the morning shakeout | issue 522
Sitting in your "little room," secrets to becoming a better runner, some wise words from Warren Buffett, and a lot more.
Good morning! It probably comes as no surprise to any of you who’ve been following my work for a while that I have a thing for words. I enjoy reading them wherever they show up, listening to them being read or sung, finding meaning in how they’re put together, writing them down myself, and especially sharing them with others in some way, shape, or form. For as long as I can remember I’ve kept a running diary of words that have stood out to me, whether it’s a quote that resonated, a passage that made me stop and think, or a song lyric that smacked me right in the face.
“The bottom line” at the end of this newsletter each week is pulled straight from that ever-growing archive. I first started including them back in Issue 136 and haven’t stopped since. The very first one I shared was the entirety of a 50-second song by The White Stripes called “Little Room,” which you can listen to right here. It’s one of the most profound collections of words I’ve ever heard/read, and a reminder to always remember where you came from and what got you to where you are.
Fittingly, The White Stripes were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past weekend, and André 3000 gave the band (and that song in particular) a nod in OutKast’s own acceptance speech. “One thing [Jack White] said, he said something about little rooms,” André 3000 said, right before his voice began to crack a bit. “And we started in a little room… Great things start in little rooms. That’s it.” [Hat tip to my buddy Brendan Leonard, who understands my connection to the song, and sent me the clip to “make sure you saw this.” Now that’s a friend!]
Anyway, the takeaway here is that every “big” thing, whatever that might mean for you, starts small. Whether it’s a running goal, creative project, business, relationship, etc., don’t lose sight of the “little room” where it all began and the spark that lit you up in the first place, especially when it feels like you might be losing your way.
OK, let’s get right to it.
Quick Splits
— A few times a month one of my athletes or a reader of this newsletter will ask me a question(s) about the latest and greatest training method, technological advancement, nutritional intervention, or recovery protocol that came across one of their social media feeds. And I get it! There’s a high-speed train of slickly produced content coming at us nonstop these days and it’s easy to feel like you’re missing out or not doing enough or falling behind in some way. Everyone’s looking for the secret, and there’s never any shortage of folks lining up to sell it to you. It’s a tale as old as time. “What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret,” John L. Parker, Jr., wrote in his 1978 classic, Once A Runner, echoing a sentiment that holds just as strong 50 years after he wrote it. “And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that?” It’s in this spirit that I’m re-sharing a link to this post outlining my own “secrets to becoming a better runner” that I pass along whenever one of the aforementioned inquiries comes my way. (I will also often include a copy of my mini e-book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective Runners, which you can download for free yourself at the link below.) My “secrets” are anything but; they’ve been passed down for decades by the best in the business, are freely available to everyone, and come with a lifetime guarantee. [And please, don’t keep these to yourself. Share this link and the PDF below with all your friends!]
— Yesterday, Berkshire Hathaway published Warren Buffett’s “Thanksgiving letter” to shareholders, which the 95-year-old said would be his last one as CEO. In the 8-page document, which you can read in its entirety here, he offers a few business and personal observations, the latter of which I found the most interesting and instructive. “Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world,” he writes. “Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior. I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.”
— I had a great time talking to reigning CCC champion and all-around awesome ambassador for the sport of running, Francesco Puppi, on a recent episode of the Vert Run podcast. We covered a wide range of ground in this one: navigating content overload and the evolution of running media and storytelling, pushing versus pulling back and the benefits of learning to “go one less” (inspired by what I wrote in the newsletter a couple weeks ago), the importance of performance versus social media presence for professional athletes, and a lot more. Give it a listen wherever you get your podcasts (just search “Vert Run”) or check it out on YouTube.
— Winter is coming, which means that this week or next I’ll begin reading Katherine May’s Wintering for the third year in a row. It’s a book about embracing what she calls a fallow period of rest and retreat, weaving lessons from literature, history, culture, and nature into her own personal experiences emerging from a difficult time in her life. I’ve found it to be a helpful guide for bringing everything back into balance when the days are shorter, darker, and colder, an annual reminder that slowing down and turning inward is an essential practice, no matter the season. To that end, here’s an excerpt from the book’s new afterword, which I appreciated for its honesty. “It took me an equally long time to realise that I needed to be honest about the true nature of winter, too,” she writes. “I love winter, but I did not want to sanitise it. Yes, my fingers were itching to write about the glamour of a hoar frost or the crisp blue skies that only arrive with the deep cold, but to truly convey their utter gorgeousness, I had to also acknowledge the starkness of the season, the sense of raw survival, the danger of icy roads. Winter is, at best, a mixed blessing, an encounter with both delight and degradation. It is a very exact mirror on the human condition.” (n.b. Scroll way down the post to read it!)
— Here’s Toni Cornell honoring her late father, the incomparable Chris Cornell, with a hauntingly beautiful version of Soundgarden’s “Fell on Black Days” at this past weekend’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. When she raised her voice on the line, “How would I know that this could be my fate?” it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up straight. [Related: Brandi Carlile performing “Black Hole Sun” with the rest of the band wasn’t terrible, either. Give it a listen here.]
— From the archives (Issue 366, 3 years ago this week): If you’re like me and into nerdy shit like how people prepare for races then you’ll love this blog post by my college rival, previous podcast guest, and marathon guru Nate Jenkins, who coached Brendan Gregg to the win and a personal best of 2:11:21 at CIM last fall. The week-to-week detail and analysis is pure gold, as is the honesty in the lessons learned after the fact. If you take nothing else away from Nate’s post, let this line sink deep into your psyche: “When you are training really well the miles are just a number that happens, not something that you chase or put much thought at all into.” Or said another way: Don’t count the miles, make the miles count.
The Fall Collection from Tracksmith is in full swing and it’s pretty sweet! I got a pair of the new Harrier Shorts, which feature a unique Merino blend, and they’re perfect for these fall mornings when it’s not quite cold enough for tights yet. These semi-splits feature a longer inseam and provide a little more coverage without restricting your range of motion. Plus, they don’t smell when you sweat in them! 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: Ks for Days
If you’re training for longer races like half-marathons or marathons, it behooves you to do regular work at or around threshold intensity, which, according to renowned coach and exercise physiologist Jack Daniels, is the effort you can race at for 50-60 minutes. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say this is slower than your 10K pace but faster than you can go for a half-marathon. These workouts require a lot of focus while improving the physiological and psychological endurance you’ll need to race well at longer distances. One of my favorite threshold workouts is a bunch of 1-kilometer repeats with a short rest (30-60 seconds) in between intervals. We start at half-marathon pace, if not a touch slower—better to start on the side of too slow than too fast—and get a little quicker as the workout goes on without ever going too crazy. Here are the details.
The bottom line.
“To the young artists, I want to say: Get your hands dirty and drop the screens and get out in your garage or your little room and get obsessed. Get obsessed with something, get passionate. We all want to share in what you might create.”
— Jack White of The White Stripes with a message for our times this past weekend at the band’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
That’s it for Issue 522. 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.
Thanks for reading,
Mario
Always excited to see your words land in my inbox. This newsletter is a treat. Also, I have always loved "Little Room," but how did I never truly hear the words? Thanks for that!
Looking at the racing picture of you and fellow WVTC runner, I noticed the dirt marks on the right calf and just above the ankle. My thought was: looks like Mario brush kicks his calves when tired (especially in cross country due to the uneven surface). I suspect most runners do this and I have always used the calf brush as a wake up call to get my head into it and get back to good racing form. My guess is that the photo was taken somewhere in the second half of the race and most likely in the last kilometer.