The Shakeout Podcast

Ben Preisner may be the 3rd fastest Canadian of all time over the marathon distance, but when he toes the line on Marathon Monday in Boston he’ll be a rookie all over again.  Despite a 2:08 personal best, 3 World Championship appearances, and an Olympic Games under his belt, the 2026 Boston Marathon will be the 30 year old’s debut at a World Marathon Major.  What makes this year’s Boston debut eve...

When Christopher Morales Williams ran his personal best in the indoor 400m in 2024 he became the first–and only–man in history to dip under 44.5 seconds. Due to a faulty sensor in his starting blocks however, what should be the official world record was never ratified.  Two years later, and Morales Williams has finally gotten his shot at redemption, removing any doubt as to who the best indoor 400...

The pre-race carb-load is a right of passage in the sport of distance running, but in recent years runners’ obsession with carbohydrates has reached a level of fanaticism that puts other running trends to shame.  A growing canon of research is rewriting what we thought we knew about the body’s ability to process fuel during hard exercise, and with some recent studies going so far as to advocate fo...

With Spring around the corner, Canada Geese aren’t the only animals reappearing along the park paths and greenspaces of Canadian cities. They’re joined by another species emerging to embrace warmer weather and sunnier days ahead: the spring road racer.  Whether you’ve been counting down the days while slogging out the miles on the treadmill, or find yourself doing a double take at your calendar an...

If Rookie cards were a thing in the sport of Track & Field, then Foster Malleck ’s would be one you’d kill to get your hands on.  After a 6 year NCAA career at Boston University where it took right up until his final collegiate season to qualify for the national championships, the Kitchener Ontario native wasted no time making a splash in his first year as pro.  Less than a week after his final ra...

It’s been common wisdom in endurance sports that the further the race distance gets, the longer it takes to figure it out. But every rule needs an exception to prove it and on this count one needs look no further than the career of Molly Seidel .  After a gold-studded NCAA career at Notre Dame winning titles at 3000, 5000, 10000 and cross country, Seidel’s star only seemed to rise higher as the di...

It’s the first week of March and that means one things for Canadian track & field fans: the U Sports track & field championships have arrived. This week on The Shakeout Podcast we’re joined by Canadian Running  staff writer and U Sport insider Cameron Ormond , who joins the show to give us the rundown on the top storylines, podium picks, and athletes to watch heading into an action packed weekend....

The injury cycle can feel like a game of whack-a-mole, with one nagging pain going away only to be replaced by several different issues elsewhere. For the injured runner, the path to lasting health and getting back to the pain-free running begins with the right diagnosis. Yet while that may sound obvious the reality of getting there can often feel far from straightforward.  On this week's episode...

Like finishing a marathon, successfully completing a Rubik's Cube is something that even those who have never done it understand that it's challenging, unique and worth celebrating. And the few who have done it enjoy a special type of camaraderie. To most minds, the similarities between the cube and the marathon stop there. But for this week’s guest, Canadian Running's cover athlete,  George Schol...

So who’s really driving this machine? Today’s guest, Paul Gamble , PhD, has spent his career preparing elite and international athletes. But after years inside professional sport, he started asking an uncomfortable question: Are we developing better athletes—or just burning kids out earlier? In his book, Sport Parenting, Paul introduces the idea of the Sport Parent, a powerful, often invisible for...

The last time Cam Levins took the streets of Vancouver for the Vancouver First Half, he left with a new Canadian record at the half-marathon distance. Weeks later, he kept the record-breaking streak going with a career-defining run of 2:05:36 at the 2023 Tokyo Marathon, taking a minute and a half off of his personal best and breaking his own Canadian record in the process.  Fast forward three year...

Getting the worst flu of your life isn’t a perfect plan for anyone’s marathon race-week, but if there’s any athlete who's used to less-than-ideal prep it’s Hamilton’s Erin Mawhinney , a nurse educator who balances training upwards of 150km each week with the demands of full-time healthcare work.  At last month's  Marathon Project  in Arizona, Mawhinney's hopes of capitalizing on a flat, fast cours...

If there’s one word to describe the professional career of Lucia Stafford , it’s consistency. Since storming onto her first Olympic team in Tokyo at just 22, there has yet to be a global championship or major games where the Toronto native hasn’t been a part of Team Canada. For half a decade, she’s been a constant presence on national championship podiums, while also lowering Canadian records at b...

If the early days of 2026 are any indication, the year ahead might be one for the history books in Canadian road running. This past weekend saw the fall of not one, but two national records in two of the most hotly-contested distances, the 10K and the half-marathon.  Within the span of just a few hours, the duo of Kieran Lumb and Rory Linkletter lowered the all-time best marks at the 10K and half,...

As in almost every previous year, in 2025, Canadian elite startlines looked much the same from coast to coast. Whether it was 5,000m on the track, 10K on the road or on the mud and grass of the cross-country course, a familiar cast of national elites toed the line from Vancouver to Montreal, Edmonton to Ottawa. But among the rows of seasoned harriers, one face was relatively unknown: Matt Talbot o...

The Shakeout Podcast kicks off 2026 with a special New Year's Day episode featuring guest host Rory Linkletter . Rory joins  John Gay  for a conversation with recently crowned The Marathon Project champion JP Flavin , fresh off his win and new lifetime best of 2:09:18. The pros-only event was held in Chandler, Arizona last week. Flavin, a member of the Michigan-based Brooks Hansons Original Distan...

While the holiday season represents a break from training for some, for others it’s the perfect opportunity to start ramping up towards big goals in the year ahead.  Regardless of where you find yourself, the end of one year and the beginning of the next marks a perfect time for all runners to take some time to plan for racing and training goals in the year ahead. And while plenty of athletes will...

After being named to lead the Canadian marathon team at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Malindi Elmore had some injury struggles through the spring and summer and was forced to withdraw. She  decided to focus on returning to full health in hopes of finding a later starting line where she could arrive in top shape.  She built steadily through the fall, and her decision to delay returnin...

On November 20th, McGill University announced devastating budget cuts to its athletics programs and the dissolution of 25 varsity and competitive club sports, effective next year. Amongst that list was both men’s and women’s track and field, programs which have existed on campus for more than a century.  The decision to cut the track & field program at one of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious u...

When a debilitating back injury derailed Jesse Prescott 's own athletic endeavours over a decade ago, it created in him an obsession with better understanding the root causes of pain, learning how to strengthen his body against future injury, and sharing what he learned with athletes of all ages and abilities. What followed was a journey into the inner workings of movement and performance and a ca...

After missing out on seeing Ceili McCabe in competition this outdoor track & field season, the wait is over for running fans to see her back at a national championship, as she returned in style this past weekend with a masterclass performance at the 2025 Canadian Cross Country Championships in London. In her first national championship as a professional, the national steeplechase record holder and...

As a teenager, Jane Roos was one of the country’s most promising young talents in track and field, with Olympic aspirations to represent Canada in the heptathlon. At age 18, those aspirations came to an abrupt halt after a devastating car accident brought an end to her athletic career. While tragedy marked the end of her personal pursuit of Olympic glory, it also served as a catalyst for a new pur...

The best distance runners in the country are heading back to London for the 2025 Canadian Cross Country Championships and Canadian Running is your source for all the action. The stakes are extra high for this year’s edition of ACXC, as athletes go head-to-head for to secure their place on the Canadian team heading to the World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida in just 6 week’s ti...

For as long as he can remember, running has been a fundamental component of Kevin Smith ’s life. Even during recurring bouts of injury, Smith held onto the identity and community that the sport provided, trusting that someday, he’d have the chance to find out just how much he was capable of.  Through the years of setbacks and time relegated to the status of what he calls a “non-practising runner,”...

When Mark Bomba accepted the head coaching role at Queen’s University in 2020, he inherited a men’s program that was decades removed from their last appearance on a national cross country podium. For the new head coach the climb back to the top of the mountain had to begin with a strong culture, and his top priority was identifying just one athlete who would buy into the team-first ethos he was tr...