Episode 461: How Running Fuels Nicholas Thompson's Success as CEO of The Atlantic

Nicholas Thompson is the CEO of the Atlantic and an avid runner. He holds the American 50 KM record (age 45–49): In 2021, Thompson set an American record for his age group in the 50K (31 miles), finishing in 3:04:36.

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Episode Transcript:

Nick, thanks for coming on the podcast, Zach. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me on. 

No, absolutely. I love being in Austin for these types of situations. It allowed me to actually justify building a podcast studio enough. Cool People like yourselves tend to come through Austin to do the podcast routine and all that stuff.

And this 

is a killer studio. This is great. 

Yeah, it was kind of, it was fun. Like when we moved from Phoenix to Austin, I guess almost four years ago at this point. And we were trying to figure out what we wanted and we saw this spot and we're like, it's just my wife and our dogs, so we actually like a smaller house.

'cause you just don't wanna tolerate all the maintenance of something larger, but you don't want too small a house. And then people come over and you're like, yeah, we don't have any room for you. So we saw this where it was like the little studio up here was separate. We're like, that'll be nice. And then after a couple years I was like, Hey Nicole, do you think I could build a podcast studio up there?

And she's yeah, just make sure you can take it down if we have company. Right. So you put 

guests here too? 

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a bedroom and a bathroom there too. And Nice. I've actually really re really kind of eased my way into this spot too. 'cause now you can tell I've got an exercise bike over there, Uhhuh.

So it's sort of become mine, I guess. Nice. At this point. And I haven't upset a too much about it,

awesome. Well great. Congratulations on the complexities of marriage and real estate and all of that. 

Right, right. I probably owe her something at some point for that. So these straight offs are hard.

Yep. Awesome. Yeah, no, I'm excited to have you here in Austin to chat about some running and your book and everything that you've got going on. So what are you training for? Right now 

I'm training for the New York City Marathon and the race will be, the book comes out on Tuesday, October 28th and the race is on Sunday, November 2nd or third.

Awesome. You know, right afterwards. Yeah. And then after that I do, I just turned 50 and I wanna run a hundred miler. I think you might know a thing or two about this. Yeah. You know, the age group record for 50 plus is Getable. It'd be a nice new experience to run a hundred. I was thinking I'd run Tunnel Hill six days later, but that's insane.

Yeah. 

And I don't know, maybe I'll be out at Desert Solstice, which I think you're running. 

Yeah. Desert Solstice is a great spot for a tunnel hill too. But yeah, that's a tight timeline, especially if you red line New York and really leave it out. That, and I don't wanna go hard 

in New York. It's, you know, it's the age group world championships my kids are gonna be watching.

Yeah. You can do what I've done, you know, I've, I don't think I've ever raced six days apart, but I've done hard workouts six days after a marathon and it's doable if you do a 95, 90 7% effort. I wanna, I want to go for it.

Yeah. It might just be nice too, not having that in the back of your mind, thinking like, sometimes I find, I'd be curious what your thoughts about this is.

Just like when I start putting too many races on the calendar, you sort of invite that voice to enter at some point. Well there is that down the road if I don't have a good day here. Right. Right. Yeah, it's true. It's true. 

You. To a certain degree, you have to not give yourself an excuse. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

And I also, you don't want to do your training. I had a very funny training cycle recently where I wanted to run. I ran the Twisted Branch a hundred K two weeks ago. 

But I also wanted to run a sub five minute mile on my birthday, which was like three weeks before the race. So I had to, I was doing a combination of ultra long runs and quarter mile repeats which was like a funny combination.

Yeah. And you know, I did it. I succeeded. The best thing about that training cycle is that my middle son is a soccer player, but he also loves to run and he's now equally fast at the miles. So we did all of our track work workouts, side by side, uhhuh, like we'd alternate four hundreds with each other.

Yeah. Which is just great. 

Yeah. I remember when I first gave running any thought it was my dad actually, he just asked me one day about some cross country meet that was like near a conference he was at. I'm like, yeah, I'll do it. And then I think I finished third amongst maybe 150 kids around my age.

So I was kinda like, oh, maybe I'm actually decent at this. And then. During the track season. This was like middle school. The protocol was he'd take me to the track maybe two or three times a week and just do an all-out mile uhhuh. And I remember like that, he'd run it with me and we were pretty close.

He'd be a little bit ahead of me, and then one day I'd beat him. I'm like, yes. Finally I beat my dad. 

That's great. That is a big milestone. Yeah. You know, it's gonna be like I'm playing chess with my 11-year-old, and he is getting so close to being able to beat me. And like I know that the proper thing is to just play my hardest.

And you know, then it'll be so much more joy when he beats me as opposed to letting him beat me. Right. 

Yeah. And then you can be honest with him later on in life when he's did you let me beat you? No, I didn't. I didn't. Right. Because 

there's no joy. Right? Like, when you're there like four, you have to let them win.

'Cause otherwise they have temper tantrums, but when they're 11, they can handle it. Yeah. They're ready to start absorbing some of those. And the 15-year-old runs this 10 mile race with me each February and the first time is like 30 minutes behind that. He's 10 minutes behind you.

He's gonna catch me in that too, that'll be fun when he beats me in that. It'll be great. 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe we should jump into your running history a little bit too. Yeah. 'cause I think that is an interesting story where you kind of really started excelling a little bit later in life. But maybe what was your entry to running?

So there are two entry points. So the first was when I was five years old and my dad was running the New York City Marathon, and I would run a little bit with him. It's right before my parents split and he moved away. But I would run a mile or two miles with him. And that was, I think that planted a seed of the sport in my brain.

That's entry one. But he moves away. We don't run that. I don't run that much. I don't think of myself as a runner. And then in high school I got cut from the basketball team. And I joined the track team and suddenly I'm good. Right? And well, not suddenly, but it takes a little while. I get pretty good.

And so that's an entry too. Then I ran through high school and freshman year and college and then not quite good enough. And so that's it for that. And then I started running again in my twenties trying to break a three hour marathon. I eventually do that and then I get much better in my forties. So those are the three kinds of entry points to it.

Yeah. And by much better, you mean 50 K age group record after the sub six minute mile pace? 

Yeah. So yeah, I ran a bunch of marathons trying to break three hours in my twenties. I finally did, and then I ran a 2 43, which was wonderful when I was 30. And then I got thyroid cancer, and got diagnosed right after the race.

I came back two years later and then ran at the exact same time. And in fact, for the next decade, every marathon I ran was exactly the same time. And so until I'm 43. I really did go 2 43, 2 43, 2 42, 2 42, 2 43, 2 45, like insanely similar times. Then in my forties I break through and I, you know, I suddenly go, Ooh, 2 38.

That's nice. 2 34, that's nice. 2 29. That's quite a difference, right? In a year, I dropped from 2 43 to 2 29 and I set the American record in the 50 K, and part of the book was inspired by this question of why, how did I get so much faster or even, how come I couldn't realize that I had this ability inside of me?

And I, it kind of came to me one day I was running, I remember the day vividly, I was running across the Brooklyn Bridge. I run to and from the office every day and it hits me like, like a sudden realization. Rarely happens in life, and I had to actually have to sit down, but I realized that I had run all those two 40 threes because at some deep psychological level.

All I had cared about was being as fast as I'd been before I got sick. 

Right? And so it was like all I cared about was being Nick before he went through this hard stuff. And I didn't, because of that, I didn't allow myself to press on these limits. And so I had to have sort of an external coach, external coaches really pushed me through the mental game of getting from that block at 2: 43, which was there for a very good reason.

Right? And get me down to the 2 29. So that's a little bit of my running history. Yeah. And that's part of what inspired the book, which is this recognition that what makes you fast, what makes you slow, what sets your limits can be buried deep inside. So it's a story of my life, my father's life, and then other runners who.

I've competed with or encountered along the way who use running as a way to teach you about hard things in life. 

Did you start working with a coach when you made that jump too? 

Yeah, so I had been approached by Nike and these three coaches, Steve Finley, Brett Kirby, Joe Holder, and they had Nike had this thing where they, you know, were approaching sort of everyday athletes.

And they approached me, obviously they approached me 'cause I was the editor in chief of Wired magazine. Right. So I'm like an everyday athlete, but yeah. You know, it wasn't totally random. So it was really Steve Finley who figured out my psychology. Not directly, he didn't figure out the cancer issue, but he figured it out, he, while talking to me and while understanding my past and running and what I'd run in high school, he knew in the back of his head I could be a lot faster.

And he knew I hadn't put in the mileage and the pounding in my twenties that would make going faster in my forties. Impossible. But he also very smartly realized that running had never been. Never would be the most important thing in my life. I had this other career, I've got these three children, I've got a lot of things that I'm focused on and so he figured out a way to get the most out of me with the time 

available.

That's interesting. I find that one of the more interesting parts of coaching is that it almost doesn't matter if there is a perfect training program. Yeah. On the table. And then sometimes I think we get paralyzed by that because the most visible runners are gonna be like Olympians in a lot of cases.

And it's oh, look at that 130 mile training week with the two quality sessions in a long run with a gold marathon face. It's like it gets a little like, how do I fit that in? Or maybe I shouldn't do it or I lower my expectations 'cause I can't do that. Whereas when you start looking at it through the lens of.

Here are the non-negotiables within your lifestyle. Yep. So what is available, what's the best plan forward with that? Totally. And then I think when you start dialing those things in, you get consistency within that framework and then you can start seeing some of those things. Yep. You 

gotta understand the runner, you gotta understand their goals, you gotta understand their time, you gotta understand their travel, you gotta understand all those things.

That's what Steve Finley did and, you know, helped take me to a totally different level.

What got you interested in ultra running originally? 

Do you count a 50 K as ultra running? Yeah. Okay. So I ran that 2 29. I had this incredible linear progression. And I run the 2 9 2 29 in Chicago in 2019 and then COVID hits.

Right. And so I trained really hard, got a lot faster, but I never got to test it 'cause all the marathons are shut down. And so ultra running is, you know, sort of popped up that it was in December of 2020. So we're, we've been in COVID for a year. I haven't run a major marathon. I ran one like a dorky marathon by myself on a loop in Prospect Park.

And Josh Cox, who's an agent to Des Linden, who I know a little bit was like, Hey, you wanna pace Des in her 50 K world record attempt? 

Yeah. 

I was like, sure, why not? That sounds hilarious, right? Because, and then I realized that the men's age group record was the same as the women's world record.

I didn't end up pacing her because she got super fast. Yeah. And it was like clear her goal, the women's record was like 3 0 7, but then she changed her goal to sub three. Yeah. And I was like, Josh, can I still run the race and try to set my age group record, which was like 3 0 6. And he said, sure, no problem.

So that was the beginning. But the more interesting transition was when I decided to start doing 50 milers. And after that race, I went back to marathoning and I was stalled out. I was around like two 30 fives, two 30 sevens. Which is fine and great and it's cool. It's like you're 45 years old and you're running 2: 35.

That's great. But I wanted something new. You need to set new goals, right? Absolutely. And trying new things and the Marathon was always great 'cause I could either try to run faster or try to run the same speed while aging. And then I was like, you know, I need something different. And so I was like I'll run a 50 mile and I'll, you know, try to set the American record for men in my age group in the 50 mile.

And so I went out to Tunnel Hill, tried and failed spectacularly. 

Yeah. Yeah. Tunnel Hill's an interesting course because it's fast. Weather's oftentimes ideal and, but if you don't pace it perfectly, it can end a little rougher than you'd like to. You come down that hill at the end. So if you pace it right, you in theory, you think actually like negatively splitting the finish line.

Totally. But if you can kind of always tell on that last trip up the hill. How rough that turnaround's gonna be. And then you kind of know did I play my cards right or not? And 

I do that, so I've run it three times now. Each time has gotten much better, but the first time I ran it was 2022. And I've planned it all out.

I've got my splits. I've gotta run six 40 ones to set the record. I figured out how to like, take my gel exactly at the aid station, all the things you think through. And then I get up and I'm ready, but it's gonna be great. And wearing my vapor flies and there's a couple inches of snow, right?

Totally.

That was that year. 

It's totally unexpected, right? And so what I should have done, I should have said, you know, Nick, you know, like you're wise, you've aged, like why don't you put on some trail shoes and just run a good race, right? And instead I like, you know, go out there in my fast shoes, try to run those splits and of course.

You know, and I like to do something to my achilles. I dropped out at mile 37. Right? And. I just remember crying in the tent, you know, at mile 37. Like my Achilles hurts. What? I think it was like at mile 31 or something. I was on pace or just, and I, but I could kind of tell that I wasn't gonna get it.

Yeah. 

And I like, I have a frozen gel and I like try to take off my glove and I slip and I fall and I get up and I've been running with this guy, now he's off in the distance and then something tweaked in my ankle or my Achilles, just this everything fell apart in the next six miles are just trash.

But I sometimes think back to that moment when I dropped out, you have a chapter in the book and I call it, you know, a Labrador and a race for wolves. Right. I didn't have to drop out, like I did something to my Achilles. Right. But I stayed in that tent for 15 minutes. And at the end of those 15 minutes, I was still in third place.

Okay. Right. I went home, I finished the race, or I didn't finish the race. I drop out, I wake, make my way back to the airport, I fly home, I get home, go to bed, get up the next morning, go for a walk with my kids, and I look online and people are still running the damn race, right? Like I could have just finished the race.

You know, and I, but I didn't have the right mentality. I had this mentality of splits and goals and six 40 ones, not six 40 twos. And so then, you know, the next year I came back and again, went for the American record. So this is tunnel 2023. Did much better, but, you know, bombed out at mile 41, but finished like it did all right.

Like obviously I didn't get it. And then last year I went and I was like, I'm not even gonna try for the record. I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna I'm just gonna do the best I can. And I ended up having, by far my best race, only missed the record by a few minutes. Maybe 10 minutes. And just had a great race and a great experience.

And so that was, that's how I got into ultra running. 

Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, it's always fun to hear how people kind of get into it. And I think it's changed now too. I know when I first started getting into ultra running, it kind of felt alright, we're kind of these outsiders looking in on the running community and maybe I can talk a marathoner into trying a hundred miler or something like that.

And it always felt like the first thought was either like, I don't have any interest in that, or I couldn't do it. And I mean, we're talking like three hour marathoners, like you can do a hundred miler when you realize what it actually entails within it. Yeah. But there's a, there's this psychological block I think, but between the interest and then just the extrapolation of you know, what can you actually do? And now I think it's gotten popular enough and just exposed to enough different communities outside of just kind of what you'd expect would feed into it, like your road runners. And you know, I'll have people reaching out to me and be like, I've never been a runner before, but I kinda wanna do this a hundred mile race or this ultra marathon.

And I'm just like, wow that's a total reversal of who I would've expected to be reaching out to me like 10 years ago when I kind of was first really getting into the sport. It's an 

interesting societal phenomena too, where it's as a world and as a country, we're focusing on shorter and shorter stuff, like tiktoks, right?

And then in this sport, we're all going, we're going longer. We're going deeper. Yeah. And I think those two things aren't unrelated. And I think there's a, you know, I think people have a pull, like we all, we're all pulled into our phones, we're all pulled into instant gratification. We're all pulled into these things.

And we want to, we wanna go the other way too. And so that's, I think, what's happening as well. 

Yeah. It's almost like a cleanse from the short form stuff that you get so often nowadays. Yeah. 

And also I think that, you know, we get so locked into like urban life screens. Pressure. And you know, for me, running has always been a way to escape, right?

I'm, yeah. I've got this hard job. I work at my desk all day and running's a break. But ultra running's not just a break from my hard job. Ultra running's a break from the world, right? And it's a way to get out and, you know, be closer to your ancestors and feel what it was like to be on a hunt, right?

Or to be just a totally different person than the guy in a suit in the office typing at the keyboard. So that's the other thing. So now the last race I ran was the Twisted Branch, a hundred K, which is more different from Tunnel Hill than Tunnel is from a marathon, right? Like the Twisted Branch, hundred K.

You're just like going up mountains. Weirdly 67 miles, right? Yeah. It's kind of unfair, right? Because you, it's a hundred K, so you think it's 62 miles. When you're at the aid station at mile 56, you're like six miles to go. And they're like, no, you have 11 miles to go. And you're like, how many miles to go?

But you're just, you're out in the woods and you're in like a totally different head space. It took me 13 hours to run the race, which is a lot of hours. But it's a wonderful spiritual experience, right? And so when I was running Twisted Branch two weeks ago, I ran it the last two years. I ran it totally differently from Marathon.

Like I didn't look at my watch. I wasn't looking at my splits. I just tried to imagine that I was a kid running in the woods. I just tried to like, enjoy the mountains, right? Enjoy where you are and look at how beautiful it is and enjoy the trees and the sounds and run. Which is very different from, alright, my heart rate has to be between 1 35 and 1 37.

Let me check my core temperature and my pace and how right. So 

It is funny because of the sport, the way it's grown and where it's professionalized. I think there's, I wouldn't say a fracturing, but there's definitely a conversation starting if it hadn't already within kind of the trail side of the sport where the experience you described is what I think of as the initial draw for a lot of the ultra running community.

Yeah. But since the sport has gotten to a point now where we've got athletes, so that's all they do, and it's almost always on that side of the sport. You have the optimization side kind of creeping in onto the I just want to go and now look at my splits and figure out what Oh yeah. 

Right.

There's gotta be real tension, right? Yeah. Right. And you look at Western states, right, exactly. And there's like all this like gear, right. And they've got incredible cooling systems and hats and yeah. Yeah. That's why there's a real tension there. 

I think so, yeah. I mean, I, and I think one thing that people have always really liked about the trail ultra world is you kind of felt like regardless if you were.

I'll go back in time a little bit to reference it, right? Whether you were like Tim Olson or Rob Carr winning Western States or Gunhill s Swensson finishing with like seconds left on the clock before the cutoff. 

Yeah. 

Those people and everyone in between felt like they did the same thing. They felt like their experience mapped one was maybe longer from a time standpoint, but they all had their highs and lows. They all had to navigate aid stations. They all had to like work with a reasonably small crew in most cases, or no crew in some cases. But there wasn't this huge kind of logistical gap. Whereas now it's yeah, you could have a crew of half a dozen people twice to hit every aid station at Western States optimal cooling, you know, better support from just gear and whatnot. Yeah. So now I think it feels like you can look at, oh, this person ran Western states and I ran Western states, but we did two very different events.

Yeah. And I think that's probably something that I like. Is there where the tensions may be at. 

Yeah. But you know what? The guy who resents the folks with the cooling best running Western states, there's another race for him. Right, right. Well, yeah, that's just go run some like a six day race in Saskatchewan or whatever.

Yeah. 

It's just funny to me because you'd think the optimization stuff would be focused on the more controlled events. Yeah. And less so on the trails. But then again, you, it's always money driven at the end of the day with that stuff. So it's there, it's gonna find where the value is there.

So the trails, UTMB and Western States are where it's at. Totally. Yep. 

No, and definitely the shoe companies, the gear companies, and a lot of that's good, right? It can help keep people safer, right? It can like, do a lot of good stuff out there, but I can also see how the purists are thinking, wait, now what is that you're wearing?

Right? Right. Yeah. 

Super foam. What? Yeah, there's like a steel plate in your shoe on the trails. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. A fun time to be an ultra runner, I think as a sport kind of grows and yeah, navigate these uncertainties. 

I'm so glad I was introduced. I mean, I wish I'd been introduced into my twenties.

I, you know, in, in some ways you asked how I got introduced to it. I actually maybe got introduced to it through, what's this race called? The Escarpment Run. Which is, it's 18 miles in the Catskills, but it takes you longer than a marathon, right? And so kind of the, that was when I was introduced to, I remember the bus out for the first time, and there's a guy who's you haven't really run sun until you've seen the sun come up twice in the same run.

And I was like, okay. Haven't done that, to be honest. Right. You know, and it's, I remember my wife at the finish line one year, I ran it for I dunno, 10 years, eight years. And at the finish line she's you know. People who beat you in this race, they look a lot more normal than the people who beat you in other races.

Right. 'Cause it's like strong people. Right? Right. It's like people who are like full body fitness, not like you know, rail thin. Yeah. Marathoners. It's a whole different kind of person. And then there's like the kind of the mountain man mystique and it was after the escarpment run that I created, I tell these bedtime stories to my children.

It's like this universe that's now existed for 15 years, but I created these creatures called mbus, which are like the good guys helping protect. The hero of the story is this guy who was born in an egg and raised by chickadees and has one parent as a wizard, but his protectors are partly these half human, half antelope creatures that are based on like mountain runners.

Kind of Rob K craw, right? Yeah. You know, like the, you know, like long, you know, long hair like mountain, like the purists, like the mountain running purists. Yeah. They're like some of the heroes in my bedtime stories. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Anyway, it's the escarpment run that kind of set the foundation for the later mountain running.

And the later ultras. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's funny too, just like kind of the growth inside this sport too. 'cause I think about my progression into it where I did my first ultra marathon and it was on a trail race and I had no clue there were even like road or track or timed events existed at the time. So it's just you kind of think, oh, that was a cool experience. And then you hear something or someone tells you something like maybe I'll try that. And it just over the years you kind of figure out, you know, where do you want to try to focus your time and energy? Or back to what you were saying too, like I think one of the cool things about ultra running is if something gets stale, you can go a totally different direction right inside the sport.

Yeah. And if it's a mental psychological reset, you need it. Not like I'm, my body's breaking down and I need to actually just rest it. Then you can just sort of reset without having to feel like you need to step away from the sport. 

Yeah. I always find like the pro marathoners, I think Sarah Hall's probably the best example of this, where it seems like she has been able to just go year after year into her forties and not lose any bit of that.

I really wanna do this training block again, and I really want this race badly. Where, yeah. I mean, I think it'd be a break in there somewhere. Wouldn't you like, I mean, look at her husband, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 

It's kind of a remarkable pairing, right? So he, you know, he's the greatest American marathoner of his generation, and then, you know, basically goes from a string bean to a mashed potato and he decides he's gonna set like that.

What was his goal? Was like the first guy to run a sub five minute mile and bench press 500 pounds. Yeah, like Ryan is, he's incredible. I admired him. I love his running style. I love the way he did it. Uhhuh, but totally different from Sarah who's just I'm gonna keep at it. Keep doing this.

Yeah. Yeah. I've never heard him talk about it, but I, it almost seemed just like an outsider following. It just was like, kind of overnight he was like, yep, I'm done with that and I'll stop running. 

I think it was like, I think he was having like, it was like testosterone. He had some 

health issues.

I think that he didn't find it sustainable. 

And there were a couple it was like a year where he was running like two eighteen or something just wasn't working. Who knows? 

And he is there's not a path forward here for me, or I don't wanna find it. Right. I do something else. I want something different.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is interesting that they kind of, 'cause she really took off after that a little bit too. Right? I mean she was always good, but it seemed like she had a whole nother wave of, and that was prs. 15 years ago. 

Yeah, it was a long time ago. She's amazing. I mean he's amazing too.

Like what? A couple, but Yes. That's kind of wild. 

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder about that with the super shoe foam too, where if you do hit like a stalling point where like it's really hard to get faster and you're really drawn by that kind of progression and now all of a sudden, 'cause her career would line up really nicely with that, where she probably would be getting to where right when Supers shoes came out, she was probably getting to that point where people would expect, alright, she's probably not gonna get better.

Probably gradually Degra digressed and now all of a sudden we have this mechanical change in what, how we race. And she can PR again, potentially. She could have without 'em, but I, yeah, I would imagine that was maybe a component that maybe helped at least a little bit. Yeah. It helped 

Psychologically, like one of the hardest things as an aging runner is just getting the one, the coolest thing about running, one of the reasons I love the sport so much is that your successes are your own and your failures are your own. 

Right? Like you, you get worse at soccer. It's harder to tell if you're worse at soccer. 'cause you have a whole team, right? You even in tennis where it's just you lose earlier in the tournament, well, your opponent might have been better but running, it's you, right?

And so you can really feel the effects of aging. And so a lot of people leave the sport as they start to decline. And so shoes for people in their late thirties stave that off, right? 'cause you could not decline by putting on these great shoes. Yeah. 

Yeah. And I know you remember Brady Homer this morning.

He's been, I think he's been in the pocket I think four or five times. We're running, Hey, shoe 

reviews are great 

on this podcast. 

Oh, appreciate. Like, when you guys talk about it, it's what you are, that's in incre. Like I know a lot about shoes. But listen to you guys talk for 90 minutes. 

Yeah.

It's always fun to chat. Yeah, we're due for another one. I think we've got a fresh set to go over. But he thinks, I think that, 'cause he had some injury, I mean, he's not old either. He just had some injuries that really I think plagued him after college to the degree where he was mostly biking for a while and then kind of came up with a new training approach that worked well for him.

And then I think also the foams helped him. Now he's getting to a point where he's putting in quite a bit of miles. I remember his first marathon was like, oh, I ran four days per week. And then biked for like 10 hours or something like that. Yeah. But 

Now he's up to five days a week, right? Yeah. 

Right. Like he's got all these like moderate long runs though.

They're like 15 miles. What do you think the 

world record is for? Like someone who's only run five days a week? Yeah, that's, it's probably two 15 right? 

Yeah, there's gotta be somebody who's 

Six days a week. There are a lot of religious people. That's probably like 2 0 6, right? Or 2 0 5. Right.

But five days, like what is the record for someone who runs three days a week? Three days a 

week? Yeah. And how do you weigh it? Because do you, do you have to be on that program for a certain amount of time? Yeah. Before you have to stop leaning on your prior training and things like that? Or 

If people could please answer this in the comments of Zach bidders, let us know.

Yeah. That would be interesting. Because I remember thinking about that when he ran 2 26 in four days. I was like, yeah, I wonder what the, I think I asked him on the pocket, he's I wonder what the least amount of running days were across, like the board and where the times all landed and where you fit within that.

'cause I would imagine he was up in the front. 

I used to have a kind of a funny goal. I'd be like, you know, I, it's hard. You can't know the answer. So I was like, I hope, no, I think nobody ahead of me trained less than me. Right. It was back when I was running like two 40 threes, but I was running 50 miles a week and you've got a hard job and there's not that much time to run and most of the guys who are ahead of you are running like 70, 80 or 120.

Right. But I do think there is, I do really respect people who figure out how to, with the limited time available, either 'cause they have injury risk or because they have jobs, kids life, travel, whatever it is. I really respect people who like to figure out things like, this is what I got. This is what I'm gonna do with that time and do the best I can.

And then trust it. 

Yeah. 

Not get distracted by what everyone else is doing. 

And I liked that Brady, I asked Brady while we were running this morning. I said, so what are you gonna change? You know, now you've run this incredible 2 24 and OT q's not that far off. Right? Right. But he, and he wasn't like, I'm gonna run like seven days a week and 120 miles and I'm gonna add in cross training and I'm gonna do this.

He's oh, maybe change this variable in that variable. 

Yeah. Yeah. He's got the scientist mind too, so the physiology, exercise, fizz stuff. So I think he probably looks at it in a pretty fine tooth way with respect to what do I wanna change? So I can still see the signal there without just throwing so much in there that I have no clue what worked and what didn't work.

You know, I have a rule that it's a, I only do one new thing a week. Right. Okay. I won't, if I do barefoot running, it's the first time of the cycle. 

I won't like add an extra tempo run or I won't do a harder, you know, vo two max run 

uhhuh. Right. If I 

do my longest long run, I'm not gonna add anything else.

So you're adding 'cause I feel like once I add two things, that's when I start to get hurt. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So if I increase my mi, if I'm, if, and if I add something, let's say I add a hard VO two max run, or I add an intensity level to a tempo run, I keep my mileage exactly the same.

So when I was training for Twisted Branch, my Strava log is, my mileage is 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70. Right. Just like I'm gonna keep that variable. Right. Like rock solid. You know, and then I'll change other things as I go, but the mileage I won't change. And then if I change the mileage, I'll keep the other stuff the same.

Sure. Yeah. You can tease that out. Did you find anything that stood out to you as to what levers were more impactful for your fitness? 

So for, I mean, when I think about the, when I think about the period in my life where I made the real jump, where I made the 2 43 to 2 29, like the levers that I worked on where I increased the mileage.

It made a big difference. Right. I went from 50 to 70 to 80 and then I added short stuff right. Like half miles. Right. Which I wasn't doing at all because I was like, what does that have to do with the marathon? Right. Yeah. But I think it was partly a psychological ploy by my coach Steve Finley, to get me comfortable running at four 50 pace, because then when I'm running the marathon at five 50 pace, it won't look so weird.

Right. On the watch. Right. Once you've seen the four. Then you can handle a five without stressing your mind. I really believe that pain is not purely physiological. It's mostly just a signal from your brain, right? Your brain is running this thermostat, right? And it's like looking at the temperature, it's looking at all your training, it knows everything about you.

And it's can you complete this race at this pace while maintaining homeostasis? And if it fears you can't, then it starts sending signals to your body, right? Yep. And one of the things you can do it's such a hard thing 'cause you have to trick your brain, but you have to use your brain to trick your brain.

Right? One of the things you can do is just get less scared by the indicators. And so the way I deal with that in my training, a I've, I have one thing I do that I think is actually somewhat innovative, which is in every training cycle, I try to stress every system of the body at least once more than I'll be stressed on marathon day.

So I will run 20 miles while dehydrated because that will get me past the point of dehydration that I'll be in a 26 mile marathon. Or I will run. Down a mountain in bad shoes. 'cause that will put more stress on my quads than the marathon. Will. I have gone running slightly hungover on the theory that it helps you with kind of the confusion you have at the end of the marathon, right?

And so the goal, and I'll obviously run lots of miles faster than marathon pace and I'll run like when I haven't eaten for 12 hours or like I'll run right after a big lunch, right? Just like always being stressing different parts of the system so that when you're in the race, you're in the ultra your body your brain isn't as afraid of that moment, right?

It's not new on race day. Yeah. And like part of what I did in this period where I did so well 20 18, 20 19 was you know, that my theory of running while slightly hungover like that would kind of come later and be adapted onto this. But it was part of what Steve was doing was just getting me not to be afraid of five 50 pace.

Like how do you make someone not afraid of five 50 paces, right? Because I'd run 10 years of six 15 marathon pace for marathons, you know, and he wanted me to get down. Well, one of the ways you do it is you have 'em go as far as you can at four 50 pace. 

Yeah. It's like a 

really smart insight. 

Yeah. I love this topic because it's if you'll get the people who are like all into optimization where they're like, oh, why would you put yourself in a situation to lower the quality of a training session?

And they look at these things as negatives to doing. And I think I always think with that as well, that's just a timeline thing. 

Yeah. 

It's if you're like, you have a lot more tools on the table available to you with a good timeline. So if the question is, what did I take off the table by doing a dehydrated long run?

Well, if you extend the timeline long enough, you don't really have to make that compromise. Right. So I think it's just a question when you're talking to someone before they get it. Where are we between now and the race and what are the components that are going to lead to the best possible solution for you?

And if you have a good timeline and you're gonna get that psychological benefit of kind of like poking those systems like that, then yeah, get yourself really fit and play around with that stuff a little bit. 'cause you got the extra, 

Well, here's another advantage. If you take my philosophy, it makes it a lot easier to train.

'cause you don't have to wait for the perfect time, right? Yeah. It just happens eventually. It happens eventually. Like a lot of this was I didn't do this on purpose, right? I like, I don't do dehydrated long runs 'cause I plan them, I just do them because it's like really hard to find time to run when you're running like 

Yesterday, you know, I had to do something in Los Angeles in the morning. I came to Austin. I had to do something in the afternoon. So there was like one window to run, which was like when it was 102 degrees. Yeah. Right. And so I did it right. And I got whatever benefits you get, which better be good 'cause it sure wasn't fun.

Right. Right. Yeah. But if you just kind of commit to running whenever it works best in your life, you will end up as opposed to trying to figure out the optimal time when you've had the optimal nutrition and you can really do the run. Exactly right. I think there's real benefits to efficiency in life.

Yeah. You know, and I run like most of my life is this, most of my miles are this incredible life hack where I run to work from my home in Brooklyn to my office in Manhattan. And it's four or five miles in, four or five miles back. I'm running with a little pack sometimes with a backpack, which is actually good training for ultras, right?

'Cause it's made me used to like running with this stuff. Right? Right. You have to go up and down the bridge. So it's actually getting some good like hill training.

Right. 

There's actually a kind of agility training 'cause you're jumping out like the folks on Canal Street or throwing these boxes of whatever, like sardines out on the street.

Right. There's some good stuff you get from it. 

Yeah. Yeah. It is funny 'cause I also think like from the mental side of ultra running too, where. You're sort of, you're preparing yourself physically with these workouts, but to the degree that you can prepare your mind to be on for that long, you almost need a non-running input to really do that.

Like I think about this with what I am doing with my time outside of training? And I don't know that I would be a better runner if I was just training a hundred percent professionally, where it's like, all I really have to accomplish today. Is this run, this rehab session, this strength session.

Yeah. And then just kind of lounge around and make sure I'm ready for the next one. 

Right. 

Physiologically, that sounds great. Right? Sounds like hey, yeah. I mean, you're gonna be, you're probably gonna get a little more training in, you're gonna recover a little quicker and all that stuff. But if I'm not, if I don't feel like my mind has ever been turned on from when I wake up to when I go to bed, I'm gonna struggle in that hundred mile race because I'm gonna have to have my mind on that entire time.

Or it's just gonna go sideways at some point. 

I completely agree. And I think that, you know, sometimes people ask, they're like, well, you know. CEO of the Atlantic, don't you have stuff to do? Right? Yeah. How are you running all these races? Where's 

the time? Right? What's 

What's wrong with you?

Right? Go back to your job, go sell some ads. And you know, my answer is I actually think it makes me better at my job, right? Having this like focused training, helps me be focused at my job and helps me learn how to handle intense meetings, right? There's mental work you do while you run and like you're thinking through hard things at work.

But there's also like the mental benefits from a hard job can help with hard running and hard running can help with a hard job.

Yeah. Yeah. There's, yeah, you're right. I think, yeah, it comes down to how efficient you are with the time you're using at these different things. Yeah. And I think running is a big productivity increase, so totally.

It's like you take a, maybe a step back on your total available time to work, but then the time you're working is just that much better. 

Yeah. And you fit and you figure out how to make it as efficient as possible. So when I'm, you know, just running into work like. I occasionally make phone calls.

Right. Like often listening to podcasts, like very often listening to audiobooks. Right. Stuff you have to do. 

Yeah. 

You know, it's not that much longer to run into work than it is to take the subway, you know? There are definitely disadvantages, like the staff kind of thinks I'm weird, I show up in my shorts.

Maybe it will dilute some of the illusion that you're supposed to have when you're the CEO. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like sometimes you forget your socks, right? Yeah. And so you're wearing a dark suit with tube socks. Right. Uhhuh. Or things go wrong. Right? Yeah. But mostly it's a great life hack.

Yeah. Speaking of that, when I was still teaching, I was already into ultra running, so I'd wake up at 4, 4 30 in the morning. Uhhuh, go for a run, Uhhuh. I mean, I had it down so I'd get back from that run and I was out the door in like less than 10 minutes. Some days. Yeah. Take a shower, grab some food, hit the road.

Yep. And one day I walked in. I'd actually been in the building for probably an hour and a half at that point. And I'm in like the first class, the students, and one of the students is like. Mr. Bitter, do you realize you have two different shoes on?

Yeah. I'm only down, I'm like, oh, no way. 

It's like part of the trade off. Right? And if you spend like 20 minutes getting dressed and you look in the mirror. Right. But I spent most of my professional life, right? Like I'm often wearing wrinkled clothes. Yeah. And like I got dressed behind a plant.

You know, there's all kinds of trade offs you make. Right, Uhhuh. Yeah. But it's definitely been worth it. 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the other thing I found too is like when I was first running ultra running and stuff like that, you know, when I was teaching that there was that built in structure of the job and you almost lose track of how much that actually helps you optimize in the running and things like that.

So like when I started working a hundred percent for myself, it was like, alright, I need to have those there. I need to place them there and figure out ways to both have something I feel like I need to do versus I can do. Yeah. Because it was kind of a thing where. You know, I'd like my training, I'd like podcast recording and editing and coaching and things like that.

And some of it was like on, on a specific point, but a lot of it was like, well if I wanna do this first, I can do this first. If I wanna do that for a second, I always shuffle things around based on just what I prefer. And then I started realizing you can't do too much of that. 'cause then it gets comfortable almost, right.

Where you almost feel like you have too many options. Where on, you know, if I'm out there at mile 70 on the track and my time starts slipping by a second or two per lap, like my only option is to speed up. Right? Right. I don't have a choice to relax for a little bit if I wanna meet the goal. So I think you do need some of that.

Yeah. 

That's good. Mental training, right? So you kind of adjust your to-do list based on a way, not just the thing that happens . The thing that is most efficient for getting your time and getting everything done also helps train your mind for the ultras. Yeah, absolutely. Being hyper disciplined, doing the hardest thing first, staying locked in.

Trains that discipline, which then translates over. 

Yeah. And the other thing I think too is like the other, I find with the training too, I can really move around workouts, which to some degree is good. 'cause I wanna be able to do them on the days they're gonna get the highest quality. But I also find it valuable to sometimes not have that option.

So one thing I'll do is like this last training block, I started running with a group here in Austin Road running three days per week Uhhuh, because that made me go there and do what they're doing. Yeah. For three days a week, they're always doing something that's important to me. But then that makes me say, okay, with these other four days, those are the days I have to optimize for what I'm training for.

They have to fit in those four days. And that gives me a little bit less of that sort of out to maybe say, I don't really feel like doing that work workout. I can do it tomorrow. And then kind of sending that signal to your brain that you have that out always. Where Yeah. I think that's just like A-A-D-N-F.

Yeah. Enabler. When you it's 

interesting. It's whether you give yourselves outs is a really interesting psychology, like when you do Navy SEAL training, right? They put the bell Yeah. Like right there. Right. Like they make it very easy to stop. And so you're in like the hardest and most intense pain of your life and you have an easy out.

Right. And that's the test. 

Yeah. 

Right. And so it's, can you avoid the easy out and like when you give yourself the option of having it out and when you don't give yourself the option, it's imagine a hundred miler and you know, if like at every mile there's an aid station in a car, like how much harder is it to do than if it's like aid stations are like 15 miles apart Right. And no cars.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a different experience. It's a different experience. 

And there are advantages to both and the reasons why you do both. And there's psychological moments where you do both, but it is very different.

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if we'll see growth in the more extreme side where you have some events like this where there are no aid stations. There are spots where you can find water, I guess. But you kind of have to carry your own food. Yep. And that just adds a whole nother element of imperfection.

And I just think there's a big enough group of people who are looking for that. They're looking for that. I want the more remote, the less logistically dependent Right. Scenario. And you can't load the race map onto your Garmin. Right. You've 

gotta you've gotta figure it out.

Yeah. 

Yeah. Barclay style where you get a paper map and 

No, and there's a total advantage. I mean, and again, back to one of the things I said earlier, like part of the reason I love mountain running is the sense that you're getting back to this like prehistoric sense and yeah. Maybe you should do it without aid stations in Garmin and you know, you just eat berries off the bushes as you go.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and even with the fueling too, I always think about that too. It's you know, like when I was doing low carb stuff, I was like, you know what? If there were events where you had to carry your own food, now we have a level of the equation to consider where it's like. You don't have access to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour.

So yeah. How do you change your diet and your nutritional approach when you don't have access to that all the time versus when you do, but then Yeah, it's a totally different sport almost. 

Right? It's funny, when I ran Twisted Branch, I did half and half. So the first half of the race I had, you know, nutrition that I brought, I was taking ketones on a, like a regular cadence.

I had like my Morton gels, and then I was like, okay, no more. I'm just going to eat what's at the aid station and I'm not gonna look at my watch, right? And it was actually useful too. I've looked at my watch in the first half to keep myself slow . My heart rate would creep up above one 50 and I would like to slow down because I knew it was gonna get very hot during the day.

And then the second half I'm just basically running by feel, I'm eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watermelon, whatever they happen to have there. And it was like, it was a very different experience. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is kind of fun. It's kinda like we were talking about before too.

It's it's cool to have those variants and options because you can get fatigued with the, I need to take a gel every X minutes and I need to have this much fluid versus, and sometimes it 

feels wrong, right? It feels like you shouldn't do it. You should just you're out there for spiritual reasons, maybe you should be released.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was just listening to an interview with Anton Kka, Uhhuh that he was out at, I think it was at UTMB, and they were kind of asking him about that. And I mean, he's a thoughtful guy and a smart guy. So you'd think oh yeah, maybe he would be interested in all this new research we have around like, how much electrolytes do you need per liter of sweat loss?

And fluid and carbohydrate and all that stuff. And he's yeah, I don't know. I kind of just wish it wasn't like that. Like it was just kind of like you. We, you go out there and you eat when you can and you drink when you need to and you see who survives. 

There's a certain logic to that, but it's also, I love the, I love what we're learning physiologically.

Right. And there are things you learn physio. There are things I've learned physiologically from studying the science of racing that are cool for the rest of my life. And I've been teaching my kids about heat adaptation, you know, and saunas, you know, for their soccer training, which is pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we need both. So the sport just needs to get a little bit bigger so we have enough opportunities on both sides of that. 

Well, you know, I live in New York, so my favorite ultra run. Have you ever followed the street? Chin Moi 3,100. Yeah. It's so cool. I was there last week because the race starts in August and ends in October, so you have plenty of time to watch it if you miss it. Yeah. But you know, it's 3,100 miles around the same block. Uhhuh. Right. And it's like part of what, part of the reason Street Chimo set it up that way. It's for logistics, right? If you have people running across the country, it's hard to write.

Keep track of them, but it's also partly like. You want them to reach spiritual transcendence, like the whole point of the race is to reach a higher level mental plane. And maybe if you're like running in the Rockies and you're like looking at the beautiful lakes. Right, right. You're not gonna get it if you're running on the Grand Central Parkway over like over and over and over again.

It's kinda like the 

marathon monks almost. 

It's a little bit like the marathon monks. Yeah. It's just, it's wild to watch it. I took my kids. I took one of my kids last week and all three of my boys have gone and seen it at least a little bit. We've run a little bit with them.

It's a really magical experience. 

Yeah. I like the way they structure that one too, where they have an allotted time per day you can be out there. 

Yeah. 

I think that adds a really interesting variable too. 'cause you don't have, I mean, I like the gamesmanship of the, like you have this amount of time to do what you want.

But I also like the one, the part where you kind of have that structure of okay, everyone's gotta stop here. And then there's gonna be like a reset, and then we kind of take on another day. And 

I don't know whether they might've done that for the people counting the laps, right?

Like everybody, the race ends at midnight and starts at six, right? And you can leave before midnight if you want, right? You have to run like basically 60 miles a day or be on track to run 60 miles a day. And if you wanna bank some, and if you don't, you can get kicked outta the race if you're not at that pace.

And so some people like to wrap up and go home at 11. Right? Most people run until midnight and come back at six. You're not getting a ton of sleep. But it means that the volunteers, like they don't have to have a volunteer out in Jamaica, Queens at two in the morning.

Yeah. When you have a race that long, you have to worry about that.

Like just, 

yeah. And all kinds of crazy stuff happens, right? It's a block in a tough part of Queens, right? And then, you know, they're running around a school in a playground and all kinds of weird stuff's happening everywhere. And it's. It's a very difficult place to run a race, which is kind of the point.

Right. The other thing I like about it is you don't actually know who's running the race. Right? Right. Because you go and like you see the, are they just a jogger or are they like, if they run 2000 miles or if this like mile two, they know what's going on. 

Yeah. 

You don't, it's at this blur. And then there are all these kids who go to the school, so sometimes you're there and they're like, all these kids like just storming the street and running around and you're like, don't you know the world's most the world's longest ultra run is going on here and that guy's leading it.

Right. These kids don't care. They don't care. Right. They're just like going to school and these guys are, and girls are running around it for 62 days. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting event too. Have you ever considered doing, so you, I mean schedule wise, that's probably off the table in the short term anyway.

It's 

hard to keep up with the news when you do that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was running with one guy and it was two years ago and it was like mid-October and he is well, what's going on? Well, I was like, well, you know, Hamas and they did Israel and started a war and. He's whoa, really?

Yeah. I was like, yeah, that happened two weeks ago. He's oh, that's terrible. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, well, you know, that's going on. And there've been real breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and Chachi beat you. Oh, 

no way. Right. 

Yeah. You know, my job would be very hard to manage if I were doing that and my children in my life.

I would love to really test myself in some way, but it'll have to be after my youngest kid goes to college. 

I would love to run the Appalachian Trail or run across America or, yeah. I mean, well I would love to run across America. 

I love this country. I'd love to see it. I'd love to experience it that way.

That is, that's Nick's bucket list and dream. If I could do it in a way that's safe and you're not gonna get hit by a truck and Right. But you know, when my youngest guy is 18, then maybe I'll look at 

it. Yeah. I was scheduled to do that in 2021, I think. And then I got injured like. Really close to when we were supposed to start, and it was just like, really?

You're 

gonna run across the country? Yeah. 

Uhhuh. Ah, yeah. Yeah. And then it's I mean, now that's been like four years ago. So I'll get people to reach out to me and ask Hey, you still gonna do that? And I'm like, I'd like to, but it's really just one of those things where there's a, if you want to do it as fast as possible, there's like maybe a block of time kind of in the late summer, early fall that works well.

Yeah. Where you're gonna get through the Sierras before the snow comes and Yep. You're not gonna hit like the Midwest in the humid summer and all that stuff. So then it's just yeah, how do you fit that into any sort of life that has like other things going on? It's hard. It's tough. Yeah. When did Mic, 

Michael Ward did it like March, April, may, is that right?

Yeah. He did it in a, yeah. He didn't do it at what I would consider the best time of year to do it. Yeah. When I was scheduled to do it, I was starting to kinda do my homework and I was interviewing a bunch of people who had done it or talking to a bunch of people who had done it and. I think Pete Knick is, you know, he's got the record, so I was interested to see Yeah.

What his set thought was and he said yeah, you really wanna leave like early September, huh? Because then you're most likely, and you always 

do it west to east, right? Yeah. Because that's where the way the wind blows, or, 

yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. I think that's probably the reasoning behind that.

I don't know that you would necessarily need to. I think there's actually, I'm trying to remember, I know I've been told this at one point in time, but I think you can actually get the record with different routes. 

But there's one route that tends to be favored 'cause it's pretty clearly gonna be the quicker one.

And that's like starting in San Francisco and ending in New York and kind of going through the middle versus some people starting down in like LA and kind of coming through. But then I think you go through, you end up going through like some really hot areas if you do it that way.

Yeah. 

Yeah. Who knows? I mean, well, if you wanna do it, I guess in 2033 will be when I'm possibly out book when you, your 

po your first opportunity. Yeah. Well, we'll touch base in Yeah. We'll 

touch base in 2032 and we'll see. We're gonna do it together. Yeah, it'd be amazing. I mean, it's like I drove across the country, you know, lived in Boston, went to College of California and drove across the country.

I loved it. You know, I've been to 48 states, like giving speeches, doing stuff like I do, it's just great to go through the country. Yeah. To do it on foot would be a dream, but we'll see. 

Yeah. Yeah. I always, like, when I was teaching in the summer, I had a lot of flexibility, so that's probably when I should have done it.

Right. Yeah. When I was teaching, I would always drive out to California in the summer and it was like, well, I could fly out and then rent a car or something like that. But I always liked doing that. You drive across, you stop a few times along the way, and you just kind of see a lot more that way.

And 

it's, yeah. And you meet people and you just get an intuitive feel of where things are.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So I'm actually. I'm doing a race up in Des Moines at the end of October to just do like, just practice the fueling strategy. I'm gonna try to use that desert solstice uhhuh, and I'm actually pretty fit, so I'm gonna give it a good push too.

But I'm also aware that I'm trying to two x plus my fuel intake compared to what I've done in the past. So I'm like, this could go really badly. Wait. So how 

many calories are you gonna be taking in an hour? 

I wanna get at least 80 grams of carbs per hour. Okay. That's kind of the low end of what I'm hoping to do.

So 

that's 

Not 

David 

Roach 

Gross. No. Yeah he's way out there. He's one 50, so I'd have to have four. I had David on after he did lead one. Leadville broke the record the first time. Yeah. So when I ran my fastest hundred mile in 1119, I was averaging about 40 grams of carbs per hour.

And he was like, I did 150. He's you literally four times as much as I did. Yeah. And he's a man, you would've been so much faster, you would've broken 11 hours. Maybe. 

Maybe not. I mean, you also, you never know, probably would've puked all over yourself, right? Yeah. No, I, and I was, let's see, during Twisted Branch.

And during Tunnel Hill, I've probably taken in 75 grams of carbohydrates an hour. So 

yeah, 300 calories. I've been training my gut the last, I guess I'm probably 10 weeks in now. And I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable at 80. Like I didn't the first time I pushed up close to 80 after the run, you know, because you're always extrapolating force.

It's like a two, two and a half hour run. And I'm like, yeah, could I do that five times? Yeah. It's, and you have to really start to ask yourself, it's hard 

do you, and do you alternate different kinds of carbs so you're not, you don't get pallet fatigue. 

Yeah, a little bit. Although, I'm gonna try to do a lot of gels and liquids.

Yeah. I think that's it, once you start getting up to the workload of 800 to a thousand calories per hour, then it's just really hard to justify solids, I think. And I think there's probably some space for it, but it's gonna be a really small input. Well, the 

nice thing, right? So Desert solstice on a track.

You can just get a bottle, right?

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Logistically that one's like rock solid for that you, you make a mistake, you just correct it 400 meters later. So yeah, I was originally gonna do Canal corridor 'cause it just looked kind of a fun, fast, kind of more point-to-point style course.

But then I decided to do it, it's called the Equalizer Endurance run up in Des Moines. It's just under a two mile loop around this lake. The weather's almost always really nice. Yeah. And I was like, okay, that's really controlled too. I can definitely make adjustments and kind of have a setup there that's a little more consistent and maybe a better spot to try this for the first time than Canal Corridor would've been. And then hopefully learn something. Yeah. And then apply it to Solstice or maybe I knock it outta the park and I don't have to do solstice or something. Right. Oh, it's a hundred 

mile that you're doing right?

Yeah, it's actually, they have I think a six, A 12 and a 12 four. So I'm gonna sign up for the 12. And try to see how far into the, or try to get to a hundred miles before then, and then. Right. I'll, if I feel, I have had 100 milers that I did where I stopped at a hundred miles and had time on the clock and didn't try to add to the 12 hours.

Yeah. But the goal is always to stay out there if I can after the a hundred and, 

Well, you gotta make sure it's one lesson for you. I ran the Lake Waramug 50 miler trying to set the American record and it was a lake, but I was like, there were cars driving around so you couldn't actually run the tangents.

Oh, geez. And so I actually had the record when I went through 50 miles, but I was like 50.5 when I finished. Right. Yeah. And so I had missed it. 

Yeah. 

I was like, oh man, the tangents. You know? 

Yep. That's always the hard part about the track too, because the way I describe it, if you're finding yourself doing an ultra marathon on a four oh meter track, you're doing it for speed or a PR or something.

Yeah. To try to hit something where you want as fast of an environment as you could possibly expect, but. You know, these things aren't big enough where you're like, okay, it's just gonna be, meet a couple people and we're gonna have like lane one the whole time. Yeah. So there's like a 24, a six day, a 48 hour and then different paces in there.

So you know, track protocol's always going around when you pass 'cause there's really no great way to have someone move over nor would it be fair for them 'cause they've got their goals and things. It's not fair to say, okay, you gotta move out to Lane two, three 'cause this person's coming through. Right.

So like when I did when I ran my fastest a hundred miler or any of 'em on the track, it's like I'm probably running close to 101, maybe on a really packed track. 102 miles. Yeah. Because you end up spending so much time in lanes two and three, just kind of navigating the rest of the field. And I remember looking at that.

I was like, well, what's the expectation for the average marathon? And I can't remember who told me it, but they said you should expect a 1% increase. Just from not being able to hit the tangents perfectly. Yeah. Or most of those courses are probably measured slightly long so they don't get slapped with a tee short course scenario or something like that.

But yeah, that's the nice thing about Tunnel Hill. Like you get through and you're like 50.00. I actually went through it was 49.96 and I was like, I hope some of you don't think I like to cut corners. Right. Hopefully it 

rounds up when I'm loaded on this scrub. 

Yeah. Oh, in fact, actually. At Tunnel Hill, I was at 49.2 and I was like, oh my God.

Right. Like people are definitely gonna think I cheated and there's always, my watch wasn't measuring during the tunnel, 

right? Oh yeah. You got that little spot where the watch can time out for a little bit. Yeah. But that one is great too. 'cause Yeah, you don't really have tangents.

It's just straight running. Straight running. You've tried to go around a 

corner, you've run straight back and you don't have to go around anybody. And if you're in front, you're not lapping anybody either. Yeah, right, 

right, right, right. Yeah. 

So 

yeah, if that was a paved course, that'd be the only way to make that happen.

Right? That's right. That's the crushed gravel. Makes it a little bit slower. 

They always found that one funny 'cause you'd cross there's like those like maybe two or three spots where you actually do hit pavement. And you get that brief feeling of oh, that would be a little faster.

It's faster. It's

it's a little bit right. Like you Yeah. It's totally a little bit faster that way. Awesome. 

Yeah so what's the goal for New York? 

Well, it's the age group world championships, and so I'd like to do well like you. I could theoretically win it if I were to go as fast as I could six or seven years ago.

Right. Like a typical 50-year-old, the winner is around two 30s. But that's gonna be not particularly likely given my current trajectory. So maybe 2: 35, we'll see. Okay. 

Well, so the FIF fifties is usually two 30s there. Yeah, they're scooting. 

Yeah, there's, I mean, based on my run with Brady this morning I'd like to think I can get under three 20. You know, I was like, I was just cooked running seven minute miles and you know, here in Austin, 

the heat adjustment here is pretty wild 

there. I was like, he was like, you doing all right? I was like, I don't know. My heart rate is kind of like my max is like one 60.

And I'm Brady and I am running at a seven minute mile pace around the lake, just like jogging. But my heart rate was like 1: 45, which is really where it should be, like mile 22 of a marathon running five 50 pace. And I was like, I don't know what's going on here. It's the heat, it's fatigue, it's something.

Yeah, 

that lake loop too, I swear. I don't know what it is. And it's this weird mind trip. 'cause if you go anywhere off that lake in Austin, you're doing Rolling hills. 

Yeah. 

So you hop on that lake loop and you get the least amount of elevation. So you're thinking, okay, this is the fastest spot to run. But there's something about it I, it just always feels like whatever the pace on my watch is five to 10 seconds slower than what it should be if I were like out on the roads.

Good. But though, when you and I ran it, we ran like 6 30, 6 40 pieces. Yeah. And I was totally great. Right. Uhhuh. So a little 

better weather that time though. That was winter, wasn't it? 

I think so. No, that, yeah. That was at South by Southwest, right? Yeah. So that would've been right in March. 

Uhhuh. 

I don't know, based on how I ran this morning, like cracking three hours is gonna be a miracle, but, you know, I don't know, like 2: 35 would be where I'd love to be.

Yeah. 

We'll see. I wanna, I want my kids to see me running fast, which is great. I wanna do well in my age group. And the book comes out five days before you know, ideally there'll be some people who care and Right. Talk about 

it. For sure. 

We'll see. Yeah. They're like, who knows? Book comes out, like maybe nobody will notice, but maybe it'll be like, maybe it'll hit.

So 

What shoes are you gonna wear? 

Good question. I ran the last 50 miler. I ran the puma fast or threes for 50 miles. Yep. And they worked, 

was that tunnel hill or 

That was for Lake Warmock. That was the lake in Connecticut. 

Okay. Yeah. It wouldn't have probably been out yet for Tunnel Hill last year 'cause it would've been 

tunnel hill.

I wore the vapor flies and then I ran a 50 K race April before, weirdly I've only run. I've only won four races since I was 18 years old, and 32 years, and two of them were last April. So one was this, 50 K in New York, and I wore these like new balance prototypes. Okay. They're probably out.

I'm not sure what they are now. But those are amazing too. I actually did an experiment, which you and Brady would like, where I went to the track and I took seven pairs of shoes and I attached a power meter. Okay. And I ran a heart rate monitor, and I ran six 40 miles in. Each of the shoes and I alternated, so I ran them each twice.

So it was like 14 miles of running at six 40 pace. 

And then so one of them would be like mile one and mile nine and you know, two and eight and three and 12. And then I averaged out the power and the heart rate to see what required the least effort to run six 40 pace. And that was how I chose the r threes.

And so I really should have done it on a road, not a track to match the surface for War OG. And so before my next race, either for the New York marathon or if I do, you know, a track race or whatever, I should run on the same surface. But that's how I would like to choose my shoes for the next race.

Sure. Well, it's nice that you've gotten 50 miles in that shoe. That seems like that shoe. I love that shoe. It's fast, but it's also a little wobbly. So I always wonder if I'm probably gonna lean that direction for a hundred miles, something like that at least. But yeah, you kind of get to that road.

I don't know 

about on a track like the cornering. 

Yeah, I'm going to, I'm gonna, yeah, that, that's, I'm definitely gonna need to get on a track and do some long runs just to test it out. Yeah. Just to make sure that it's not, it doesn't feel too awkward with that, but yeah. I mean, it's so fast though.

Like I did when I was coming back from my Achilles injury, I was running in nothing but the new balance 10 eighties for a while. 'cause that shoe with a little heel cup allowed me to run without anything. 

Those shoes are great. Those shoes are wonderful. They're like, they're such good trainers.

They are. Yeah. 

Yeah. But they're slow comparatively. So I remember when I first started getting to a point where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start testing some of these premium foam shoes and just see how my Achilles responded. The way I did it was I'd finished like right around like a 10 mile run and then I'd go and I'd switch into them and then run about a mile just to gauge okay, what kind of fatigue am I getting?

Or is it gonna flare up on me before I do a full run? And then find out later that day, oh shoot, I did too much. Yeah. And I remember I would do this run. It'd be like something. Six 50 low, six fifties in the new balance, 10 eighties. And I'd go and I'd throw on the fast R and I'd be like, 15 seconds per mile, sometimes 20 seconds per mile faster.

Just no additional effort. Same heart rate. Such a difference. Yeah. So they pop, they definitely pop. 

Yeah. I'm gonna try the vapor fly fours. I always you know, the On cloud boom line has always been, has always been good for me. So I'll try those too. I'll see what New Balance has. I don't know.

Well it's hard now because like most of the brands there is something that at least competes. Yeah. And we're probably talking about one or two percentage points between the top in the sport or a lot of the brands in the sport. And then it's just I think at that point it almost becomes which one feels best on your foot?

Or if you can go in and get lab testing done, which one actually shows the better Yep. Percentage for you? Or 

Do what I did and go do you know, find a, yeah. Do seven miles and test it out. Yeah. So I'll run that experiment and see what happens. I do, I ran the, I ran Twisted Branch in the Ultra flies, which were great.

Okay. I felt great except for when I. Banged a root and lost a toenail. But that's the stuff that happens when you're out in the woods, right? Yeah. Uhhuh. 

Yeah. That's cool. Awesome. Yeah. What else have you got going on between now and then? 

So between now and then, I'm gonna run Rim to Rim in the Grand Canyon.

Oh, right on. 

Yep. I'm going with a bunch of friends. We're gonna do that in October. And then otherwise I'm just gonna try to, the fall is always busy when you're in like political media, like stuff happens, right? Like readers kind of like quiet down stories that like the world kind of quiet, not under Trump, like stuff is always exciting under Trump.

There's always stuff to write about, but you know, our subscriptions always go up in September, October. We have a big Atlantic festival in the middle of September. I've got a pretty busy event schedule through the fall. So lots of travel, lots of cool places. Got you. I'm doing the New York Marathon and then I'm going off to launch the book in Portugal.

Oh. So I'm going off to Lisbon. It is going to be very exciting when I go off to California. I'm doing a bunch of events out in California, and then I'm going to Italy to do some events for the book. So there's gonna be some good travel, some good running, some good experiences. Yeah. 

Do you have a protocol that you use for training when you're traveling that much?

Is there something that you find works really well for you to maintain quality? 'cause I know, like when I travel, it always feels like that first day. It's like there's a li everything's a little bit off. Are you doing anything that Yeah, 

I, you know, I do pretty, I. When I travel to Europe, I work pretty hard to make sure I sleep. I'd go to bed an hour earlier each night for three nights before I leave.

Okay. I usually take the red eye. You know, and then I just pretty quickly. And so you just sort of assume that on the first day you're not gonna be able to run that much. You get in, you get in a four mile recovery run. Sure. But then by the second day you're in it, you're clicking. Often I'm in cool places with mountains and so yeah.

Like it's even better. So sometimes I get great training. Sometimes you can't do the speed stuff 'cause you're like, you do have a little lethargy or you're like you're always there for work, so maybe you don't have time. But I tend to get it 'cause I'm always traveling.

Like I've, yeah. Been to Europe. I don't know. I've been outta the country for events every month for six months. Yeah. There's always something. So you just learn to get it in 

you, you probably normalize it almost at this point where Yeah. It's just life. It's not even really an adjustment.

I don't even, 

I don't like it, yeah. I sometimes don't even know where I'm gonna be during the week. Right. I actually don't know where I'm gonna be next week. Yeah. I think I'm mostly gonna be in New York, but I also know I have a bunch of events. I'm pretty sure I have at least a day in Washington Uhhuh.

I might be going to California. Right. But I'll get my mileage and I'll get my running in no matter where I am. 

Yeah. Is it 'cause it's subject to change or is it just you don't want to know more than a certain timeframe ahead? 

There's just so 

much. 

Right? They're like moving parts. I have it almost, it's weird, it's like an event every day from now until the end of September.

There's something somewhere that you're doing, 'cause you're like, you're selling ads, you're meeting with a client, you're going off, or now that I'm talking about the book, you're going and you're doing more podcasts. So there's all this stuff, which is fun. It's fun to have this stuff.

It does, Megan, it's a little complicated. But if you, I guess the relevant point is that I just figure that I'm gonna get my training in no matter where I am, and then I get it in and sometimes you have to wake up at three or sometimes you have to run at 11. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

You know? 

Makes it interesting for sure.

Yeah. There are definitely times where I'm in Europe and I like running at midnight. 

Do you prefer to run by yourself then? Most of the time because

I don't prefer it. I prefer love, like running with friends, but the problem is it's just hard to schedule. Right? Yeah. And you know, you go to a new city and I am always okay. Every time I go to New City, I'm gonna find someone I admire on Strava, like with you, where I like, I've been like following you on Strava.

This guy's awesome. And so I'm in Austin, I'm like, Hey man, you wanna run? And you were like, yeah. And so I do that sometimes. But usually my schedule's so confusing. I don't know exactly when I'm gonna run right. Oh wait, okay. There's a break. It's 

hard to plan for that. Yeah.

So I can't do 

it. I was just curious because you must have a lot of like in person types of interactions throughout the day and the week. So I always wonder when people like, oh, whether it's interesting for group runs or not. 'cause I know for me, if I have a lot of social interaction, I think I usually lean towards running by myself.

But now that I work from home. I could just not see anybody other than Nicole for days on end if I don't take some action. Yeah. So it's like me, I go to group runs because it's like, yeah, this is really fun to be with people and you need that. You can't just be a hermit and enjoy life.

So it's funny, 

I like to have no need to be alone. Okay. 

So you are just extroverted. 

I just remember there was one period, I think I went five years without being alone in my house. Really? Right. I was never alone in my house. 'cause I remember you know, you have three kids, right? So you're obviously not gonna be alone that much Uhhuh.

But there was just never a moment where I was alone. Like when I was at home, my kids were there, my wife was there when I was at work. Like I was almost, it is true that running may be the only time I'm alone, but I don't. Maybe you've identified something like there's a reason I do this.

Yeah. 

Because it does give alone time, but it's not intentional. I would always prefer to run with people. Okay. 

Yeah. That's cool. I 

I would, but I don't like it. I don't train with a team. I don't train with a club just 'cause scheduling's too hard. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, I think I'm probably just more the way I am, the biggest issue I think is I can tolerate being alone for long periods of time, but it's not good for me to keep doing that.

Yeah. So if I get into the, well, and then it's all, it's just this weird space to be in too. 'cause I'm not really alone. Alone because I'm always on calls or recording podcasts and stuff like that. So it's like this virtual connection. But then it's like you can go through three busy days of work where you're like, I talked to, engaged with a ton of people, but I was never actually with the person Uhhuh.

And then I find if I let go, like I can tolerate that, but then I notice that if I do that for too long, then I start losing motivation, losing interest. Things aren't as exciting. And then you're like, oh, this is kind of like depression, maybe Uhhuh. That's interesting. And so then it's okay, when you have a lifestyle that allows you to do that, if you want to.

How do you frame it in a way where you're just giving yourself opportunities to not put yourself in that spot in the first place. So yeah, 

That's a tricky balance. That's interesting stuff. 

Yeah. Well, and you take it for granted because it's you know, most of my life I didn't have a choice.

Like I had to go to school or I had to go to work, and you're just gonna be put in front of people no matter if you like it or not. And then you kind of, I think just, you don't realize that the value of that all the time, unless you kind of remove it to some degree,

Well, and we all, that all happened with COVID, right?

Yeah. And it's so interesting where, you know, my view very strongly is I'm in the office every single day. I'm in New York, I'm in the office as much as possible, I would work five days a week from the office if, you know, if I'm not traveling. And there are a lot of people who don't believe that's better.

They like their alone time, right? Yeah. I think they want to go there. I think the Atlantic would be better. Company of everybody's in the office five days a week, but you make compromises and you figure it out, and you figure it out for different people and you make agreements and 

But I definitely, I think you, you work better, you learn more.

It's better to be with people. 

Yeah. Yeah. I would agree. It's sort of one of those things where it's like grass is maybe greener on the other side when you want that control and you want that flexibility, but then when you have it, you're like, okay, there needs to be some structure here too.

Right. And 

if you think about the things, I dunno if I think about what I've learned in my life and, you know, what observing people and like just I was just, you know, if it's on my mind for a couple different reasons, but I was thinking about what I learned from David Remnick at the New Yorker and just watching him as he, like a, made the time to write his stories.

B as he circulated the office and picked up information from different people, C as he would like, he'd come into your office. Then he'd also watch him come in and then you'd watch him leave. Right. He was very good at both entrances and departures. Yeah. Right.

And the efficiency of how he was able to kind of get through was like an amazing thing to watch. And learning to model myself as best as possible after him. You know, was something I had to pick up by watching him. Right. And by talking to him. And you tell me one really one lesson, you know, that I think about a lot that I write about a little bit in the book where it was the Boston Marathon bombing and I was running the New Yorkers website and I was insecure about my writing.

Like I wasn't, I didn't think I was a good writer. I didn't have confidence. And so the bombings happened. I was very confident in my ability to edit and to manage and to do all that stuff that, you know, you need to do to run a website. Bombings happen. And he comes in and he's okay, Nick, you're gonna write about this.

I was like 

Nah, it's good. I got, I've got a man, I've got two stories coming in. I've got a freelancer, I've got, you know, he's no, you're gonna write about this. You grew up in Boston and you're a runner, and this is the Boston Marathon and the Bomb has gone off and you're gonna write about it.

I was like, you know, I like, I've got, Amy's got this thing and Michael's got, and he's Nick, stop. Here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna put your phone down. I'm gonna go outta this room, I'm gonna close the door, and then in one hour I'm gonna open the door and you're gonna hand me a drop of your story and close the door and leave.

I was like, okay, better get to work. 

They're not get writer's block in that scenario. No. And they like, 

It's kind of like a lesson that you take with you and it relies on running. If you have a busy schedule and you have a lot of things to do and you have a limited time, you know what you should do right now if you should start, right?

Like just what you were saying about being efficient, about your to-do list and, okay, I have an hour to write this story. Right. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start writing this story. 

Yeah. 

You know, I'm not gonna like messing around. Check I don't know, check the Red Sox score whatever the distraction du jour is.

You know, I'm just gonna focus and I'm gonna do this. Just what, it's one of the lessons of running okay, I have 45 minutes today when I can run, right? I'm gonna go use it right now. Right. I'm just gonna go out the door, I'm gonna go, I'll be back in 44. Right. You know, and that's, it's like a really good lesson in life.

Yeah. 

No doubt. Yeah. So how long are you in Austin for? 

About two more hours. Okay. Yeah. So I should probably wrap this thing up. So you get to the airport? No, I fly out tonight and go home and I land in New York at midnight. 

Okay, 

cool. 

Awesome. Yeah, I see 

my kids, they got a, so my little guys got a soccer game tomorrow out in Smithtown Long Island, so I'll be out there.

Right on. Yeah. Well, awesome, Nick, it was a pleasure to have you on. So much fun. Zach, 

It's an honor to be on the show. You do a great show. It's awesome to be here with you. 

Yeah. I'm just glad we were able to do it in person. It's great. 

It's so much like we were just talking. Right? Exactly.

Yeah. So much better. So much so you helped me out. Yeah. It's so much better. 

So awesome, Nick. Take care. All right. Thank you so much.