Malcolm Gladwell & Chris Chavez Think We're Selling Running All Wrong

Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer at The New Yorker, bestselling author, and podcaster. Chris Chavez is a journalist, podcaster, and the founder of CITIUS MAG. I just passed a thousand episodes, which has me rethinking what I want this to feel like. So for this one, no agenda, no notes. Just three podcasters rolling the dice. Where it went: the art of the interview. Farming attention with integrity. The state of running. Why America loses at the sports it thinks it should dominate. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Gusto: Get three months free when you run your first payroll👉🏼https://www.gusto.com/RICHROLL Momentous: Get up to 35% off your first order👉🏼https://www.livemomentous.com/richroll Freaks of Nature: Save 20% with code RICHROLL👉🏼https://www.freaksofnature.com Squarespace: Use code RichRoll to save 10% off your first order of a website or domain👉🏼https://www.squarespace.com/RichRoll Rivian: Electric vehicles that keep the world adventurous forever👉🏼https://www.rivian.com Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:21Rich Roll?

  We got Chris Chavez here from Sidious Mag. We have Malcolm Gladwell, who needs no introduction, and we're going to see what happens. Roll the dice.

• 1:29Malcolm Gladwell?

  I think it's going to be fantastic.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  It's going to be fun.

• 1:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  Performance is an individual act. Actual racing is such a tiny part of the experience of being an athlete.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  The Boston Marathon or the New York City Marathon rely more on pure competition. We need to kind of bring that back.

• 1:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  The idea of having us one of your tent pole events, something where there's a realistic chance of a grizzled, previous generation guy can come and win it all, is fantastic. We're selling it all wrong. Like, don't sell to racing, sell the training.

• 2:06Rich Roll?

  I had dinner with some friends several months ago, but one of the people at this dinner was Molly Seidel, who I've had for the very first time. And we had this really interesting conversation because she was, you know, she had just signed with Satisi, and she had just announced that she was going to be running Western States. And I was like, man, this is like, this is signaling perhaps a new era. Like, I've always wondered, what happens when somebody who is that good, like an elite marathoner, like an Olympian decides, you know what, I'm gonna, before, you know, we've seen elite athletes in the twilight of their career or post-retirement, like drop into this world, but what happens when

• 2:45Rich Roll?

  somebody who's still in that zone of elite high performance decides, you know what, maybe there's something for me over here. And I was like, you might just drop in and just rewrite the record books. Like, perhaps all of these times that we're seeing in these really long races are just low-hanging fruit for somebody who's really good. Like, what happens if Kipchoge decides he wants to like do Leadville or something, you know, like? And the question, of course, is like, will that translate? And then Molly drops in and, you know, she struggled. It was her first time, you know, perhaps with a little bit of experience. This is still something that could happen, but like, do you think about that? Like?

• 3:24Malcolm Gladwell?

  How did she account for struggling? Did she have an explanation?

• 3:26Rich Roll?

  I don't, I don't know. I don't know the details of it. I think it kind of all started to fall apart a handful of hours into it. And she, to her credit, you know, didn't drop out. She decided to like really push through and was celebrated for that. But she came in at like 24 hours or something, you know?

• 3:41Speaker 02

  You know, I think it goes back to sort of like, I think for a long time, probably a lot of track and running folks would look at just sort of like, oh, what's the average pace that that person ran for 100 miles, 50 miles, whatever it is. And they would just think, oh, like, that's not that fast, all things considered, because we're used to seeing all these crazy fast times on the track. And then, you know, seeing the performances that someone like Jim Walmsley has just put together, both, you know, holding the Western States course record for as long as he did. But then you take a couple steps back, and he wasn't like the most accomplished track athlete. Like, he attempted the steeplechase way back in the day, and like, he wasn't all that great. And so I think for a period of time, people just thought, it was like, all right, well, like, trail is, and ultras where, you know, the not-so-great track.

• 4:26Rich Roll?

  He also runs.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And now it's really cool to see someone like Molly go in at this point where she's still very young, arguably in her prime. And I think like, there's still, you know, that kind of a little bit of unfinished business when it comes to just the traditional marathon that she won an Olympic bronze medal in, you know, five years ago at this point. But yeah, there, I think trail and the ultra scene is getting younger and faster. Part of that also probably does come with what you brought up before, which was like this investment from the brands to, you know, now that they're.

• 5:00Rich Roll?

  There's money. There's like, you can make a living in this world.

• 5:03Malcolm Gladwell?

  This raises this interesting question. I always wondered about ultra, which is, is ultra an extension of distance running? Or is it its own category?

• 5:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's one of two things. And I don't think we really have the answer to that.

• 5:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  Because my gut would be that it's own, it's its own.

• 5:17Rich Roll?

  It's its own, yeah.

• 5:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  I don't think, I don't see anything, what does running for two hours and 20 minutes have in common with running for 24 hours? Like, very, very little. And also psychologically.

• 5:29Rich Roll?

  How do you tolerate sleep deprivation? Is not a factor in track and field or marathon running?

• 5:34Malcolm Gladwell?

  We've gotten to the stage now where for the mentality of the marathoners is a lot closer to the mentality of 10K runners, the 10K runners of a generation ago, than it is to the, no one's thinking of this as this kind of like, you know, insuperable psychological obstacle. They're like, it's routine. Whereas Leadville and Western States are like insuperable psychological obstacles. So like, what I don't know is whether Molly Seidel, and it's a good chance she can, is, has this, the psychological makeup to do, to transition from two hours to 24.

• 6:10Rich Roll?

  We've seen Des Linden, you know, in the world as well. Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  And yeah, I mean, I, the thing with Molly is just also sort of, she's still just so early on and sort of like this next chapter in this foray into trail that I don't follow it as closely to know how many people just nail it on that first go. And so, give it a couple of years. And I think that that's sort of like when we could probably make the assessment of whether this move was, you know, the right one. But it is, it is exciting. And I think it does draw more eyeballs. Because like, yeah, I look at it sometimes through podcast analytics at times that, you know, these, the marathon, the top marathoners in, in the United States are some of the most popular athletes in distance running.

• 6:53Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  And that, you know, kind of pairs with the fact that the masses are sharing the same race, and they can sort of relate to the idea of, you know, running a marathon. Whereas like, someone like Noah Lyles doesn't generate as much traffic as, I could do a one-on-one interview with Noah Lyles, and it does way fewer downloads and all that kind of stuff than someone like Connor Mans or Clayton Young. And so I think that it's really cool to see that just sort of that popularity that these people have generated from running traditional marathons, they're bringing that to the, to the ultra scene as well.

• 7:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. If you are on the world stage as a marathoner, you're an elite marathoner, but you know, in every prestigious race, you're coming, you're coming between like fifth and 10th. Like, why are you not thinking like, maybe I'm, maybe I should go, you know, give it a shot over in this other world. Maybe I have a better chance of distinguishing myself. Like, when you saw what happened with Rachel and Trankin at Cogadona, like, it went globally viral, what she did. Like, the ups, there is an upside there that might not be available to that, like, elite, but just below the top, you know, the highest tier of, of performance.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think maybe the money is one factor that maybe hasn't caught up. Even if you're.

• 8:18Rich Roll?

  Like, is that person who's getting fifth or 10th at those marathons, like, making a good living? I don't even know.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  For an American, probably, because they, they get some heavy appearance fees to show up to the race. So like, you don't necessarily, so a lot of, and the crazy about, thing about running is that so many of these numbers are under NDAs. And so like, we don't necessarily know what exact numbers are, but some of these folks do get six figures to show up to the New York City Marathon. And then from there, there are, you know, bonus structures in place where it's, if you make it to, you know, 20 miles, if you're top American or whatever it is, like, that you can trigger more money into your contract. And so even if the person is finishing seventh, you know, that, that probably was a better payday than

• 9:06Speaker 02

  they would have got if they podiumed at something like Western States. So I think.

• 9:12Rich Roll?

  But the average person has no idea who that person is.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. That's the thing. It's sort of like, would you trade in just sort of like the financial stability versus, you know, the popularity? And then how do you kind of take that popularity to translate to dollars? And that's kind of like the next thing. So, yeah, but the, the financial side of, of running is still kind of a little bit taboo to talk about, just because it's been that way for so many years.

• 9:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What do you think about that?

• 9:40Malcolm Gladwell?

  Think about whether people should be switching out?

• 9:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 9:44Malcolm Gladwell?

  Like, well, I mean, I think there probably, there's such a great unknown about that. By the time you're 25 and you've invested so heavily in being a marathoner and thinking about the marathon, it's quite a transition, I would think.

• 9:58Rich Roll?

  There's also all these little like subcultures within subcultures, like the person who does really well at the backyard ultras is not the same person who's going to distinguish themselves at, you know, bad water.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, then there's what, mountain running, there's, you know, all the different, I couldn't tell you what all the different racing disciplines are at something like UTMB, but the, so it's like, there's so many different ways to also, I think, but, you know, separate yourself as a champion and as a really good athlete in ultra trail where, as in the marathon, at a major, it's only really the winners in the podium and the top Americans who generate, I think, a lot of the attention. And so.

• 10:39Malcolm Gladwell?

  How, how different is the training?

• 10:42Rich Roll?

  I think that it's still very much an unknown. Like, I've interviewed so many of these people and they all have such different approaches to, to their training. Some of them really go on intuition and feel and they don't even have a coach and they go out and they just run as long as they feel like they should that day and, you know, kind of make adjustments along the way.

• 11:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  Who's the super analytical one? Who, I heard an interview with him on Science of Sport, ultra guy, posts all of his workouts, has all this very clearly worked out things about fueling.

• 11:19Rich Roll?

  Oh, David Roche. Yeah, he's fascinating. I had him on the show.

• 11:23Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah, I think that's the one I listened to. So Roche, what surprised me about Roche was his training did not seem that dissimilar from a marathoner's training, right? He's not doing insane.

• 11:35Rich Roll?

  He was experimenting with tons of threshold work and also training like a competitive eater. His whole thing was to see how many carbohydrates per hour he could train his body to absorb. And he's convinced that that is the limiter, you know, like that is what's limiting so many of these athletes because they can't sustain a threshold pace because they can't, they have gut issues and they're not able to absorb enough calories.

• 12:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:03Rich Roll?

  And he's had success, but you know, then he got injured and he's, you know, it hasn't been a perfect like trajectory for him. But I think him transparently sharing all of these experiments is sort of the ultra running version of Brian Johnson trying to live forever, you know? And it creates a lot of public intrigue and interest and affection for him and controversy.

• 12:23Malcolm Gladwell?

  For sure.

• 12:24Rich Roll?

  And, you know, maybe we need a little bit more of that in this world if we want to capture people's interest and fascination. Like when what Rachel and Tranken did went global, like what are the lessons that we can learn from that that would make people more interested in track and field? Like, I went to my first track and field world championships a couple of years ago in Tokyo. We tried to connect and we never were able to. You were like podcasting every day and I was really surprised at the pageantry of it. Like, oh, like I thought I knew what to expect. I'd never been to a real legit, like big track and field meet. And it was really a unique experience. Like, and I can, after that, I can understand why somebody is like reluctant to leave that world.

• 13:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 13:10Rich Roll?

  To try something, you know, some experiment in the ultra world.

• 13:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  To the point of Roche. So if you look at basketball, an enormous amount of fan involvement in basketball is around the game, not of the game. So huge numbers of basketball fans don't even watch much basketball. I would be one of them. What I do is I listen to people talk about basketball, think about basketball, read about basketball and follow it through statistics, right? And I'm a model for, a lot of people follow basketball the way I do. Running doesn't have, we have way too little conversation around running. We're still way too focused on performance itself. And someone like Roche is attacking that

• 13:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  problem by being so open and transparent about, in the way that he trained. And I often thought that one solution to this would be that, you know, the, the garments and whoops and aura rings of the world should sponsor athletes on the condition that they post all of their data. If I knew exactly what Josh Kerr was doing over the last month, you know, in preparation for this run at the world record, if I knew exactly how Salway trained leading up to what, you know, that would be, that would so enhance my interest in the sport and allow a whole class of people into the sport who aren't there. In all these

• 14:36Malcolm Gladwell?

  sports, this, this culture of secrecy is so self-defeating. And the notion that somehow if I'm an elite athlete and I share my workouts, I'm compromising my ability to win the race.

• 14:46Rich Roll?

  If somebody knows what I'm doing.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Or that it's your coach's IP or whatever, yeah.

• 14:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  I'm sorry, this is a separate obsession of mine with the craziness of our obsession with IP. I, I've had it, that term IP. It is totally fucking useless. Who cares?

• 15:02Rich Roll?

  Does that apply to AI scraping off everything that you've ever done and then giving it to people for free and making your books? Nobody want to buy your books anymore?

• 15:11Malcolm Gladwell?

  So who owns the IP of my last book? I don't care. I care where the, I care who gets the money from the sale, right? Or who gets enjoyment out of it? Or, anyway, this is quite a, anyway, this, we have applied this ludicrous notion to sports. And how can you follow running if you don't know what the runners are doing? We, I see them, I see them 16 minutes a year, right? And I'm supposed to be a fan of the, of the sport.

• 15:36Rich Roll?

  I, I think cycling is doing a better job of this. Like, Whoop is posting what Todd A's like strain score, like just, I think yesterday it was like, oh, he had a 20.8 strain score and he had a max heart rate of 198. I don't know that he's, you know, on Strava, these cyclists, they'll post their workouts. I don't know how meaningful that is to people.

• 15:55Malcolm Gladwell?

  So selective.

• 15:56Rich Roll?

  But yeah, right. Like the mega ride or the coffee ride.

• 16:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  Psych out your, that's why Strava, Strava is the natural person for this. The condition should be you have to post, you have to record everything and post everything. No, there's, that's, that's interesting to me.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  But it takes a certain type of personality. It takes a David Roche type personality for that to translate. And not all athletes are wired for that, nor should they be. Like, it's okay to just want to be an athlete and perform. It's different when you're that entrepreneurial, extroverted athlete who's like, who can be a social media influencer at the same time.

• 16:36Malcolm Gladwell?

  I disagree. So if I'm a basketball player, I play 82 games a year. And I might play, if I'm a starter, whatever, 32 minutes. So I don't know how many, 82 times 32 minutes. I don't know what that is. It's a very large number. That is a body of work that basketball fans have unlimited access to. They can watch me play, they can analyze to their hearts, contend every aspect of my performance. And every year, more and more and more analysis based on that body of work is available to the fan, right? So it doesn't matter. There are very shy NBA players, but they don't shield the world from seeing how many, you know, what their particular statistical profile was in a given game or, so in running, we

• 17:20Malcolm Gladwell?

  just have to get past this fact. If you're shy, whatever. Your, but your, your, your livelihood in this sport depends on fan engagement. And you are, if you are an elite athlete, you are de facto public figure in the world of athletics.

• 17:36Rich Roll?

  You're an entertainer.

• 17:37Malcolm Gladwell?

  You're an entertainer.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  The problem is, I guess, the contracts aren't written in that way in running. And so that's what the.

• 17:42Rich Roll?

  Well, they're still living in a different era where, you know, bonuses are based on podiums and things like that, which, which aren't necessarily calibrated to what is going to move the product. Like the whole, the whole like kind of value proposition of paying these athletes in the first place, which is to like sell more of whatever.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think a perfect example for something like this is, you know, it's someone like Sharon Locetti, who's the Kenyan marathoner who's won the Boston Marathon two of the last three years, I believe, or, or back, the last back-to-back years. And I saw someone just do like a public audit of like her social media channels. And it's like, well, this doesn't really match up with just sort of like the level of athlete that she is. She's won New York, she's won Boston, she was fourth at the Olympic Games. And I think just barely has like over 10,000 followers or anything. And I was like, well, yeah, I mean, you're assessing their social media posts. Their job is to train really hard to be able to run a 1435, 5K late, in the late stages of a, of the Boston Marathon,

• 18:42Speaker 02

  not necessarily to hit post on Instagram. And it's just sort of like the contracts for these athletes don't have those structures in place where it's like, hey, like you have this budget for, you know, a social media person or, or a photographer to be at every practice or anything like that. And so it's a shame because we do want these people to be bigger stars so that others can, you know, recognize just like, oh, yeah, I mean, I was rooting for that, you know, really big move late, in the late stages of the race because I know what this person's been up to this whole time.

• 19:11Rich Roll?

  But aren't most runners kind of quiet, introverted, you know, athletes living a somewhat monastic lifestyle? Like, when you think of Noah Lyle showing up and he's got the Pokemon and the briefcase and the, you know, the whole, like.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Those are sprinters.

• 19:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like that's a whole, like, these people are, like, they are performers, you know? There is a performance to that, a theatricality to that, that is, you know, not the typical kind of mindset of the average, you know, outstanding runner.

• 19:42Malcolm Gladwell?

  I have tons of conversations with teenagers or pre-teens trying to convince them to join their school's cross-country team. It's like one of my little things that I do constantly. And the thing they don't understand is, they think that, they're like, why would I do it? It's so solitary. And my point is, no, no, no, no, it's insanely social, particularly cross-country. You go for like an eight mile run with your best friends and you're running at a pace where you can chat. You're just, you're just basically gossiping for an hour and a half with your best friends who are all fit and cute and like, this is perfect. This is like, and then you get in a bus and you go for an hour and a half to attract

• 20:24Malcolm Gladwell?

  me and then you're flirting with this person next to you and this is like, what do you, what do you want? And then you go to the meet and you run for like six minutes and the rest of the time you're lying in the infield with other cute people. This is like a dream. This is, this is so much better than basketball in every way.

• 20:42Rich Roll?

  You've been hired as a chief marketing officer for cross-country.

• 20:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  Performance is.

• 20:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  Individual act, but performance, actual racing is such a tiny part of, you know, we all know this, of the experience of being an athlete. And like, we're selling it all wrong. Like, don't sell the, don't sell the, the racing, sell the training. Training is, I love straight.

• 21:07Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I think, I don't know if the training is the skeleton key to unlock, like, public fascination or broadening public interest in this.

• 21:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  Just getting kids.

• 21:17Rich Roll?

  But I think, like, when you were talking about basketball, or just athletes sharing their, their training as a way into penetrating, like, public interest. When I think of basketball, isn't it, isn't, isn't it really as much the drama off the court as it is what's happening during the games? Like, the perfect example would be Formula One. Like, Tyler over here, he's, he always says, like, oh, the reason everyone's interested in Formula One is it's like, The Bachelor for guys. Like, there's so much draw, like, interpersonal drama around these drivers, and the teams, and all that kind of stuff. It, it like, has nothing to do with what happens on race day, you know? And that somehow has captured the fascination of, you know, millions, if not billions, of people across the world. Like,

• 22:02Rich Roll?

  that's something that is lacking in these smaller sports. Like, we don't really know who these people are.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  No. And I think it's, even though circles, I think, are so small that even some of that little friction that sometimes makes, you know, creates attention in something like Formula One, or the NBA, where there's a player who unfollowed this team and that kind of stuff, that generates headlines. Like, in running, I think it's so, the, the problem is, is it's so small among the people who are covering it, who are participating in it, the top 1%, the coaches, the agents, that someone's bound to get upset if you frame something wrong. And so, that's what kind of detracts some of those things from getting traction. But it, to your point, like, it is what would make it, I think, a bit more fun.

• 22:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

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• 25:23Rich Roll?

  So, right now, we've got World Cup happening, Wimbledon, there's so much sports happening right now. Tour de France. Are you watching all of this? Like, what, what can the running world, or track and field, learn from these, the most globally popular sports in the world?

• 25:43Malcolm Gladwell?

  I wish that, this is particularly true of marathons, but, and this is not a new suggestion, but, the thing about tennis is how much individual personality, each distinctive personality, each Grand Slam has, same with golf, and we don't have that same.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  I know where he's going with this.

• 26:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is, you know, the, I'm not the only one to say this, but.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  We've talked about this on a run before.

• 26:06Malcolm Gladwell?

  One of the, of the marathon majors should be old school.

• 26:10Rich Roll?

  What does that mean?

• 26:11Malcolm Gladwell?

  There should be, no one can wear a watch. There should be no, no super shoes at all. You get your shoes from the, from the event. They're old school shoes. There's no clocks during the course, and there's no pacers. Just do it. Old school. Like, let's see people, and the fueling, just water. And let's, let's make it a hilly course.

• 26:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, this is 1975.

• 26:37Malcolm Gladwell?

  1975. The winner can be 214, and a bunch of guys are gonna bonk in, like, in mile 21, which we haven't seen at an elite level in quite some time. And that will be.

• 26:47Rich Roll?

  Maybe somebody will take a subway train.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. Rosie Ruiz it.

• 26:51Malcolm Gladwell?

  It would be, and if I knew, if I knew that every year, that's what, I'm picking a city, that's what Barcelona was. Barcelona was like.

• 27:00Rich Roll?

  I'd be much more interested in watching that.

• 27:02Malcolm Gladwell?

  So much more. But then, Berlin could be, go for it. Like, every single thing. And London could be some, and some of them, there's too, secondarily, the courses themselves should be more interesting. All this flat stuff, give me a break. It should not, it's like.

• 27:21Rich Roll?

  Well, this is the flip side of the ENHANCE Games. Like, this is the other side of that coin, right? Did you guys watch that?

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like, I like curiosity to get the best of me, and I watch, I was on a, on a plane, actually, and I just, like, jumped on the wifi, and I was like, you know what? Just gonna tune in and watch it live. And I didn't, I wasn't expecting world records, but I wanted to see just sort of what the presentation of this was gonna be like. And they were far from delivering on world records, and even the one that they got has been met with just a bunch of scrutiny, I'm sure, from the swimming community, on the size of the pool, and all that kind of stuff. But I think, if you watched it for knowing this is a big marketing vehicle for what they're trying to push, then you saw them do that. But I, from a sporting spectacle, there really wasn't, I think, too much to it.

• 28:10Rich Roll?

  Did you watch it, Malcolm?

• 28:11Malcolm Gladwell?

  No.

• 28:11Rich Roll?

  You didn't, you didn't even watch it. Did you, did you consciously boycott it? Or just, it didn't?

• 28:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  Didn't even rise to the level of, like, what am I doing here? Like.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Those track times were just abysmal.

• 28:21Rich Roll?

  Well, it was, yeah, it was terrible, which left people with one of two theories. Either this just means that everyone at the elite level is doping, or these were not, you know, the right people, or they hadn't been on their doping protocol long enough, or that, like, these, these compounds don't actually work in the way that we think they do.

• 28:41Malcolm Gladwell?

  Shoes are more important, yeah.

• 28:43Rich Roll?

  But they let the swimmers wear the skin suits, and I think that was the real differentiator, and whatever, kind of like, you know, on the better end of those performances. I mean, it was subs, it was like, underwhelming across the board. But why not let the track guys put springs in their shoe, do some crazy thing with their shoes? You know, if they're gonna, like, let the swimmers wear these suits, what is the technical gear advantage in track and field?

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think we'll see that. I think the toughest part with running and track is that it just, it lives so much around the Olympic cycle, right? And so, at some point, you get too close to trying to experiment with these off events, or these exhibitions, where you try to get a little bit freaky, and bend the rules a little bit. But it's, it's not out of the question. We saw Kip Chogi attempt the sub-two marathon twice, didn't get it the first time, but that first one was similar in, in the sense of, they knew it wasn't gonna be world record eligible, so let's optimize it for trying to see how close you can get to, to two hours. And I think it did open so many people's eyes

• 29:47Speaker 02

  to, like, oh, this could be possible. And, so, yeah, I mean, like, I, with last year, Faith Kipigong attempting the four-minute mile, didn't come close. I think 406 was, was, was good, but similarly to the swimmers at the ENHANCE Games, you don't know what exactly was, I mean, it's a time that I think that she could have run in a regular race, but they outfitted her with, there's the marketing side to it, will say it's the spikes or the suit that she was wearing, the pacing formations. And when you throw too many of those things into a record attempt, then it's really hard to quantify, well, how much did they actually get from this versus that? And so, yeah, I'm sure we'll see other

• 30:27Speaker 02

  ones. There are other made-up barriers that I think people can try and, you know, market around the sport, the sport loves around numbers. But, yeah, I, going back to Malcolm's point about just sort of making these events feel, I think, a little bit more important and unique. Like, I think that is sort of like, the beauty to something like the Boston Marathon, or the New York City Marathon, where those are the ones that don't have pacemakers. They, you know, they just are tougher courses with the bridges and the hills. And so, that one relies more on pure competition. And we need to kind of bring that back, I think. There's just such a over fixation on times, and this is something I think I feel like I talk about weekly with just sort of all of these, and, and that

• 31:10Speaker 02

  goes to the marathon, and also to, to track, where you tune into so many of these broadcasts, and this is my one gripe, is that the announcers will just get so fixated on, like, this is what the meet record is, or the world record, or the world lead. And when they, the athletes deliver on a really thrilling finish, or a race, like, they'll still bring up the fact that, like, oh, but they missed the meet record, or the world lead, or whatever it is. And it's like, no, let's focus on the fact that we just had a really good race between these, you know, phenomenal athletes. And so, it just, I, the, the framing around competition, I think, is what needs some work across probably a variety of different Olympic sports. Swimming probably also has that.

• 31:52Malcolm Gladwell?

  The best example of this, golf does this better than anybody.

• 31:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  And the best example of this was, I don't know what year it was, but you remember when Tom Watson nearly won the British Open at the age of, was he 59? 58, 59? He lost in a playoff to Stewart, Stewart Sink, maybe? If I'm remembering correctly?

• 32:15Rich Roll?

  I don't follow it that closely.

• 32:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  That's because golf has, one of the four majors, the British Open, is played on a course that is set up in such a way that a 59-year-old can compete against a 25-year-old or a 30-year-old. And it's not, you could not have that happen, that couldn't happen at the Masters, could not happen at the US Open, but it can happen at the British Open. So like, you, it's a completely different, and the idea of having us one of your tent pole events, something where there's a realistic chance of a savvy, grizzled, you know, previous generation guy can come and win it all, is fantastic. Like, and that's because they have paid attention to what Chris is just talking about.

• 32:58Malcolm Gladwell?

  Tom Watson, in no way at that time, was the greatest golfer in the world. In no way, if you would just want to do an abstract comparison of golfers. But they were smart enough to know that we can construct a competitive environment where he can compete with the best. And that was, I mean, I'm still talking, this is 25 years ago, I'm still talking about it, I'm nothing.

• 33:19Rich Roll?

  Well, another example of that is the race between the two of you guys. I've spoken to you both visually about this, but like, what was that, like, four or five years ago?

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Five years ago, yeah.

• 33:27Rich Roll?

  At a legit track meet here in New York City, where Chris and Malcolm faced off in the mile. And that was one of the, like, I was more excited to watch that than, I'm like, I like track and field, I'm not like insane about it, like you guys, but I was not gonna miss watching that.

• 33:44Malcolm Gladwell?

  It was brilliant, Chris brilliantly hyped it up, I gotta say.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  To my own demise. I think, yeah, so.

• 33:50Rich Roll?

  So you were the Tom Watson in this equation.

• 33:53Malcolm Gladwell?

  I was the grizzled vet who came through.

• 33:55Rich Roll?

  What, what did you run? 515 or something like that?

• 33:59Speaker 02

  He ran 513, and I just was off the back 520-something, but I think the biggest takeaway I had from, from that race is, one, probably go into, in better shape, but two, I think I overextended myself on, I think moments before that race was even going off, I had to like rush up to the broadcast booth to make sure that like, the stream was working properly, barely, I think, got a warm-up in, so these are my excuses coming out five years later, but it was, it was a lot of fun. I don't do well now, when I put a big goal out there and drive some attention, so like, personally, I think I've strayed away from doing that, you know, if I wanna go attempt

• 34:43Speaker 02

  the marathon PR, I think when I, when I finally did break three hours in the marathon, that was something I was after for a long time, I went to Houston, didn't really tell too many people, and just went out and did it. And so, that was the biggest lesson I had from that race with Malcolm, is just, I don't do so well, which is sort of like the, the pressure and attention in the lead-up. And that thing ended up getting, I think, a quarter million views on YouTube, and a men's health article that hyped him up and then bashed me.

• 35:10Malcolm Gladwell?

  Is that right?

• 35:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:12Rich Roll?

  Are we, can we, can we expect a rematch at some point?

• 35:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  He's gonna kill me.

• 35:16Rich Roll?

  No, this is done.

• 35:17Malcolm Gladwell?

  No, he's way, way, way, I have no, I don't belong in the same track as Chris. I got, I had a very fortunate set of circumstances break my way. And also, there's something, you know this, Rich, something happens between, five years ago, when you're 62, five years is a long, is like a big, I am nowhere close to the runner I was in my late 50s.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  He was 57, I was 27.

• 35:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you're quietly training hard, I would imagine. You, the, the word on you out there is that you're the ultimate sandbagger. True or false?

• 35:52Malcolm Gladwell?

  I'm not even gonna answer that question.

• 35:54Rich Roll?

  Down at that track, down like, you know, along the East River there, where all the, all the Manhattanites go to, you know, match with.

• 36:01Malcolm Gladwell?

  I don't run there anymore, no, I have, I can't do the kind of training, because I now live upstate and I have kids and I can't, you know, so I, my, I do little things

• 36:13Rich Roll?

  This is part of the sandbagging. Astrid psychological warfare.

• 36:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  I've, I've thought a lot about it. What I would really like to do is, the one, the one event I think I could, in my advanced age, do well in at this point, is the 800. And I would like, if I could configure my family obligations in such a way, I'd love to make a run of, like, a decent, you know, post-60 half-mile time.

• 36:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:41Malcolm Gladwell?

  I think I still have a little bit of speed, that's what I would need for that, but I can't beat Chris, not, that's.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  There was a much more under the radar rematch that did happen, we, we did run a 3K against each other.

• 36:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Indoors at the Armory, this one, we didn't like really tell people about before, but he kicked my butt again, so I'm 0-2 against Malcolm in a, in a race.

• 37:04Malcolm Gladwell?

  I forgot about that.

• 37:06Rich Roll?

  This tradition of running well in publishing needs to be extended. We have like Nick Thompson right now, who's like breaking all these Masters records.

• 37:16Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah, Nick is a real deal.

• 37:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he, you know, he's definitely the best runner in publishing right now, I think, isn't he?

• 37:22Speaker 02

  I would think so, yeah. And then especially when you take into account just sort of like the age group records and stuff that he goes for, yeah, I, if we disqualify any former professional athletes, then I would say, yeah, Nick is definitely.

• 37:37Rich Roll?

  Well, also, being the CEO of The Atlantic, and being, by all accounts, like, a very good dad, you know, who's, who's there for his kids. So this is possible, Malcolm.

• 37:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  He's, Nick is really, so I know, I've known Nick for a long time, have run with him, and it's like a revelation, he's just on another, you know, I quit competitive running when I was in my teens, because I, I was running against a guy and I understood that I would never be at his level. You just sort of know, right? You meet these people who are, and what interests me about Nick is, so he's one of the best in the world for his age, does this mean he could have been one of the best in the world when he was 25? Or is it, again, are we talking about a separate category of achievement? Is there a whole different class of people who come into their own in their 40s and 50s? I wish there was a good explanation.

• 38:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Malcolm Gladwell?

  Is his aging curve just different from everyone else's? Is, is he somehow managed to stay healthier than, like, what's the exponent, like, how do we, how do we account for somebody who was a good but not great D1 runner, and then becomes flat-out world-class in his 40s?

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think the other thing to also maybe remember, we do, we do have a way of kind of assessing it, when he goes out, and he's done it, I think, a couple times, and gone out to run like the World Marathon Majors, Masters Championship Race, or whatever it is, and someone like Ken Wright out, I think, has also run those and, and fared well. But I guess the, the problem would be just sort of, we don't really see all that many, what, 40, late 40-year-old Kenyans and Ethiopians still going at it in the sport? Everyone kind of makes their money and their, the most of their opportunity in their 20s and 30s, and then kind of ride off into the sunset, whereas like, here in the States, like, there's so many people just like Nick, who have kind of, they don't have all the heavy mileage on their legs from those 20s, that it kind of allows for them to, and plus

• 39:36Speaker 02

  super shoes and all that kind of stuff, has allowed them to extend their careers by so many more years.

• 39:41Rich Roll?

  But it's also the psychological factor. A lot of these people are, are people that feel, they're motivated by the fact that they know that they, for whatever reason or life circumstance, were not able to achieve their potential as an athlete in their prime, and so there's something to prove, there's an animating energy to the Masters athlete. Whereas, the person who achieved all of their goals, they're like, why would I keep doing this? You know, it's a different, it's a different mentality. I mean, I have a friend from my college swimming days, Alex Kostic, he never retired, he just continued to train swimming as if he was still, you know, at Stanford in 1987 or whatever,

• 40:23Rich Roll?

  and he's gone on to dominate open water swimming, like, throughout his 40s. And even now, in his mid-50s, like, he's slowed down a little bit, but he still pops into like, the waikiki rough water swim, and maybe he won't win, but like, he'll get third, and everyone else is like, between the ages of 16 and 19. It's insane.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  And this is like a very sub-subculture of like, like, open water swimming, like, nobody pays attention to this, but this guy is like, he just, the most, like, it's consistency over decades.

• 41:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is a great PhD thesis for a sports physiologist, I'm sure some of they've done versions of it, but like, identifying a category, a, a number of examples of these kinds of, of, he's not, he doesn't sound like a late bloomer, he's just a continuous bloomer, he's a perennial.

• 41:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:19Malcolm Gladwell?

  Not a late bloomer.

• 41:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think, I can't remember how, like, there was a group chat of me and some of my swimmers from back in that day, and we're like, did you see what Alex did? And then when you, when you add it up, like, the top, like, I think maybe he was fourth, I don't know, in this race, and if you add up the ages of the top three, like, they still were younger than him.

• 41:40Malcolm Gladwell?

  I love that.

• 41:41Rich Roll?

  You know, and I think it's just also a statement on culture and people's interest in longevity and maintaining their health, like, we're just, we're just rewriting our expectations around human possibility, because we're treating our bodies differently and we have a better understanding about how to do that. And, you know, when I was, it was like, oh, if you're 21 years old, like, you're toast, you're done, like, you'll never, you know, like, like.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Go to the trails.

• 42:07Rich Roll?

  That was the thing, you know, and it's like, oh no, that was just because, like, it just wasn't possible to extend your athletic career beyond those, beyond college.

• 42:18Rich Roll?

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• 42:58Rich Roll?

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• 43:35Rich Roll?

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• 44:16Rich Roll?

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• 44:33Malcolm Gladwell?

  What's happened in running in the last, and I love, this is something that Chris can, you know, we've had the op, like in a lot of sports, what we've seen is extension at the top end, older athletes lasting longer. But the big story in running in the last, competitive in the last couple of years, has been the opposite. Yeah, we've got genuine world-class performers emerging in their teens, like Cooper.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  Luckenhaus.

• 45:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  Luckenhaus, who's arguably the best half mile in the world at 17. We've got the Cam Myers at 20, who's maybe the best mile in the world right now, who, who nonchalanted his way to 331 the other day, like, was it 328?

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, 328.

• 45:17Malcolm Gladwell?

  328, I'm sorry, 328. I watched that and I was like, he just went out for a run, and it was 328, and he's 20 years old. I couldn't, I was watching, it's like, and he just kind of like eased away. And, and then there's Sam Ruthie, and there's.

• 45:32Rich Roll?

  Who's the kid who's in high school right now?

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Cooper Luckenhaus.

• 45:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:38Malcolm Gladwell?

  He's, I mean, he's at 17.

• 45:40Rich Roll?

  Right. And so how do you account for that?

• 45:42Malcolm Gladwell?

  I don't know why running is suddenly, and we could come up with other examples.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:48Malcolm Gladwell?

  Women have had that for a while, but that's just sound physiological reasons why you might expect women to peak earlier than men. But this is, this seems new and kind of interesting.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think the biggest thing, because right now, I guess, I've been looking at it a lot with Cam Myers in particular, where, you know, he's an Australian middle distance runner who's just rewriting, you know, not only his national record books, but slowly moving up in, you know, just the all-time list. But we love just kind of looking back, as Jakob Ingberthson tends to be, like, the example that a lot of people point to. So, you know, grew up in maybe one of the most competitive Norwegian families, where he's, his older brothers were both runners, his dad was a renowned coach for a bit. They had a whole, like, Kardashian-style TV show that followed them around for several years.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  And you saw this kid grow up and then become an Olympic champion in Tokyo. But all of his times that he was running as a kid were record-setting, and now we look at just sort of Cam, and we can kind of see just sort of, he's already trending faster than someone, than Jakob was back in the day. And I think, part of that, I think, is, one, we keep bringing up just sort of like footwear and shoes, but that is just kind of a big part to it. Like, these athletes are growing up at a time where they've had it their whole careers, where for a period of time, there were athletes who competed in the non-super shoe or super spike era, and then had to kind of adjust and, and cross over these two eras. But these

• 47:24Speaker 02

  high schoolers have had it this whole entire time. I think it's the accessibility to training, like, everything's on the internet nowadays. And when you hear of the trendy double-threshold Norwegian method that is out there, like, that catches on, and, you know, high school coaches or college coaches will adjust it to their programs. And so the training has gotten better, the fueling is a whole nother side to it, too, whereas it's not just in the marathon.

• 47:48Malcolm Gladwell?

  Chris, none of these, these are all plausible explanations, but they don't explain, they would explain why everyone's getting faster. They don't explain this particular phenomenon that a 17-year-old, or a 19-year-old, or whatever, can be world-class in a, you know, in a way that was simply unthinkable for most of the history. Like, everyone's getting benefit of the shoes, everyone's getting access to these better training things, everyone's getting better fueling. The 25-year-old gets exactly the same advantages. So why are they being destroyed all of a sudden by kids?

• 48:24Speaker 02

  I think it just goes, I mean, there's probably the genetic factor also that kind of goes into it, too, which is sort of, he, someone like Cooper comes from like a family of athletes, but then you can also point to several other people who have had just sort of like that athletic background. But, yeah, I mean, every now and then, there just comes those, you know, freak talents. And I guess, like, track isn't in the same, you know, kind of level as it was maybe back in the Jim Ryan days, but everyone kind of argues that he, Jim Ryan is the greatest high school athlete ever in history, and you can argue LeBron and all that kind of stuff. But Cooper's already surpassed what someone like Jim Ryan did back in the day, and it's not as mainstream nowadays. But come something like 2028, I think a lot of people will take note. And maybe that's

• 49:09Speaker 02

  around the time we start to learn a bit more. We've got plenty of time, I think, to still learn more, just sort of what it is that's made him this good.

• 49:17Rich Roll?

  But it's cool that, you know, in 2026, we can still be amazed and surprised, you know, when we think we're just, you know, kind of nearing the end of what is possible athletically. I mean, look at what Tadej Pogacar is doing in the, in the tour right now. Like, if you tune into Lance's The Move podcast, like, there's a lot of talk of like, oh, this is like, he's, he is the best athlete in the world right now. He's so dominant, like, perhaps greater than Eddie Merk's ever was. It would be, the analogy that Lance used was, it would be like somebody winning the New York City Marathon by 10 minutes. Like, like, the margin that separates him and everybody else is so dramatic. And like, how do we

• 50:01Rich Roll?

  account for this, when everybody's training super hard, and, you know, this sport is so globally popular, like, you know, anybody who would show the potential would end up, you know, in this race, and yet he is so much better than everybody else.

• 50:14Malcolm Gladwell?

  The only thing that I can think of for these is that, you know, and David Epstein talks in one of his books a lot about this, the sorting, which is, in any kind of situation where someone is, has a lot of athletic potential, there is a process in which they try and figure out where they belong, right? And one of the arguments against early specialization is, you, it impairs your sorting. You can think you're a good swimmer at. Nine, but actually, no, you should have done volleyball, but you couldn't figure that. You can't figure that out if you, unless you play volleyball into your whatever.

• 50:54Malcolm Gladwell?

  So that was a significant constraint on early great performances that we're still sorting. Federer is still playing football at 16. So we don't know whether he could have obliterated every, you know, tennis thing. But one, one possible explanation of what's going on now is maybe we're, for reasons we don't entirely understand, sorting mechanisms are getting a lot more efficient early on. That we just have a clearer idea about where people belong in.

• 51:26Rich Roll?

  Not efficient enough for the United States to be competitive in the World Cup. At the level of expectations, you know, there's a lot of discussion right now, like, how come we can't compete at the highest level in this, in this sport? Everybody's got a theory.

• 51:41Malcolm Gladwell?

  My theory is we're using the wrong theory. So there's.

• 51:45Rich Roll?

  I knew he would have.

• 51:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  I knew this is something.

• 51:50Rich Roll?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 51:50Malcolm Gladwell?

  Talk a lot about this and the discussion sort of drives me crazy. There are two paths to excellence in any kind of community. There is a scale path and there's an exploitation path. The scale path is you play the numbers. If I increase the number of people participating in said activity, I will, by definition, improve my chances of getting a superstar.

• 52:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 52:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  If I, if I go from a thousand people running a marathon every year to 100,000, I'm going to get 10x more elite athletes. The other route is exploitation, which is, it's not about increasing the size of the pool, it's about increasing the quality of the pool, looking at who's there and somehow bringing them to the next level. Our assumption in America is that all of these problems are scale problems. So we say, we're the biggest country in the world. We have scale and everything. We should be succeeding at everything. But the truth is that at the very highest level of not just athletic performance, but all performance, it's almost never scale, it's exploitation. You know, the classic example would be, I forgot what the exact number is, something

• 53:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  like 60% of Nobel prizes were won by Jews between 19, you know, 20 and 2020. There are no Jews in the world. It's not like there, there was 100 million Jewish physicists. It's a tiny number, but it wasn't never about, it's supposed to exploitation, not scale. It's about that they had a culture that allowed people to develop a level of intellectual excellence that put other cultures to shame. If I go down the list of elite performance, it's always exploitation. No one, the greatest tennis players almost never come from the biggest tennis playing cultures. They come from tiny tennis, chess. You know, when was the last time America had a bona fide chess grandmaster?

• 53:44Malcolm Gladwell?

  I mean, Bobby Fischer, right? It's been, right now, the best chess grandmaster was from Norway, a tiny, tiny, tiny country. The Netherlands has been one of the best football playing countries for, since Brilliant Orange in the seventies. The Netherlands is a postage stamp. You could bury the Netherlands in the city of Chicago and not even notice it. Like, there's no evidence for this notion that scale is a reasonable strategy for producing excellence in any, you know, only in a small number of, of sports, but most sports, if we do distance running, what is it? It's Japan, Kenya and Ethiopia. I looked this up actually this morning because I was thinking about this.

• 54:24Malcolm Gladwell?

  68, if you look at the top 200 marathon performances in 2025, 68% of them came from Kenya, Kenya, Ethiopia and Japan, who, which collectively represent what? Some insanely tiny fraction of the world population, right? It's just like, Americans had this thing which just drives me crazy. We're big, we should be good. No, got nothing to do with that. It has to do with, what kind of attention do you pay and what kind of cultures do you create around excellence in very, very small cohorts of people?

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it would require rewriting our culture completely.

• 55:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  Exactly. And I don't want, I like the fact that America is a scale country because it benefits us in a million, there are a million other things where I think scale really, really works well.

• 55:10Rich Roll?

  Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman were talking about this the other day and Chuck had a, you know, he was, I was very humored by his take, which is basically like this, this arrogance that, that Americans have, like, that we should be, like, why aren't, like, we're, you know, we should be exceptional at everything, like this expectation, you know?

• 55:27Malcolm Gladwell?

  No, not, not. But there, like I said, the things that do require scale are the things that America excels at, and they're really, really important. Scale, entrepreneurial success is a scale problem.

• 55:40Rich Roll?

  Norway's come up a couple of times. How are we making sense of Norway's ascendancy as a sports superpower?

• 55:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's exploitation. It's the, it is the greatest example. It's a very wealthy country that has developed cultures that are really brilliant at exploiting talent, right? We're seeing in distance running, we're seeing it in football, we just watched in the World Cup, with chess, we've got like, you know, Magnus Carlsen and others. It's like.

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  Triathlon, we have Eden and Blumenfeld.

• 56:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah, we've, they're, they have, and I don't, what, a, a better question is, what exactly is the secret sauce to their exploitation strategy? I don't have a good answer to that.

• 56:21Rich Roll?

  Well, you have a lot of thoughts on youth sports and they have a very unique, you know, approach to that. This idea that like kids are not allowed to keep score until age 13 or whatever, like, which just completely upends all of our assumptions about what drives performance.

• 56:38Malcolm Gladwell?

  The Germans, I think maybe the Germans do this thing where they don't even play

• 56:45Malcolm Gladwell?

  full strength soccer until they're into their teens. They play four on four and then six on six and then, there's also a really nerdy thing that they do that we don't do, which is pay huge amount of attention to relative age effect, to the great inefficiency.

• 57:00Rich Roll?

  This goes back to some of your earliest writings on.

• 57:03Malcolm Gladwell?

  They take it, do you know that the Dutch especially are obsessed with this? That looking at their elite performers in soccer a generation ago and realizing they were all born in the first half of the year and which meant that they were losing 50% of their, or you know what they do in, do you know what the Australians in swimming, you know this? Where there's this move now where they go one step further, which is they do in these experiments with, in age class swimming, they have two measures of the give. One is, one is your age, so you compete in your age class. And then second is you can do these relatively sophisticated calculations of your biological age.

• 57:46Malcolm Gladwell?

  And so they develop a, a handicap.

• 57:52Malcolm Gladwell?

  So I have a bunch of 12 year olds doing a 100 meter freestyle. I have a, I use the biological age to, to, to have a built in statistical handicap so that the kid who is relatively the youngest biologically has a level playing field with the kid who is, you know, maybe a year and a half ahead of his, of his age or her age group. And then I adjust the times. So I have two sets of results that result from the race. I have the standard results and then I have the adjusted results. So you could come in last in a standard results, but after I do the age class adjustment, you could be first. And what that does is it radically improves the sorting mechanism.

• 58:35Malcolm Gladwell?

  Because what they were finding in Australian swimming, which is that hu- huge numbers of kids quit in the 12, 13 range because they think they're not good. And you're losing all these kids who are simply late bloomers or young for their age. So this is a mechanism that says, actually, I know, Rich, you came last, but if we do a, you're, you're, you're a year behind maturity wise with the other kids in this. You're, and if we do that adjustment, you were the best. And suddenly Rich is no longer, Rich goes home to his mom and says, I'm actually great at this. I'm going to keep going for another two years. Like, if you do that, your capitalization, your exploitation strategy becomes way more, more significant.

• 59:18Rich Roll?

  But Australians dominance in swimming is another example of exploitation over sorting because it's a culture, you know, it's a water culture. Like, how many people live in Australia? Like, I don't know, 20 million or something? It's like, it's, it's nothing, you know?

• 59:34Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's funny, I don't know. It's very low.

• 59:36Rich Roll?

  I would say 35, 40 million. And, and you know, they've produced, you know, time and time again, like Olympic champs.

• 59:41Malcolm Gladwell?

  It's the size of Canada. It's basically, it's basically Canada down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, they're a great example of, of the specificity of, of, of expertise in these areas, these, these, these cultural specificities. What's going on in track and field this summer?

• 59:57Speaker 02

  So it's an off year technically from, this is the first one we've had since the, since the pandemic where there isn't a traditional world championship or an Olympics. And so we got into really good cadence where Tokyo Olympics 2021, and then we had two world championships, Paris Olympics, Paris Olympics, world championships. And so World Athletics, the governing body decided, well, that was pretty fun to have, you know, a pretty big high stakes competition. So they did form what they're calling the World Athletics Ultimate Championships. Sounds like a, like a frisbee contest, but it's a big prize money, three day competition

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  that is basically, you know, a mini world championships. Not every event is featured there. And so that's coming up in September. And so they're going to start doing that, I think, every even year going forward.

• 1:00:49Malcolm Gladwell?

  Where's that gonna be?

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  So it'll be in Budapest and so September 11th to the 13th. And so, yeah, I'll go. That'll be fun. So a fun three days and it works off of like the World Athletics rankings. So like you have to race a certain amount of times and have some good performances to up your ranking. And so they've kind of gamified it. So it's not necessarily about, you know, the 12 fastest people will be running. And so it's basically emphasizing, I think, a bit of consistency over the course of a, of a season. And so that's what I think a lot of the top athletes have to look forward to. But then other than that, there's, you know, people trying, you know, to break world records this year.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  And so a lot of athletes putting, you know, a target date of they want to go after someone like Josh Kurz going after the mile world record in just a couple of days. But there's other athletes like a Keely Hodgson from, from Great Britain has had her sights set on the women's 800 meter world record, which is, has stood for a very long time since the

• 1:01:52Malcolm Gladwell?

  Should have been expunged a long time ago.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so, you know, it's pretty cool. I think that we're getting to that point now where because of all of these things that have created marginal gains for the athletes that, for that time period that before the athlete biological passport came in and we were able to kind of crack down on doping a bit better. A lot of those marks are finally starting to get erased, but it took, it took a while. I brought this up a couple of days ago that Malcolm, a couple of years ago, had this idea of instead of, you know, keeping track of, you know, these all time world records, decade records was, I think, like the direction that you, you went. Because you can't necessarily go out if you're, you know, World Athletics or, you know, the swimming, you know, federation and be like,

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  we're going to erase all these times because we think that they're, you know, sketchy or dodgy from the Eastern Bloc. Or, you know, there was that period where there were Chinese dopers. It's like, because you open yourself up to a bunch of lawsuits, probably from those countries, those athletes. And so you can't necessarily have this blanket erasure. But it, to Malcolm's point, I think, like, if you were to just keep track of like, here's what the records have been since 2020 and we're going to keep track of that until 2030 and then we'll reset. Like it's, I think, a fun way that hasn't really

• 1:03:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  There's a wrinkle you do. You raise a bunch of money, like whatever, $50 million. And then suddenly 2029 becomes this crazy year because you say, I'm going to give a million dollars to the best performer over the course of the previous decade. So everyone's just like, and the dollar figure is huge. So you create this artificial frenzy. Like in 2029, everyone's like maxing out to do it. It's a non Olympic year. The last, the last year of the decade is always a non Olympic year. So you'd have this kind of, track needs more of these kind of artificial

• 1:03:46Rich Roll?

  Well, that also plays into, I think we talked about this the last time you were on my podcast. This, this idea that it's not about a singular breakthrough performance. The real, you know, the real athletic champion is the person who can sustain high performance over time. And so that would, that accounts for that. You're valuing

• 1:04:07Malcolm Gladwell?

  The older you get, the more you become biased in favor of body of work arguments over peak performance arguments.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  That's, that's like, you know, to, to your point. So you look at someone like Sebastian Sawe, who just broke, you know, the two hour marathon in London and he runs 159.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  And, you know, a lot of people would see a time like that and it's the world record now. But is he really the greatest marathoner of all time? I don't think so. I think you still have to give that edge to someone like Elliot Kipchoge, who was able to sustain the career that he had over the course of 10 years. So there's still like a long way for someone like Sebastian Sawe to go to achieve sort of like that level of two Olympic gold medals, many world marathon major titles. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's like the perfect example of assessing someone over, you know, the course of their career versus just sort of the one off performance. He could, you know, maybe never run faster again. But if he, you know, goes out and wins 10 more marathon majors and an Olympic gold medal in LA, then it's, you know, he could start to make the case.

• 1:05:08Malcolm Gladwell?

  Who's the quintessential example of someone who gets overlooked in peak performance, but would be a giant if we considered body of work? Is there a swimming example, for example, or a, I don't know what the

• 1:05:25Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, I, I think Phelps would still be up there because he sustained his high performance over so many Olympics.

• 1:05:32Malcolm Gladwell?

  I mean,

• 1:05:33Rich Roll?

  I mean, that's a great, that's a great

• 1:05:34Malcolm Gladwell?

  In track, it would be Kajal, Kajal, Kajalcha.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, Yomie Kajalcha, who's like, what, he's been Mr. Runner Up so many times and like, has run so many world class times. And I think last year was the first time he got a world championship or he got a silver medal at the world championships on the track and then

• 1:05:52Malcolm Gladwell?

  Basically has been one of the best in the world in every distance from a mile to a marathon.

• 1:05:58Rich Roll?

  So it's not only longevity, it's dexterity.

• 1:06:00Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah. Over the course of six, seven, eight years.

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  And he, he's actually, he's like really tall and he has this slightly odd, you, the way he runs, you expect him to be wearing a top hat. Like it's a kind of like, he's just, he's kind of lanky and he has a kind of stiffness. And it's just, he's kind of a character. I, I know nothing about him. I mean, I just know that every time he runs a race, doesn't matter what the length is or whether it's, whether it's 2019 or 2026, he's in the mix. So kind of

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  A mile all the way to the marathon. He's the, I guess the joke now is that he's the only guy who's never run, he's run a marathon, but never run over two hours because he ran 159 and finished second in London.

• 1:06:49Rich Roll?

  I know. That's the craziest thing.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Rich Roll?

  Like just the idea that you would run under two hours and not win.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Rich Roll?

  It's like, who would have ever thought that, you know?

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  So crazy. Yeah. I've been trying to, you know, dive deep into, to that race and it's been really cool. You know, I had the chance to chat with Sebastian Sawe just a couple of weeks ago a bit. And, uh, you know, the, I'm scheduled to talk to his coach, I think. But, um, yeah, that, that, that day, just the stars aligned and you needed just sort of those two guys to be on and have that, you know, head to head 40K, you know, 30, 5K into the race where, you know, you're on world record pace, but someone's still breathing down your neck. I think that's ultimately, I think, what did push Sebastian Sawe to, you know, not only just win, but, but get under two hours. I think the one side of the sub two that I'm kind of very interested to explore,

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  and it feels like a, like an Alex Hutchinson or a Steve Magnus angle is just sort of, everyone's talked about the shoes and, you know, the fueling and the pacing. But I think that there was something subconscious that happened at not enough people are talking about is that they had this huge clock on the car ahead of them that showed them the projected finish time and also the pace of the last kilometer. And psychologically, I feel like something happens that you can't necessarily measure, you know, in that, you know, span of time where they looked at whatever the split was at 40K and suddenly like that clock showed you that you were now under two hour pace.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  And it's just sort of what happened in that moment is like, you can't just take someone's blood or whatever it is to measure what it was, but that adrenaline, it's like, what happened in that, in his brain in that moment is something that, you know, you can't really measure in the shoes and all that kind of stuff. So I got Sawe's take, but it's Kajalcha who, you know, I need to talk to still and figure out just sort of like, he's someone who is famously loved closing long runs really hard. And to be in contention and to see something like that happen, what happened internally is just sort of, what my biggest curiosity is and how that race unfolded.

• 1:09:00Rich Roll?

  Also knowing kilometer by kilometer, how much you are ahead of or behind breaking the world record pace, you can make those micro adjustments in real time.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. Having that car, you know, there's drafting, you know, also that's happening there. You can't, the rules say you can't get super close to it. We saw a half marathon world record not count because Jacob Uplimo, he ran 56, 47 or something like that, just an insane time. But doesn't count to, toward the record books because he was too close to the lead car. And they said that, you know, that gave him too much of an advantage from, from drafting. And so in the marathon, I think they were pretty, you know, dialed in to not have that be the case in, in London as well.

• 1:09:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Wow.

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:48Rich Roll?

  Well, this, this conversation around valuing high performance over time is also sport dependent, right? Like some sports and some specialties within sport are going to lend themselves to being able to perform at a high level over time versus other ones where it's just, it's going to be less possible. So you have to, would have to take that into account as well, wouldn't you?

• 1:10:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  What's an example of a sport where you can't do high performance over time?

• 1:10:16Rich Roll?

  Is it not different to be able to compete at the highest level in the 100 meter dash over time versus the marathon or being a 200 mile ultra runner? Like, wouldn't those be treated differently or considered?

• 1:10:31Malcolm Gladwell?

  I mean, we have seen examples of

• 1:10:36Malcolm Gladwell?

  I mean, a really, a really good example would be uh Johann Blake, the Jamaican 100 meter runner who has, is exactly what we're talking about, has won very few international, big, big deal international competitions, but has been one of the top two or three sprinters in the world for an astonishing long time. Same with a

• 1:11:01Rich Roll?

  But nobody's going to be 59 years old like they are in golf.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:11:05Malcolm Gladwell?

  No.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  In this race, no.

• 1:11:06Malcolm Gladwell?

  But remember, there was a woman named Merlyn Adi.

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  Uh Jamaican again, I mean, I'm repping Jamaica repeatedly here since it is greatest country in the world, home to so many of my relatives. She ran, uh she was world class into her late 30s. Um and those kinds, so it's not impossible. And those people are, do you remember there was a, this dates me even more, there was a, a, a New Zealand marathon, a, a marathoner from New Zealand named Jack Foster, who was running 216 in the seventies, was running 216, 217 into his late 40s. Which back then was just astonishing because you could win, flat out win marathons at that pace. So like, I just think, I think you're right, it's harder in certain fields, but that just makes me feel like, like Johann Blake does no way gets enough love.

• 1:11:55Malcolm Gladwell?

  I mean, sprinting is real, sprinting is something where you would expect a real age-related drop off, right?

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:01Malcolm Gladwell?

  And it did not happen with him. And that, that should mean we should say that he should be spoken of in the same breath as some of the greatest sprinters who ever lived.

• 1:12:09Rich Roll?

  Because top end speed gets eroded with age.

• 1:12:11Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:11Rich Roll?

  Whereas you can continue to develop your aerobic capacity and, and

• 1:12:15Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:15Rich Roll?

  compete at a higher, at a high level on an, in an endurance type race.

• 1:12:20Malcolm Gladwell?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  I was just thinking about that because uh, you know, I think Noah Lyles is someone who has been sort of like the de facto voice and face of, of sprinting over the last like couple of years because he kind of wanted to assume that mantle, just he's someone who's wanted to push for, you know, track being a bit more popular. And so he's one of those guys that you either hate him or you love him. And, and that's kind of a, a, a good thing. But I was thinking to, to the point of longevity in the sprints, he was a high school phenom back in 2016, finishing fourth at like the US Olympic trials. And so now, you know, he's trying to position himself, he's the reigning Olympic champion, to potentially go into the Los Angeles Olympics, you know, as a favorite for, for a gold medal. It's like, it's a long time to stay at the top of the sprints.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  And so even what we're seeing now, like this current season, like he is in racing a ton, but every time that he gets out there, he's still winning these races. And there are like these, these younger folks coming up in the sprints and he's managed to, to hold them off. And so we're, right now, I guess like for the, you know, people listening or watching and who are curious about track and wanting to get into it in the lead up to the LA Olympics, now's the time to really appreciate and enjoy a talent like Noah Lyles because uh it's not a given that he's going to be at this level in two years. And so I had that just kind of like moment, it's like, even though this, he's like in his late twenties, I was like, we gotta appreciate what we're seeing right now because it's not, it, it could, it could change so quickly.

• 1:13:49Speaker 02

  That's the cool part to track too, is that um there are these newer, younger faces who are just popping up left and right, um who can easily supplant the Olympic champions and world champions that we saw in the last two years.

• 1:14:03Rich Roll?

  Chris, you have a uh book coming out

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:06Rich Roll?

  this fall, yeah.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  Next fall, yeah.

• 1:14:09Rich Roll?

  Oh, next fall.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:10Rich Roll?

  A whole other year, a whole other year you're waiting on it?

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess like uh I handed, I turned in the manuscript back in June. And so I think now we're going through a very long uh editing and revision phase. It ended up, I definitely went over my word count, uh so uh, but I'm excited for it. So it's, the marathon book is the working title, although I kind of want the title to stick. And yeah, but it, I think the one funny part to, to it is that I did ask like the publishers at Penguin Random House, I was like, what's the latest we can, you know, update some of these times and performances? Because they're like, I've got a couple of chapters in here that reference world records and American records. I'm like, what are they going to be in summer 2027 before this thing goes to print? So um that's the challenge, I guess, with, with tackling a subject like the marathon.

• 1:14:57Rich Roll?

  That's exciting, man. Congrats.

• 1:14:58Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:14:59Rich Roll?

  Please come back and, and uh talk to me about it when the book comes out.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  I would love to, yeah.

• 1:15:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And in the meantime, uh 800 meter showdown between you guys.

• 1:15:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  He's going to destroy me.

• 1:15:11Rich Roll?

  Commit now.

• 1:15:12Malcolm Gladwell?

  No, no, he's gonna, he, you, didn't you recently run 220 something?

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  For the 800?

• 1:15:16Rich Roll?

  Here, here comes the sandbag.

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Malcolm Gladwell?

  No, no, no, no, I, I can't.

• 1:15:20Speaker 02

  Well, so the fun part with, is that at every world championships, they do um a media 800. And so if you have a credential, you can go and run on the same track that they're hosting the world championships at. And so over the years, you know, we do start to see, I think, a couple of retired runners move into the media as photographers or videographers. So they, they end up winning and the winning time is, is like 154, 152, pretty legit. But um I've been to a couple of world championships now and so I wanted to run it last year in Tokyo and uh training was going really, really well. I recruited Mark Coogan, one of the best miler coaches in America to, to coach me. And um, and then one day I was moving into my new apartment and I was trying to move a dresser

• 1:16:05Speaker 02

  and I just dislocated my kneecap uh while trying to pull it in through the front door. And so uh I had time trailed, I think, two, two days before that and I did run 216. So I was looking for a big performance in Tokyo and I'm just watching the race with a knee brace on. And so um, yeah, I guess like I'm, I'm in for 800 meter training, but um I won't make it easy for Malcolm.

• 1:16:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  And a rematch.

• 1:16:27Rich Roll?

  And you have something to prove.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Rich Roll?

  Well, this was fun, guys. Thanks, man.

• 1:16:31Malcolm Gladwell?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:16:32Malcolm Gladwell?

  It was really fun.

• 1:16:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'd love to do, do more of this kind of thing. I appreciate you guys.

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  That'd be great.

• 1:16:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And uh I, I guess I don't need to prep for these. As long as I'm, I have people like you.

• 1:16:42Malcolm Gladwell?

  Don't do it, bitch. Don't do it.

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  Preparation's overrated.

• 1:16:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right, guys. Thanks.

• 1:16:47Malcolm Gladwell?

  Thank you.