the morning shakeout | issue 550

Life lesson #44, Everything All The Time, leading like Steve Kerr, and a lot more.

Treadin’ trodden trails, or fire roads, rather. (Shot on my iPhone.)

Good morning! My 44th birthday was this past Sunday and, as I’ve done since 2020, I’ve updated this collection of life lessons with a new one that I’ve been taught or learned myself (oftentimes the hard way). This annual exercise was inspired by Kevin Kelly’s “68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice” and a similar post from my friend Chris Corbin.

This year’s lesson comes from my friend and mentor Don Swartz, who passed away unexpectedly in February. I could write a whole book about all the things I learned from him, but one of the most important is something he passed along during the podcast we recorded in 2023. Channeling Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, Don talked about leaning into success instead of waiting for failure. What he meant by this was to recognize what was going well in training, in your career, in your relationships, in your life, and use those things as fuel, rather than catastrophizing, telling yourself that you suck, beating yourself up for this or that, or fixating on what might go wrong.

I catch myself in this trap of negative self-talk more often than I’d like, and all it does is cause me to lose sight of the things I have and have done: good health, a stable marriage, incredible friends and family, meaningful work, a coaching practice I’m proud of, and this newsletter, which I’ve been writing for over a decade now. Success isn’t just an objective result. Sometimes it’s just taking the time to notice, as Kurt Vonnegut said, “when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”

As a coach, one of my biggest ongoing challenges is helping my athletes recognize, celebrate, and build upon their successes, rather than treating every good thing that happens as a fluke they haven’t been punished for yet. Success will compound if and when you let it. But you have to let it. As my good friend Brad Stulberg has written, confidence comes from evidence. Recognize what’s worked for you and write it down, and allow that process to erase whatever doubts or fears might come up for you. There’s real power in getting this stuff out of your head and onto the page.

Along those lines, it’s also worth noting that this is the 550th issue of the morning shakeout, a milestone that’s as arbitrarily numerical as it is personally meaningful to me. I’ve been at this since 2015, and if there’s one thing that’s kept me going, it’s reminding myself of exactly what Don was talking about: that what I’m doing feels right to me and is positively impacting the lives of many of you who read it. There have been plenty of times over the years when I get fixated on all the things I could be doing better or differently in this rapidly expanding newsletter landscape where there’s always someone doing more, growing faster, or trying something new. But reminding myself to lean into what works and what brings me joy and purpose is the main reason I’m still doing it 549 weeks after the first issue went out.

So as I kick off my 45th lap around the sun and revisit this list of what life has taught me (and what works when I lean into it—thank you, Don), it’s my hope that there’s something in there you can take away and use on your own journey. While you're at it, take some time to compile your own list of life lessons that you can refer back to when necessary. It’s a good exercise in reflection, and an invitation to lean into success, whether it’s your birthday or not.

Everything All The Time

Editor’s note: This is a column I wrote a while ago for a now defunct website. Its title was inspired by the name of Band of Horses’ debut album, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year (more on that in Quick Splits). Anyway, the album’s anniversary led me to dig out the original draft of the piece, which I thought was worth updating and republishing in the newsletter this week. [Click here for a shareable link to this post.]

Besides being the name of Band of Horses’ debut album, “Everything All The Time” describes a well-rounded approach to training that can be utilized by runners preparing for anything from the mile to ultra-marathon distances.

This isn’t a new idea. In fact, this approach to training, often called non-linear periodization or multi-pace training, is decades old and has been utilized by many top coaches to consistently improve performance and avoid injuries.

In their book, Better Training For Distance Runners, first published in 1997, exercise physiologist David Martin and coach Peter Coe wrote, “One sensible method for injury-free performance progress over the course of a macrocycle involves harmonious inter-development of strength, speed, stamina and endurance all during the year, never eliminating any of these from the overall training plan.”

So how does it work? Instead of breaking your training down into strict phases where only one training element at a time is emphasized—for example, a base phase consisting of regular long runs and easy aerobic mileage, or a strength phase mostly dominated by hill repeats and tempo runs, or a speed phase where you’re going to the track for anaerobic interval work twice a week or more, or, finally, a specific phase full of race-pace running—working on “everything all the time” means that throughout a given training cycle, you’re working on all of these different elements to varying degrees in order to make yourself a more well-rounded, resilient athlete.

As a coach, I use the “Everything All The Time” approach with all of my athletes, whether they’re a miler getting ready for track season or an ultrarunner preparing for a long day in the mountains. The key to making it work is knowing which training elements to emphasize and when. Start by taking a long-term view of your training cycle for your next goal race or races (ideally 12–20 weeks, depending on your experience level and current state of fitness), then identify the demands of the event.

For example, if you’re a 5K runner, you need to be able to sustain a fairly high level of intensity for 3.1 miles; for a marathoner, you need to develop both the aerobic and muscular endurance to hold goal race pace for two to three hours or more. Work backward from your goal event (or events) and determine when you should emphasize certain training elements over the others.

In general, the closer you are to the race, i.e. the last four to six weeks, the more your key workouts should mimic the demands of the race. For our 5K runner, that might be regular doses of 800m, 1000m or 1-mile intervals at race pace with a short recovery; for our marathoner, longer intervals and/or tempo runs around goal race pace are going to be more appropriate. That doesn’t mean the 5K runner never does a steady tempo run in the last month before a race, or that the marathoner doesn’t go to the track for speed work, but those sessions are less frequent during this period. The further away you are from your race, i.e. 12–20 weeks, the less specific the workouts should be, so the 5K runner might be doing more frequent long runs, regular tempo runs and less speed work, while the marathoner’s long runs shouldn’t be quite as long as during peak phases—they’re running shorter, faster intervals more often and not doing much marathon-pace specific work just yet. Nothing gets neglected, but the emphasis is constantly shifting every four to six weeks.

Variety isn’t just the spice of life; it’s also key to a balanced training program. When you’re doing the same types of workouts for weeks and months on end, it’s easy to get bored, burned out and even injured. Working on everything all the time ensures you’re addressing all the different training elements, engaging more energy systems and staying mentally stimulated, helping you to become a better, more well-rounded and injury-resistant athlete.

Quick Splits

— My love of both the writer Wright Thompson, and the basketball coach, Steve Kerr, is well known to longtime readers of this newsletter, so imagine my excitement when the former wrote over 17,000 words about the latter in a piece that Thompson called “my favorite profile I’ve ever done.” (Which, in itself, is really saying something!) I’m not even sure what to tell you about this one other than to go read it. Thompson, who followed Kerr around for nearly a year, captures the Golden State Warriors coach’s near-retirement and the challenges of stepping away from something you love, the importance he places on family and relationships, his battles with chronic pain, and a lot more, weaving all of it in and around so many personal details and anecdotes that it will make your head spin in delight. My favorite part, a somewhat minor detail that ends up being a throughline in the piece, is that Thompson and Kerr bond over a memory trick they both use to remember hotel room numbers (i.e., the room number is a combination jersey numbers from legendary athletes, e.g. 1824 = Peyton Manning, Kobe Bryant), which is the same trick I use to count repeats during an interval workout. “When this season ended, his 12-year run with the Golden State Warriors would end, too,” Thompson writes. “In the airy hotel restaurant behind the concierge desk, Kerr gave his name and room number, 516 — “Johnny Bench Joe Montana” — and a hostess showed us to a table by the window. He looked around and lowered his voice. ‘I think it’s over,’ he said, almost mouthing the words…He was tired at the end of a disappointing season and mourning the fraying connections. A great basketball team stands on a shared feeling more than strategy or scouting. The team lives as long as the feeling lives and when it’s gone, not only is it impossible to recapture, it’s hard to even remember.”

— Steph Bruce needs no introduction around here. The nine-time Olympic Trials qualifier, now 42, is already locked in for the 2028 marathon trials and serves as team leader of the Tracksmith Stamata, a women’s marathon team collectively chasing OTQs. Elizabeth Chikotas, 30, is one of those women: a Salt Lake City-based engineer who ran 2:34:29 at this year’s Boston Marathon and punched her ticket to the 2028 Trials at CIM last December in 2:33:55. I sat down with both of them over Boston Marathon weekend and learned from Steph about how Stamata came together and what mentorship looks like at this stage of her career. Elizabeth told me about what drew her to the program, what she’s learned from having Steph as her coach, and where she hopes running takes her over the next decade. We didn’t have a ton of time for this one, but it was a lot of fun and full of applicable insights no matter where you are in your own running journey.

— Here’s a four-song set from Band of Horses they recently performed in studio at KEXP in Seattle. All four tracks are from their debut album, Everything All The Time, which was released 20 years ago. I will never forget watching them play “The Funeral” for the first time on Letterman in 2006 and feeling like Ben Bridwell was speaking directly to me. I was not in a good place at the time, deep in the throes of disordered eating and injury. I didn’t like myself all that much and was generally hard to be around, resistant to both help and love. Despite its morbid title, that song brought me tremendous comfort, and that album as a whole made me feel a lot less alone. There’s a line in “Great Salt Lake” (third in the aforementioned set) in which Bridwell sings, “Now if you find yourself falling apart, then I’m sure I could stand on The Great Salt Lake,” that punched me in the gut at the time and still makes me feel something visceral to this day when I hear it.

— From the archives (Issue 80, 9 years ago this week): I’ve lived in the Bay Area for the past 3-1/2 years, and while I wouldn’t call myself a Golden State Warriors fan (hey, when you grow up in Celtics country, your blood is permanently green), I do have a man-crush on coach Steve Kerr. If you work with athletes or lead a team, this SI piece is worth a read. “You want to lead like Kerr?” writes Chris Ballard. “It’s easy. Just be humble and grateful, curious and self-aware. Communicate, value family, and empower others. When bad things happen, keep a broader perspective. Most of all, create something bigger than yourself for, as Keltner points out, the real test of a leader is what happens once they leave.”

— One of the most popular topics of conversation between me and my athletes, especially as we head into the summer months, has to do with cramping: why it happens and what we can do about it. Lucky for me, and them, and now you, there’s this comprehensive piece from my partners at Precision Fuel & Hydration that gets into what a cramp is, what causes exercise-associated cramps, the latest research on the topic, and what to do when you start to cramp in training or during a race. Soup-to-nuts, you will not fine a better guide on the topic! (And if you’re interested in trying PF&H products for yourself—they’re a longtime partner of the morning shakeout and the drinks/gels/chews I use to fuel my own training and racing—check out this link and save 15% off your first order.)

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I recently got a sneak peek at this year’s Meridian Collection from Tracksmith and I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new pair of the Meridian Shorts, which are the only split shorts that I feel comfortable wearing at this point of my life. They fit true to size, have plenty of pockets (8!) and subtle shirt loop on the back that I used more than I thought I would last summer. They’re perfect for when the weather heats up and all you want to do is move freely without your clothes sticking to you. If you want to try something from the Meridian Collection, or pick up anything on Tracksmith.com between now and the end of May for that matter, use the code “MARIOMAY15” this month for $15 off an order of $75 or more.

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Workout of the Week: Brad Hudson’s Power Endurance Pickups

I first learned about this session in coach Brad Hudson’s Little Black Book (Redux). He calls it an “introduction to power endurance” workout and recommends using it early in a training cycle when an athlete is still building fitness but ready to handle more work. The pickups are relatively short—1-3 minutes in duration—and the intensity—10K effort (i.e. 6-7/10 RPE)—should manageable for that chunk of time. The “recovery” intervals, which are run at more of a moderate training pace (i.e. 3-4/10 RPE) than a slow jog, are equal in duration to the work interval that preceded it. I like to use a version of this workout every few weeks during a half-marathon or marathon buildup because it forces the athlete to stay engaged the entire time and serves as a nice substitute for a standard threshold session. Here are the details.

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The bottom line. 

“Boy, I hurried … I hurried for a long time. I’m sorry I did. All the time you’re hurrying, you’re not really as aware as you should be. You’re trying to make things happen instead of just letting it happen. You follow me?”

— Bob Dylan, my birthday buddy, with a sage insight in this 1969 interview for Rolling Stone, his first for the magazine.

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That’s it for Issue 550. Please forward this email to a friend, share the web link on social media and/or in your group chats, or reply to me directly at your own risk.

Thanks for reading,

Mario