balance, their latest carbon-plated super shoe that’s engineered specifically for racing fast on the roads. They sent me a pair earlier this year and it was love at first stride. I took them out the door for a tempo run in early spring and just wow. This is the best-fitting, best-feeling super shoe I’ve ever worn. There’s enough protection underfoot to hold up to longer efforts without making it feel you’re running with a marshmallow on your feet, and a punch of pop that I appreciate when I’m ripping laps on the track or running fast on the roads. In short: It’s versatile! The FuelCell SuperComp v5 is now available at your favorite running speciality retail store and on newbalance.com (men’s sizes here, women’s sizes here).
Workout of the Week: 3 is a Magic Number
Not only does this workout share its name with one of my favorite covers of all-time, it also happens to be one of my favorite sessions to assign my athletes. In fact, if I were only allowed to use one interval—but could manipulate the intensity, recovery, and number of reps to suit my needs and desires—it’d be 3-minute repetitions. What makes them magic? Three-minute reps are short enough to keep your attention, long enough that you can’t fake your way through a set of them, and versatile enough to achieve different objectives depending on the day. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“Maybe working on the little things as dutifully and honestly as we can is how we stay sane when the world is falling apart.”
—Haruki Murakami (This quote first appeared in Issue 250. I have read it every day since.)
That’s it for Issue 516. 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
I agree about "3 is a magic number." When I haven't run speed in a while (e.g. when training more specifically for a mountain ultra or recovering from it), I ease back into speed workouts with "on/offs" — 3 min on (a fast-for-me effort), 2 min off (recovery jog) — on a mostly flat path, not a track. Doing four in a row is an effective 20 minutes. 3 min is magical for feeling challenging yet manageable.