the morning shakeout podcast

This week I’m re-sharing a conversation that I had in 2018 with Deena Kastor, which we recorded at her kitchen table in Mammoth Lakes, California. I’m bringing this one back not only because I was in Mammoth Lakes this past weekend but because Deena just ran 2:45:12 at the Berlin Marathon—at the age of 49, no less!—to earn the Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star Medal for completing all six Majo...

I’m traveling this week and don’t have a new episode of the podcast for you but I want to take this opportunity to re-run one of my favorite conversations that I’ve ever had for the show. It’s with Diljeet Taylor, who is the head women’s cross-country coach and the Associate Director of Track and Field and field at BYU, which is one of the top collegiate programs in the country. We recorded t...

This week’s episode is with Ruben Sança. Ruben and I go back a ways: When I was a senior at Stonehill College we recruited him pretty hard to come run at our school. He ultimately ended up going to our rival, UMass Lowell, where he went on to have a great collegiate career as a 4x All-American and three-time New England champion. It turned out to be the right choice for him as Ruben now works at h...

I am super excited to share this episode with all of you. It’s with Brendan Leonard , an ultrarunner, writer, award-winning filmmaker, speaker, and creator of one of my favorite websites on the internet, Semi-Rad.com . On top of all that, he’s also a new dad, which we talked quite a bit about in this conversation. Brendan is someone whose work I’ve admired for quite a while now. He’s got an unmatc...

I’m excited to bring you the 7th installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinée Dorame of the Grounded Podcast. In this episode, we catch up on what we’ve both been up to of late personally, professionally, and athletically, we talk marathons, discuss music, and a whole lot more.  This episode is brought to you by: — New Balance. The FuelCell SuperComp Trainer from...

I am on a little bit of a hiatus from recording new episodes of the podcast so I’m taking this time as an opportunity to re-run some of my favorites from years past that some of you may want to revisit and others might be hearing for the first time.  This week, I’m bringing back an incredible conversation I had a little over three years ago with Katie Arnold. Katie is mom, a heck of an ultrar...

This week’s re-run episode is an incredibly special one to me. It’s with my college cross country and track coach, Karen Boen, who is someone that’s had a profound and lasting impact on my life. Coach saw qualities and abilities in me 20 years ago that I didn’t know I had, and she helped me to not only become a better runner, but she taught me a lot about hard work, leadership, caring for other pe...

I do not have a new conversation to share with you this week but I am going to re-run a previous episode of the podcast with Lindsay Flanagan that was recorded in early 2020, just a few weeks before the Olympic Trials Marathon, where she ended up finishing 12th. Since that day in Atlanta, Lindsay has made some huge breakthroughs in the marathon and as a fan, it’s been super fun to watch. This past...

This week’s episode is a long one but it’s a pretty special conversation with one of my first post-collegiate running heroes, Peter Gilmore—who, incredibly and ironically enough, is now my teammate on the West Valley Track Club Masters racing team. In the early 2000s Peter was one of the top marathoners in the U.S. He finished 10th at the 2005 Boston Marathon and later that year represented the U....

In the sixth installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinée Dorame of the Grounded Podcast, we shared our respective personal updates before geeking out on all things World Athletics Championships, which just wrapped up over the weekend.  This episode is brought to you by: — New Balance. The FuelCell SuperComp Trainer from New Balance is something else! This sh...

This week’s guest, making his second appearance on the podcast, is Steve Magness. Check him out back on Episode 156 if you haven’t already as it’s a good primer for this conversation, one which centered around the subject of his new book : Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness .  Now I’ll say this: Steve has been on a lot of podcasts doing pr...

This week’s conversation is with Diane Nukuri, a three-time Olympian for Burundi whose career I’ve been following for 22 years now. Diane is an incredible athlete—she’s competed in three Olympic Games in three different events—and she’s one of the most versatile road racers of the past decade.  In this episode, we talked about her childhood in Burundi and how running came into her life. She t...

This week’s conversation is with Marquis Bowden, who you may remember from Episode 132 back in the fall of 2020. Since that time nearly two years ago Marquis and I have kept in close touch and make it a point to catch up with one another every couple of weeks. His life has undergone a lot of changes since we recorded that first podcast: he moved from the only place he’d ever known, Los Angeles, Ca...

In the fifth installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinée Dorame of the Grounded Podcast, Dinée tells us all about her experience at the recent New York Mini 10K, we talk about which events we were most looking forward to at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, we discuss music, of course, and a lot more.  This episode is brought to you by: — New...

My guest this week is Sid Baptista. Sid’s a lot of things: he’s a husband and a father, a runner, a community builder and leader, and also an entrepreneur. He’s the founder of the PIONEERS Run Crew , which is based in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, and he’s also the creator of PYNRS performance streetwear brand , an apparel line with a focus on serving diverse people, with diverse body types fr...

My guest this week, making his second appearance on the podcast, is Simon Freeman. Simon is the co-founder, editor, and publisher of my favorite running magazine, Like The Wind , a beautiful, quarterly, coffee table-style publication for runners, by runners. (Check out the conversation Simon and I had for Episode 13 here and learn about his professional and athletic background, as well as the orig...

My guest this week is Tommie Runz . I met Tommie back in April at the Racers Roundtable that I hosted and he participated in a few days before the Boston Marathon. After talking with him for just a little bit that day, I knew that I needed to sit down with him for the podcast. That brief encounter led to this nearly two-hour conversation and it’s a really special one. In this episode, Tommie...

In the fourth installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinée Dorame of the Grounded Podcast, Dinée has a lot of exciting updates as they relate to her professional life and athletic pursuits, we talk a little bit about a few of the high school track athletes that are exciting us right now, we discuss National Running Day, which is coming up on June 1, and a lot more...

This week we’re kicking it back to Episode 64 with Frank Gagliano, one of the greatest track coaches of all-time, which was recorded three years ago at his home in Rye, New York. Gagliano, who is now 85 years old, has coached at every level of the sport over the past 60 years—high school, college, and professionally—and he’s had great success at all of them. He’s coached 15 Olympians, 140 All-Amer...

I’ll be re-running a couple of my favorite episodes from years past in the feed this week and next and we’ll start by kicking it back to Episode 100 with Laura Schmitt, which was recorded in February of 2020 right before the world shut down. It’s one of my favorite conversations that I’ve ever had for the podcast and I’m excited to rerelease it. Laura was the longtime cross country and track coach...

Jinghuan Liu Tervalon is a mother and a runner from Southern California. She started running 14 years ago to deal with heartache and to do something for herself before she eventually found a community that she connected with and started training in earnest for races. She’s also a writer whose work has been published in Runner’s World and Women’s Running. In fact, last year she won a creative grant...

I’m not even sure how to set up this episode with Tommy Rivers Puzey so I’ll just tell you that it’s a long, winding, and at times heavy conversation with someone I deeply respect and admire about life, death, cancer, identity, hope, potential, love, gratitude, and more that I feel privileged to have had in person and that I am honored to share here with all of you.  We recorded this episode...

In the third installment of Common Ground, a monthly podcast co-hosted by me and Dinee Dorame of the Grounded Podcast, we catch up on all things Boston Marathon, talk a little bit about the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, look ahead to what’s exciting each of us in the month of May, and more. This episode is brought to you by: — New Balance. If you’re looking for a go-fast shoe for workouts and m...

I’m excited to share the Racers’ Roundtable I hosted at Tracksmith’s Trackhouse this past Friday with guests Tommie Runz ,  Erica Stanley-Dottin ,  Mick Iacofano ,  Caroline Williams ,  Ken Rideout , Katie Kellner , and Colin Bennie . A mix of first-timers and veterans, elites and age-group competitors, locals and out of towners, we talked all things Boston Marathon: how the Bo...

This week I sit down with Chris Douglas, my right-hand man and sponsorship director for  the morning shakeout, and he interviews me for the 200th episode of the podcast. In this conversation we take a trip down memory lane and discuss some notable episodes, we talk about how the show has evolved and grown over the past 4+ years, I explain how the pandemic has affected the past 100 episodes fo...