the morning shakeout | issue 543

Keep going when you want to call it quits, Wright Thompson on the writing process, detaching from your devices before racing, and a lot more.

Apr 07, 2026

Good morning! Approaching the 300-meter mark of a 1500 last Friday afternoon at San Francisco State’s Mike Fanelli Track Classic, the mind monkeys were already having a field day with me. “Just drop out,” they whispered. “If you step onto the infield right now no one will even notice.” I was stuck in the caboose of a 14-car train and my race already felt like it had gone off the rails. My only aim was to be aggressive and there I was DFL less than a minute in. I told myself to give it one more lap and for the next few hundred meters, not much changed. Coming into the home straight for the second time I felt the pace slow a little bit, moved around a couple of guys (college kids, actually), and talked myself out of quitting with 800 meters left to run.

The next 400 was less about making moves and more about staying in it, running my rhythm, and not doing anything stupid. Two weeks prior, on this same track, I took the lead with a lap to go before getting absolutely lit up over the final 300 meters. As I came into the home straight for the penultimate time on Friday, I gave myself one goal the rest of the way: Do. Not. Get. Passed.

At the bell I glanced at the finish line clock to my left and saw 3:03, 3:04 so clearly it was as if time was slowing down while I was trying to accelerate. I knew at this point that the win was well out of reach, but for the first time all day I had some momentum, and that felt great. It was time to race.

Passing the 1200m mark I told myself to shift gears and a few seconds later I passed someone. I got back on the rail and committed to making another move with 150 to go, which is exactly what I did. Coming off the final turn I picked up two more spots as I tried to stay tall, pumping my arms furiously toward the line. With a stride or two to go, my legs buckled a bit and then, just like that, it was over. I made my way onto the infield, bumped fists with a few of my fellow competitors, and found a quiet spot to sit while the oxygen slowly returned to my brain. I had no idea where I placed or what time I ran but I knew that was the best last lap I’d run in a very long time.

When I got back to my bag I pulled out my phone and checked the live results. I had a shit grin on my face when I saw that I’d finished 7th out of 14 in 4:09.01. It was a season’s best by nearly four seconds, a Masters PR by well over two, and a good reminder to keep going when your initial instinct is to call it quits.

Quick Splits

— If you’ve been reading this newsletter long enough then you’re probably aware that Wright Thompson is one of my favorite writers. (And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s ever written a word, much less a story, about a runner or the sport of running.) I’ll read anything he writes and listen to whatever he says about the craft. He’s just so damn good at what he does and an example I’ve tried to emulate from the standpoint of consistent quality. Whether it’s a magazine profile for ESPN or a book he’s spent years reporting and writing, the care he puts into it is what sets him apart. Thompson was recently a guest on the “How I Write” podcast and he pulled no punches. “One of the things that’s missing…and nobody wants to hear what I have to say, which is it’s just reps,” he says. “Zen is a butt in a seat. There’s no mystery. It’s just reps. It’s just f*cking reps.” This principle applies whether you’re training for a marathon, learning an instrument, or sitting down to write. (It reminds me of the oft-referenced Aristotle line: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”) Thompson made another point in the podcast that stuck with me: you can get comfortable writing a particular kind of piece—for him it was 3,600-word newspaper features, then 8,000-word magazine profiles—which can make writing a different type of piece (in his case, a book) a real challenge. I’ve felt that with this newsletter in recent years and it eats at me. A little over 10 years and 543 issues in, writing 1,500-2,000 words in this format every week isn’t easy, but it’s familiar and I know how to do it pretty well at this point. But ask me to write a longer standalone piece of some sort and man, I feel like an old car that’s gathered rust in the garage. It’s something I’m aware of and want to work on, not by doing less of this newsletter, but by writing more pieces like “The Hill,” and “To find out.” That’s the plan, anyway.

— Here’s a head-on angle and another from higher up of Sha’Carri Richardson winning at the Stawell Gift in Australia over the weekend. Richardson made up the 10-meter handicap to nip Charlotte Nielsen at the line by five-hundredths of a second. I love the set-up of this iconic event, which was first held in 1878. (It’s like track’s version of The Dipsea Race, handicaps and all.) Running on a grass track with a slight uphill to it, the athletes’ starting positions are staggered based on ability in an effort to level the playing field and create intrigue. Richardson, whose competitors had up to a 10-meter head start, became just the third woman to win this unique 120-meter race from the scratch position. Her performance was impressive, but it was also cool to see how stoked she was to take the win. “This is one of the most exciting, fun and entertaining track meets I’ve ever ran in,” she told BBC Sport. “Not even just that, but the love, the true love and support for track and field, unbeatable.” (I’m sure taking home over $27K in winnings didn’t hurt, either.)

— The one downside of planning a summer vacation many months in advance is that I can’t attend this incredible coaching clinic that’s taking place in Flagstaff from July 13-15. Diljeet Taylor, Mike Smith, Marius Bakken, Ben Rosario, Greg McMillan, Shannon Thompson. That is an all-star lineup, folks! I’d go so far as to say there’s not a better hands-on learning opportunity for distance-running coaches anywhere in the world. (And no, this is not a paid advertisement, just something I don’t want other coaches to miss if they can make it work.)

— I’ve been a big Red Hot Chili Peppers fan for as long as I can remember (Christine and my wedding song is “Hard to Concentrate”) and one of the biggest reasons why is that Flea’s basslines always manage to put me in a good mood. Well, the 63-year-old RHCP bassist recently released his first solo album called “Honora” and it’s a 51-minute mood enhancer. Here he is a couple weeks ago on The Tonight Show with a trumpet-forward and bass-laced instrumental cover of Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin’ About You” that pairs well with a nice glass of wine and a quiet night on the couch.

— From the archives (Issue 491, 1 year ago this week): A common issue that comes up in my coaching practice is getting athletes to detach from their devices prior to training and racing. Much of this has to do with trying to eliminate distraction, i.e. their minds are somewhere else when they should be focusing on the upcoming task at hand, but sometimes it has to do with managing stress and cognitive fatigue that results from essentially being overstimulated all the time. In his latest column for Outside, Alex Hutchinson analyzes a recent study that “demonstrated that using social media on smartphones immediately before training sessions caused mental fatigue and impaired AE in young volleyball athletes.” Now, you could take the adjectives “young volleyball” out of the previous statement and it would still hold true. Hutchinson looks back at some past studies linking social media use to well-being and performance, and while you can nitpick how much usage is too much, acute effects versus chronic ones, or if social media usage affects power and endurance outputs differently, I think all of that misses the forest for the trees: it is inarguable in 2025 that smartphone—and more specifically, social media—usage has a net negative effect on performance and performance outcomes. I’ve observed this firsthand with my own athletes over the past 10 or so years and, because I am by no means holier than thou, I’ve experienced this myself more times than I care to admit as well. Smartphones and many of the apps that are on them are designed to be addicting and intoxicating, and all that “mindless” scrolling drains the brain in ways that very few things can. So what are we to do about it? I advise staying off your phones/social media for at least the 30 minutes before your run, workout, or race (or even longer if you can get away with it). And, in the week or two (or more!) before a big race, limit or eliminate your social media usage. Remove the apps from your phone. It will feel weird and uncomfortable at first but with enough time it will reduce stress and cognitive load in general, allowing you to adequately restock those reserves before taking the start line.

In last week’s issue I told you all about the new Ellipse, but my tried-and-true 1080s started to get a bit jealous and I want to make sure that no one forgets about them. 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 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 Mona Fartlek

As an athlete, the Mona Fartlek is one of my favorite workouts to do; as a coach, it’s one that I’ll often assign a few times throughout a training cycle. What I love about this session is that it’s efficient and versatile: it can be done anywhere and you can make it as hard or as easy as you need/want it to be (to be fair, the same can be said of most workouts, but I digress). It’s named after Steve Moneghetti, a four-time Olympian in the marathon for Australia, who ran this workout weekly for years (and still does, apparently). The pickups are short and swift and the recoveries in between are more of a steady float than a slow jog (though you manipulate either of those variables to suit your needs depending on your experience level or where you’re at in training). Start to finish, the Mona Fartlek takes 20 minutes to complete. I like to use this workout with athletes who are just getting back into speedwork after some time away from it—the reps are short enough to wrap their heads around—or as a good “get after it” session for my marathoners to break up the monotony of higher mileage and longer workouts. The Mona Fartlek can also serve as a good 20-minute benchmark session every 4-6 weeks by simply comparing your total distance and overall average pace (and heart rate and power, if you’re into those sorts of things) from one attempt to the next. Here are the details.

The bottom line.

“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”

— The source of this proverb is debatable, but the sentiment resonates with me and more or less sums up my life philosophy: dogged consistency over fleeting intensity.

That’s it for Issue 543. Please forward this email to a likeminded friend or two, share the web link amongst your social circles, and/or reply to me directly at your own risk.

Thanks for reading,

Mario

P.S. If you’re going to be in Boston a few weeks from now for Marathon weekend, please join me on Saturday, April 18, at 9 AM for the morning shakeout that started it all. We’ll meet at Tracksmith’s Trackhouse, 285 Newbury Street, and head out to the river for an easy 3-5 miles followed by coffee and casual conversation. Doors open at 8:30. The event is free, but please register here!