the morning shakeout | issue 520
Going one less, failing faster, dancing with uncertainty, and a lot more.
Please note: I accidentally deleted the original version of this post (and thus all the likes and comments that went with it) when going to publish Issue 521. Apologies for the error and minor inconvenience.
Good morning! Every week when I go into San Francisco to coach at the track, I see a very distinctive hat on many runners’ heads adorned with the phrase “Go One More.” I’ve also seen this message making the rounds online over the years. It clearly resonates with a lot of people, and that’s fine. It’s catchy. Sounds cool. Sells well, I’m sure. And for what it’s worth, I appreciate the sentiment: Keep pushing when things get hard. I really do. Still, I chuckle to myself every time I see it. Why? Most of the people who are motivated to push themselves hard in the pursuit of a goal—i.e., many of the athletes I coach, the folks drawn to competitive running who are chasing PRs, podiums, BQs, OTQs, and the like—would actually benefit from going one less. (Not as catchy, or cool, and definitely wouldn’t sell, I know.)
Here’s what I mean: “Go One More” sounds and even works great until you get hurt or burned out from overdoing it. The issue for the committed, hard-charging Type-A personality isn’t motivation. It’s restraint. Most of the people who fit this bill have been pushing themselves to literally and figuratively go the extra mile their entire lives, which serves them well until it doesn’t. (And just so it doesn’t sound like this is coming from up high, here’s me raising my hand down below.) Growth, improvement, and, most importantly, consistency and longevity in anything—running, business, relationships, even life itself—doesn’t always come from doing more or constantly trying to one up yourself or everyone around you. Those qualities develop when you’re able to separate the signals from the noise. They’re a result of pushing hard at the right times while also learning to hold back enough so that you can show up again tomorrow, and next week, and the week after that, and so on and so forth.
Look, I’m someone who’s always been wired to “Go One More,” probably out of insecurity more than anything else, if I’m being honest. It’s a mindset that has helped me become a decently fast runner, but it’s also literally broken me. It’s made me a good partner and friend, but it’s also pushed people away at times. It’s contributed to me building a successful career as a coach and writer, but it’s also burned me out on more than one occasion. Learning to “Go One Less,” however, has allowed me to stay healthier and perform more consistently as an athlete. It’s helped me to be more patient and develop deeper trust in my relationships. It’s taught me how to work in a way that’s more sustainable and, ultimately, enjoyable. That said, it’s not and hasn’t been easy! Stopping a rep early in a workout, shutting my mouth when someone else is talking, and saying no when my plate is already full are all things I still struggle with from time to time. But having the confidence to back off when it’s needed comes down to trusting that I’ve done enough, that I have enough, and, most importantly, that I am enough.
So, while I don’t have a bright hat to sell you (never mind, I actually have a few left!) and/or a slick IG reel to hype you up, I do hope this message serves as a quiet reminder that going one less can often be worth a lot more in the long run.
Quick Splits
— This is a wonderful essay by AnnaLise Sandrich for the Brown Daily Herald’s creative nonfiction magazine post- entitled “The Progression Run,” best summed up as a reflection on the mirage of continued improvement. The author is the daughter of one of my athletes, which is how I came across it, and she’s wise beyond her years. This past May she qualified for the Boston Marathon, running a massive PR and a little over three minutes under the standard for her age group, but likely not enough to gain entry into the race. So, she took another swing a few months later to try and better her chances, but ran slower than she did in May. Rather than be discouraged, however, she viewed it as an opportunity to fail faster as she sets her sights toward 2027 and beyond. “There’s a psychological phenomenon: We gravitate towards linear progress…We want the progression run, each mile faster than the last,” she writes. “And there’s the obvious truth that life is no perfect Strava bar graph, no ruler-straight trendline pointing up. And it’s obvious to the little girls watching their mothers, and it’s obvious to the little girls watching their older selves become failures tens of miles farther than they ever thought they could go at all.”
— “A simple world feels good. A measurable world feels controllable,” performance coach and author Robert Wilson writes in the latest issue of his excellent newsletter, Check Engine Light. “But comfort and control are lies that reduce our effectiveness.” This post felt like a form of inception as I’ve been in a similar headspace of late. Some of that is engaging in more self-probing as it relates to programming training (e.g. “Why this—workout/# of reps/intensity/etc.—and not that?), the other part is helping some of my athletes navigate the illusion of control. More and more athletes (and coaches) are overly fixated on targeting or optimizing specific measures, or, as Rob so eloquently puts it, they’re caught up in measuring the steps and not watching the dance itself. A good chunk of the work in my coaching practice these days is getting athletes more comfortable with uncertainty and helping them learn how to feel, fail, learn, and adjust. This is mixing metaphors a bit, but Rob’s post made me think of a Bruce Lee line I use often: “Don’t think! FEEL. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all of that heavenly glory. Do you understand?”
— Nick Thompson, the multi-talented CEO of The Atlantic and super-fast Masters runner, is making the podcast rounds right now to talk about his new book, The Running Ground. I received an early copy a few weeks ago and hope to have a conversation with him about it after the initial excitement and parade of interviews slows down a bit. In the meantime, I recommend listening to him on this recent episode of the Rich Roll Podcast (disregard the YouTube title, it’s for click and largely irrelevant) where he and Rich talked about his trajectory as a runner and media editor/executive, his relationship with his complicated father, which is what a large chunk of the book is built around, how running has served multiple roles and purposes in his life, and a lot more. It’s a great back and forth and had me thinking a lot about how running has been my own greatest teacher and most reliable tool. (In fact, it sparked an essay that is nothing more than a bunch of seemingly disparate one-liners in my notebook at the moment.)
+ Nick and I had a brief chat back in 2019 at Tracksmith’s Trackhouse, which you can listen to here. We spoke for a little over 30 minutes about aging and the marathon, a conversation that, fittingly, took place the day before he ran what was then a personal best of 2:34:27 at the Boston Marathon.
— I’ve been on a big Caamp kick of late. Their folky rock sound is pretty unique and they just make really damn good music. Here they are nine or so years ago performing what is arguably their most popular song, “All The Debts I Owe,” in someone’s living room. This was their submission for NPR’s Tiny Desk and, as far as I know, they’re still waiting for an invite. The camera work here is less-than-stellar but Taylor Meier’s voice will blow you away. (The subtle banjo riff by Evan Westfall at the very end is the cherry on top.) Bonus: Moonsmoke is a wildly underappreciated song. Here’s a great live version from Red Rocks a few years ago.
— From the archives (Issue 363, 3 years ago this week): What is athletic talent? That’s the question posed in the title of this recent Alex Hutchinson column for Outside and the answer he comes to, based on a pair of recent studies by sports psychologists Kathryn Johnston and Joe Baker at York University in Toronto, is not so straightforward. “After reading both papers, I’m left with two competing visions of talent,” Hutchinson writes. “The minimalist view is the one I stated at the top: it’s how fast you can run without training, and how much you improve with training. In theory, both parameters are measurable. But it omits tons of other factors that contribute to how fast someone will end up running, so it’s not surprising that none of the coaches in the study subscribe to such a narrow definition. The maximalist view is that talent is whatever enables you to answer the question: ‘Assuming they do everything right, how fast will this runner be in (say) five years?’ It’s mindset and biomechanics and muscle fiber type and fire in the belly and all the other things that the coach’s eye may or may not learn to pick up with decades of experience. That’s really what we’re interested in, but it’s not measurable and not even really definable.” My take on talent: You know it when you see it, but you can’t fully express it unless/until you properly train 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: The Sisyphus Session
Inspired by Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, this is one of my favorite sessions. I use some version of its short-medium-long format with all of my athletes, manipulating the specifics—surface, grade, duration, intensity—for who they are, what they’re training for, and where they are in a training block. Why? Running up and down a hill gives you the most bang for your training buck: power, strength, endurance, and speed — all wrapped into one workout. This session is as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one and there’s probably a place for it in your program. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.”
— Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist, with a quote I recently came across that feels more and more true by the day for me.
That’s it for Issue 520. Enjoying the shakeout? Please do me a solid and share this week’s issue with 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 every Tuesday, you can subscribe right here.)
Thanks for reading,
Mario
Moonsmoke is such a great song!