Breaking Boston: Scott Fauble Is Leading American Marathoners Into The Olympics

For the vast majority of us, besting our 26.2 personal record by 3+ minutes would be considered fine. Something to be celebrated, but hardly a mind-bending breakthrough. At the highest level of distance running however, the distinction is vast. It's the canyon that separates a very good marathon runner from the greats. This is the story of Scott Fauble. Historically a very accomplished cross country & 10K runner (at the 2016 Olympic Trials he finished 4th in the 10,000 meters), Scott was unproven at the marathon. That is, until he ran 2:12 in Frankfurt in 2017 and matched that time the following year in New York. These performances certainly established Scott as a very good marathoner. But nobody, aside from Scott himself and perhaps his coach and close circle, was prepared for his stunning performance at the 2019 Boston Marathon. Not only did he surprise the world by leading the race for extended stretches, he accomplished what is almost unheard of at his level -- besting his marathon PR by almost 3 and a half minutes to complete the course in 2:09:09 as the top American and 7th overall. It was a performance that foisted him into the mainstream spotlight. Anointed him as the leading American going into the 2020 Olympic men's marathon. And established him as one of the world’s very best at the 26.2 discipline. Just as interesting are Faub's pursuits when the running shoes come off. Alongside coach Ben Rosario he penned Inside a Marathon: An All-Access Pass to a Top-10 Finish at NYC. Documenting the entire four-month journey to Scott’s 7th place finish at the 2018 New York City Marathon, it's a rare, candid (and very funny at times) behind-the-scenes look at the life of a professional marathoner. A chronicle of grit and mental fortitude, it's a must read book for anyone committed to mastery. This conversation runs the gamut. We begin with Scott's young running career. Track his evolution to Boston. And his maturation into Olympic contender. We discuss life in Flagstaff, AZ. What he has learned under coach Ben Rosario and training alongside teammates on the HOKA Northern Arizona Elite Team. We talk about the coach-athlete relationship as partnership. We go deep into his breakthrough Boston performance. The strategies and techniques that produced that amazing result. And Scott's mindset as he approaches Olympic Trials at the end of February. In addition, we explore his off-road pursuits. The intention behind writing a book. The why behind his podcast. And his deep love for burritos -- all interests I can certainly relate to. In closing, we review the mistakes he sees many amateurs runners make -- and how best to correct them. For Scott, it's about process over results. Passion over podiums. And why 'fast' doesn't always equate to 'good'. You can watch it all go down on YouTube. Humble and jocular, Scott is a natural conversationalist -- one of the good guys you just want to see win. So let's put some wind in his sail for Olympic Trials. I really enjoyed this one and sincerely hope you do as well. Peace + Plants, Rich 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.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  The sport is a lot simpler when you just don't worry about all this stuff. It's just running, realistically. Everyone wants to make it this big, complicated thing, but it's a pretty simple thing. Everyone can go for a run, and you don't have to think about all these tactics all the time, and don't have to worry about the courses, or the hills, or the turns, or the weather. It's just running. Just get out of your own way. One of the buzzwords in sports and business right now is process-oriented. And for me, what that means, being process-oriented, means A, focusing on day by day, and B, not judging my performances down the line against other people. They're based on what I feel like I can do and whether or not I got the most out of myself.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  And so, for me, I don't need to worry about anyone else. I just want to do the best that I can do. And the more I get sucked into what other people are doing, the worse the end result ends up being, I think. Really, I'm free to take big chances. I'm free to go out there and just run as hard as I can, and whatever those results are will be fine, because the things that are really important, the people that I care about, will still be there.

• 2:12Rich Roll?

  That's Scott Fauble, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:30Rich Roll?

  Greetings planetary citizens. What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. Okay, for most of us, beating our 26.2 PR by three plus minutes, well, that would be considered a good thing, right? Something to be celebrated, for sure, but hardly mind bending. At the elite level, however, the distinction is vast. The difference between being considered a very good marathon runner and one of the great marathon runners. This is the story of Scott Fauble, historically, a very, very good and accomplished cross-country and 10K runner. At the 2016 Olympic Trials, he finished fourth in the 10,000 meters,

• 3:13Rich Roll?

  but unproven at the marathon. That is, until he ran 212 in Frankfurt in 2017, and followed it up in 2018 with another 212 at the New York City Marathon. And those performances definitely established that he was very good at marathon running, of course, but nobody, perhaps aside from Scott himself, and his coach, and close circle of teammates and friends, was prepared for what happened in Boston this past year, when Scott surprised the world by doing what is almost unheard of at his level, shaving almost three and a half minutes off his marathon PR to finish as the top American and seventh overall with

• 3:57Rich Roll?

  a time of 209.09, landing him in very rare air amongst the world's very best at the 26.2 discipline. That performance made Scott a favorite heading into February's Olympic Trials, and certainly a figure of intrigue for this show. But I think what makes Scott even more compelling are his many rounded interests outside of running. He's a great writer. He co-authored, along with his coach Ben Rosario, this book called Inside a Marathon: An All-Access Pass to a Top 10 Finish at the New York City Marathon. And it's this kind of beautiful, transparent look behind the scenes at what it actually takes to train and compete at his level. And it's simpatico with how he transparently logs all of his

• 4:42Rich Roll?

  training on Strava, which is very unique among the elite. He also makes YouTube videos. He even has his own podcast, which I appreciate, called Show Runners, where he breaks down his favorite movies with fellow elite runners. And this one's great.

• 5:04Rich Roll?

  Okay, Scott. I love this guy. This conversation runs the gamut. We cover his start, his young running career. We talk about what it's like living and training in Flagstaff, Arizona, under Ben Rosario and the Hoka NAZ, Northern Arizona Elite Team. Of course, we go deep on his huge performance at Boston, his training techniques, his strategies, his preparation for Olympic trials, his book Inside a Marathon, his Show Runners podcast, the mistakes he sees many amateurs make, which is super informative and entertaining, as well as his deep, deep love for burritos. An affinity I can safely say that I share. So, this is me talking

• 5:49Rich Roll?

  with Scott Fabel.

• 5:52Rich Roll?

  Right on, right on, right on.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  All right.

• 5:55Rich Roll?

  Good to have you here today, Scott. So nice to meet you. Thanks for doing this.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me, Rich. It's awesome. Pleasure to be here.

• 6:01Rich Roll?

  I, uh, I welcome you to the Northern Arizona of Los Angeles. It's as close as we can get to your, uh, to your training grounds, but it's pretty nice up here. So I appreciate you making the trek.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Of course. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

• 6:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course. Um, what I really want to talk about before anything is the Show Runners podcast.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Show Runners. All right, let's do it.

• 6:22Rich Roll?

  We could just like, yeah, let's just talk about movies.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Let's just dive right in, man. That's, I mean, that's why I started the podcast.

• 6:27Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  I like talking about movies. There, it's a fun run conversation, which is where I spend most of my, like, social time with friends and stuff. And, um, I was just like, I'm got free time. I'm, would like to just kind of watch movies in a more, uh, like structured way. And I was just like, let's just do it. And I, I talked to a friend of mine who owns a, or I guess not, maybe not owns, but runs a running website, um, Sidious Mag. And I was like, hey.

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  Chris Chavez?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Chris Chavez, yeah. And I was like, hey, can I have my own podcast? Uh, I just want to talk about movies with my friends. And he was like, yeah. And so it was perfect.

• 7:02Rich Roll?

  How dare you think about anything but running?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  I know, exactly. That's right. I'm one dimensional.

• 7:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. No, I love it. I think it's so cool that you're doing that.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 7:11Rich Roll?

  And I would be delighted to just talk about movies and nothing else the whole time if that's what you want to talk about. You must be tired about talking about Boston and all of that.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Oh, you know, we can mention it here and there, I guess, but yeah.

• 7:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  We, I'd love to hear your takes on the new Tarantino movie.

• 7:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, we can do a whole deep dive on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I'm ready to go. Like you, yeah, it's sort of rewatchables with runners.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  That's, yes, very much so. It's a, you know, I don't want to take too much credit for the idea, but it's very much a rip off of.

• 7:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I love that show.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great.

• 7:38Rich Roll?

  I'm a huge fan of it. So I thought it was super cool that you're doing that. And I think it's cool that, that you live this full life, like you're, you're at the, you know, the very tip of elite marathoning and, and yet you still carve out time to develop your interests with this podcast and writing the book and, you know, all the other things that you do. So I'm interested, I guess, first of all, in just hearing how like that informs your, like, I presume that having all of those other interests is super important in terms of you just being a happy person so that you can perform at your best. Whereas certain people might look at that as a distraction, especially going into Olympic year.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, so for me, it was very strange for me to go from a college setting where I was very intellectually stimulated to a professional running setting where there's really no structured way to flex your mind. And for maybe a year, I really like leaned into that and I just like binge watched The Office and Parks and Rec and 30 Rock a hundred times.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  And then after maybe.

• 8:44Rich Roll?

  I don't have anyone to talk about with this.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And after maybe a year, I was like, I gotta, like, I gotta find something else to fill the time and

• 8:52Speaker 01

  that's, now at this point, I've, I'm doing it in a way that I feel comfortable, like sharing and.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Having like structured interests and making it more of like an outward thing as opposed to me just reading a book inside.

• 9:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, there's only, I mean, I would imagine your training schedule puts you at somewhere around 25 or 30 hours a week, which still leaves a lot of time, right? Or well, there's all the extra stuff on top of that. I mean, it is a full-time job, but there's still downtime.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say it's if you include napping, maybe 25 hours a week. It's a it's a soft 25 hours and it's not like watching movies is strenuous by any means. I'm not like going out and doing CrossFit in my spare time.

• 9:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  And that's not, I can watch a movie and recover at the same time. So it was kind of a way to like use my spare time in a way that felt mentally productive.

• 9:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, getting my head around you and your life and your career and preparing to talk to you today, most of the media coverage about you was kind of right post-Boston. So which we're going to get into, but I'm interested in kind of where you're at now as you know, some time has elapsed and you're preparing for trials and you got to race this weekend coming up. Like where's your head at? How are you feeling? What is your, you know, sort of mental perspective as we're like, what 190, 180 days out of trials at this point?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't count down.

• 10:28Rich Roll?

  Good for you.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm, yeah. So physically, we're doing a segment where I'm not going to run a marathon this fall. We decided to get away from the marathon after running Boston and

• 10:39Rich Roll?

  What's that? What is that decision about?

• 10:41Speaker 01

  It was, so I ran New York marathon last year, Boston this year, and that was a whole year of marathoning. And the thing about the marathon is it's very hard and very specific. And so you don't really have time to do some stuff that don't really lend themselves to the marathon, but it's still important to work on. So shorter tempos, speed stuff. So for the long term, that will be helpful, but we kind of needed to find a place to do it before the Olympic trials segment really started and we really got going on really marathon specific stuff. So physically, that's kind of where I'm at. I'm doing a lot of workouts that I don't feel really comfortable in. Like I'm not, they're not the workouts that are really my bread and butter, but.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Will be important for the Olympic trials in a few months and are particularly important as we build into the segment where we really get ready for the trials.

• 11:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  You know, mentally, things haven't changed for me. I am very much a believer that like the best way to accomplish goals down the line is to do really well at what you're doing right now. So whatever is on my schedule, I just try to do as well as I can in that. And I have faith in like my coach and the people around me that if I do kind of what they say as well as I can right now, the larger puzzle will come together down the line.

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  Right. It it feels like you've really, um, part of your your mindset game is to divest yourself of thinking too hard or much about the preparation, like you really trust your coach and you let him make those decisions and that frees up some kind of headspace for you to just be you.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's that's probably accurate. And it just generally being like one of the kind of buzzwords in sports and business and everything right now is like process oriented. And for me, what that means, being process oriented means like A focusing on day by day and B not judging my performances down the line against other people. They're based on what I feel like I can do and whether or not I got the most out of myself. And so, yeah, right now, it's just, it's been about getting the most out of myself every day and whether or not that's a hard day or an easy day. So be it, you know?

• 13:02Rich Roll?

  I heard you speaking, maybe it was with Chris, you were talking about what you respected in Kipchoge and perhaps, you know, some of the other East African runners. And one of the things is like, they don't worry about all that stuff, like whether they change the course or, you know, all the kind of externalities that can throw people off their game, like they seem to, that's just, that's just, you know, water under the bridge to them, like they're so focused on what they're doing. So when I hear you say that, it sounds like you've adopted, you're striving to adopt that kind of mentality.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, hopefully, where it's, I think it's.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  The sport is a lot more simp- a lot simpler when you just don't worry about all this stuff. It's just running realistically, like everyone wants to make it this big complicated thing, but it's a pretty simple thing. Everyone can go for a run and you don't have to think about like all these tactics all the time and don't have to worry about the courses or the hills or the turns or the weather. Like it's just running, like just get out of your own way is kind of my own like

• 14:04Rich Roll?

  Right, but but post-Boston, there's a lot, there's a bigger spotlight on you now. Like you're not, you're not as under the radar as you were a year ago, two years ago. Right? So do you, is, do you feel that or do you do your best to insulate yourself from all of that?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  My hope is that it, it doesn't change anything, the fact that I'm in a bigger spotlight. And I think mentally it, it hasn't changed anything because like I have, I think I'm viewed as being very confident now, but I was confident on April 14th too. Like I didn't necessarily surprise myself that I ran that well in Boston. I kind of knew that that was possible. And so it's not like I have to make a change. I knew I was capable of it then and now it's just, it's on the, it actually happened, but I kind of believed it was going to happen beforehand.

• 14:51Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:52Rich Roll?

  But at Boston, you were like, what was your bib number, like 28 or something like that?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:56Rich Roll?

  So, you know, if you were to make a surge or, or, or try to do something spectacular, there was the chance that they would let you go. I mean, we're going to tell that whole story, but you could have done a little bit of a sneak move that you probably can't get away with now.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, I'm not really sure.

• 15:14Rich Roll?

  All eyes on you.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably not.

• 15:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Maybe I could still get away with it in Boston, I have no idea. You know, uh, Meb won after he was very, very good already, had done some great things. So there's a chance, I don't really know.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  But yeah, I don't really, I'd hope that I don't change based on the fact that I have a spotlight on me now.

• 15:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and, and I also heard you say shortly after Boston that, you know, that it would be a mistake for you to alter your training too much. Like this is what worked, this is what got me to this place. Like let's kind of stay on this path and not, you know, make some rash decisions about changing up too many things leading into 2020. Is that still the case?

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  I think that's probably the biggest mistake people make is like they have this sort of breakthrough performance and I'm like, well, let's just push the envelope, let's just keep pushing, pushing, pushing, but. Really, the way we got to this point was by picking and choosing when we were going to really push and then also just hitting singles, you know, we just trying to get on base, trying to do well at everything we did. And occasionally you swing big and try to have a really big day, whether that's in a workout or like Boston, a big race. But um, yeah, I think it would be easy to get really results focused. But again, I wanted to stay like this is the process that got us here. Let's just keep getting better at this. And I just, we just have faith that the results will come.

• 16:39Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, let's work our way up to this. So you start up, you start out as essentially a cross country protege in Colorado, right?

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:49Rich Roll?

  Standout high school cross country runner. Then you go to Portland, you run NC2A. And, and you were a standout, but it wasn't like you were winning tons of races, like lots of 12s and 15s and things like that. And I guess you got injured in your senior year.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:05Rich Roll?

  So perhaps, you know, you weren't able to show what you were truly capable of at the time. But it wasn't like, oh, here's the next new face of, you know, American distance running.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:15Rich Roll?

  Is that fair?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely. No, absolutely. I, you know, I mean, I don't think I'd be going like be speaking out of turn when I said I signed for $0. My first, my salary at the start was $0. And I signed my first contract in my girlfriend's Mini Cooper with a boot on my foot.

• 17:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  It was a very inauspicious like way to start a professional running career and not at all how I had ever dreamed of it.

• 17:38Rich Roll?

  Well, I love how the book opens up with this email exchange.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:41Rich Roll?

  You know, where basically you're trying to, you know, you're trying to get on this team. You're trying to get on the Northern Arizona team and Ben is like Ben Rosario, the coach is like, nah, I don't think so.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure if you're good enough.

• 17:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And it took a little jockeying and back and forth and a, and a word put in by Shalane's husband to even get, you know, get your name on that roster.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And I'm super grateful for Steve, to Steve for going to bat for me because he absolutely didn't, didn't need to. Steve Edwards, Shalane's husband.

• 18:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  And I think probably when I emailed Ben, he was like, yeah, all right. Like this, I guess this guy's fine. But at that point, like,

• 18:20Speaker 01

  You know, we had Ben Bruce was running in his prime. He was running like 13 30s in the 5K and 8 20s in the steeple and Matt Yano would just run 101 45. And I was kind of asking, it's like, can I please come and like, I'll figure out a way to pay for things. You don't have to pay me anything. And Ben was like, is this guy really going to be good enough? And yeah, I mean, I'm just happy to have had a chance, really.

• 18:43Rich Roll?

  So how does it work? Like when you're graduating from college and you're a standout performer and you're trying to get, you know, in on one of these squads, like there really is a gate, right? Like you have to impress the coach or you have to be invited. Like, how does, you know, what, how does that work for somebody who knows nothing about like elite running?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, the business structure for elite running is a lot like golf in the sense that we like have sponsors and there's prize money. It's just way less. Whatever you see on the PGA Tour, just way less than that. And it kind of depends on

• 19:17Rich Roll?

  Shocking.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, shocking, of course. Yeah. It kind of depends on how good you are. So if you are good enough where you're kind of lighting the world on fire in college, people will come to you. And if you're in my position, I kind of felt like I had to go to coaches. And I was very lucky to have been introduced to Schleine's husband, Steve Edwards. And he kind of gave me enough guidance to be like, this is some people you could look at. And what I did was just went to every professional running team's website that I could find and emailed as many coaches as I could find their contact info. And then Ben got back to me and I was fortunate enough that he was like, took enough of an interest

• 20:01Speaker 01

  in me to fly me down to Flagstaff and I got to meet the team. And I don't think, I wasn't like a huge risk, you know, he didn't have to like designate any money to me at all. But he's basically like, you can come on, come, if you work really hard, you can run well enough to earn a salary. And that's, I mean, that's kind of how it happened. I just put out as wide a net as I could. And when Ben got back to me, I knew that was kind of where I wanted to be. I clicked really well with Ben Rosario, my coach. And that was that. I moved to Flagstaff and I mean, I guess it would be

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Almost four years ago today.

• 20:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What is it that Ben was doing or that was, you know, indicative of like, you know, his coaching ability? Like, what was happening in Northern Arizona that caught your fascination? Like, I was gonna ask. I mean, it sounds like you were emailing everybody, but, um, you know, what is specific to that program that makes it so, um, unique and excellent?

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, the team had signed with Hoka One A One A, which we're still with now, Hoka and AZ Elite, um, as like a title sponsor earlier in the year. And that was kind of a big thing that caught my eye because a lot of these groups, they don't have any funding. And even though I wasn't necessarily getting paid, there is like an infrastructure and a prestige that comes with having a title sponsor. So that was one thing. Um, and then I was really, really drawn to Ben's confidence and Ben's like professionalism. Like, he was absolutely a hundred percent all in as a coach. It was like a full-time job for him. And that's, even though there are quote unquote professional teams, that's not something you find all the time. There are a few professional full-time coaches. And there are a lot of people who are like coaching after work.

• 21:44Rich Roll?

  So when you show up, do you have to get like a part-time job? Or like, how do you make ends meet when you're just beginning?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I worked a ton. Flagstaff, if, for those who haven't been there or don't know, it's not really a great place to find like part-time jobs. And it's especially not a great place if you say, well, yeah, I can't come to work anytime between eight in the morning and 11:00. And a couple of times during the, like, in the evening, I'll be gone from three to five.

• 22:12Rich Roll?

  And I need to nap.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I need to nap and I can't come on Thursday nights because I want to go to the, that's when we go to the weight room.

• 22:17Rich Roll?

  You should move to Los Angeles. There's lots of people like that.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:20Rich Roll?

  Every actor's schedule is something along those lines.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I mean, basically I just made a resume and handed out a bunch of places and, but I always made sure to put like running first and I worked a ton over the summer before I moved to Flagstaff and basically just burned through, burned through my savings, like, pretty quickly. And I was fortunate enough to run very well at the end of the year and basically do enough to earn a salary starting January 1st and then ran well enough to kind of earn raises throughout the year in my career.

• 22:54Rich Roll?

  Right, well, yeah, like having to bootstrap that on a dream, you know what I mean?

• 22:58Speaker 01

  It was pretty stressful. I mean, there were times when my card got declined, like, and I was just like, well, I guess I'm not buying, I guess I'm not like, I guess I'm not buying these groceries. Like, I'm gonna go home and like, I got another, like, another, like, living stipend coming in a couple of days, so I guess that's when I'll go get groceries.

• 23:14Rich Roll?

  So romantic.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Oh, it was amazing.

• 23:15Rich Roll?

  Pursuing your dream, right?

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:17Rich Roll?

  So, there you are. I mean, one of the things, well, first of all, Steve, in his email to Ben, is like, listen, you know, this guy's a marathoner. You hadn't run a marathon yet, but he saw that in you, you know, bird bones or whatever, but he's got some strength on him. He's like perfectly suited for this. So, there was a sense that you, you know, were well-suited for that discipline before you'd even ever tried it. So, when you went to Flagstaff, was that the idea? Like, I'm gonna step it up and move to the marathon?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Not right off the bat, but that was quite clearly where I was gonna have the most success. And it was just kind of a question as to how long until I'm ready to make a responsible jump to the marathon, as opposed to just jumping right in.

• 24:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Because I had a qualifying time for the Olympic trials, which were gonna be in February.

• 24:08Rich Roll?

  From running the half, right?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I could have gone straight to the marathon in February 2016, but we kind of decided to push that back and just be like, let's get miles under our belt, let's get comfortable in some of these long workouts before we go 100% all-in on the marathon. And we ended up doing that. I was still very young for going to the marathon, at least for American marathon standards.

• 24:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that's pretty unique about you, is that traditionally, it's many years later when, when the elite runner kind of steps it up to that distance, and you made that jump much sooner than most people. Which puts you, like, now, you know, what are you, 27 now, something like that?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, 27. I mean, that's really young, you know?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean...

• 24:54Rich Roll?

  And three, only three marathons under your belt.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and... I mean, I think I'm kind of entering my prime physically, you know, from probably 28 to 32 is when you probably have all the tools. You haven't lost the fast twitch fibers, but you're probably not as injury risk, but you can, you've run enough miles to be really good. And we're kind of of the opinion that you should be running your best event when you're at your physically most capable.

• 25:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  And so maybe I could train really hard for a spring and run sub 1330 on the track or something like that in the 5K. And A, I have no interest in doing that. And B,

• 25:33Speaker 01

  I would, I'm better at the marathon. So I think it's important to be doing what you're best at when you're going to be the best at running in general.

• 25:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And I think there's still so much room for improvement because you are still relatively new to it and you're young. You have your speed. You can handle, you could probably handle volume more than, you know, an older person. You're going to be less injury prone. So when you look at that jump that you made from going to 12 to 200, low 209, that seems crazy, but like you're still developing as a runner. And now here you are going into Olympic year with another year under your belt. Like, that's pretty exciting.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I mean, I sure hope there's still more to gain. That'd be, that'd be huge. But um, yeah, I'm, I mean, I'm very excited, very optimistic about the Olympic year. And I'm, I feel like we're in a good spot, not only physically, but also like situationally, I feel very comfortable with the people around me and with what like the routines we've carved out. And, um, you know, Ben in particular, but we've also got a really good weight training staff and Wes and AJ Gregg, who are our strength coaches and keros and good massage therapists. So I feel very, very prepared, I guess, for the next six or seven months or whatever it is to trials.

• 26:47Rich Roll?

  So your big coming out party was Boston. I mean, you'd already, you'd done, you distinguished yourself in New York and in Frankfurt. Um, what did you get? And you got seventh in New York, ran 212, and then you ran Frankfurt the year before that and got ninth also running 212. So, you know, in the, in the marathon world, people were taking notice and certainly knew who you were, but. America learned to embrace you in Boston.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  America being very, very niche America.

• 27:15Rich Roll?

  Well, I mean, listen, you know, a lot of people watch the Boston Marathon. You don't know that much about elite marathon running. And when you took the lead and they're like, who's this guy? You know, suddenly you're, you're the topic of conversation. So let's spend a little time talking about Boston.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 27:29Rich Roll?

  I mean, cause that was such a, such an extraordinary, incredible performance. And I've heard you say going into that, that you knew you were capable of going under two 10 and, and you had a lot of confidence going into it. But that's different from being in the mix of it and, and sort of leading the race at, at certain points. Like, how do you think about that, looking back on it now? Cause the interviews that I listened to and read were right after that. And I would imagine that, you know, that experience has settled in and maybe you have a little bit more perspective on it now.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. One thing I, I don't think I did a good job of communicating immediately after the race was like, when I led, I was kind of shocked and I, not shocked. I took a mo, took a moment to like appreciate it. I was like, oh my God, I'm leading the Boston Marathon.

• 28:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Like I took a moment to let that soak in and be like, this is such an amazing experience. But it's not like I went to the lead just to say that. Like I went to the lead a number of times.

• 28:27Rich Roll?

  I'm gonna get my TV time now.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went to the lead with a purpose and with the goal of like dropping people and making people hurt and with like an agenda initiative to get up to, to really push the pace. And I did, I mean, I took the lead at, for the first time seriously at like 16 miles and I was in and out of the lead until like 22. And when I took the lead at 16, there was a group of probably 25 people. And when I got over the top of Heartbreak Hill at 21, there was eight. So I, I don't think I communicated the fact that I, I really pushed. I didn't just go to the lead to be there. There was a point.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  And.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  I mean, at this point, after the race, I've kind of like let that sink in where it's like, yeah, I'm really strong. Like, I can just kind of do that and feel really comfortable up front as opposed to getting up there and being really nervous and just kind of freaking out.

• 29:28Rich Roll?

  Right, like freaking out, right.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:29Rich Roll?

  Like, do I really belong up here?

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:31Rich Roll?

  Maybe I've overextended myself.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 29:33Rich Roll?

  Well, my sense from reading up on this is that you were, for the uninitiated, if you were watching it, you'd think you're putting in these surges trying to, you know, create a lead or whatever, but you were kind of sticking to your own plan of what you wanted to do. And the surges and the regressions were really a reflection of what the pack was doing.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:55Rich Roll?

  And not really what you were doing.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially going up the Newton Hills. So when you take a right turn at seventeen and a half miles, and that's when the hills like really start. And the favorites and leaders, they would push really hard on the uphills. And there are these kind of respite in between the hills where it was unclear whether they were catching their breath or whether they just wanted to slow it down for a different reason. And I would let myself slip to the back of the group when they were running hard up the hill. And then when we'd get over the top of the hill and we'd have the flat section, I would just keep running the same rhythm. So I'd pick it up in pace because we were running flat or downhill. But I would find myself going back to the front and really dragging these people along. And that was

• 30:38Speaker 01

  mostly just me trying to do the best thing for me. It wasn't like a huge tactical move to try to break things open. It was just like, the best way for me to get from here to the top of these hills is to run one really hard even pace.

• 30:51Rich Roll?

  Right. One of the things you've talked about is the difference between good and fast. Like, there's, there's running fast, but there's also running good, which is more about racing, right? Like, how do you put in a good performance amongst the group? And so when you're

• 31:09Rich Roll?

  Heading into Boston, you have a race plan. This is what, you know, what I think I can execute. You've got it all locked in, but then you're in the pack and things are happening. And you've got to adjust to what other people are doing. Like, how much of that plays into spontaneous adjustments that you're making? Or are you just like, I'm running my thing? Like, I'm not paying attention to any of these people? Like, are you reactive or responsive? Or are you just within yourself?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  I think at my best in Boston, I was, I was within myself and not worrying about the pace. I mean, I didn't take a split the whole race, like a mile split. The only way I was keeping track of how fast we were running was I'd look at the clock every mile and I would just take a note how many seconds under five-minute pace we were.

• 31:52Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  And then, once we got to the hills at like 16, I stopped looking at the clock completely until 25 or something.

• 31:57Rich Roll?

  But you probably know yourself well enough to know, like, you know, like, oh, that was the, you probably knew your pace just intuitively.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, mostly the feel of it. I wouldn't say I had like a really firm grasp on what the number was, but I did know what it was supposed to feel like. And there was a couple of parts in the race where the pack would surge and I would kind of get left behind, like, most notably from like 12 to 14. There was this big surge in the group and all of a sudden I was like 20 seconds back. And at that point, I was thinking, I was, I wasn't within myself. I was thinking a lot about the pace. I was thinking a lot about the numbers. I was thinking a lot about the people who were running away from me. And that was my worst stretch of the race. And once we kind of got to this big downhill and I was like, okay, just letting my legs flow now. I'm gonna let it turn over. I kind of got into this, I guess you'd call it like flow state where things didn't

• 32:46Speaker 01

  really hurt. And I was just kind of, my legs were moving without me really having to push them. That was my best stretch in the race was after I got out of my own head and got out of my own way and just let myself go do what I felt like I could do.

• 33:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, that takes a level of maturity, you know? It'd be easier to just freak out and go, oh, my God, like, I gotta, I gotta pick it up or I'm gonna lose contact with the group, right? And get outside of what, you know, what your plan is because you're reacting.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I hope so. I hope I was mature.

• 33:19Rich Roll?

  For such a young man.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:21Rich Roll?

  Who only had done two other marathons up to that point.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:25Rich Roll?

  That's a tribute to you and like, you know, the work that you did with your coach and the confidence that you had going into the, going into the race. How much, like, what, what is going on? Like, when you're part of that pack, like, are people talking to each other? Like, is there jockeying? Like, what is the strategy that you kind of witness unfolding amongst the leaders? Like, I think it's interesting for, you know, most people that are listening to this are casual runners at best. You know, I think everyone would be super interested in knowing, like, what is it? What is it like? Like, are people talking shit to each other? Are they like, get out of my way? Or is there any of that going on? Or what does it feel like?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  There's not a ton of talking shit. Occasionally, like, people will, like, say if it's a really crowded pack, there'll be some bumping.

• 34:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  And then there'll be some chirping. People don't necessarily care for that. It's a huge wide road. You don't need to be all over each other.

• 34:14Rich Roll?

  Right, there's some etiquette, right?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:16Rich Roll?

  Like, give people some birth.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. But, I mean, for the most part, there are little, like, little mind games you can see people playing. Like, if you've got a good tangent and someone's coming up on the inside, you can kind of squeeze them out.

• 34:26Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  But for me, I try to just stay out of all of that. I just, I don't wanna, I don't need to worry about anyone else. I just wanna do the best that I can do. And the more I get sucked into what other people are doing, the worse the end result ends up being, I think.

• 34:43Rich Roll?

  There was one point where you took, like, you went way wide of the group. I can't remember what that was. Like, you had a better, you had a better, like, angle on the course than everyone else. And you were just kind of completely separated from everyone.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that happens kind of quite a bit. For whatever reason, I mean, part of it is that when you live in America, you, it's easy to get to Boston. So, most of us who had seen, live in America, saw the course at some point. But for whatever reason, the... East Africans generally aren't great at running tangents, whether it's that they haven't seen the course before, or that they just don't know where the race is going, or whatever. They'll almost always be on the wrong side of the road, or they'll stay in the middle of the road when a turn's coming up. And it's kind of, it's almost baffling. Like, some of these guys in the race have run Boston like six or seven times. And it's like, we're coming up to a big right-hand turn, guys. Like, this is obviously the right side. You obviously want to be over here.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  So I think it was mostly like, I just had faith that I knew where I was going, and I knew what the best plan was.

• 35:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 35:52Rich Roll?

  So at some point, so you take the, like, you're up in the front, and the group's getting smaller and smaller. You take the lead. What is it like at around like 19 or 20 or something like that?

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, there were a couple of spots where I got in the front.

• 36:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And at that point, you must be thinking, I mean, you're a strong finisher, right? Like...

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I've been closing workouts really well.

• 36:13Rich Roll?

  Completely just bust a move here and break away. Like, these people aren't really expecting me to do anything like that. But that ended up not being the case, right? So walk me through like how that last part of the race went.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think at like 19 was when the group was really down to like eight people. And I was kind of sitting on the back going up like the last of the Newton Hills, Heartbreak Hill. And, you know, you mentioned before, I was bib number 28. And at Boston, they go by PR. So I had 28, the 28 fastest PR, 212. There were 29 men in the elite field. So on paper, I should have been down there. And up ahead of me is like 2, 4, 7, 8. And I remember thinking like, the slowest guy in this group has run six minutes faster than me over the course of a marathon. And then I was kind of like, you know what? It doesn't matter right now. There's nothing I can do about that at this moment.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  And as we got up the very last hill, just like I had at every other hill, I got over the top and I accelerated off the crest of the hill. And all of a sudden, I found myself in the front. And for like a split second, I was like, you know, if I go really, really hard right now... Maybe they'll kind of let me go. Maybe they'll think like we can pull them back later. And this is my best shot. And I pushed pretty hard for like 50 or 60 meters and they came right with me. It was too late. They were going to be covering everything. And so we get to 22 miles, which is kind of a hard mile, and you take a left turn at Cleveland Circle. You're going down Beacon Street now. And right as we take that turn, like seven guys start running way faster than I'm capable of.

• 37:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Like they just are hammering.

• 37:51Rich Roll?

  This is like your, your Dennis Christopher moment in Breaking Away.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:56Rich Roll?

  You know, it's like, I'm just vision, you know, envisioning that scene where all the Italians roll up and, you know, he's by himself and they, you know, they threw, they put the, the pump in his spokes and he goes down.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was one of my big quips was with that movie. It was like, how did they, how did he even get up with these guys? They had a gap. They should have just used team tactics, stayed away. But, um, yeah. Yeah. Other than the bike spoke and the wheels, it was basically the same thing.

• 38:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  It was like, they just started cranking and I just couldn't hang. And for like maybe 30 seconds, I threw myself a little pity party where it's like, shit, I'm not good enough today. Like I'm not going to be able to hang.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Like I ran 22 great miles and I was like, no, you know what? Like fuck that. Like I'm having a great day today. Like we're getting focused again. And it hurt a lot. Like I was in a ton of pain. But if I, when I just got really, really dialed in and just making it to the next mile marker, getting next to the next K, I could kind of get back into that rhythm. And I went back to like my power phrases, the stuff that I'd been doing. Every time it got really hard in practice, which was like this one Jay-Z song that I like is fuck with me, you know, I got it. So I kept saying that over, over in my head.

• 39:03Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  And kept reminding myself to just keep the pedal down, keep the pedal down. And eventually I caught up to seventh place, moved into seventh and got up the, there's like a tiny little hill leading into 25 at Boston. At 25 miles, it feels like a fricking mountain.

• 39:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  It feels awful. And I looked at the clock and I saw one mile to go. I needed like a 450 to break. 209. And I was like, all right, we're going for it. And I pushed basically as hard as I could for like 600 meters. And then you do this little underpass and push down it, started going up it and my legs just went. They just weren't, just like I got kicked in the nuts. And get up to the top of the underpass, right on Hereford. Little bit of uphill left on Boylston and the Union got like 600 yards and I still thought maybe I had a shot.

• 39:53Rich Roll?

  Right, because you can see that finish line from quite a distance, right? Probably was still reading like 207 or something.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so I was just hammering. I was still like, I was like, I'm gonna go deeper, I can go deeper, like, keep pushing yourself, keep pushing yourself, you can take more pain, you can take more pain. And it wasn't until like maybe 60 or 70 yards when it's like, I'm not gonna, not gonna go under 209, I'm not gonna catch anyone. And at that point, I kind of let myself really enjoy the last finish. Like, I got to point to the crowd, I saw a couple of friends in the stands and pointed to the other side and finally got across the line and then, um, yeah.

• 40:25Rich Roll?

  20909.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, 20909.

• 40:27Rich Roll?

  The wall of sound has to be unbelievable.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  It's incredible.

• 40:30Rich Roll?

  Final stretch.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I've, I went to Boston for, they've got some shorter races that weekend, but the year before when it was just pouring down rain, and it was really loud then. So the next year when we had really nice weather, I couldn't believe it. You come out of the little tunnel and you turn right on Hereford and it's just, it's like a rock concert.

• 40:50Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, or it feels like a rock concert.

• 40:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:54Rich Roll?

  And you are the rock star.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  That's, yeah, yeah. Hopefully you're still rocking.

• 40:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  26 miles in.

• 40:59Rich Roll?

  And that morning, it was pouring rain, right? It was looking like it wasn't gonna be a nice day.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was looking forward to that.

• 41:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  I wanted the worst weather possible. I remember getting on the bus at, you get on the bus to Boston at like 5:50 in the morning or something, and I remember texting my girlfriend like, it's raining so hard, like, this is so awesome, I can't wait to get into this race. And, um, both unfortunately and fortunately, it became super, super nice all of a sudden. Basically like 30 minutes before the race started, it was just a perfect day.

• 41:26Rich Roll?

  What are the mindset tactics that you use? I mean, you talked about the Jay-Z song and like, what are, what are the things that you kind of rely upon to, you know, meet those obstacles and those barriers and push through, you know, the pain?

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Um, I would say the biggest thing is like meditation practice. I've been practicing. For the better like part of two years. And I didn't start meditating for running by any means, but.

• 41:53Rich Roll?

  It was anxiety brought you into that.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  It was, yeah, it was a way to combat anxiety and sort of just deal with it in a more healthy way. But I think once you practice it for long enough, it kind of becomes, it kind of starts to permeate other parts of your life. And so being present and in particular, like the strategy of noting where you just, when you realize you're distracted, you just say, that's thinking and you can get back into focus a little bit more as opposed to like ruminating on the fact that you're thinking and then you're pissed off that you're distracted and that's just all more thinking. So if you can just note it and let it go, I think that's one of the more helpful.

• 42:32Rich Roll?

  What is the, what is the daily practice of that look like for you specifically?

• 42:36Speaker 01

  I just meditate 15 minutes in the morning and then on good days I get in like another 10 in the evening.

• 42:42Rich Roll?

  Do you have a specific like practice, do you use an app?

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I use Headspace.

• 42:46Rich Roll?

  Oh, you do?

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 42:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. And then like throughout the day, like are you, does that give you like that extra level of awareness when your, when your mind drifts to like bring it back?

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say I could be more focused in my general life. And I try to be mindful, but I would say the times when I feel like the most at ease and the most mindful are when I'm outside, whether that's running or walking the dog or whatever. It's just for whatever reason, being outside helps a lot.

• 43:15Rich Roll?

  Well, running will definitely bring you into the present, right? But I would imagine your mind still wanders so you can, you're always in that, when you're racing specifically or training, like to be always bringing it back to like what's happening in the moment.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I don't, you know, I don't train with music. I don't ever listen to podcasts when I run. It's just me and my thoughts and.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  How dare you?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  I know, I'm sorry, Rich. I listen to you when I stretch.

• 43:36Rich Roll?

  This interview is over.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I listen to you when I stretch and when I drive. Other, it's all your podcasts. I listen to them all.

• 43:42Rich Roll?

  All the time.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, every single day it's one. I've listened to the cop, Brian Coleman one seven times, Rich.

• 43:48Rich Roll?

  I feel better now.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Thank you, we can keep going.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think just the more you can practice having sort of like a quiet mind, the better, whether that's formal meditation practice or like taking sixty meters on a run and just being like, you know what, I'm just gonna be really still until I get back, get past that tree, or when you get to like a turnaround point, just taking five seconds and feeling your feet on the ground, or feeling the wind in your face, or appreciating the scenery.

• 44:14Rich Roll?

  Do you break it down into, like when you're really in the pain cave, like, okay, I just need to get up to that next tree, or that next street lamp, or I'm just gonna focus on catching that one guy who's right in front of me, like, do you, do you, do you like, try to deconstruct it and break it down into tiny little, you know, bite-sized pieces?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  No, I just let it all in.

• 44:35Rich Roll?

  You do?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just say, I can take more. That's what I remind myself. It's like,

• 44:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  I can go deeper. I can take more.

• 44:41Rich Roll?

  This is your, this is your superpower, right? Like, you're, you have, you have a great amount of talent, but this ability to suffer and to show up like late in the race, like, that seems like, these seem to be your strengths.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 44:55Rich Roll?

  Is that accurate, like?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, endure a lot.

• 44:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, which isn't the coolest talent. Like, it'd be way cooler if I could just, like, be really smooth and have the same results without hurting so badly, but...

• 45:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but being able to suffer and endure a lot amongst the group of people who know how to do that better than anyone is, I would say that that's a good distinguishing talent to have.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, like, as shitty as it is to be like, yeah, I can endure a lot of pain, and actually having to endure it, I'm grateful that I got that opportunity. And I kind of look forward to it now.

• 45:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What do you think is your weakness, or what's the thing that you, you find yourself having to work on the most?

• 45:40Speaker 01

  I'm probably not as fluid as most people physically, and then I think mentally, I, I'm very solid, but...

• 45:48Speaker 01

  I could come to practice with more enthusiasm some days, particularly in like really hard training when the workout isn't going to be that hard and you don't have to get amped for it. Like I, sometimes I come pretty flat and that's something I could do a better job at. I'm aware of that.

• 46:02Rich Roll?

  Does Ben remind you of that?

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Uh, no, he hasn't had to. Usually I realize I'm kind of being a drag ass on the warm-up when I'm pissed off that I have to do it as opposed to like really grateful and really excited for the opportunity.

• 46:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, and are most of your workouts with teammates or do you do solo training, training? Like what does it look like for you? Like what's, take me through like a, a week of training or a typical day?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I mean, most of our workouts are with people. So a typical day is like we meet at eight thirty, go for a run and whether that's an easy run or a workout, usually we're with a group. Before Boston, since I was the only one doing Boston and Boston's like really specific, um, I wasn't really on the same schedule with anyone. I was doing a lot of stuff alone. Um, but usually a lot of times, at the very least, I would be working out in the same place as people so we could warm up together and cool down and it wouldn't be quite so lonely. Um, and after the run, you finish the run at ten, eleven o'clock, go home, usually do my like rehab, then take a nap usually. And then in the evening, we go back out for four miles and that's usually on my own. And that's when I'll take the dog

• 47:10Speaker 01

  out and we'll run together. And then afterwards, um, sometimes get in the sauna, sometimes do stretching and core. Twice a week, we go to the weight room. I think it's, you know,

• 47:19Rich Roll?

  It's pretty basic.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty basic. Yeah.

• 47:22Rich Roll?

  And how much of it is on the track versus on trails or roads?

• 47:26Speaker 01

  I would prefer to never get on the track. I just, I don't care for it. My body doesn't handle it that well. It's kind of boring. Um, I would prefer to go. We have this really nice road.

• 47:34Rich Roll?

  There's certain workouts that are kind of appropriate for that, right?

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, there are workouts that are, that make more sense on the track. I would always rather be on the road though. Um, but almost all of our easy running is on dirt roads. Um, we're lucky in Flagstaff to be, um, surrounded by either national forest or reservation. So there, there's a lot of Forest Service roads, um, for us to run on, which is really fun. Um, and then we're also lucky to have like a few really good road loops and, um, Lake Mary Road is where we do most of our runs, which is like, I think the road goes like sixty or seventy miles, but we have a sixteen mile section that's marked every quarter mile. So we do a ton of workouts on that.

• 48:14Rich Roll?

  One of the things that that distinguishes you from, you know, people in your in your subculture is how transparent you've been with all of your training. In addition to writing, you know, this book Inside a Marathon where you literally like, this is what I did every single day, like to the minutest detail. You share all your workouts on Strava. You know, you write about it. You make videos like you're doing a lot of things to be a complete open book about how you're preparing. And it's one thing for an amateur athlete to do that. And I think, you know, a lot of people use Strava to get the added this

• 48:53Rich Roll?

  sort of accountability with their friends, etc. But you don't see that many elite athletes at their prime, sharing their workouts. Like, you'll see people after they retire and then they're happy to do it. But there's this sense like, well, I don't want to, you know, let people know where I'm at specifically because that might give them a competitive advantage. So walk me through the decision of like, being so open about it and like, why you why why that's important to you.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Part of our our groups, the HOKA, is the elite, like, mission statement is to share every part of the journey. So part of it is that. I'm trying to do as good of a job in my job as possible and live up to my boss's standards.

• 49:36Rich Roll?

  As a brand ambassador.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  That's right. Yes. And do as well as I can in representing HOKA. Part of it is also kind of like that sort of creative stimulation. Like, it's fun to think of fun, like, interesting clever ways to share your training. And on Strava, I don't participate socially. Really, I just I put it out there.

• 50:02Rich Roll?

  You put it out, right.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Just because I found like.

• 50:04Rich Roll?

  Do you read the comments?

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Occasionally, sometimes. But like, there's never any, I've never had a like a constructive conversation or anything on Strava. People will either be, they'll either believe you did it, or they'll say that's wrong, the wrong activity type, or they'll say it's bad GPS data. And so I just leave it be. So I just like, all right, this is what it was. This is what I did.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  So, you know, that's kind of changed a little bit, but I think it's like, it's interesting and fun and like, kind of creatively difficult to share your training in a way that's not like a training log. Like, I know that Inside a Marathon is, in its most basic form, it was always going to be a training log, but we were hoping it was more like a journal, which is more fun and interesting and harder, I think. So, part of it is being a brand ambassador, part of it is, is um, kind of trying to be creative and use your brain a little bit as opposed to just, just running and like posting a Ernest Hemingway quote on Twitter. Like, there's only so many times you can do that before even yourself gets bored.

• 51:09Rich Roll?

  Well, it takes a little bit of confidence to say, like, I don't care whether you see what I'm doing or not, because I'm still gonna, you know, do it and, and, you know, you still have to do the work, right? Um, one of the things that's interesting in scrolling through it, though, is, you know, I think a lot of people feel this pressure on Strava, like, every workout has to be super epic and, you know, if their pace isn't good, they won't upload it or whatever. And there's a lot of, like, workouts where it's like, you're running seven-minute pace, it's like, it's, you're six miles, eight miles. It's like, well, you know, a lot of people can do that, right? And I think that's really cool because it shows people the reality of preparing for a marathon, which is, there is a lot of, like,

• 51:52Rich Roll?

  basically just like casual running that gets, you know, built into it.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And I guess part, it is.

• 52:00Rich Roll?

  Then you'll throw down some crazy workout.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  That is, that is fun. Yeah, that is fun. Um, yeah, and also, I guess, to your previous point, like, in terms of my competitors, it's like, I don't really care if they see what they're doing because, if they see what I'm doing, because A, they're not going to change it. Like, I would think less of somebody.

• 52:18Rich Roll?

  Do you follow some of those people? Like, is anyone else doing this?

• 52:22Speaker 01

  I don't know that anyone else really does it, so I would. Uh, and most of them are my friends, so I would follow them. That's my.

• 52:28Rich Roll?

  But it wouldn't change what you were doing. Like, it wouldn't, yeah, of course.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  I would think less of somebody if they were like, had a whole plan for a marathon laid out, and then they saw a workout I did, and they're like, oh, I know, actually, I want to do that.

• 52:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  And frankly, like.

• 52:39Rich Roll?

  That would not be smart.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  No, and I've never had a marathon segment that went 100% smoothly. Like, if you want to read Inside a Marathon and copy everything that I did, it's like, okay, I bombed a couple of workouts. Why don't you just blow up in a few workouts there? It's not like a, it's not like an addition problem. It's more like.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Like a soup or a recipe, like you've got to put a little bit here and put a little bit there and maybe the something isn't ripe or something isn't right and you have to adjust. So I don't really think, I don't think I've ever, anyone has ever said, saw, okay, that's what they're doing. We need to do that and then beat me.

• 53:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:15Rich Roll?

  Well, one of the things in Inside a Marathon that I think is so interesting, I mean, really, you know, you can characterize it as a, as a, as journals or as a travel log, but I look at it as a case study in the coach athlete relationship.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot of that.

• 53:34Rich Roll?

  A deep dive into how that works. And it's very inside baseball. Like if you're training for a marathon, like read this book, it will walk you through, you'll learn so much about how to do that. But I think every coach should read it because it's really about like how the coach responds to the athlete and what that relation, the dynamic nature of that relationship. And there's that one part in particular where you're all keyed up for this workout. I think it was two times six miles or whatever. And Ben decides to discard it. And there's a whole, you know, kind of discussion about that. And it's super interesting to see just how this is in a constantly evolving thing. It's not like, here's your plan. This is what we're doing. You know, it's like, how are you feeling today? Like all these micro adjustments that are happening all

• 54:18Rich Roll?

  the time and the communication that's required on behalf of both the athlete and the coach to really produce the result that you're both looking for.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Ben does a great job of showing that in the book. And you can kind of see, I guess there's like two instances. One where I don't give him a lot of information about how shitty I'm feeling. And it was like early in the book, kind of in the summer, I'm just feeling really bad. Bama workout, feel like dog shit in a workout that should have been pretty easy. And then later in the segment, when I'm telling him, it's like, dude, I'm like tired, I'm beat right now. Then we actually make a decision to, to change a workout. And Ben is clued in. It's kind of, it's small, but you can see kind of the negative side of maybe not communicating enough with your coach is when I was feeling really tired and terrible and he was, I didn't really tell him because I thought, this is my job. I'm just supposed to do what I'm told.

• 55:12Rich Roll?

  But he knows.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. He, I mean, but I should have been more.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  I should have been more, yeah, more open about how shitty I was feeling, but maybe I was, maybe I was nervous to tell him that I was feeling shitty, or maybe I didn't want to tell him, or whatever it was. But yeah, a couple of times in the summer when I was, I should have been more open.

• 55:31Rich Roll?

  Right. For the, for the kind of uninitiated, it's interesting, like, there's so much heat around this one workout. It's like, dude, it's just one workout, right? But there are these, like, you're doing a ton of running, but there are these, these particular workouts that pop up from time to time at, you know, at, at, at, at these determined, you know, interval points that are super important in your build and in your prep, that you kind of like, you, you just got to put in, right? So although it was just one workout, it was like a super important one.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I still ran great in New York. Like, we put a ton of importance on it, but ultimately, like, one workout didn't make or break the segment, um, any more than any other workout did. You know, I could have, there could have any number of those workouts I could have bombed. And I dropped out of what I would consider kind of an important workout as well. And we just canceled another one. So, um, you could make the case that, like, as long as you just do enough, it'll be fine, um, after reading the book as well. I think all the importance is more like a projection as opposed to sort of actual scientific reality.

• 56:37Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. After working with Ben for a couple of years now, what have you learned about what makes a great coach? Like, what's the difference between a, a great coach or a great coach athlete relationship, um, versus, you know, maybe some other types of things that you've seen over the years?

• 56:56Speaker 01

  I think, I don't, I don't think this all applies to just coach athlete, but I think it's probably, um, trust and openness. Like, the more information I can give Ben in a cohesive way is gonna let him make better decisions. And it's also, I have to trust him to make good decisions as well. Like, he, just two weeks ago, we pulled out of a race that I was really looking forward to, because I got a little bit of flu-like virus earlier in the week, and, um, I just didn't look good, but I still wanted to go race. And Ben said, that's a bad idea, I think. And I just, I have to trust him on that. Because if I don't trust him, like, what's the point of even having a coach?

• 57:32Rich Roll?

  Have you ever gone to loggerheads with him, though?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 57:35Rich Roll?

  Like, had a conflict where you felt really strongly about doing something, and he disagreed?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Um, no, I don't think so. I think if we ever did that, it would be like, why do I even, why am I even working with Ben if I'm just going, if we're just butting heads all the time? I really do trust him to make good decisions. And at some point, like his record has to speak for himself. Like, we've run well at three marathons, myself and him.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  My teammate, Kellen Taylor, has run 224. She ran 226 again this year. We've had countless top 15s at World Marathon Majors. Like, he knows what he's talking about. Like, I don't, it would be pretty arrogant of me to presume that I can just make a better decision than him, when really, like, he's paid to make good decisions and he's done a good job of it for so long that it would be pretty silly to be like, yeah, you know what, I knew better, actually.

• 58:28Rich Roll?

  But at some point, as you be, as you get more and more experience, you, you, you learn to know yourself very well, right? Like, and I, I would imagine there's a point at which, like, you know what you need, or you feel, you're gonna start to feel more strongly about this, that, or the other thing. And there's, there's, there's sort of a taking ownership thing that takes place, right? And, and learning how to, like, navigate that with the coach relationship, I would imagine. Like, you see super elite, experienced athletes who, you know, have disagreements with their coaches. Maybe that's healthy, you know, or it depends on the coach and the athlete, obviously. But it's, it's, it is interesting. Like, you're really, like, you just let him do his thing.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And he lets me do my thing. Like, he's not, there are a lot of times, have been a lot of times where I've been feeling really good in a workout. Like, particularly my biggest one before Boston, we did just 16 miles steady. And I was feeling really, really good. And I really, really pushed. And in general, he would be like, okay, like, let's not go to the well today. Like, let's not leave the race out here. But he trusted me to feel that I was feeling really good and to make a good decision. So he trusts me as well. And there, I do have a little bit of autonomy, but for the most part, like, I just want to do what I'm told. I just like, I like seeing what's on the paper. And I don't want to have the stress of, like, trying to figure it out. I just want Ben, I just trust Ben enough to where it's like, look, if I do what Ben says, and I do it really well.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  In the end result,

• 59:57Rich Roll?

  You'll be where you'll be.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  I'll be where I need to be.

• 59:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. What do you think are the defining qualities of like the ultimate marathon runner? Like, what do you have to have in order to succeed at your level at marathon running?

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I think physically, you have to be very durable and you have to get really, really good at running marathon pace. I think that's the thing that most people probably mess up. They probably do the wrong indicator workouts. So their workouts, they'll do a workout that is a really good indicator for running a half marathon or running a 10K on the track and they'll be like, look how fast I ran in this. It's like, that's six by mile, isn't the same.

• 1:00:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  So I think physically, it's being very durable and getting really, really good at running about the pace you'll be running in the marathon. And that just doesn't mean just getting really good at knowing what the effort is, but it means getting really, really efficient, trying to not go, not burn too many calories too fast, being good at replacing them. And then I think mentally, I think it's important to expect to feel bad, to let it in. Like, you have to make peace with the fact that this is really gonna hurt. There's no way that this won't be excruciating unless you're just out there jogging.

• 1:01:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  And I think the sooner you make peace with that, the sooner, like, the easier it is when it comes, you're expecting it, you're looking forward to it, as opposed to like worrying about the last four miles and dreading them. That's just gonna make them worse.

• 1:01:33Rich Roll?

  I would imagine your mindfulness practices and your mindset techniques have helped you with that, like to just embrace, like, this is, this is what it is. Like, bring it on, as opposed to being afraid of, of, of it happening down the line. Like, oh, in two more miles, I'm really gonna feel it.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when it does come, letting it in, like, it's there. It's coming along for the ride. There's no way the pain isn't gonna hurt. But you can't let it be the one that gets to make the decisions. You have to be

• 1:02:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  the one in charge. And if you let it in, if you acknowledge that it's gonna be there, then you gotta be in charge of the pain and it doesn't get to hold you back. Maybe it keeps coming, maybe it keeps coming, maybe it hurts a ton, but if you stay in front of it in terms of like, I'm just gonna let this really hurt.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  I think that's much more healthy than just fearing it and letting it be the boss.

• 1:02:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:32Rich Roll?

  One of my favorite questions that I like to ask elite athletes like yourself, like one of the things that's that's unique about marathon running is you go to these races and you compete and all the everyone at all the in the hoi polloi, like everybody gets to compete at the same time. What have you seen amateur runners do wrong? Like where you're like, what's that guy doing? Come on. You know, like, you know, there's always these stories, like the day before the race or doing tempo runs on the course or, you know, things like that. Like, what do you see all the time that you and your buddies are like, don't they know that they shouldn't do that one thing?

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  I would say trying something brand new the day before the race. It's like, especially at these big races like New York or Boston.

• 1:03:16Rich Roll?

  Different pair of shoes.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, oh, yeah, I just got these new socks. They're supposed to be better.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Like going to the expo to buy shoes. Like, you didn't come with a pair of shoes.

• 1:03:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  And then spending all day on their feet. And it's like, would you do this if you had a workout tomorrow? Or conversely, people who just spend the whole weekend in the hotel room. It's like, you are in a big city. Like, go enjoy yourself a little bit. Just have, like, what would you do the day before a workout? You might go for a short run and go for a walk and go grab breakfast or something like that. Do the same thing. It's fine. Like, you people, I guess the thing that I see people do wrong is make these races into like, this huge, like, special thing that is not the same as how they prepared. It's like, no, you're, you're ready. You're prepared. Do the same thing you would have done normally. Like, this doesn't have to be, you don't have to get out of your rhythm just because now you're in Boylston, you know?

• 1:04:09Rich Roll?

  But there's all this second guessing and last minute adjustments. And I think that comes from fear insecurity for the most part.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  I think so. Yeah. I think just, I think people probably get in their own way a little bit too much as opposed to just, you know what, I'm here in Boylston, in Boston, I want to appreciate, I want to have a little bit of fun this weekend. I want to take in the marathon atmosphere. But it's like, You've done this a ton of times, you know, if you've trained well, you should kind of know what's coming.

• 1:04:36Rich Roll?

  And if you qualified for Boston, you kind of know what to do.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Just get out of your own way. Just go have, go out there and have fun, you know, it's supposed to be fun.

• 1:04:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  You don't have to worry about it. Don't have to stress about it. And frankly, like, people put all this pressure on themselves and really it's not like that important. Like, I know that even for me, like, I know this is my job and this is how I make money, but if I go out in the trials and like, I get sixth, or I run three hours or something like that, it's like the people who love me are still gonna love me.

• 1:05:06Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  The people, my friends are still gonna be my friends. Like, I'm a hundred percent sure my girlfriend won't dump me if I run bad at the trials.

• 1:05:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Um, and if all the, if I, I'm, so it's really, I'm free to take big chances. I'm free to go out there and just run as hard as I can and whatever those results are will be fine because the things that are really important, the people that I care about will still be there.

• 1:05:29Rich Roll?

  Right. Uh, you got yourself into like a little bit of hot water when you said this thing of like, uh, if you were given the choice of, of running under two hours or giving up burritos for the rest of your life, that you would, uh, you would, you would stick with the burritos and that caused a lot of discussion.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I made it.

• 1:05:46Rich Roll?

  About your commitment to the sport.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  I made a joke, you know?

• 1:05:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah. People like, you know, on these forums, you know, they take this stuff seriously.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't, like, I don't know what else you want me to do. Like,

• 1:06:01Rich Roll?

  Well, I, I like, I like, look, I'm, I'm living my life. Like, my happiness is important. And I, like, speaking of like making a joke, I love like in the beginning of the book, you cut, you, you open it up by saying, I've always wanted to be the subject of a book or a documentary. And you go onto this kind of like hilariously like self mocking narcissistic, you know, like rant that is, I thought was hilarious.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:06:23Rich Roll?

  You know, and, uh, but I think what I, I, I hear the same tone in that and the joke that you made.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I try not to take myself too seriously. By any means, like, I know that the reason I have a platform is pretty stupid. Like, I can run pretty fast, much changing the world or like, Writing important books or anything like that, like I'm a guy who can put one foot in front of the other pretty quickly for a long period of time. Like I should have some fun and I should make fun of myself a little bit.

• 1:06:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Rich Roll?

  What do you make of all the, like, we're in an interesting time in running right now. Like, there's some really cool kind of storytelling happening and, and, and the running world, like, outside of just elite marathoning, has really exploded with the expansion of ultra running and like the Breaking Two project and, and, you know, you see people crossing over from like, like what Walmsley's doing, like, you know, going from Western states into, you know, half marathon and marathon and all that kind of stuff. Like, how do you think about how you, you know, as somebody who's into movies, who's into storytelling, who's written a book, like, how do you think about storytelling and running and how you connect with the public about what it is that you do?

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I would extend the storytelling, like, explosion kind of to cycling as well. And I think in running, we're, we're behind cycling. We can do a better job. You see, especially this education-first team, they've got sending people to these alternative races, like the Dirty Canes, Leadville 100. And I think one of the huge powers in that in running is there's a lot of ways now to have fun with it. You see these unsanctioned races like the Speed Project, where there's just unsanctioned 340-mile race. And because these things exist and we're at a place, especially with social media and Twitter and Instagram,

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  there's a medium for people to share these stories really easily and really accessibly. You don't need, like, multimillion-dollar budgets and you don't need to put this out on HBO or on Sundance. Like, you can just make it and then put it on the internet. I think the, the storytellers have done a really good job of finding these niches of people who are just having fun. And we in the elite world need to take a cue from them, the storytellers in, who are sharing documentaries about the Speed Project or Barclay Marathons or, and figure out ways to make.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  What we're doing interesting and fun. And I think there are some, there are some interesting or some good examples of that. I hope Inside a Marathon is one of them. You know, we really tried hard and have worked really hard to make something that we're proud of. But I think a lot of it comes down to initiative and I don't necessarily know if there's enough initiative, in my opinion, from the elite athletes to like go out and make it. You can't just wait and rely on outside sources to come and make the project. You have to

• 1:09:28Rich Roll?

  No, you have to take responsibility for that yourself. And you've been doing that. You make these YouTube videos and all like, I feel like you've really taken that mantle and embraced it. And I think it's, I think it's important as a professional athlete and as a sponsored athlete and brand ambassador, like this is part of your job now, right? To like storytell, because I think it's easy for the general public to look at somebody like yourself or a chelane or a devs and just be like, I can't relate to these people. Like they're just cyborgs. But that's not the case. You're all human beings and you know, you're down at the coffee shop, eating a burrito and working on a book and you're a human being and you have stories to tell. And there's a lot about who you are that's

• 1:10:09Rich Roll?

  incredibly relatable. And the more that the general public can kind of connect with your journey, the more invested they are in your success and ultimately the more connected they are to the sport.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I agree. I mean, I think you said it much better than I did previously there. So let's just take your answer. You can drop it over my voice and if you could write it out, I'll just restate it.

• 1:10:30Rich Roll?

  I think it's, you know, you are seeing more and more of it, like, like, like Gwen Jorgensen now is doing this vlogging, you know, and I think that's really cool. And I just think more and more that's, that's part of the job, you know? And I think more athlete, you're going to see more athletes doing it, but it's, it's like an added expense too. And it's like, who wants somebody following them around with a camera all the time? Like you're trying to, you know, be your very best. And yet, when you put this book together, there's incredible photographs from like all of your workouts. And obviously you had, you know, you had the forethought to like have a photographer there for all of these sessions so that you could document it and share it.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, we were very lucky that Ben's wife, Jen, she is a photographer. She also did all the formatting for it and put the book kind of together. She is very, very talented at that. So we were lucky to have that. I don't necessarily know if. We would have had the budget necessarily to have someone do it if we had to pay someone to

• 1:11:29Rich Roll?

  You guys self-published it, published it too, right?

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  And that was kind of like, we, we never planned on like making this a financial thing. Like, we were just like, this would be really cool if it existed. We would be into this. This will be fun to make. And so it just kind of made the most sense. It's like, let's just do it exactly how we want to do it. And let's just put it out.

• 1:11:48Rich Roll?

  And then you could put it out, you could also put it out really quickly.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Rich Roll?

  So did it come out like right after New York?

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we got it out by December 20th.

• 1:11:56Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's really fast.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  So, New York was like November 4th. So, less than two months. And that included writing the last three chapters, all the edits, all the epilogues, picking the pictures. And then we had a little trouble finding like a printer that we could get it printed in a, for a reasonable price.

• 1:12:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the thing. You have to, you have to become this project manager and handle all this kind of stuff.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  Which I did not expect when we first started. I was just like, yeah, we're just gonna write and there'll be pictures and then it'll be out. It'll just, we'll just put it out and it'll be awesome.

• 1:12:28Rich Roll?

  You have to pay for the printing.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:30Rich Roll?

  Before anyone buys it.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And now, I mean, we've, since Boston, we, we've added another chapter and we're gonna release a second edition coming out soon. So, it's still kind of turning into a little bit more of a living document. And Ben and I both hope to do a future one, hopefully if I make the Olympics.

• 1:12:47Rich Roll?

  Then you do one for the Olympics.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Rich Roll?

  This becomes a series.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And mostly I just want to do it so I can call it Inside a Marathon 2: Tokyo Swift.

• 1:12:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  And I am sure that won't be the official name, but that's what I will exclusively refer to it as.

• 1:13:02Rich Roll?

  Or Tokyo Draft.

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Tokyo Draft, that's a good one too, yeah. One of the two. Yeah, so.

• 1:13:08Rich Roll?

  Depending upon how the race goes.

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it was like really fun. And I think that's something that kind of people just think about how hard it's gonna be when they're thinking about telling a story. And it's actually really fun, too. There's some stuff that I didn't care for, like editing isn't my favorite, or like...

• 1:13:28Rich Roll?

  I like all the footnotes.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like writing the footnotes were my favorite. That was, that was great. It was fun to come up with jokes.

• 1:13:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So much of the conversation over the last year or two, when it comes to marathoning in America, has been about the women. Like, we've seen this resurgence of, of the prominence of American women marathoners, which has been really cool to see, but not a lot of talk about the dudes. And even in the coverage, it's like it's about the women, which is like an awesome thing.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:59Rich Roll?

  But now, here we are, we have you. You know, like you're on, you're, you're like, you've kind of emerged as this face and voice of American marathon running. So, you know, how do you like take stock of American marathon running right now versus what it was a couple of years ago?

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, first of all, the coverage has deservedly been on the women. They've been competing at a higher level. Dez and Shalane both have majors. You know, we've got big stars in Molly Huddle and Emily Sisson, my teammate Kell and Steph Bruce, another one of my teammates. They've both been running at a level that is frankly higher internationally than what the men have been doing. So I'm not begrudging the fact that we weren't, we weren't covered as, as heavily as the women. I think that's great. And I also think there's room to cover the women a lot more. There's still races every year that, world marathon majors that don't start the women ahead. So the coverage of the women is almost unwatchable. They're just buried back behind.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  You know, Chicago did it last year and we missed one of the great races ever. So I think there's still a lot of opportunity to share women's running better. That being said, I guess, like, I think American men's running, marathoning has always been pretty good, I think, but the times haven't necessarily reflected that. That's kind of what I meant when I said. There was this disconnect where everyone kind of thought good and fast were the same. And if you just want to take speed, we're, the American men are, you know, this year so far, we've had two 209s, myself and Jared Ward.

• 1:15:38Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  And that's about eight minutes slower than Elliot Kipchoge's world record.

• 1:15:43Rich Roll?

  There's a whole battery of East Africans who, you know, can make mincemeat of that.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but in terms of running well and placing high, I think American men's marathoning is actually doing pretty well and has been doing pretty well. We've finished high at Boston's, New York's. We've had people on the podium. We've been, if you want to say like in championship racing scenarios where there's not rabbits and there's not just, all right, go out, see who can run the fastest. Probably the third or fourth best country in the world behind Kenya and Ethiopia. And maybe you could put like a Uganda or Eritrea in front of us. So I think we've been doing well, but not necessarily in a way that's tangible. Nobody really knows what sixth or seventh at New York is, especially when you're six minutes behind the leader.

• 1:16:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  But that's just kind of my take. I'm sure that somebody on Let's Run will hear this podcast and get mad at me again for it.

• 1:16:40Rich Roll?

  You can be sure of that.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  But I don't give a shit. So.

• 1:16:42Rich Roll?

  So the fastest, is Ryan Hall still the fastest?

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 1:16:46Rich Roll?

  205?

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, sorry. So he's run, Ryan's run the fastest ever marathon by an American. He ran, was it, I think it was 204.

• 1:16:53Rich Roll?

  204.58?

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  204.58 at Boston.

• 1:16:55Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  And then the American record is 205.30 something by a guy named Khalid Canucci from like 2005. And then we've had Galen Daythen.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've had people running in the, Meb, yeah, running in the 207s, 208s.

• 1:17:13Rich Roll?

  Right. And so your, your low 209 is like 11th on that pecking order right now.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  11th all time.

• 1:17:19Rich Roll?

  So heading into trials, you got to get first, second or third to make the team.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:17:24Rich Roll?

  Who, who are you, I know you're just thinking about your own race, but who are the other people to watch in your opinion right now?

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  I think. Over the last few years, a guy named Galen Rupp has been on paper probably the best American marathoner. He's run 206 or something and he won Chicago, second at Boston. So on paper, he's very good and should be the favorite probably. But there's also a good friend of mine, Jared Ward, who finished right ahead of me in New York and then seventh, right behind me in Boston.

• 1:17:57Rich Roll?

  How much training were you guys doing together?

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  He was in Flagstaff for about a week. So we went on a few easy runs and then one really big workout before New York. And then I haven't, I didn't really get to train with him since then.

• 1:18:08Rich Roll?

  But he's your dude.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  He's a guy. Yeah, I really like Jared. And we've competed against each other since college. Because he went to BYU, I went to University of Portland, and they're in the same conference. So been racing each other a lot. Usually he's beaten me. But I'm excited to kind of, I got him in Boston. Yeah, I got the better PR. So I own him now. If you're listening, Jared, I own you. Keep that in mind. But we've got a good group of other really talented runners. Shadrack B. Watt has been top three at Boston. Chris Derrick unfortunately just broke his ankle, but he's very talented as well. Dathan Rittenhine has run 207. So I think those are, those guys and a lot of others should be, should be ready to go and in good form at the trials. So.

• 1:18:53Rich Roll?

  Right. So trials are end of February.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Yep, February 29.

• 1:18:56Rich Roll?

  Atlanta. And how does that course break down for you?

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  It's gonna be really hilly. It looks like it'll be about 1,300 feet of gain and loss over the course of the race. So it's gonna be three eight mile loops. And I think that favors me. I'm here to race really hard. And I think the lack of rhythm kind of is right up my alley where it's just gonna be, it's just gonna be really, really hard. And I think that suits me pretty well.

• 1:19:24Rich Roll?

  How are you gonna not get injured?

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  How am I gonna not get injured?

• 1:19:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  Well, I've been, I've been lucky to be pretty durable and I think, or I go see a, I get a massage every week. I, we have good, two good Chiro's. I think that's one of the things that a lot of amateur runners could do better. Is you put all this money and time into training and stuff. And then as soon as something like pops up, you're like, I'll just figure it out. You know, like my ankle hurts. I'll just, I'll just figure it out. It's like, no, no, no. Find like a Cairo, find a massage therapist, find a physical therapist that you can go see. You've, you're gonna buy $300 pair of shoes, but you won't spend 60 or 80 bucks to go see a professional who's gonna give you exercises and rehab and help you to be healthy. So I do that. I'm a big believer in that.

• 1:20:06Rich Roll?

  So Cairo, you get like your back cracked and you do decompression or what does that look like specifically?

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of it's ART, active release therapy. So.

• 1:20:15Rich Roll?

  Painful.

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. The dry needling, our Chiro's are dry needle certified. And you know, there's sometimes it's scraping, sometimes it's.

• 1:20:23Rich Roll?

  Cupping.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:24Rich Roll?

  Cupping?

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  No, they, they haven't ever cupped me, but I mean, if they ever want to, I trust them.

• 1:20:30Rich Roll?

  You gotta get on the cupping.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Gotta get on the cupping. Okay. Um, yeah, it's, I would say they, they probably look more like a PT than a typical Cairo. It's not a ton of like back cracking spine stuff. It's a lot more wherever you're kind of injured and trying to figure out the root cause of that.

• 1:20:47Rich Roll?

  And what is the other aspect of recovery look like for you? Like you do the foam rolling and like the, do you have the normatec boots? And what does that entail?

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do have the normatec boots. Try to foam roll a lot and just generally do the rehab that the Chiro's give us. And we also go, we do strength work twice a week in the gym and those are like Olympic lifts, like deadlift, squats, that kind of thing. And that's not only performance enhancing, but it's also rehab as well.

• 1:21:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  And, but I mean, honestly, like I can sit here and talk about all the little tiny things that I do for recovery, but really like sleep is the biggest one. I try to take a nap pretty regularly. Try to have good sleep hygiene with like not doing stuff in my bed other than sleeping and.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and try to go to bed a reasonable hour, wake up, get right out of bed, that kind of thing, just regular sleep stuff. Nothing, it's not too special.

• 1:21:42Rich Roll?

  Boring, yeah, like, what's your special morning routine?

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  No, you just get up, just you wake up and you get up and drink coffee, that's the morning routine, yeah.

• 1:21:50Rich Roll?

  Is, uh, is the US Olympic Committee, have they like invited you up to Colorado Springs? Is there any of that kind of stuff going on? Like, I know in swimming, like, they'll, they'll do training camps and they'll bring like the top people in for, you know, little week-long sessions and things like that. Does it, is that, does that happen in marathon running, or?

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Not so much. The Olympic Committee's more hands-off, I think, in running than in most sports. And the running's a lot, it's more corporate. I think it's more well-funded in the sense that more groups have the resources. We don't necessarily need to go through the USOC.

• 1:22:25Rich Roll?

  And so what's the one thing, um, if there is anything, that you're really focused on working on now that you weren't, like, in your lead-up to Boston? Like, is there anything, like, this is the one thing I really want to master that I feel like was holding me back before? Or is it just, I'm doing the same thing?

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, the training has changed, I guess, now, since I'm not getting ready for a marathon. But in terms of like, big-picture stuff, I just want to do the same stuff. I want to just, I don't need to feel like I need to do extra. I don't need to go back to the drawing board. So I just want to do the same stuff that got me really, really ready for Boston. And I don't want to, like, have this sort of neuroticism where it's like, I need to do more, I need to do more, I need to do more.

• 1:23:11Rich Roll?

  Do you have a goal time in mind?

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  No, the course is gonna be too hard. I just want to be top, top three.

• 1:23:16Rich Roll?

  And what is the course like in Tokyo?

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  It will be pretty flat, but it will be really, really hot and humid. I think this year, on the day it was, we were supposed to have the marathon, like, if it had been this year, it was well into the 90s with 90% humidity.

• 1:23:31Rich Roll?

  That's really high.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'll be brutal.

• 1:23:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:36Rich Roll?

  Do you do any, like, do you go train in certain places to acclimate to that? I mean, because, you know, Flagstaff's super dry.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:43Rich Roll?

  You have the altitude, but it's a completely different climate.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  I think for the Olympics, we probably will. Whether that's like Houston or Hawaii, or maybe even going to like Okinawa or something like that. We haven't, we're trying to make the team first, so we haven't discussed that. But in general, we're capable, like, we have a kind of a sauna protocol if we're going to a really hot climate where we'll just sauna for, you know, 15 to 30 minutes, like 10 times in the three weeks leading up to the race. And that will kind of help and overdressing and stuff like that, so.

• 1:24:14Rich Roll?

  You don't put the treadmill in the sauna?

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  I haven't done that, no. I've heard of people doing that.

• 1:24:18Rich Roll?

  People do that for bad water.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:20Rich Roll?

  Train for bad water.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  I don't ever run on the treadmill either. I would, I don't care for the treadmill, so. I'd just rather go outside, so.

• 1:24:26Rich Roll?

  We just, we just found the title for the podcast.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't care for the treadmill. That's it.

• 1:24:30Rich Roll?

  That's it.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  That's it, that's it. Yeah.

• 1:24:34Rich Roll?

  You seem like somebody whose motivation is really internally generated. It's not like, hey, I need to beat this guy, or I need to be on this podium or to win. Like, this is about you versus you.

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:46Rich Roll?

  Is that fair?

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And it wasn't always like that. A lot of it was sort of like, like, almost petty, like, man, I want to fucking beat this guy. But I think in.

• 1:24:59Rich Roll?

  Fuck that guy.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, fuck that guy. I gotta, gotta beat these guys. And there was a little of that in the book, too. But in 20, maybe 2017, 2016, maybe? No, it would have been 2017. I ran the Houston half marathon. It's usually really good weather, really fast course, really flat. This one year was just like soupy, and we weren't going to run fast. And it got really hard at like 10 miles, and I threw myself a little pity party. Like, I wasn't running as fast as I wanted to. I wasn't beating the guys I wanted to. And I was like, this is bullshit. This is stupid. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to just drop out. And I kind of jogged into the finish, and it wasn't a good time. And I finished a lot lower than I should have finished. And I kind of like looked at that race and I was like, I probably can't.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  This probably isn't a sustainable form of motivation, being like, I have to beat these people. I need to figure out a more like sustainable way to push myself. And then like two weeks later, we had the US cross country championships in Bend, Oregon. And it was snowy, it was bad weather, it was really muddy course. And this was to qualify to go to the world championships.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  And top six go, I was in the lead group. There were like seven of us going into the last two K. And down this big hill, I fell and slipped and I lost 20 meters or something. Hammered as hard as I could, tried to get back onto the group. And I fell again on a corner and all of a sudden, like they're like 70, 80 meters ahead. I'm just watching the last world cross country spot go away from me. And I kind of was like, look, maybe that's gone today, but I can still hurt as much as I possibly can. I can go as hard as I possibly can. And that was probably the most I've ever hurt in a race was the last K. I just absolutely dug deep and ripped as hard as I could. And I probably wasn't running that fast, but I was going as hard as I could go.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  And I was really, really proud of that race because I wasn't worried about what other people were doing. I did the thing that I wanted to do, which was do the best that I could do on that day. And I've kind of made peace with the fact that sometimes I'm going to run as well as I can possibly run and I'm going to get beat. I'm not the most talented, best runner in the world, but, and I can't control who else comes to the line or the fitness that they're in. Or any of those extrinsic factors, but I can control how well or how hard I go today. And maybe I have a mediocre day and I'm trying to turn that into a good day. Maybe I have a good day like I had in Boston and I'm trying to turn that into a great day. So I don't know, that's kind of been, that's kind of how I got to this point.

• 1:27:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I like that, you know, that is the sustainable fuel that you need. The anger and the sort of lower emotions might get you to a certain place, but ultimately it's not going to serve you over the course of a career.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:46Rich Roll?

  You've got to find a different seat for that, for that drive. But were you always like super competitive when you were a kid?

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:54Rich Roll?

  Like we so, you know, like what, what was it like growing up? Like, where does that come from?

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  I don't really know. I mean, I was just competitive right off the bat. Maybe it was just like my parents.

• 1:28:05Rich Roll?

  I'm good at this. I'm just gonna win.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, my parents started us and my sister and I in sports really young and it was just like, I realized like it's really fun to be good at something. And when you kind of butt up against that and you're young, a lot of it is based on how like much do you want it? Like talent and training when you're like 12 years old, doesn't have as much to do with it as like, you know what, I'm just gonna run harder. I'm just gonna go deeper today.

• 1:28:30Rich Roll?

  And your high school had a pretty good program, right?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were state champs my sophomore year and then second place my junior year and we were well, good, did well our, my freshman year as well. So we had a good team.

• 1:28:42Rich Roll?

  And your sister still run?

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  No, she doesn't. Uh, she was never a runner. She did like soccer and basketball and tennis.

• 1:28:49Rich Roll?

  Parents still together?

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's nice.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:28:54Rich Roll?

  Um, when you look back on, you know, you're still at the beginning of your career really, but would you, like thinking back to that kid in high school, you know, running cross country, could you have predicted or imagined that you'd be in this situation?

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  I probably imagined I'd be better.

• 1:29:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  Realistically, I'm sure like when I was.

• 1:29:12Rich Roll?

  I love the honesty of that.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, when I was logging miles in Weirage, I probably, yeah, I probably assumed I'd have three gold medals and a world record by now, but.

• 1:29:21Rich Roll?

  So it must have been a frustrating decade there.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  At times probably. I think I probably like, I got to college and my first year I didn't handle the freedom and easy access to beer all that well. And I think probably I realigned my expectations and I've been working back to like

• 1:29:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  the confidence, I guess, since then.

• 1:29:40Rich Roll?

  So you're behind schedule.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, really realistically. Yeah.

• 1:29:44Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Gonna have to make all three of these next Olympic teams, win gold medals just to impress high school Scott.

• 1:29:50Rich Roll?

  Well, it's good that you're 27.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:52Rich Roll?

  And you got a coach that believes in you.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:29:55Rich Roll?

  What would you, what would you tell that youngster, like that 16 year old kid?

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  I would say I'd probably tell them make sure it's always fun and find ways to keep it fun. Because at certain points in college, like especially that first year when I was running like garbage because I was out until 2am three times a week and you know drinking too much and eating like shit. It wasn't fun because it's not that fun to wake up and like be hungover and go for a long run. And I think I kind of lost sight of the fact that like this is a sport, this is a game. It's supposed to be fun and it took me a little while to maybe find that again.

• 1:30:34Rich Roll?

  So it's fun for the most part, but there's gotta be days where you're like, I can't, I don't want to get out of bed today.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 1:30:42Rich Roll?

  So what do you, how do you talk your way through that? Cause I think like I'm trying to root it in the experience of a listener who's like, you know, maybe training for their first marathon and is struggling with, you know, motivation or the kind of strategies that somebody like yourself might employ to get over those humps.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think for most people, they would say that going for a run is the best part of their day. You know, even if it's not every day, but I try to keep that in mind too. It's like, I get to do.

• 1:31:11Rich Roll?

  You get to do it.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  The best part of most people's day for my job. And even if there are things that I don't really like, it's like, it's part of being an adult. It's like doing aspects of your job that you don't necessarily like. And when I really think about it, it's like, I got a pretty sweet gig here. Like the worst part of my day is doing hamstring rehab or something like that, you know? So I guess like for the average runner who's probably getting up at six, you know, which is not something I do. Get or getting up early and going straight out the door and they've got all these other responsibilities. So making sure it stays as like a get to instead of a have to.

• 1:31:47Rich Roll?

  Right. Sometimes easier said than done.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:50Rich Roll?

  Especially when you have some crazy workout looming over you.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm not, you know, I don't want to sit here and say like, I'm some Zen Buddha who always appreciates the gratitude. It's like, no, I have days where I don't want to do shit. I just want to like sit at home or I want to go. Like do something not running, but I'm trying to remember that this is, this is a sweet thing I get to do.

• 1:32:13Rich Roll?

  A little extra Andy put a comb on those days.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

• 1:32:18Rich Roll?

  And how do you keep the Olympic dream in perspective? Because that, that looms so heavy, right? Like it's, it's such a massively ambitious thing and you know, the dream of a lifetime. And I would imagine it would be easy for it to kind of, you know, infect you in not a good way, unless you're able to like, kind of, you know, keep it in check.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I try not to deal with it too much like that as like an end, you know? I have gotten to this point where I got to the point where I got to in Boston, because I wasn't thinking about like, I have to win Boston, nor do I think I have to make the Olympic team. I'm just going to prepare as well as I can. I'm going to try to focus on doing the best I can do today on this thing. And then I have faith that if I do well at the things that I need to do now, the end will be there. And I am willing to bet on myself that I'll be tough enough and strong enough and fit enough to, to accomplish things. I don't need to do, I don't need to like have some huge carrot of the Olympic rings down the road.

• 1:33:19Rich Roll?

  Do you do any visualization techniques? Like when you're getting ready for a big race, you've been on the course at Boston, you know, every turn or whatever. Do you like walk yourself through it mentally? Like what do you do before you line up on the starting line in, in, you know, in that kind of sense?

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  I let myself visualize when I'm on runs usually, like thinking about the last few miles and imagine just feeling, not imagine feeling really good, but imagine running really well. I think it's important to acknowledge that this is really going to hurt. Like it's not helpful to visualize it not hurting because it's going to hurt.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  So I I let myself visualize things in the race or like while I'm on runs, I imagine or I imagine the race.

• 1:34:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, once I get to the line, it's really a matter of like me not letting myself write the story before I before it happens, you know, it's just, I just want to be where I'm at. And that's kind of what I do when I'm on the line. I try to, you know, in in mindfulness, it's called like grounding usually where you just focus on your feet touching the ground. That's kind of what I do usually before races. I don't need to get hyped up. I don't need to get like out of my head or whatever. I just want to be where I am.

• 1:34:32Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah, I think that's really important. I mean, one of the things that you hear with marathon runners or ultra distance athletes, there are moments where, you know, it's not going well and it's easy to just not just throw a pity party, but just think, well, I'm done, you know, but to stay grounded and present with what you're doing and with experience, understanding that just because you feel lousy now, like five minutes from now, you might feel great, like these things change.

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it's, Amy Cragg had a really good quote about this. She's a wonderful marathoner, but she said, I know I'm going to have good miles and I know I'm going to have bad miles and I don't know what order they're going to come in.

• 1:35:13Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  And sometimes I remind myself of that. And I think another thing that happens a lot, at least to me, is like when I'm feeling bad, when I feel like I'm having a bad mile, if I actually check in, if I'm actually like, okay, how do I actually feel? It's really not that bad. It's probably like my mind's projection that I'm supposed to be feeling bad. So being present and like actually checking in with how your legs feel can make you feel better.

• 1:35:36Rich Roll?

  That's interesting. Yeah, distinguishing between how you actually feel and the story that you're telling yourself about how you feel, which is probably the worst, right? Worse than you actually feel.

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  Like in Boston, for example, like we got through the halfway mark and I think I was one oh four forty and the fastest I'd ever come through the half marathon mark in a marathon was like one oh six twelve or something like that. And so I think my mind was like, oh, oh, like, oh, shit, you're in uncharted territory here. Like, we're ninety seconds under pace. And they were like, you better, they're telling my legs, like, you better slow down. When I actually felt when my legs felt and like checked in with my body, it's like, no, like, I'm fine, I'm okay. Like this, I just am expecting to hurt and you have to kind of. I'm expecting to feel shitty. I'm expecting that this is too fast, but in actuality, I'm not feeling that bad.

• 1:36:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and pretty close to even splitting it.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, a negative split at Boston.

• 1:36:30Rich Roll?

  Oh, did you? Oh, you negative split?

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was 10440, 10429.

• 1:36:34Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  Which is hard because the second half has the Newton Hills.

• 1:36:37Rich Roll?

  Super hard. But the best marathon performances are pretty even, right? In terms of first and back half?

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, in terms of speed.

• 1:36:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  If you're gonna run, um, like the fastest you could run, you would want it to be even. But the best performances in terms of like winning races are almost all negative split.

• 1:36:57Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Because you generally, especially at races like Boston, New York, and Chicago, like there are big moves at the end. Where people will run, be running.

• 1:37:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  Having really, really fast miles.

• 1:37:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  To break the race open.

• 1:37:09Rich Roll?

  What do you think about Gwen Jorgensen's proclamation about making the Olympic team?

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:37:16Rich Roll?

  I had a podcast recently.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:18Rich Roll?

  I listened to that, but I mean, it's a, you know, it's a bold statement. And one of the things I asked her was like, you know, what was that like after, you know, like sort of, okay, you win the gold medal in triathlon, you retire, and then you make this announcement, and then you show up at Bowerman. Like, how, how'd that go? Right? Like, how were you received? And it seemed like people were happy to receive her by her account. But I'm interested in how the marathon world is kind of, what the reception is.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, so I guess when I first heard, she said, okay, I'm gonna go win the gold medal. I was kind of like, yeah, all right, bullshit, Gwen. Like, come on. Like, let's be real here. Let's be, I kind of thought it was like too brash and too, um, it was too much, I think, was my initial reaction. And then I was like, well, like, why do I think that? Like, she's, has every right to have whatever goal she wants to have. And I think it's great that she's sharing it. Like. I think my, I should have taken a second before I was like, before in my head, I was like, no, fuck that. That's a, that's a stupid thing to say. Cause in reali- reality, it's like, I kind of admire, I admire her for A, having the highest goals possible and B, being open and honest.

• 1:38:29Rich Roll?

  Right, like being unafraid to just say that, knowing that it will, you know, there's going to be some people that aren't going to receive it so well.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like I should have, I should have taken a beat and been like, well, good on her, you know? Um, but I admit that I, I didn't at first.

• 1:38:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, it'll be exciting to watch.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, you know, I, I hope she's, I know she has had some injury issues. I hope she's healthy and ready to go on the line.

• 1:38:52Rich Roll?

  I think she's making her way back. So is the, is it trials? Are the women and the men running like the same weekend or how does that work?

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll run on the same day.

• 1:39:00Rich Roll?

  Same day.

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  We actually just got an email about this. I think it's the current plan right now. The men will start at 12:03 on February 29th. The women will start 20 minutes later so that we're not lapping them. Um, and it'll be three eight mile loops and then a 2.2 mile stretch out of the loop to finish.

• 1:39:20Rich Roll?

  Wow. So on the course at the same time.

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:24Rich Roll?

  That'll be interesting.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  They, the US ATF has assured us that we shouldn't be, the men shouldn't be lapping women until the third lap and it should be spread out enough. Where it won't be like trying to navigate huge groups. And I think the top women will be probably catching the top men or the, sorry, the, the stragglers on the men's side, um, at some point as well. Cause at the moment, I think like 700 people have qualified for the Olympic trials. So it'll be a huge event.

• 1:39:52Rich Roll?

  Um, and is it strictly like for second or third? Or are there other like weird things that happen, you know, as you see in other sports?

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So for the US, it was. So convoluted, super, super convoluted until maybe like five weeks ago where there was like an A standard and then there was a point system and it was gonna be.

• 1:40:12Rich Roll?

  What's going on?

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  It's like not even people in the sport could explain how it was gonna work. And luckily, uh, the USATF lobbied the IAAF, which is the governing body of sports, the sport, to um, make the Olympic trials like a gold label event. And to, what that means shortcut is that the top three across the line will make the team. They will achieve the standard and be eligible for the Olympics and the USATF will just have to submit their names. The top three will go from the trials.

• 1:40:45Rich Roll?

  And that's it. Like if somebody else, two weeks later at some other marathon runs some crazy time or somebody gets injured, there's a period of that. I mean, that's the way it's been done in swimming forever. Like it's just very like, there's no other, it's just your first or second or that's it.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think there's some, um, there's some wiggle room with injuries. You can kind of after, before a certain date, but yeah, it's been like that for the marathon for a really long time. The standards were um, slow enough where if you won the Olympic trials or you were top three at the Olympic trials, you had the standard. And that was awesome. It made for great events and great, um, just a really cool, dramatic thing. There was finality and it was kind of in danger for a little while, but luckily that's not the case.

• 1:41:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you make the team, it's also, I feel like the timing is really good too. Like it gives you plenty of time to build, to take a break and then build back up.

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:41Rich Roll?

  In swimming, they keep, it's like peril, perilously close to the actual game. So it's always this weird science experiment of like, do you train hard or you maintain? Like, but here being at end of February, like you have a nice block after that.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And on the track, it's more similar to swimming where the Olympic trials will be in the summer. And then the people who make the team will go to the Olympics later that summer. So, um, I think for shorter distances, that's probably good because you don't have to like end your season necessarily, even if the race is a 10K, like you're probably pretty beat up and maybe. You feel bad for a few days, but you can come back and still be fit with a marathon. That's not really an option. Like you couldn't, they couldn't have the marathon in like May or even, you know, later like July.

• 1:42:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, there's no way.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Like four weeks later, you can't run another marathon. It would go awful. It'd be terrible. So it kind of, you know, it's a little bit event specific in that regard.

• 1:42:33Rich Roll?

  Right. All right. We got to wind this down in a minute here, but one of the things I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about is just, you know, now that like you're in the media a little bit more, like, is there anything that you think people get wrong about you? Or is there a narrative out there that you feel like they don't understand what I'm trying to do here? Like, just want to give you the opportunity to like, correct the record if there's anything out there where you think people are misunderstanding you or marathon running in general for that matter.

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think we talked about the difference between like what good is and what fast is and how those aren't necessarily a hundred percent the same thing. That's kind of been the thing I've probably gotten the most shit for online. People chastising my opinion that good can be finishing high and not just running fast.

• 1:43:26Rich Roll?

  Like harkening, you mean like harkening back to some imaginary golden age of American marathon running that actually didn't exist?

• 1:43:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's a hundred percent correct. Yeah. If, if somebody wants to go through the history books and show me an era where people were running sub two 10 every single time out, I would be happy to hear about it. I don't think it exists. Other than that, I think I've done a pretty good job of like telling my own story and communicating the messages that I personally wanted to communicate. And so

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  I've just done it myself as opposed to like letting other people get it wrong.

• 1:43:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  But yeah.

• 1:44:02Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  It's kind of the only thing I would say, and I know this is going to be a shock to a lot of people, is I don't actually only eat burritos. I know we didn't talk a ton about burritos, but I've got this like reputation online for eating a lot of burritos.

• 1:44:13Rich Roll?

  You created that narrative.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  Absolutely. A hundred percent I did. But I think some people think that's the only thing I eat. And I would like to go on the record as saying, I only mostly eat burritos. There are other aspects of my diet.

• 1:44:25Rich Roll?

  Only mostly or you mostly only?

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  The main food.

• 1:44:31Rich Roll?

  How many burritos a week?

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  I mean, on a good week, like six.

• 1:44:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  On a bad week, one, two.

• 1:44:36Rich Roll?

  I'm with you. I probably eat that. I probably eat that many burritos.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, home burritos. They're all perfect.

• 1:44:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:41Rich Roll?

  Um, I have a couple of burrito recommendations while you're in LA.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:44:45Rich Roll?

  Are you gonna be, where are you guys going after this? Are you gonna be on the west side?

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  I think we're going back towards Ontario and then. LAX.

• 1:44:52Rich Roll?

  Oh, by LAX?

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54Rich Roll?

  So hit Holy Guacamole on Main Street in Santa Monica. That's my favorite. Every time I go to LAX or I fly into LAX and I'm making my way back home, I always drop in there.

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  Holy Guacamole.

• 1:45:04Rich Roll?

  It's just a little hole in the wall place, but they make a good, it's a pretty good.

• 1:45:07Speaker 01

  Are there, um, does the menu have pictures?

• 1:45:09Rich Roll?

  No.

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. I like the menu of the pictures. Yeah.

• 1:45:12Rich Roll?

  And I like, you know, I mean, I'll, I like, there's a lot of like, just the, the old school food trucks, not the fancy food trucks, but like the ones that park at construction sites and stuff like that.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  That's clutch. Really good.

• 1:45:24Rich Roll?

  Some of the better burritos around.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:45:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I guess I had to get the burrito plug in there. Sorry, Rich.

• 1:45:30Rich Roll?

  And, uh, all right, final question. What's the movie you're, you're most anticipating right now?

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Let's see, like, that's coming out?

• 1:45:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Um, man, I, I'm upset that I don't remember the name. What's the name of the movie that's coming out? The Leno Way Throat? Sonny, Sonny and something? It's got Michael Kieunuka.

• 1:45:48Rich Roll?

  Oh, I don't even, I don't even know about this.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  Not named Michael Kieunuka. Michael, he was in Widows and he was in Get Out.

• 1:45:54Rich Roll?

  Oh, right. I know who you are.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, I don't know the woman. It's, I'm interested to see that one. And I just watched, the summer has been a good movie summer. We had Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. We had Hobbs and Shaw and we had John Wick 3. So I had a really good summer of movies. Yeah.

• 1:46:09Rich Roll?

  I have a good John Wick 3 story. I'll tell you that for the podcast.

• 1:46:12Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:46:13Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. Well, uh, I'm so excited, um, for Olympic trials. I can't wait to watch you. And I'm cheering for you. You're one of the good guys, man. And, uh, I'm excited to see what you're gonna do. It's super exciting. So best of luck to you.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, Rich, and thanks for having me.

• 1:46:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, uh, once you make the Olympic team and go to Tokyo and all that, come back and, and tell us about it, will you?

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Sounds good. I'll just try to live up to the image I had of myself in high school. Now we can come talk about it.

• 1:46:39Rich Roll?

  Yes. Please do that. Uh, in the meantime, everybody check out Inside a Marathon. Um, it's not on Amazon, right? Like, you gotta get it to your website.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, through the website.

• 1:46:48Rich Roll?

  ScottFable.com.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  We should have.

• 1:46:50Rich Roll?

  Why don't you get it up on Amazon?

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Because they would make us charge like $40 for it.

• 1:46:55Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  But we want to, we're doing it through our own website. Inside a Marathon Second Edition should be coming out soon. I don't know when this podcast will drop. Hopefully we'll have the book out by then and we'll have an e-version as well.

• 1:47:07Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:47:09Rich Roll?

  Audiobook?

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  Audiobook. No, not an audiobook. I'm not doing that. That's too long. Unless we can get Morgan Freeman to read it. I don't want to do it.

• 1:47:15Rich Roll?

  Well, now that you're a podcaster.

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  That's true. We could do it.

• 1:47:18Rich Roll?

  You should do that.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:19Rich Roll?

  You could bring in like guest people to like mimic your voice.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, one person. If, if we get, there's like 22 chapters. If 22 people volunteer, you can all read one chapter. That's fine with me.

• 1:47:29Rich Roll?

  All right. You should do that.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:47:31Rich Roll?

  In the meantime, scottfaubel.com, at S. Fobs on Instagram.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  Yep. And at Scott Fobs on Twitter.

• 1:47:39Rich Roll?

  Right. Cool, man. Thanks, brother.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:47:42Rich Roll?

  Peace.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  Peace. Good luck.

• 1:47:43Rich Roll?

  Thanks, man.

• 1:47:47Rich Roll?

  Very cool. Good dude, that Scott. Like I said, somebody that you want to root for, that you want to see prevail. So, let's do this. Let's send a rounding roar of support to Scott, who I imagine right now is probably pretty deep in the throes of heavy training at the moment, given that Olympic trials are, I think, about 11 or 12 weeks away at this point. By hitting him up on the socials, you can find him on Twitter, at Scott Fobs, F-A-U-B-S, and on Instagram, he is at S. Fobs. You can learn even more about him at scottfaubel.com and of course, in the show notes on the episode page on my website. And don't forget to pick up a copy of his book with his coach, Ben Rosario,

• 1:48:32Rich Roll?

  Inside a Marathon. It's pretty great, especially if marathon running lands on your 2020 list of New Year's resolutions, or as a great gift, I might add. If you'd like to support our work here on the show, subscribe, rate and comment on the program on Apple Podcasts. That really helps new people discover the show, which is super important. Tell your friends about your favorite episode, share the show on social media, hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, Google, wherever you listen to this. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com/donate. Much love and appreciation for my team, who helps put on this show every week. I do not do this alone. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin for videoing the program,

• 1:49:16Rich Roll?

  editing it, creating all the beautiful short clips. Jessica Miranda for her graphics wizardry. Ally Rogers for her beautiful portraits. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music by Analemma. Appreciate the love, you guys. I will see you back here in a couple of days with another great episode with the one and the only Shrimati, my wife Julie Pyatt. And until then, remember, it's not complicated, people. Get outside, run, move, and remember, mood follows action. Peace, plans, namaste.