the morning shakeout | issue 534

A conversation with Devin Kelly, Sam Ruthe making a case for racing over pacing, learning to be adaptable, and a lot more.

Just a guy and his dog doing their favorite thing. Photo: Tahoe’s mama (aka, my wife, Christine)

Good morning! A few weeks ago I teased a conversation I had for the podcast with runner and writer Devin Kelly, whose work I’ve shared here in this very newsletter more times than I can remember over the past six years or so. Well, it’s finally live, and you can listen to it on your favorite podcast app (search for and/or subscribe to “the morning shakeout”) or via this handy link.

Devin is one of my favorite writers and his work resonates with me on the deepest human levels. He has a unique ability to articulate the quiet questions many of us carry around about purpose, belonging, effort, hope, shame, and more. His writing often makes me feel a little uncomfortable, but in a good way, and leaves me wanting to search for answers within myself.

A few months ago Devin’s debut novel, Pilgrims, was published by Great Place Books. I’m generally not interested in reading fiction, but because Devin wrote it, I read it, and it did not disappoint. While it’s not a book about running (although there are some incredible descriptions about running laced throughout that only a lifelong runner could have written), the story wrestles with themes of closeness, absence, and the search for meaning in a world obsessed with momentum and accumulation. I couldn’t stop turning the pages, yet I also had to pause after every chapter to reflect upon what I’d just read.

Anyway, I really enjoyed talking to Devin about Pilgrims and everything that went into it. We discussed his process, his use of repetition throughout the book, and the parallels that exist between what he feels when he writes and what he feels when he runs. We also got into how he used the novel to explore his obsessions, the importance of committing to a daily practice, what’s exciting him in running today, and a lot more.

Longtime listeners may remember Devin’s first appearance on the podcast in Episode 119, a wide-ranging and impactful conversation that touched on running, writing, exploration, masculinity, shame, self-worth, hope, and more. If you’re new to the podcast, or simply missed it the first time around, you can give that one a listen right here.

OK, let’s get right to (the rest of) it.

Quick Splits

— Sam Ruthe of New Zealand ran 3:48.88 in the mile at the Terrier Classic on Saturday in Boston to break the under-18 world record in the event. [You can watch the race in its entirety right here.] More impressive to me, however, was how he did it, slingingshotting himself into the lead with 100 meters to go to win the race convincingly against a strong field. It was a 5-second personal best for the 16-year-old, who told his dad before the race that “he’d rather win in 4 minutes than run sub-3:50.” Well, sometimes you can have both. In an era where people seem to go gaga over speed more so than at any point in history that I can remember, it was refreshing to hear that Ruthe was more focused on out-running his competitors than trying to go fast. And because he committed to competing, and the race went quick from the jump, he broke through in a big way. “I wasn’t thinking about how fast I was going,” he said in a post-race interview. So what can us mere mortals who aren’t world-beaters learn from Ruthe’s example? Simple. Focus less on the clock/watch and more on the race you’re in. Stay engaged, respond to what’s happening around you, take calculated risks, and see what happens. Sometimes it might not work out, or you may just end up pleasantly surprising yourself like Ruthe did on Saturday. As my college coach Karen Boen drilled into my head over 20 years ago: Just commit to competing and the times will follow.

— It’s a shame that NBC didn’t show the entirety of the women’s Wanamaker Mile in this replay of the race from Sunday’s Millrose Games in New York City, but at least you can see when the most decisive move gets made. Watch as Nikki Hiltz steps on the gas with 300 meters to go, stringing out the field and grinding everyone else down en route to winning the race in 4:19.64. It was an impressively confident drive to the finish. Pay particular attention to the final 20 meters as Hiltz taps into one last closing gear to keep Jessica Hull in the rearview and win by half a second. If you’re going to beat Hiltz, you better already be in front of them coming off the final turn, otherwise your chances aren’t looking too good. For my money, no one in the sport has a better final 50-75 meters when they’re in the mix.

— The zeitgeist’s obsession with optimization has always irked me. My working theory is that so many people go to great lengths to “optimize” their training, their diet, their sleep routine, the morning routine, their whole freaking life, not because it moves the needle in a meaningful way, but more as a means of trying to exert control in the face of uncertainty. The problem is that uncertainty is a part of life. No amount of tracking, tweaking, or optimizing can eliminate it, whether you’re trying to become a faster runner or simply want to be more productive at work. At some point, you just have to commit to what you’re doing, observe what’s happening, adjust as necessary, and accept that the outcome is never fully in your control. Along these lines, performance coach Rob Wilson recently wrote this piece about how coaching human beings is what he calls “a three body problem,” meaning we need to solve for organismic (individual), environmental, and task constraints. The idea of a single optimal solution to whatever problem you’re trying to solve is mostly a comforting illusion. You can’t isolate one variable, dial it in perfectly, and expect the rest of the system to fall neatly into place. You have to understand how these constraints interact and influence one another if you want to keep things moving in the right direction. As coaches, our job isn’t to give our athletes the perfect workout or race plan. It’s to set them up to be adaptable and responsive so that the outcomes we’re after have room to emerge. “The practical takeaway is stop asking what the optimal method is and instead start asking what the current constraints are selecting for,” he writes. “When you can see that more clearly, coaching gets less complicated, but not less complex. The goal shifts from control to guidance. From certainty to influence.”

— “We can’t dodge the circumstances of our times or any horrors to come,” the always thought-provoking Sam Robinson writes in the most recent edition of his excellent newsletter, Footnotes. “We have the beautiful burden of mere humanity, souls yanked out of non-existence and forced to confront the meat thresher of life. We’re just gonna have to go through it.” [Hold on to that last thought. We’ll come back to it at the end of this issue.]

— I wouldn’t consider myself a Belieber by any stretch, but I have nothing but respect for Justin Bieber coming out on stage at this past Sunday’s Grammys in his boxers and absolutely slaying a stripped-down version of “Yukon” without so much as an intro, a thank you, or acknowledging the crowd in any way. With nothing more than his voice, a guitar, and a loop machine, he held the attention of everyone in the audience for 4-½ minutes straight. The best part came at the very end when he walked offstage, then casually came back just to turn off the loop, ending the performance. Talent is fun to watch in whatever form it takes, and Bieber still has it in spades. [Note: Hopefully YouTube hasn’t taken down the above link by the time you’re reading this!]

— From the archives (Issue 482, 1 year ago this week): Along the lines of what I shared in the introduction to this week’s newsletter, my friend and colleague Steve Magness recently wrote about what aging can teach us about sustainable success. He shares four strategies he’s learned and applied to his own approach as a 40-year-old dad who’s still running fast (and most importantly, having a lot of fun doing it). They’re all great but I’m going to highlight one here that I’ve personally subscribed to for a while now and promise will save you a lot of trouble, whether you apply it to workouts, work, your relationships, or anything else that is important to you: Stop short. Almost always. If you’re a Type-A pusher like me then you’re probably wired to go the extra mile or do one more for good measure. You can get away with this from time-to-time, especially when you’re younger, but it will eventually bite you in the ass if you’re not careful. Learn how to be OK with stopping a rep short (as I wrote above about Grant Fisher: don’t try to beat the workout), or leaving the table a little hungry so to speak, so you’re not forced to take an unwanted break due to injury, burnout, or the like. “It takes true confidence and self-awareness to stop short,” Magness writes, “so that you’ve got a better chance of coming back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”

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I’ve been putting a lot of miles on the new 1080v15 from New Balance over the past couple months and I’m stoked to share that they’re now available at your favorite running specialty store or on newbalance.com! This shoe has been the workhorse in my stable for a decade now and the latest version, which features a new midsole called Infinion, has proven up to the task of handling a bulk of my weekly miles. It fits similarly to previous models, feels incredible underfoot, and rides just as smoothly at 300 miles as it did at three. At this stage of my running life I value responsive cushioning in a lightweight package and the 1080v15 more than delivers on that promise. The new 1080v15 is now available at your favorite running speciality retail store and on newbalance.com (men’s sizes here, women’s sizes here).

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Workout of the Week: The 3-2-1 Cutdown

My favorite workouts are pretty universal in nature, meaning you can go to them whether you’re focusing on something as short as a 5K or as long as a marathon. The 3-2-1 Mile Cutdown session fits that bill. Here are the details.

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The bottom line. 

“Long distance runners have to be very strange people. You have to really want to do it. You don’t have to win or beat someone, you just have to get through the thing. That’s the sense of victory, the sense of self worth.”

— Ted Corbitt, aka “the father of American long-distance running,” with a quote I first came across in high school that really resonated with/inspired me at the time, and continues to do so to this day. I’ve always embraced the idea that to be a runner you have to be a bit of a weirdo. It’s become a point of pride. But over the past 28 years I’ve also learned that running is the single best metaphor for the human experience that I know. It’s taught me how to navigate the ups and downs of life. There are bound to be times when you don’t feel like running, just as there are going to be days you don’t want to face. But you do it anyway. There will also be plenty of instances when things aren’t going your way or seem altogether impossible, and quitting offers an easy way out. But you keep going. You find a way. You get through the thing. All else aside, that strikes me as the whole point.

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That’s it for Issue 534. 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