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Episode 370: Christopher McDougall
1k Plays2 years ago
Christopher McDougall (@ChrisMcDougall) is the author of Born to Run and Born to Run 2: The Ultimate Training Guide.
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Substack: rageagainstthealgorithm.substack.com
Social: @CNFPod
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Oh man, my desk right now. It is just a total cluster. Hey, you know what?
Brendan's Favorite Non-Alcoholic Beer
00:00:08
Speaker
Shout out to Athletic Brewing. My favorite non-alcoholic beer out there. Not a paid plug. I'm a brand ambassador and I want to just celebrate what they do at Athletic Brewing.
00:00:19
Speaker
athleticgrowing.com. If you go there, you can use the promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout and get a nice little discount on your first order. I don't get any money and they are not an official sponsor of the podcast. I just want that to be clear. I just get points for swag and beer. Give it a shot. Try the Athletic Light or the Free Wave, my personal favorites right now, especially the Free Wave. It's the best. It's been my favorite for a long time and I'm so glad it's around. Check it out.
00:00:47
Speaker
Dude, tried knocking on the door. You kidding me? I was a news reporter. We weren't picking up phones. We were stalking up to front steps and pounding on the door. So you want to talk about cold call anxiety.
Introduction to CNF Pod and Guest Christopher McDougall
00:01:05
Speaker
Oh, hey, CNFers. It's CNF Pod. You know that creative nonfiction podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Mara.
00:01:17
Speaker
Who's on the podcast this week, Lachlan? That's right, Lachlan's here. Oh, what was that?
Born to Run 2: A Skillful and Inclusive Approach to Running
00:01:23
Speaker
Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run, the underrated natural born heroes, running with Sherman, and now, the guidebook, Born to Run 2, The Ultimate Training Guide, published by Knopf.
00:01:38
Speaker
It's a beautiful book, high quality photos, full color, super inclusive and representative with tips on running drills, food, footwear, and wonderful profiles of all kinds of people that illustrate.
00:01:53
Speaker
That running isn't the purview of just one demographic. You know, in Tolkien, Christopher's signature voice is just pulsing with energy and joy. And it's just a rip-roaring good read and tactical, naturally.
00:02:10
Speaker
And wouldn't you know that Christopher and his co-conspirator on this book, the running coach Eric Orton, have partnered with Xero with an X. Xero shoes for a born to run branded minimal running shoe.
00:02:26
Speaker
I just happen to have a pair of Zero Prios, which I really, really love for lifting, but also that's what I use for running. I run on softer surfaces. They are that minimal where it's practically barefoot. And I do like it. I find them really comfortable. Not a paid plug.
Minimal Running Shoes Collaboration
00:02:43
Speaker
I just say, I was like, when I saw that they were partnering, I'm like, wow, I like Christopher McDougall. I like Zero's shoes. They're both doing something together? Holy shit.
00:02:53
Speaker
I might just have to buy a pair for my unsanctioned Mackenzie Marathon, scheduled for August 5th, along the Mackenzie River Trail east of Eugene. I hope to get fit and, more importantly, stay healthy. I'm in week four of my very basic training plan. Anyway, if you find yourself in Eugene in early August, maybe I'll see you at the trailhead. Growler of beer and a handshake to the winner. Winner will set a world record.
Promotions: Newsletter and Patreon
00:03:17
Speaker
Well, if that doesn't sell you.
00:03:20
Speaker
Make sure you're headed over to BrendanOmero.com for show notes and to sign up for the Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. It's on Substack now, so just click the lightning bolt on my website or visit RageAgainstTheAlgorithm.Substack.com. Still first of the month, no spam, can't beat it.
00:03:36
Speaker
I was thinking about calling it this American life, but alas, you can't keep changing names on people. You just can't. So we rage. If you dig this show, consider sharing it with your networks so we can grow the pie and get this CNFing thing into the brains of other CNFers who need the juice. You can also leave a kind review on Apple Podcasts. So the wayward CNFer might say, well, shit, I'll give that a shot.
00:04:03
Speaker
And, you know, for the people who just have some spare chains jiggling around in their pockets, maybe even in your couch, if anyone even carries change in cash anymore, patreon.com slash cnfpod, you can drop a few bucks in the hat if you glean some value from what we churn and burn here at CNF Pod HQ.
00:04:24
Speaker
Would you like office hours over at Patreon? Like maybe a once a month thing. I'm thinking maybe like the happy hour or maybe just office hours. And we can talk about maybe a book marketing platform, reporting, research, writing. I don't know, we could try that. Maybe next month I'll do it.
00:04:45
Speaker
You CNF and patrons deserve it. Show is free still, but it sure as hell ain't cheap. Okay, you know what? Are you ready? I'm ready. There's enough housekeeping. I know my housekeeping is repetitive, but that's the nature of it. It's like driving by a billboard every time. You're like, I don't even want to read it. I don't even want to read it. And all of a sudden, it's all, wow, I suddenly need some tires.
Authentic Storytelling Techniques
00:05:07
Speaker
All right, let's hear from Christopher McDougall about writing, running, cold calls, and giving yourself credit when you've
00:05:13
Speaker
pull off a great bit of writing. We're so prone to beating the living shit out of ourselves. And it's nice to give ourselves credit every now and again. Okay, let's do the CNF.
00:05:37
Speaker
I know. And I got to say, you know, a few emails back when I was asking you, like, you know, what you might like to read in a prefontaine biography. And you're like, you know what? Just follow the story and write the best story possible, essentially, is what paraphrasing. And I just want to say like, that was just that meant a lot. That was like a really, really sound counsel, you know, just to follow the story, follow the research, follow the reporting and then just like write the best story possible. I was like, oh, that's that really makes sense. I really need to hear that.
00:06:05
Speaker
It's funny, it's those little things that are so instrumental, but I've been having conversations. We have Born to Run 2 out, and so it brings up the question of like, what happened with Born to Run? Why did that book take hold? And people ask me that question a lot, and to me,
00:06:26
Speaker
The answer really harkens back to a bit of advice I got from an editor friend of mine. And I don't listen to editors, man. I have no time for editors. I'm the worst person to have on the other side of the desk if you're an editor. But my buddy Bill Gifford, who back then was an editor at Philadelphia Magazine, a neighbor of mine in North Philly, when I started working on this, he said, I just remember, man,
00:06:51
Speaker
Tell the story from the beginning. Don't tell it from the end. Tell it from where you were when you didn't know anything. And that stuck with me. That, to me, was the make or break bit of advice. Tell it from the beginning. Because after two years of research, you're going to know everything about Prey. And you're going to forget what you didn't know back in the day. And so you need to remind yourself of just what it was like at this moment when
00:07:16
Speaker
You were just coming to grips with his personality and his style and his character. And that's what you want to convey to the reader. And so for me, that was instrumental. I think Born to Run was a book that people liked because I think they felt they were in my shoes on the journey.
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, in some of the books you've written, and you're doing your researching and your reporting, and this is something I'm somewhat struggling with, too. Sometimes you talk to people, and you get a really cool nugget, a really cool anecdote, and it's illustrative of someone's character, but you start to think, how do I string this along so there is a narrative there, so the story is there, and it's not just a cool little factoid or a cool little
00:08:05
Speaker
He stood up to a bully here. It's just like that's really cool. But how do you start to stretch it out so it actually feels like a story? Is that something that you've encountered and struggled with? Yeah, I'll give you a good one. So Emile Zadopek was this superstar
00:08:26
Speaker
track runner of the 1940s and 50s. He was a Czechoslovakian soldier who came out of World War II. And during World War II, he used to train by running in place on guard duty. So he'd be standing in like knee-deep snow somewhere in Eastern Europe on guard duty at night. And just to keep himself warm, he used to run in place. And little things like that taught him really great running form and resilience and self-reliance, et cetera.
00:08:55
Speaker
When I was writing Born to Run, I knew that one guy I was writing about, who was already a secondary, maybe even a tertiary character, but he really admired Emil Zadepak. And I knew Emil Zadepak had this amazing backstory. And I'm thinking about this, like, man, that is a pretty thin hook to hang all this stuff on. Particularly when, at the point in the story when I was writing about it, I was already about six digressions away from the narrative, you know? So when I was,
00:09:26
Speaker
The main story takes place in the Copper Canyon in 2005 when me and a group of runners went down for this race against the Tarahumara. Then I went into a backstory in the 1990s when this guy named Micah True saw the Tarahumara in Leadville. Then I went back a year earlier to when the Tarahumara first showed up before Micah was even involved.
00:09:50
Speaker
And there was a guy, a coach from Adam State College in Arizona who went to watch them. So this is where I'm at. So I'm already six beats away from what's actually the book is about. And now I had this other guy, Emil Zadopeck, who was a runner in the 1950s. And so this is like six degrees of separation. But I really wanted to tell that story. And I kept kind of circling it. And here's what I figured in the end.
Crafting Cohesive Narratives from Anecdotes
00:10:15
Speaker
Nobody cares as long as it's a good story.
00:10:17
Speaker
We beat ourselves up and this was particularly a problem or situation back when I was a magazine writer because when I worked for like Runner's World or Men's Health or particularly Philadelphia magazine, you come up with a story idea and they're like, what's the hook? Like why now? Why the news hook? And I would just say, who cares? People don't care. You don't have to like situate it on this date. If it's a good story, people don't care. And so I think if I were you, I would take the nugget
00:10:47
Speaker
and keep it in an open file and then go one of two ways. Either you find out more about the nugget where the nugget actually expands and grows. So with the Miele's Adapect thing, this ended up becoming its own standalone digression. I think I probably gave Zadapect like five pages when I was really only thinking about a paragraph.
00:11:09
Speaker
And when I sit into my editor, I was like kind of bracing myself. Like the first thing he's going to say is, are you kidding me? Why are we in 1950s Czechoslovakia? And they left it. Now looking back, a lot of people really enjoy that passage of the book and sort of why. So I think the idea is that if it's good, if it lives and breathes, let it walk the earth. And again, you can go one or two ways with it. You can either hook it on something where
00:11:33
Speaker
it is a momentary digression, and it's not gonna interrupt your flow, or you may end up blowing it out and making it longer, and that's fine, because nobody's gonna be distracted, no one's gonna get lost in your story as long as that one is worth their time.
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's really that's really good counsel for regarding that for for sure and I in your in your book writing in your reporting even going back to your magazine days Do you did you ever run into?
00:12:03
Speaker
a certain measure of anxiety around cold calling sources in the phone. It's something I struggle with. I have to just work through it. It's just what you have to do. But it does give me like tightness of the chest. And I wonder for you if you ever expressed that degree of or at least have that kind of trepidation around cold calling and how you might work through it.
Cold Calling in Journalism
00:12:26
Speaker
Oh, dude, tried knocking on the door. Are you kidding me? I was a news reporter. We weren't picking up phones. We were stalking up to front steps and pounding on the door. So you want to talk about cold call anxiety. You know who I learned from? Here's a writer that you may want to talk to sometime, Nikki Weisensei Egan. So she
00:12:47
Speaker
is the pointy tip of the spear with all of the Bill Cosby reporting. Oh, wow. She was writing for the Philadelphia Daily News, and then we went to People Magazine and we wanted to write a book about Cosby. But she made her bones
00:13:04
Speaker
working for the Philadelphia Daily News, which back in the day was one of the, say, five grittiest newspapers in the country. This is OG, old style, shoe leather reporting. And I learned a lesson from her because I was working for the Associated Press in Philly back then. I consider myself
00:13:21
Speaker
a pretty armor plated news reporter because I had begun working for the AP overseas in Portugal and Africa. And so there's a lot of conflict reporting and a lot of, you had to pivot really fast. You're doing a news story one hour and then suddenly the prime minister calls the press conference because they're devaluing the currency and you got to charge off and confront a minister of economics.
00:13:45
Speaker
You couldn't pussyfoot around. You had to get right to the person with the answers and ask them. But even I was a kid compared to Nikki Weisensee and there was a case in a place called the Badlands, North Philly. And I forget what happened. Some kind of a shooting, might've been a cop killing and a bunch of reporters were there. So there was the Philadelphia Inquirer and it might've been a New York Times stringer.
00:14:08
Speaker
and the AP and Daily News. In the conversation, someone said, hey, I think I heard that the grandmother lives nearby. And Nikki instantly pivots on her heel, walks up to the nearest door, and bangs on it. And then bangs on the next one, bangs on the next one. And I was watching her going, holy shit. You know what? I'm in school. You're in school, son. And that's what you did. So I learned from Nikki Weisensee. And now you see.
00:14:35
Speaker
the Bill Cosby reporting, and it's no surprise that early on, when everybody else is like, well, you know, could he, America's dad, Mickey Wiese, and she's like, man, this is what the facts say. So I would say a couple of things. One is for you. Take a talk to Nikki. She is a throwback. For a relatively young person, she's a throwback to a different era. But here's the thing. All those requests go one or two ways.
00:15:04
Speaker
don't wanna talk to you, why you bother me, so be it. Or number two, I really wanna talk, and most times it's that one. People love to talk, and almost every time, you'll call somebody up, and in the course of telling you they don't wanna talk, they'll just start talking.
00:15:22
Speaker
Well, speaking of good reporting and, you know, the, you know, Born to Run 1 is, you know, it's a wonderful book that just, and now you've got the Born to Run 2 come out, which is such a great field guide, and I imagine
00:15:39
Speaker
there might have been moments where you're like, all right, you had the first book and now this one, you're like, oh, this one might be something of like a training log, but this, I think this mutated into something that was so great, like so many great profiles and such a good holistic approach to making, you know, running inclusive and fun. So yeah, how did the, how did this manifest itself after, you know, I don't know, 12 or 13 years after the original book came out? I really enjoyed this process a lot and it's something that I,
00:16:09
Speaker
Never thought I was going to do I never saw myself
00:16:15
Speaker
doing a sequel and I heard it all the time. You should do a follow up, you should do a follow up. What's the point? To me, when the curtain drops, it's over, man. Like that was the story and it's not like part two. And so I never had any interest in another born
Evolution and Joy in Born to Run 2
00:16:29
Speaker
to run. In fact, the book after born to run was about as radical departure as you could come up with. It was natural born heroes where I was in World War II, Crete looking at resistance fighters. But what happened with born to run two were two things. One was,
00:16:45
Speaker
When I was conceiving of and writing Born to Run, I assumed A, no one's really going to pay attention because there were no popular running books out there. There was one, Ultramarathon Man, which was a really great ripping yarn. Dean Karnaz, I thought, did a terrific job.
00:17:04
Speaker
with his story, but it really only appealed to kind of a small audience at the time. Even though he was a really popular figure, he was getting on Letterman and on TV a lot, but at the same time he was just seeing this kind of this one-off oddball.
00:17:19
Speaker
And what he did really didn't apply to most people. That was kind of the mainstream perception. So again, running books didn't sell. There was almost nothing on the shelf other than how-to manuals about how not to get shaved or how to train for your fastest 5K, something like that.
00:17:34
Speaker
So I assume, OK, born and run is going to drop, and if I'm lucky, it'll have a little flash of popularity, and then it's going to be gone. But the second aspect of it was I felt that I had said everything I had to say, everything I understood. It was all packed into this book. It's already chock full of digressions. Just take a bow and exit the stage. But what happened in the subsequent years was that
00:18:00
Speaker
my assumption that this book would either disappear or be blown away by other books, that if it were unpopular, then it would be forgotten. And if it was popular, then there'd be just a blitz of other books blown it out of the water, you know, and other adventure running books that would just take its place and born and run would be forgotten. But, you know, what I found over the years, it was kind of a surprise, which is that, yeah, running books became popular
00:18:28
Speaker
but not something like born to run. So I keep seeing the same book written over and over again about running, which is about how miserable it is. And the race is tough, but the runner was tougher and they saw themselves through the finish line. It's basically running keeps being depicted.
00:18:48
Speaker
as this shitty thing you got to do in order to go on to something better. Running in mainstream media is exactly the way it looks in all the Rocky movies. Rocky doesn't enjoy going for a run. He doesn't really have a good time running up the Art Museum stairs. He's just doing it because he's going to get his ass kicked by Apollo Creed in six weeks. It's the thing you got to do. All the running books that came out are depicted the same way.
00:19:15
Speaker
Uh, it's a miserable thing, but you endured and it's a, it's a test of your grit. And to me, it's not that at all. It's actually something really fun and joyful and communal. And this is to me, it was, it was the keyword and universal, you know, every time you look through.
00:19:31
Speaker
either running magazines or Lou lemon ads is all a bunch of blonde ponytails. But you know, I go for a group run. That's not what I'm saying. I'm seeing all kinds of other people. Yeah. And you never see them depicted. So I got this idea for a born to run to to accomplish. I thought three goals. Number one is
00:19:49
Speaker
to bring that joy back into it. They remind people, no, man, this is not about making your toenails fall off and your kidney bleed. It's about having fun and feeling your body wake up. Number two, it's about the fact that all these faces that you see in real life are what runners are, not skinny blondes in compression shorts, but normal people that look like all the rest of us.
00:20:15
Speaker
and people of all races and genders and body types. And the last thing was this notion that just grind it out, just put on the thick shoes and do it is wrong. Running is a skill. It's a craft. It's an art like every other physical exercise, like swimming or tennis or karate or ballet. It's a fine physical skill.
00:20:36
Speaker
that you get rewards from if you practice it and master it. So that's why I thought I would dive in, do another one.
Running as a Skill: Exercises and Advice
00:20:43
Speaker
And I thought of it not like a sequel, but more like a mid-quell. It's like all the stuff that I would have said in Born to Run if I actually knew it back then, but it took me 15 years to pick up a lot of this stuff that I didn't know before.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, and to the point of bringing the fun back into it, if you look at all the high-res color photography in the book, almost everyone, especially you, you're smiling and laughing, and even to the drills, you're bringing in B-52s, Rock Lobster, and the right 180 beats per minute. I go like 90 beats per foot strike.
00:21:19
Speaker
And it brings a levity and it makes this thing that has historically been a slog and something that was done for punishment and it makes it fun. It makes it the point. Well, there are two things that work. One was, you know, Eric Orton, the guy who made all these books possible, he's the guy that I met in Colorado almost 20 years ago now.
00:21:44
Speaker
had this proposition. I said, hey, I really want to get down to the Copper Canyon and get involved in this 50-mile race with the Taro Mata, but I can't. He goes, dude, you get me into the race. I'll train you for it. So this is a guy that has been my go-to. He's been my Yoda ever since.
00:22:01
Speaker
But he also knows my attention span is very limited. If he gives me a bunch of drills, I'm just not going to do them. And if it's something that's unpleasant, it's not going to happen. So he learned pretty early on, he's got to meet me where I'm at. He's got to come up with something that
00:22:15
Speaker
I'm actually going to do. There's no point in giving me five exercises if I just hate them and don't do them. His approach is to make it fun, make it playful, make it intuitive. You don't have to really think about it. You don't have to watch a bunch of YouTube videos. The thing about it is they're fun, they're playful, and you start to feel results really quickly. I'll give you an example. One of his exercises
00:22:37
Speaker
It's real simple. It's just balance on one foot, wherever you are. If you're waiting in line at the post office, just get up on the ball of one foot and lift the other foot off the ground and just see how long you can balance. And I do it now all the time. I now do it kind of obsessively that if I am not actually in the process of moving forward, if I'm stationary for a second, I get up and balance on one foot. And it's this constant game. It's like my Rubik's Cube. It's like my fidget toy. It's balancing on one foot. So things like that.
00:23:06
Speaker
but they have enormous consequences. And the thing about a drill like that is you don't need instructions, you don't need any equipment, you can do it anywhere, anytime, and you feel yourself getting better very quickly. The first time you do it, you balance for two seconds, second time, six seconds. So it's not like you gotta wait a month to see whether your bicep has grown by a quarter inch. You're gonna start picking up seconds quickly. And at the same time,
00:23:35
Speaker
That tiny little exercise has such ripple effect because not only are you strengthening your arch and your foot, but you're also tightening up your core, you're working on your balance, you're improving your posture. What you learn pretty quickly is, oh, you can't pull this off unless you pull about six or seven other body functions in the line. Those are the kind of things I think you don't see talked about ever
00:23:59
Speaker
in any kind of sport, really. Rarely do you have people focusing on those little micro movements, but to me, they have a huge impact.
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah, and I think anyone who takes on the techniques and the skills of running with a shorter stride, you start to feel, even if you're kind of a heavy, I'm built like SpongeBob. I'm like top-heavy, keg of a torso. And it's like when I run in my Zero Prio shoes and on ideally softer surfaces just because I'm kind of a heavier guy,
00:24:36
Speaker
But you start to feel the bounce coming back in your steps. It doesn't feel as clawed hopping. You actually feel a bit of spring and it's just energizing and it's kind of fun to feel that sort of energy coming out of you, that bounce. I think if anybody wants to have this argument about running for them, it's funny. I hope we're not going too much into the weeds for people who are not runners.
00:25:01
Speaker
If you want to tie this back to Prefontaine and the way his image has been abused, what Nike did in the 70s and 80s when they started to push running shoes was, to me, a master market manipulation, which we're feeling, the repercussions of ever since.
00:25:20
Speaker
What they basically told people is, don't worry about form anymore, just buy this product. And again, you see this in a lot of things too. All these infomercials now, hey, just buy this product, buy the ThighMaster, buy the correct toes, buy this, buy this, buy this. There's always some device out there that's going to be a shortcut to mastering a skill. But if you're a diver,
00:25:42
Speaker
You know, coming off the 10 meter board, no one's telling you, oh yeah, put on this wingsuit suit. No, learn how to control your body and you will get the result you want. And everything too, you know, tennis and swimming, all of it, master your body. Only in running do they tell you, you know what, do whatever the hell you want.
00:25:59
Speaker
just spend $150 on a pair of shoes, put a carbon fiber plate, put in foam, put in motion control, buy this crap for your feet. And if you wanna end that argument to me once and for all, pull up a YouTube video of like Sonny Liston. Now Sonny Liston was like a 300 pound boxer. He was the guy that, they called him the bear. He was the guy that Muhammad Ali looked small compared to Sonny Liston. Why Sonny Liston?
00:26:28
Speaker
jumping rope in time to the song, Late Train, and it's mesmerizing. Let me to jump in for just a moment and to Christopher's insight there. Watching Sonny Liston, this gigantic boxer, hundreds of pounds, watching him jump rope is truly mesmerizing. I stopped mid edit right here to go to YouTube to watch it, to which I will link it up.
00:27:07
Speaker
cinder block of a human who's moving so lightly, just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And what he's demonstrating to me is perfect running form. He's using all that elastic recoil of his body to just bounce. And that's what you tell people is that you can bounce. Running doesn't have to be this muscular, painful process. It'd be light and free and easy. So yeah, you should check it out sometimes. Sonny Liston, skipping rope to night train. Looks like he'd do it for like 36 hours without missing a beat.
00:27:23
Speaker
It is incredible. It's like dance. It's pretty spectacular.
00:27:33
Speaker
That's awesome, y'all. I'll have to check that out. When guys who can jump rope, it almost looks like ballet in a way. It's really pretty to watch. Running is so integral to your life. In what way does running maybe help inform your writing as a practice and maybe as a meditative practice where you can flush out ideas?
00:28:02
Speaker
I never saw it going that route at all. It was kind of a surprise because at the time I wrote Born to Run, I was not a runner. It was not something that was part of my life. And I approached it like any other assignment that I had. Matter of fact, I actually had another assignment. I was supposed to be researching an article for the New York Times Magazine about Gloria Trevi, this
00:28:27
Speaker
the fugitive Mexican pop star, when I first heard about the Taramara, and that's what led me down to the Copper Canyon in the first place. I was basically trying to double dip. The Times was paying my expenses to go to Mexico and research and interview members of this fugitive pop star sex cult. And while I'm down there, I hear about this tribe. I thought, okay, why don't I just peel off for a week, go check this tribe out? And I thought it was going to be quick and easy, one and done. Get down, interview the tribe, come back, quirky little story for Runner's World,
00:28:57
Speaker
I get two oracles and all the expenses are already covered by the times. I don't have to try and sell it to Runners World. I'm already here. But instead, it just kind of led me down into this tunnel of exploration where I started to ask myself more and more questions and hear more and more stories. And when I broke away to say, hey, this is actually more than a magazine story. This could be a really interesting book.
Human Resilience and Adaptability
00:29:25
Speaker
And the issues that it brought up to me were still unresolved. And it basically came down to this. I think the light bulb moment when I was working on Born to Run was this realization that, wait a minute, humans are not fragile creatures that need to be sheltered and protected. We're actually unbelievably robust. There's a reason why we have populated this planet everywhere. You can't turn around without bumping into a human mammal.
00:29:54
Speaker
And that's rare. There's no other species that travels and doors and adapts the way humans have. We've even left the planet. We're now branched off to other planets. We're uncontainable. And the reason why is because we are unbelievably robust and adaptable. We can survive on any kind of food in any kind of climate. And that, to me again, was a real eye-opener because
00:30:19
Speaker
I guess I had grown up with the notion that you need certain things. You need heat. You need a car. You need technology. You need to have certain foods. To this day, I think that the perception of human wellness, which has become its own industry,
00:30:39
Speaker
It's all about what you need to have, you know, Gwyneth Potter. Well, you got to eat this and you got to wear that. And you have to get this many hours of sleep and you have to have these cold plunges. You have to do this. And I'm now in the Copper Canyon. Hell no. You don't need any of this shit. You know, if you watch the show, make it in afraid. I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it. There was a whole world of really cool endurance programs out there. And even better, I think, is the show called Alone. You ever seen Alone?
00:31:09
Speaker
her again her heard of it haven't seen it but i'm not i'm going to destroy your whole reporting calendar i'm gonna say the world washing so alone it take a group it's like twelve jabonis and they drop him up in like british columbia in this horrible cold
00:31:29
Speaker
really difficult landscape and each person is dropped off in isolated location by themselves. So it's not like they're conspiring and they don't know where anybody else is. So as far as you know, you're the only one in this patch of British Columbia and your job is to just survive longer than the other 11.
00:31:50
Speaker
So you're up here in British Columbia dropped off and you get 10 items that you can pick yourself. So you can bring like a fishing net, you can bring a fire starter, you can bring a blanket, but your choice of the 10 items, you can bring a fire starter or not bring a fire starter, a knife, a hatchet, that kind of thing. So
00:32:07
Speaker
And you're out there, you don't know how long. You might be out there for a month, you might be out there for six years. You're out there until the other 11 drop out and you have no contact with them. So you don't know how long it's gonna be. So you gotta make shelter, find food, find fresh water, reinforce your clothing. But when I look at this, to me, that is the story of humanity that we never see in the world around us, which is that when it comes to being a raw animal out in the forest,
00:32:38
Speaker
Humans are like formidable. We are pretty tough, man. We're as ferocious as a grizzly bear. And so that became, in a way, weirdly, the silver mine that I was just going to keep excavating, I think, for the rest of my life, that I keep finding these cool stories of how wonderfully creative and adaptable humans are. And I just really enjoy checking them out and writing them out.
Inclusivity in Born to Run 2: Adaptive Athletes
00:33:07
Speaker
Here's an example from Born to Run 2. It happened by accident. I never intended this to be a story. But when we were doing the photo shoot, I really wanted to make sure that we had an adaptive athlete representing him. I wanted to show people with prosthetics. So a friend of a friend of a friend was this guy named Zach Friglia. I'd never met Zach. Zach shows up. And Zach's a trip. He's just a cool guy. I've been born without one of his legs and several of his fingers.
00:33:35
Speaker
I start to hear his story and hang out with him and see how people respond to him. Everybody loves Zach. Zach loves everybody. And then he started a race called Born to Adapt, where he gets a bunch of adaptive athletes to show up on this ranch in Los Alamos, California and do whatever they can do. Just run as much as you can. And so I look at this and I'm like, here is Zach.
00:33:59
Speaker
thriving on the planet. I just felt like, man, this is a story that needs to go into born to run too. That all the people out there who might have suffered a catastrophic accident or born with other physical capabilities need to know that Zach is out there just bouncing along, running 50 mile races in the mountains on a prosthetic.
00:34:26
Speaker
I hear stories like that. I thought, man, I could spend the rest of my career meeting these people, learning about them, and sharing those stories. Yeah, there's a photo of him in the book where he's taking flight. His hair's blowing back. He's airborne. It's such an incredible photo that says so much about his spirit as a person and as an athlete. You know I love most, though. There's another picture. I hope it's in the book. I got to go back and check if it's not
00:34:56
Speaker
I'm going to feel bad the rest of the day. There is a moment when Jenna Crawford, who is this
00:35:03
Speaker
incredibly fit, super strong road racer. She wins half marathons. Jenna is fixing Zach's ponytail, and Karma Park, who's a transgender runner, is next in line. And their faces, so Jenna is absorbed. Zach is patiently waiting for his hair to be styled, and Karma can't wait to be next. And to me, that...
00:35:30
Speaker
It's almost a cover picture to me because no one will understand it. But to me, it tells the whole story. These are three people that otherwise in life would never meet each other, but they're bonded by this moment and just having a great time together. I just love that picture. You know, Zach, Jenna and Karma united by this activity are all like brothers and sisters together.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, and speaking of someone who was something of a honorific presence in the book of, is the Cabayo Blanco, Micah True. He passed away a few years ago in the Copper Canyons, doing typically what he does, which is just running forever and ever.
00:36:12
Speaker
You write about him and his presence and his spirit. And he strikes me as someone who was very much with you as you were writing, certainly the first book when he was alive, but especially this one that he had passed. So in what way was he kind of with you and embodies the whole spirit of running free, running wild that this book embodies? You know, it's the fundamental question of everything you write is
00:36:40
Speaker
Whose story is this? Who am I really writing about? And it's a harder question, I think, than most of us realize. So when I originally wrote Born or Run, you know, I had reported it out. I had written a really substantial proposal outline, had it vetted by publishers and, you know, signed on with Knopf.
00:37:03
Speaker
And then I sat down to write it. By that point, I was kind of bored because now I've been living with the story for more than a year. I'm like, yeah, let me do something else. So I tried to tell the story from a different perspective. I was more entertained by Jen Shelton and Billy Barnett. You know, they're like the young Virginia surfers who are drinking their faces off and they get lost in the canyon. It was just kind of, you know,
00:37:25
Speaker
one Animal House adventure after the other with those two. And I tried to write the book from their perspective and it just didn't work. And I actually turned in a full draft to my editor on Deadline and he just kind of read it and he called me a few days later and he's like, you know, I think you should really just start over. He goes, have you even looked at your proposal? Because you were good to go. And you completely veered from it. And I knew he was right. I knew I just screwed up.
00:37:55
Speaker
I had to ask myself, wait a minute, whose story am I telling here? It's not really mine. It's not theirs for sure. It's really Kibayo's story. It's Micah True's story. He's the guy that had the idea. He's the guy that created the race. He's the guy that is most invested. This is his story. So that was Born to Run. And here's what's funny. When Eric and I sat down and worked on Born to Run 2, Micah was not
00:38:20
Speaker
on my mind at all. What was on my mind were all the messages that Eric and I both received over the years from people who are trying to go on the same journey we went on. They want to learn running form. They want to understand how to stop battling calories. They want to understand why
00:38:40
Speaker
running doesn't feel fun for them. All the things that Eric was able to teach me and incorporate into my life, they were learned as well. You don't get that from born to run. Born to run, I do it, but I don't want to tell you how because I didn't really know.
00:38:55
Speaker
I was just doing whatever he told me. I didn't understand his method and the deep roots it had. So that was the goal of Born to Run 2. And actually, initially, I was not going to have a whole lot of narrative. My goal was to get this right to the point. This is news you can use. This is going to be a how-to manual. And then the stories began to creep in. I meet Karma
00:39:17
Speaker
transgender runner and hear about her journey as a person who had been told over and over again by doctors, man, your knees are shot. You have osteoarthritis. You cannot run. And then the unbelievably courageous transformation that she went through both as a runner and as a human
00:39:37
Speaker
You know, you can't sit on material like that. You can't not tell that story. So the story began to creep in. And then as they crept in, what I kept finding was, as I'm telling the stories, something that Caballo had told me
00:39:52
Speaker
would always resonate in Karma's story or Zack's story or Jenna's story. Also, as we were trying to summarize whatever the training advice was, something, combined with saying, always rang true. First, focus on easy because if that's all you get, that ain't so bad.
00:40:11
Speaker
Or when I was talking about the whole fun aspect, we broke running down into these seven key fundamentals. One of them is fun. Running should be fun. If it's not, you're doing something wrong because then you're on a downward spiral of doubt and pain. But if every run feels good and uplifting, you're on an upward spiral of reinforcement.
00:40:32
Speaker
And I realized, well, that's that's what Kebai was trying to do with his running festival. He didn't want a bunch of strangers showing up and then feeling anxious and nervous and then trying to beat each other and then leaving. He wanted people who were friends, you know, who enjoyed still trying to beat the piss out of each other, but doing it from a sense of friendly camaraderie and not just like strangers operating out of fear and, you know, in the unknown. And so bit by bit, I kept going, God damn, like,
00:40:59
Speaker
This dude was kind of a guru like stuff. I hadn't processed the stray remarks things about his life really informed the entire book and in the end, I think the last chapter of born and run 2 Uh is is hands down like the best thing i've ever written like the most thoroughly understood dramatized and and a personal quirky weird, so I think it's like okay in some ways
00:41:28
Speaker
my journey led me to writing that chapter because everything I've done along the way got me ready to do the thing which I think is probably the best thing I've ever pulled off. It's great to hear you say in that final chapter which is so evocative and such a great piece of writing and a great tribute to him and a testament to your skill and it's great to hear you
00:41:52
Speaker
celebrate it because so often as writers we just beat the shit out of ourselves nothing we ever do is good enough we can't reread our shit you know we do we're gonna look for the mistakes and to hear you say like yeah that is some of the best writing I've ever done it's a it's just it's pretty cool to hear and I imagine for other people to hear you know it has it taken you like you know a lifetime of writing to kind of sometimes give yourself credit
00:42:19
Speaker
I think it's taking a lifetime of writing to stop second guessing and just let it go. Let it rip. Yeah. Let it rip and tell the story as you really lived it and felt it and stop worrying about what someone's going to think. And again, there's that
00:42:42
Speaker
There's a kind of yin and yang thing there. Well, it's because you're worrying about what people think that you're trying your best to tell the story. So there is that reader pressure. But at the same time, use your own language. Show the bruises. It's the thing in all, everything you do in life, it's a combination of doubt and confidence. And finding that balance. I play pickup basketball.
00:43:12
Speaker
Most of the time, I'm like second guessing, like, ah man, you went left, you should have gone right, tighten up your D, blah, blah, blah. And then every once in a while, you just don't give a shit. And you play better than ever. You play better than ever. You're hitting shots you never hit before because you're loose and you're relaxed. And so it's finding that balance. And so even as I said that I was able to do it and be really happy with that chapter because I feel like I knew what I was talking about.
00:43:40
Speaker
I was not concerned about offending anybody, pissing anybody off. I don't know. I wish I knew what the chemical components were that made that thing work. I just know that in that moment, all right, I got this. This is good. And I think the other two, Brendan, is about
00:44:02
Speaker
This thing we keep wrestling with, finding your voice. I felt like I was telling that story exactly the way I would have told it to anybody anytime. If you and I were on a hike somewhere and you say, hey, man, tell me about how Cabaya died. I think I probably would have told it exactly the way I told you. The fact that even like it opens up with Louis Escobar,
00:44:22
Speaker
Driving down the highway, California 101, driving his wife's SUV with his knees while he's sending out text messages, he can be pretty pissed talking about him texting and driving. Hey man, that's the way it happened. And that's what gave it life. So yeah, you just let it fly. But again, easier said than done. I'm not sure for the next thing I write if I'm going to have that same looseness.
00:44:49
Speaker
kinda gets to the idea, and I hear Seth go ahead and talk about this with Miles Davis, like if he kept just trying to churn out kind of blue, you would never get bitches brew, or you'd never get other things, and it's like, you know, you'll just keep pushing your envelope, and maybe certain things will, the landing will stick, or maybe sometimes, maybe it'll never feel quite as good as that final chapter again, but it doesn't mean you stop, and it doesn't mean you keep striving, it's just,
00:45:17
Speaker
to what we were saying earlier, you just kind of let it go and let it rip and see where the muse takes you after you've done your research and your reporting. You're like, you know what? Let's just go. Let's just run with it. It's funny, though, because I'm in a situation right now where I'm working on something, and I got a story to tell, and even now I'm like, oh, boy. I don't know about this one. It's about this guy that I met, body surfing,
00:45:48
Speaker
we call murder John and oh man, you know, this is a for a reason. I mean, the guy did two life terms and got out of jail and clemency and already like, oh man, his kids are going to read this. I'm going to be interviewed about it. It's already like, I'm not quite sure how to approach this. And so even as I'm preaching looseness, I'm already starting to tighten up a little bit. Tighten up.
00:46:13
Speaker
And I gotta talk to you about the Born to Run shoes that you partnered up with, Zero. You, Eric, and Zero. I saw the little trailer, the little featurette online that you posted to Twitter, and I looked at that and I'm like, oh my god. As long as supplies last, I gotta get my hand on a pair of those, because I love the Zero feel, and I love the ethos behind what you were able to create with Eric and the gang at Zero. So just talk a little bit about how that came about.
00:46:43
Speaker
It's funny, it came out of pure skepticism and it's funny. Also, I was interviewed at local TV news in Denver for the shoe rollout and I was rewatching like, man,
00:46:57
Speaker
like the tone I had, so like skeptical, like, I don't know, I'm not sure, you know, however, boy, I just I just couldn't let it go. It was like something like the South Philly. You're not gonna pull over my eyes. I just can't get rid of and even in as I'm trying to say something very positive and warm and glowing. The same time there's a there's an air of like I will say I will see how this turns out. But what was cool about it, I think was
00:47:26
Speaker
It's kind of an interesting place we're in now, Brendan, where I'm not sure if the old rules we had for journalism have changed, or maybe they should have been there in the first place. But when I wrote Born to Run, there was a lot of interest in ... I got a lot of offers from a shoe company, lots of different products wanting me to partner with them and come up with stuff.
00:47:48
Speaker
the creators of Chia Pets, the Chia Pet Company. Because when Born in the Run came out, suddenly there was this huge interest in Chia as a food. And so Chia Pets reached out to me and said, hey, let's do a food product and let's partner up and do a food product. Because again, Chia seeds were not really available in the United States. You couldn't go to your Whole Foods and come home with a bag of them.
00:48:12
Speaker
And I'm like, dude, absolutely not. I'm not collaborating with anybody that violates any journalistic ethics. I'm not partnering with anybody. A lot of shoe companies want to do with shoe, and there's a flat no. So I look back on that, and I guess it was the right approach. But at the same time, I'm like, I don't know. Sometimes as journalists, I don't know where I sort of come down on this, which is that you
00:48:40
Speaker
The reason I'm going to start wrestling with this question is now we're in this whole kind of journalistic both sides and objective reporting, but why not? If you look at a lot of magazines, it's actually hard to find the byline of the person who wrote it. The byline is often buried. They don't want this story to be identified with a human person. They want it to just be a statement of fact handed down from above.
00:49:09
Speaker
And so, in Born and Run, I was pretty adamant, like, you know what, I'm just gonna stay away from any endorsements of any kind of shoe. I'm not even gonna tell people what I wear. If you see me wearing them, I'll talk about it, but I'm not gonna endorse anything. I look back on, like, was that stupid all along? Why not? Why not say, hey, these are the shoes I really like and it really works. So, 15 years later,
00:49:32
Speaker
for Born to Run 2, I thought, man, I just can't be coy anymore. It's ridiculous. Because I get more questions about footwear by far, by an exponential multiple than anything else. Yeah, I imagine. So why not just answer the question? And so what's interesting is in Born to Run 2, we actually recommend a different shoe. We tell people, hey, get the ultra Escalante eraser. That's the transitional shoe you want. A zero shoe might just be too extreme for most people to transition to. I don't necessarily agree.
00:50:01
Speaker
would recommend a zero shoe, but Eric who knows more than me says, that's a mistake. But then when it came time to say, hey, what do we actually wear ourselves? I thought, you know, let's just go for it. Let's just tell people exactly what we wear. And so then we had to make a choice. So we talked to Zeros and then we love your shoes. Do you guys want to partner up? They said, sure. So I'm really happy that
00:50:24
Speaker
they're born to run shoes that came from zero. And what I also like is that they're kind of scrappy outsiders who kind of exist against all odds, taking on the shoe giants and still persist in creating shoes that they want.
00:50:38
Speaker
Yeah, it really speaks to the spirit of, I think, unsanctioned running, getting away from the corporate behemoths, the corporate-sponsored mega races. And you just kind of lace these things up, hit a trail, and start a race. Like, I'm doing an unsanctioned marathon in August that I set up.
00:51:01
Speaker
And it's probably just going to be me. There's a one-way Mackenzie River Trail that's 26 miles long along the Mackenzie River and just east of Eugene here in Oregon. And come August 5th, I'm setting out early in the morning just a rogue marathon. Whoever wants to come can come. The winner will get a growler and a handshake. And I'm just going to be out there
00:51:25
Speaker
knocking it around, no applause, no swag bags, no junk, no t-shirts, just a rip-roaring, unsanctioned marathon. It's kind of like the ethos of Born to Run and the Copper Canyon Ultra and everything that you've stood for for the last 15 years.
00:51:43
Speaker
Dude, I'm already like kind of mentally scanning my calendar, huh? Can I be in shape and in Oregon by August 5th? Have you publicized this at all? Have you put it like online or anything? Not yet. It's actually it's gonna go out with my newsletter tomorrow for anyone who might happen to be in Eugene and I just started like a just a Beginner marathon training program. I just wrapped up two weeks. It's like a 16 week beginner thing and I
00:52:08
Speaker
I'm hoping to be in shape and healthy by then. But yeah, this is kind of like the first, if you want to call this an announcement, an announcement. And who knows? Right on. So I'm super intrigued. And there's a quote. I can't recall if I ever managed to work it into any of my books or not. But it was a quote from somebody who was part of a running club somewhere in Virginia. And they said, the best races begin with someone dragging their toe in the dirt.
00:52:37
Speaker
And that's your starting line. And again, I can't remember. It's always a quote I always wanted to use. I'm never sure if I ever was able to stitch it in, but it's always stuck in my mind. Like, you know what? Just a bunch of your buddies, someone drags the tone in the dirt. All right, here's the start. Let's go. Dude, I think it sounds terrific. You know, there's a race, the 26 point true in Boston created by a terrific group called pioneers, pioneers.
00:53:04
Speaker
is a running club basically by and for people of color in Dorchester, Roxbury, more of the urban parts of Boston. And in a 26-point troop, people say, you know what, they talk about the Boston Marathon, but the Boston Marathon ate in Boston. Most of it's out in the suburbs. You know, it's in Hopkinton, Newton. It's not really in Boston.
00:53:26
Speaker
There should be a marathon that really celebrates the diversity and the real character of Boston. So they created the 26 point true and it runs through 13 different neighborhoods in Boston. And at this point, I think this is like the third year this year.
00:53:42
Speaker
And it is a full-on, rogue, unsanctioned, grassroots. Aid stations are somebody with a card table with cups of Kool-Aid outside their grandmother's house. That kind of a run. And I tell you, dude, you should check it out online because I defy you to find a photo of anybody in that race that isn't smiling somewhere.
00:54:03
Speaker
26 miles is hard. It's not a party. And yet there's such a sense of joyfulness. So, man, that's what you got looking forward to. You're looking forward to August 5th. That's it. Yeah, that's going to be a Saturday. It'll be, yeah, we'll see what happens. I have to kind of scout out the trail, kind of section hike it, make sure everything is open. I don't see why it won't be. But the fact that it's from beginning to end is
00:54:26
Speaker
Basically a marathon length not a ton of elevation change, you know, it's a little craggy and Rudy in some places But it's some great waterfalls. The Mackenzie River is the cleanest water Maybe in North America and it's just gonna be a rip-roaring good time and if I'm by myself fine But if I'm if I have a few other people with me, you know, that's what that's what it's all about. I
00:54:50
Speaker
You can tell people this is their rare opportunity to become a streaker. There are certain people who have run every race. There's a guy named Bill Smith in Lancaster. There's a red rose half marathon, and he's run it every year since it began in the 1980s. He's got 40 years of running this thing, but it's pretty rare to be
00:55:17
Speaker
on the scene when a race begins. And you don't know if that race is going to last for five years or it could be going forever. The New York City Marathon was a couple of Jibones just doing laps around Central Park. They didn't know that someday people will be fighting for entry bibs. So tell people, hey, you want to be a streaker, you can run the Mackenzie River Rogue Marathon and be every single one, but you got to be here this year.
00:55:42
Speaker
Oh man, that's awesome. I've been excited about it anyway just for my own satisfaction, but I'm like all the more excited to try to see it through. I just hope I can stay healthy for it. Yeah, sure, man. And yeah, Christopher, as I like to bring these conversations down for a landing, I ask a guest for a recommendation of some kind and anything you're excited about. And I just extend that to you for the listeners out there. What might you recommend for them?
00:56:13
Speaker
So I learned a lesson when I was working on Born to Run 2 that, you know, I think as you're working on something, your instinct starts to take you to things that will help. You know, when I was working on Born to Run, I obsessively watched the film adaptation over and over again. Like I'd be out of my shed, work until like two in the morning, and I would come in before I go to sleep. I would just put on the video of adaptation. And I looked back, I didn't realize, oh,
00:56:41
Speaker
Of course, like this is the parable of a guy who's struggling to write something. I didn't think it through at the time. It was just, it was a film I enjoyed and we had the video and I kept putting it in. I look back on it. That was so obvious, man. You were, you wanted to share the fellow feeling with the Nicholas Cage guy, you know, Charles Kaufman character.
00:57:00
Speaker
And what I found myself doing in Born in a Run 2 was for some reason drifting into kind of mystery suspense books. And there's a woman named Sarah Gran, G-R-A-N, and a guy named Jonathan Moore, M-O-O-R-E. And I started reading their books. I kind of read through all their books, their entire canon while I was working on Born in a Run 2. And then I realized why. It's like, you know, I'm writing a book
00:57:28
Speaker
that is ostensibly a training guide and there's no built-in suspense, there's no built-in story. And I think my instinct was directing me toward masters of suspense to just kind of absorb how these great writers create a sense of anticipation in everything that's going on in the books. Because you know it's not always
00:57:55
Speaker
from someone with a gun. Sometimes the characters are just having breakfast, but you're still propelled. So I think it's a great lesson for nonfiction writers, which is really like steep yourself in the masters of suspense. You know, Frederick Forsyth, Sarah Grant, Jonathan Moore, writers like that because they know they've got to keep you
00:58:22
Speaker
gripping along with your fingernails. And Sarah Grant, Sarah Grant, I don't really know much about her. She's not a really visible presence online. To the point where I thought, I wonder if this is like an alias, because the name seems kind of like made up. But she has these mysteries declared to what mysteries, which I think are sensational, like some of the best writing of any kind that I've read in years. So that would be my recommendation, man. Find Sarah Grant's stuff and soak it up.
00:58:52
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, Christopher, this is always great to talk shop with you and get your sense of just the incredible passion and energy you bring to writing and bring to the running community and just life in general. So I just want to say, thanks for coming back on the show and for sharing your insights. Hey, Brendan, man. Now I'm thinking August 5, so let's keep kicking that around. Dude, I know you're kind of fun, man. Get a bunch of people you've interviewed and say, hey,
00:59:20
Speaker
Let's meet in real life. Let's just spend four hours on a trail together. I'm wondering how many people off the top of your head do you think would actually show up at people you've interviewed? Do you think like three or four off top of your head?
00:59:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I've interviewed a number of people who are in Oregon, so that's kind of a low-hanging fruit. But I think there are some others who might venture out this way and do that. I think it would be awesome to get together.
00:59:52
Speaker
face to face i just yesterday i'm kelly loudenberg who episode three oh nine fame she wrote a wonderful piece for the atavist uh... year ago a year and a half ago and she happened to be passing through ugene yesterday she emailed me she like hey i'm in ugene for a few hours you want to get coffee i'm not prone to spontaneity and i'm like
01:00:12
Speaker
Sure, yes, let's do it. And I rode my bike downtown and we hung out for like 90 minutes, got coffee. She's talking about books she's writing on. I was talking about the book I was writing on. It was just great to hang out downtown, a beautiful day in Eugene. And it was awesome. I was like, thank you so much for looking me up. That meant the world. Brendan, this could be new territory, a writer's hangout as a marathon.
01:00:40
Speaker
You know, hey, let's get together and talk shop because, you know, I don't really go to these things, but they have writers conferences and you're sitting in a room somewhere and people are talking. Fuck that. Let's all get out in the open air of Oregon. I think people show up. They become like a destination weekend. You know, why not? Let's let's travel to Eugene and run this marathon together. Everyone's going to be apprehensive. Well, I'm not fast enough. This doesn't matter. We're all just going to chill. Exactly. You know, no one's racing.
01:01:10
Speaker
So it's all just chilled for four or five hours on this trail. Listen, that would push me way closer to a plane ticket if I knew that the people that share the same anxieties and profession are all going to get together and run together. That would be cool. Not runners, but writers getting together. What a trail full of neuroses that's going to be.
01:01:37
Speaker
Oh, I'm on fire. The unsanctioned Mackenzie River writers hang out marathon.
01:01:47
Speaker
Oh, AC and Evers, thanks for listening. Thanks for Chris McDougall for coming to play ball and talk running and writing. Wouldn't you know that he was on a few weeks ago and we had a full on conversation and my recording software did not record it. And you know what? He was nice enough to come back again and we talked again. Like who does that?
01:02:09
Speaker
McDougall, obviously. If some of you writers want to run, maybe come out to Eugene. You might even get McDougall to leave Hawaii and hit the trails here. Yeah, that's right. Hawaii. BrendanAmera.com, hey, that's where you get the show notes and consider maybe signing up for the Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter, book recommendations, a short essay, writing inspiration, and a series of links that literally go up to 11. First of the month, no spam, can't beat it.
01:02:38
Speaker
The Chronicles of Lachlan, the Loch Ness Monster. He's been back in our care for nearly a week. It's been going better than we thought. Everyone is in the house, but everyone is on the depression spectrum, that's for sure. All five of us.
01:02:57
Speaker
We've been counseled to keep Hank and Kevin separate from Lachlan until we get into reactivity training, which our consult is Wednesday, May 17th, so we've... Yeah. Hank and Kev are pretty sad. We're imparting some boundaries with them, specifically Hank. No furniture privileges for Hank. Kev's okay. She can do it.
01:03:20
Speaker
He's, uh, Hank's adjusting okay to it. He's starting to just get the drill. He's like, oh yeah, I've got these comfy beds on the floor. I'm just going there. Kevin started limping yesterday, so that's awesome. Yeah, she just tends to tweak muscles sometimes or cut herself. She's just like, anyway.
01:03:36
Speaker
We have to be in different rooms at all the time like sleep in different rooms let the dog sniff under the doors and when they're Just being calm like that like treating the shit out of them rewarding that calm behavior They're all walking separately fortunately, I'm training for running so I can bring Lachlan along for those and
01:03:57
Speaker
Just burn them out. Melanie's ankle's broken so it's just that I get up at five. I do a quick little thing in the gym. Then I take Lachlan for a three mile walk. Come back.
01:04:08
Speaker
bring him into a back room with her, close the door, grab the other dogs, take them for about three mile walk, and then call, Melanie and I are constantly on the phone talking to each other, just within the house, they're texting, we're like, okay, coming in, all right, other two are in the living room, okay, I can let Lachlan out. So yeah, that's been the choreography.
01:04:32
Speaker
very modular texting nonstop, you know, coming out, I need water. Can you make lunch? And since Melanie, like I said, broke her ankle, she lost almost all of her mobility and freedom. The other dogs are sequestered in living room when I'm alone with Lachlan, which is two days a week. And that's tough, let me tell you. Melanie can usually take Lachlan in her office when she's working from home three days a week and I can hang with the other two and they can roam around.
01:04:59
Speaker
The dogs largely don't care that Lachlan's around. They're almost desensitized to, which is pretty great. Sometimes they see each other through baby gate. No hackles on Hank, because I think he's the main perpetrator, to be honest. No excessive barking in the house, at least, which is nice. Lachlan does growl and bark at dogs and people out on runs in public and on walks.
01:05:25
Speaker
I'd like to think a trainer can help with that. See, I don't know. There's like mixed messages. Like when they're reacting to people or other dogs, I was of the thing, you don't want to treat them when they're, if they're even receptive to food because you're like, oh, I'm rewarding aggressive behavior or something. But then I saw something else that was just like, oh, you want to treat them because you want them to realize that it's not like a bad situation? I don't know. I'm not a professional. I will find out next week.
01:05:55
Speaker
So once we get that sorted out, then we can work on separation anxiety, and that's all kinds of bad. Let me tell you, Kevin had it bad. Lachlan's got it good too. He's got the bug. He's got the separation bug. Next few months are gonna suck ass. They already do suck ass, and it's been five days.
01:06:20
Speaker
But Lachlan's showing signs of promise in some ways. His barking isn't nearly as bad as it was when we first had him. He's got a better understanding of boundaries, which is good. He's more or less uninterested in the other two, which is kind of good, I think. And he's better on the leash somehow? I don't know. Maybe that's because I'm walking him by himself. Anyway.
01:06:40
Speaker
The hope is that he's not too far gone where he can still learn manners and skills and that his quality of life can improve and the quality of life of, well, everybody else doesn't suffer dramatically. I'd like to think that they can all be integrated within a few weeks. Most of the professionals we've spoken with don't want us to get our hopes up too much. You can tell just from looking at them and the tone in their voice that they're still very much thinking that the scenario where he might be deemed like unfit, let's say,
01:07:09
Speaker
I'm not gonna go there. I won't belabor the point, but I'll use the space in the parting shot to keep you posted on the journey of this guy. I won't tell you how many thousands of dollars it'll cost in training, but you can't take money with you, and we don't have kids, and what is money anyway? And capitalism, man. Down with capitalism, man. Stay wild. See ya in efforts. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.
01:07:46
Speaker
you