Transcript
Speaker: Oh, AC and efforts. I'm going start promoting this now. We're like two months out from it. So October 24th, Gratitude Brewing, 1 p.m. Saturday. Chuck Klosterman, bestselling author, is coming down for a live recording of the podcast. And we'll be talking about his new book, Rock with an asterisk, a mainstream alternative history of alternative mainstream music in his book, Football. And writing and voice and style. He is singular and you can see him in person. RSVP with a free ticket at the link in my newsletters and my Instagram profile at Creative Nonfiction Podcast. The place will be packed. Secure your free ticket. It's more for a headcount than anything. You don't need to show the ticket, but please secure that ticket at the Eventbrite link, either in my Instagram profile or in the show notes or in the newsletters.
Speaker: Chuck Klosterman, baby. Want to get better at selling stories? Sometimes the best idea you can come up with is the thing you wish you had when you were starting out. That's what Pitch Club is at welcome to pitchclub.substack.com. I was such a frustrated freelancer not knowing how to pitch, not getting any traction, so Pitch Club is that thing that 2010 me could have used.
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Speaker: I've always believed that like long-form content is not dead.
Speaker: Oh, hey, CNF. This is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell, the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm your resident asshole, Brendan O'Meara. Been at this game while.
Speaker: A long, long time. Who do we have today? Oh, it's Coach Chris Bennett. He is the Nike Running Global Head Coach, and now he's the author of This Is About Running. This Is Not About Running. Lessons for Between and Beyond the Start and Finish Line. It's published by Daystreet.
Speaker: If you're looking for workouts and training plans and pace charts and zone two up the wazoo, this is not the book for you, man. But if you're looking for a 220-page metaphor for being a better writer, a better person, and yes, maybe even a better runner, then you're going to love this book. I read it twice. The chapters are, by and large, lean and range from confidence to doubt to hope to play and regrets.
Speaker: And maybe this podcast all along has been about writing and not about writing. Showing us to this episode and more at brendanomera.com. Hey, hey. There you can find blog posts and links to the vast evergreen backlog of hundreds of conversations on this podcast.
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Speaker: Alright, so a little more about Coach Bennett, who is something of a real-life Ted Lasso. Prior to working with Nike, he was a high school history teacher who helped coach one of the most successful running programs in the United States.
Speaker: He attended the University of North Carolina, where he captained the cross-country and track teams. After college, he spent five years on the Olympic Development Nike Farm Team out of Palo Alto, California. He used to live in Oregon, but he recently moved back to his native New Jersey to be closer to the water. He needs his feet in the sand. He needs to see the Atlantic Ocean.
Speaker: In this episode, we cover a lot of ground, including why long-form content is not dead, how he went from working in finance to Nike, how he cultivated his coaching philosophy, confidence versus arrogance, vulnerability, reckoning with and the fear of success, the power of just focusing on yourself, self-sabotage, and how running helped his writing, among a lot of other things.
Speaker: I'd pair this episode with episode 419 with Maggie Gigandit in her Atavis story about an ultra-running couple, and episode 525 with Mary Kane in her memoir of abuse at Nike called This Is Not About Running.
Speaker: But first, let's hear from Coach Bennett. We start our conversation by talking about Josh Kerr of the UK breaking the world mile record. But first, let's cue up the montage.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: I'm like, explain it to me like I'm an idiot. Because I am, actually. Being a complete douche canoe does not help. I could just open my email at any time and either get the best or worst news. It's going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
Speaker: Well, you know, you're watching it and as excited as you want to get, you know, history is is something that should be trusted for the most part. And history was telling us that this ain't going to happen because, you know, it's it's been 20 plus years, 25 plus years since the world record was set by Hishamogaru. So it's just, you know, this isn't this isn't going to happen. And to have it take place in the way that it did, where...
Speaker: You know I think it's interesting, these events, the world records are so, so extraordinary that you have almost no one that can really help you.
Speaker: Because to get through 1,200 meters of mile world record pace, there's only a handful of people that can do that and look good doing it. Because the the rabbits have to give off the impression like that they're relaxed, they're in control. You don't want someone straining up front.
Speaker: So when you're trying to set a world record in the marathon or the 10K or the 5K or the mile, the only people who can really help you are the other best milers on the planet. And they usually don't want to rabbit someone else to a world record. So everything is stacked against you when you're trying to do something this extraordinary. So, you know, it was, it really wasn't until 600 meters when he took over that I thought, wow, maybe he has a chance, but I'm also, again, a total nerd about the sport. And I realized 600 meters to go is a long, long way in any race, but the shorter the race, obviously 600 meters out is brutal to be by yourself.
Speaker: But I was, I think most shocked when he was coming off the turn about 110 meters, maybe even a hundred meters And he just looked so powerful.
Speaker: And I thought that was the best he looked the entire race. And that's that's where i I just became completely just a fan of the sport and really of just humans. And I just thought this is, it was beautiful to watch.
Speaker: It was just really beautiful to watch. And yeah, as as someone who dedicated a large part of their life to to trying to run a fast mile, Yeah, i was I was in complete fanboy mode for the for the last maybe 15 seconds. And it's it's stuck with me. It's a race that has has stuck with me. So yeah, cheers to him for putting it out there and calling your shot.
Speaker: And on the day, having what it took to do it. Totally. to To your point of to get to that world record level, there's only a few people who can even conceive of to like push you to that, yeah to that, to that level. And just to bring it back pre-Fontaine a little bit, I, in 1973, the super mile that against Dave Waddle at Hayward Field, pre met up with Waddle at the AAU championships just so like a week or two prior. it's just like, Hey, you know, they're doing this restoration meet. Like,
Speaker: Why don't we go for the world record? I'll pace you through three quarters and two 56. And like, let's go for the world record. And it was like a real evolution in Steve's mindset of like being a sacrificial lamb yeah for his fans and for Hayward field. And, um, And to Waddle's great regret to this day when I spoke to him about it, he's like, Steve put it on a platter for him, and he didn't take it because he didn't want to tighten up. And he still ran the third fastest mile of all time at 353.3. But he's like, man, if I sold out, he's like, I could have had the world record. He would have beaten Jim Ryan. It was there for him. and But you needed someone of that caliber to put it on the plate for you. And it's, yeah, a lot of things have to align for these things yeah to happen.
Speaker: It's a great lesson, i think, for from the sport to people that take part in it, that when you're at your best, the best chance of you being your best is if you're competing with the best. And, you know, it's it's it's just another way of saying, you know, the the the way that you're going to reach your potential is with other people and not alone.
Speaker: Totally. And um I love in the acknowledgements of the your book as well, which I've read twice. and um Thank you. Oh, yeah. I love that it's great as I've ah had a something of a running reticence in the last couple of years for myself, just connecting to the material I was writing to. And then it's just for whatever reason, at 46 years old, like running just become kind of important to me in a way that it never was before. um And i love I love that you wrote. like It didn't take me long to type out this book, just a few months really, but it's taken my entire life to write it. And and I kind of love that ah sense that it's distilling a lifetime of experience. um
Speaker: But yes, it did take, let's say, you know upwards of 40 plus years to to conceive of it, and but to type it out. But it is a lifetime's worth of work that you were able to kind of channel. Yeah. And it was, I think, the the the what I wanted to get across was kind of this this coaching philosophy that I've had and the way that a lot of people have at least experienced it has been out on runs.
Speaker: I'd say a vast majority of them are are through guided runs that they do on the Nike Run Club app. You know, I've always, you know, the title of the book is basically the philosophy that I've had, which is, you know, this is about running, what I'm coaching you about and the philosophy, but it's also not about running. And realized that it's,
Speaker: it it shouldn't be that you have to run, you know, 800 miles to, to hear it all, or, you know, to train for an entire marathon. And, you know, there's things that I'm saying maybe towards the end of the 15 K run that, you know if you don't get past eight miles, you're not going to hear.
Speaker: So, uh, it was one of those things where I've, I've, I've always believed that like long form content is not dead. I think that's the people that say that are just, uh, They have very little faith in humanity and and they're usually the reason why there's not too much long form content. So they kind of say, well, we don't believe in it because we don't believe in people. So we're not going to put it out there and then people don't have access to it. So I i always used something like Instagram, probably the wrong way.
Speaker: I'll put a picture up and then I'll write the longest posts, you know? And I remember 10, 12 years ago, people were like, you know, this is like a, is like a picture app, right? And I was like, well, i don't know, not the way I use it.
Speaker: And i found people, you know, at least wanting to get what I was saying on the runs in other places and people that were on the runs that were, you know, taking what they were learning from the run and bringing it into their classroom or, you know, where they worked at the hospital and I just thought, you know, maybe maybe this would be good if I actually just put it all down. And the best way to do that was, again, to give a little bit of background to where it came from.
Speaker: Yeah. And what I like about it too is that ah you can read it non-linearly if you want as well. You can kind of pick out where you want to go. Like, ah yeah, I'm someone who struggles with confidence and there's a chapter called confidence. And I'm like, that one's one I highlighted quite a bit a lot. I was like, that's one I could probably go to every again go to ah over and over again, like almost like a mantra. I'm like, oh yeah, this is something where I can maybe get fuel in my tank or give me yeah give me a certain measure of strength that I can't necessarily maybe cultivate on my own.
Speaker: Yeah, that was, I'm really happy. to hear that because that was one of the goals. It was, if somebody wants to, you know, start at the start and finish at the finish, fantastic. there There is a story that's being told from start to finish. And I also wanted it that if you sit down and you just kind of blindly flip through and say, I'm going to stop here and I'm going to read this chapter, it's going to make sense.
Speaker: And it's the same thing if there's something that you need to revisit for whatever reason, like you said, confidence or endurance or patience or something like that, you can go and it's going to be okay. Or if you just wanted to share a chapter with somebody, you don't need what came before to get the lesson.
Speaker: um So yeah, that that makes me very happy for you to hear because that was that was intentional. And you know you you're someone who, your professional career, you started in finance and over the years of through perseverance, so eventually becoming a a high school history teacher. And then you know you become the Nike global running coach. So just take us through that arc of how you got you went from there to you know where you are now.
Speaker: Well, it's i when I graduated from the University of North Carolina, i wanted to keep running. And there were very few places to run post-collegiately back then. The environment was not like it is now.
Speaker: You basically had a choice to go to D.C. and you could run with the Enclave, which was a training group run by Frank Gagliano, the Georgetown coach. ah You could go to Palo Alto and you could run for Jeff Johnson, who ran the Nike Farm team based out of Stanford University.
Speaker: Or you could kind of, you know, get a stick and a little rag and tie it to the end and make your way to Eugene and kind of try to live the dream there. Because that was always like the mythical city that if you were going to train, you know, go to Eugene.
Speaker: um where so much of, you know, at least the running lore in the United States comes from. And i was very lucky. I got to go to Palo Alto and train with the Nike farm team. And there were some really good runners on the team, like people who were who were genuinely trying to make the Olympic team. I was never going to be that good.
Speaker: my My goal was to try to make the Olympic trials. So I wasn't going to be making money running, you know, there, there isn't, there aren't big contracts for people trying to make trials, you know, so i had to get a job. And the one that really worked out was finance because the market closed at 1.30 and we had practice at like 3.30 or 4 every day. So I couldn't be working till five, I'd be missing practice. What's the point of being out here? So I'd have to have very early mornings, but I got to get out. And there were a couple actually people who worked for Merrill Lynch at the time that were running for the Nike farm team. So it really worked out. um i I liked the people I worked with. I didn't like the job.
Speaker: there was, there was nothing there that really spoke to me. i enjoyed talking to the clients and hearing about like their dreams and, you know, and I always liked talking about, you know, kind of the history of the markets and how to look at it and things like that. But beyond that, I just, this was a way for me to get to run.
Speaker: That was it. And, eventually while I was running for the farm team, um I got married and we had, uh, one and then two kids. and eventually we moved back to North Carolina, my wife Tammy and I, with our kids. And I i kept working in finance, but now it wasn't for the purpose of running.
Speaker: I was just in it. And I thought, this is, this is awful. I mean, it was so bad. i came home every day, just dragging. I was exhausted at work.
Speaker: And it wasn't because I was anything more than just my soul was being drained every day. And I was continually putting in resumes to try to teach because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach and coach. I knew that since I was like a teenager and it's just hard to get a history job.
Speaker: History teachers don't leave. It's just an awesome job. You just tell great stories all day long, at least if you're teaching history the right way, if you're teaching it like it's a timeline. then not only is it the wrong way of teaching it, but I'll just let you know your students don't enjoy the class. So ah it was it was something that I just kept putting in, but I just i was not getting a job.
Speaker: And then i was working a cross-country camp, and i found out that there was a job opening up at my alma mater, my high school alma mater. And I went back, and I got to teach history to freshmen and seniors and help coach cross-country indoor and outdoor track at CBA in New Jersey.
Speaker: And over the course of those seven years, the program, which had always been good, got really, really good. And, you know, we were winning national championships and setting national records. And my wife and I were putting on ah track clinics and cross-country camps and sleepaway camps. And we had Sunday long runs of 300 people and, you know, the Wicked Pumpkin Run for middle schoolers. And we had all this stuff. And, ah you know, Nike was starting to notice the success, not just of the program, but also of the events that we were doing. And they would ask me to, you know consult on some things since I had a prior relationship with them. And then eventually they brought me into New York, which they would occasionally do. And they just asked a question about um athletes that were meeting at the stores and asked me how I would coach them. And I gave this like long, very detailed, this day we would do this, this day we would do that. And they kind of told me like, whoa, like these are, these are just people that have jobs and they're just running informally and they're not elite runners.
Speaker: And I said, but I would treat them like they were elite. Like, I don't, I don't know why you would treat somebody differently just because the time, you know, they said, okay, well, would you do this? And I, at first I was just, I guess I was just too stupid to realize what they were asking. They were basically saying like, will you take this job? And, um, it was a really, really hard decision. Um, I agreed to do it.
Speaker: I gave them kind of a philosophy, of like, well, this is how I coach. And if he asked me to go against it, I'm i'm not going to listen to you. So if you're okay with that, like this can work. And to their credit, they were okay with it.
Speaker: And yeah i mean, to me, it was, I was seeing things shifting. I was seeing things shift at like the the highest levels, the professional level in track, like the United States was turning around. We were really starting to you know, make finals consistently. You know, we're still 15, 16 years out from where we are now.
Speaker: So this like 2014, because 10, 12 years out. So we were getting really good at the elite level. we' We're just starting to crack in. And at the youth level, we had never been better. You know participation rates were through the roof. The times were incredible.
Speaker: The meets were getting better. The coaching was getting better. But I was like, man, that middle, it's not even the middle. It's like, The middle 98% just doesn't have what everyone else is getting. And I thought, maybe maybe I can help there. So that was kind of the inspiration. And it just, it kind of took off from there. It started in New York City. And then next thing you know, it kind of went global. And and and here we are.
Speaker: There is ah yeah know any number of coaching approaches, ah you know be it sort of ah over the head, kind of ah abusive and you know denigrating. And then there's more of the Ted Lasso approach of which that that's more of your your lane. So how did you cultivate your particular philosophy for coaching?
Speaker: Well, first, I'll say Ted Lasso is a really good coach. Like it's it's and and having watched the series, I'm not just saying that it's like it's a good show. It's a really good show. He's actually really, really good coach.
Speaker: And, you know, I was very lucky to have kind of like a murderer's row of coaches. I mean, I had some of the the best coaches of all time. My high school coach, Tom Heath, who has since retired, uh, was, was an absolute legend.
Speaker: Uh, I went to, yeah as I mentioned, UNC, Joan Nesbitt Mabe was my coach at Carolina. She was a 96 Olympian. Um, also a bad-ass coach. Jerry Schumacher came in at the end, uh, and coached, uh, at Carolina, um, from, for about a little over a year. And then Mike Whittlesey, who's at Kansas now and has coached some of the great Kansas runners. Then I was able to get coached by Jeff Johnson, employee number one at Nike. You know, the guy who came up with the name Nike is one of the great human beings on this planet. And then he brought in Vin Lanana, who was coaching at Stanford to take over.
Speaker: And then LaNana brought in Frank Gagliano. And then they brought in the great jack don Jack Daniels, the exercise physiologist to help out. Ray Appenheimer, when he retired, he helped out. So I was just, I was really lucky to have great, great coaches. And I had a long career, which was really good, full of ups and downs and plateaus and all of it. And I had great teammates. And what I realized was ah being a complete douche canoe does not help. And- um
Speaker: the luxury of being on so many different teams and having so many different teammates and having so many different coaches. There's a couple of things that you suddenly realize that anxiety and tension and fear, like these are, these are fuels. They absolutely are. And you can coach a team to be successful by having them run scared and train scared and be anxious and constantly on edge, but they're never going to be as good as they could be.
Speaker: And that greatness is not going to be true greatness because true greatness is consistent greatness and it's going to burn out. And I realized that if you really want people to be able to be their best, it's going to take an incredible amount of work and there's going to be a lot of failure along the way. And in order to do both those things, you need to love what you're doing and you need to feel absolutely safe.
Speaker: Because you have to be vulnerable. You have to be vulnerable. You'll never be able to do everything you can do. Because if you're giving 100%, none of that percentage can be put towards being defensive, yeah blocking things off. You have to be wide open, which means you have to be totally vulnerable to failure. And if you can set an environment up like that, which means you can't have people come into practice scared.
Speaker: or feeling unsafe or nervous about the wrong things. Okay. So that was important. And when you marry that with the fact that my first coaching gig was with teenagers, like if I'm not saying that coaching adults is not an an awesome responsibility, it's a greater responsibility when you're working with kids and they've got a lot going on in their lives.
Speaker: And that's where the idea of this is about running. This is not about running came. Like if, if these kids were leaving and they were just really, really fast, then I had failed. Like I had to make sure that the time we spent was also giving them tools to handle what was happening outside of practice.
Speaker: I mean, you mentioned confidence. Like I wanted those kids to leave practice, even after a bad day, more confident. And that was my job. So the philosophy came from that. And, and, you know, that it's,
Speaker: It does occasionally, when I talk about it, I'll get some, you know, hardcore dude bros that are like, come on, man. And it's like, I have to let them know, you don't sacrifice performance.
Speaker: You know, like like when I was coached, we didn't lose very often, you know? And i don't like to bring up results, but there's some segments that are, they really have that, you know, if I'm not running hard, I'm hardly running kind of mentality.
Speaker: they never put together the fact that they're constantly hurt or they're burnt out or, you know, they have a lot of races that don't go the way they planned. And it's probably because they raced on Tuesday and Thursday at practice. But these are the types of things that, you know, if you can get across to people, one, they're going to enjoy the sport more, which is not a sign that you're not working hard. It's just a sign that you're enjoying working hard.
Speaker: Yeah. And, uh, yeah. So kind of a very long winded answer, but I tend to ramble. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love it. It's so deep and thoughtful. And you bringing up sort of some of that toxic nature that you might run into in running culture, especially online. And I remember just a couple weeks ago, I saw something like an ad for this Outlast run that would just be outside of Eugene. It was like 5K every hour for six hours or something. Like, oh, that seems kind of fun. I haven't signed up because I... I can't make it. But then like you look in the comments and you see a lot of ultra trail running bros. You'd be like, man, this should be a 10 K every hour for six hours. This is only 18.6 miles over the course of the day. This is stupid bullshit. And so it's like, Oh my God. That's why like running to me, it's just very private and personal and I don't like engage with it online, but it just for you, because you are so platformed, like how do you navigate? Yeah. The toxicity and the comparison that is so often out there on the online running world. Yeah.
Speaker: um Well, it's, i mean, well, first and foremost, i I primarily focus on the messages I'm getting out. yeah You know, I will never have time to say what I think needs to be said if I'm constantly trying to reply to people that have really bad opinions. And I'm old enough to remember when the internet didn't exist.
Speaker: I also know that during that time, these opinions existed. And they were just as stupid. They just didn't get as much attention. And there was good reason for it. And i I can't spend my entire day arguing with someone whose, I guess, sense of worth comes from diminishing other people's worth. That's just, you know. And, ah you know, I used to tell this to teams when I was, the the team when I was coaching was was very good. I used to tell other teams, I knew there were certain teams we competed against that would never, ever beat us.
Speaker: because they were the ones that would talk trash. They were the ones that would say nasty things like online or on message boards. And I was like, well, we don't have to worry about them. Because confident teams never do that.
Speaker: Confident teams don't feel like they need to put anyone down. Arrogant teams do, but arrogance is false confidence. Arrogance is something you do when you realize you don't really have it. So you have to put on this show because the reality is is something less than you want. So i I kind of look at it that way.
Speaker: i also try to start from a position of maybe they just don't know. Because see, ignorance is not a bad thing unless it's repeated and you should know better. Then that's actually just stupidity. So there's a difference. There are some people out there that maybe don't realize or don't understand that there's ah there's maybe a ah ah wider aperture they should have. I mean, for the example that you give, if you look at it and realize there's probably a lot of people doing this. We'll just start with one segment of the people maybe doing this event.
Speaker: that have never run as far as they're about to that weekend. yeah And maybe they're coming back to the sport, or maybe they're new to the sport. Maybe, you know, this is this is going to be the hardest thing they've ever done.
Speaker: And when you suddenly realize, well, if somebody's at their best... that should be celebrated. And it's no different than, which is I think one of the greatest parts about our sport is that when you watch Elliot Kipchoge come down and run the last 400 meters of a marathon, you know, and and it looks like he's keeping it all together, but he is hurting on the inside. You know what i mean? Like his his lungs are on fire, his legs are filled with battery acid.
Speaker: He's at his best. But if you wait two hours, you're going to watch a whole bunch of people that are experiencing the exact same thing because that's a nurse who's about to run 359.32.
Speaker: She can only run three days a week because she works these massive long-ass shifts. She's on her feet all day long. She's got a couple of kids. She's not training at altitude. So when she comes in and runs 359 and her potential is 358 to four hours, you're watching a performance that's just as extraordinary as Elliot Kipchoge's, which is awesome, which is why you should stick around and you should cheer for these things. A lot of people have never thought of it that way. And when they do, they suddenly are like, wow, okay, that's really impressive. And and the hope is that then that that, you know, lessens the amount of trash that you see online. So I very rarely engage people
Speaker: And if I do engage, I just try to, you know, maybe beat people to the punch and and be supportive. The thing is, most importantly, is I'm consistent and I'm honest, though. So if I have an opinion, i'm going to give an opinion. And it's going to be based on something more than just my gut, yeah which is, I also think, important. So...
Speaker: well I love how you you write about this idea of vulnerability and you you know you spoke about it a few moments ago as well. you know Being open to failure and um you know yeah be open to failing, also be open to succeeding at reaching the many goals you set. And sometimes I feel...
Speaker: As much as we say we fear failure, which many of us do, I feel like there's a subset of people who, and we don't talk about it enough, who might fear success. Yeah. What if I, because you can hide behind failure, but you can't hide from success because that increases the aperture of that spotlight. Maybe talk a little bit about that and run with that because we don't really talk about, you know, what happens if you actually achieve that goal and then suddenly you can't hide. You're out there. you're You are open.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I think you said it really beautifully. I mean, suddenly there's more, or at least people feel there'll be more of a spotlight on them. And with that, with success comes increased expectations. So yeah it's the same thing like in class. And you see it a lot of times. I saw it a lot of times with especially freshmen that were playing kind of a part in eighth grade where they were the dumb kid. They were the clown. They were the, you know, jerk in the back. And when they came into freshman year, they didn't realize like, you don't have to play the same part.
Speaker: They felt like they had to play the same part. Like I gotta be a cut up. And almost all of them do not want to keep playing the part, but they don't realize that they're the casting agent and the class isn't. So what I would see is kids that I could tell the grades should be higher.
Speaker: you can You can just tell, like, this is, you're not even you're not even trying. The luxury that a teacher has in a lot of situations, especially a coach, though, is that you can you can take a kid and you can say, like, what what is this?
Speaker: Like, it's a C plus. What are you doing? Now, their their initial reaction is going to be like, another adult, you know, another adult telling me I'm stupid. You know what i mean? Like, and why can't you do what everyone else does?
Speaker: And I'd be like, just, I want you to stop for a second and think about what I'm telling you. because it's probably the nicest thing you're going to hear all day. What I'm saying is that C plus isn't the top of your mountain. I don't know if it's an A plus, but it ain't a C plus.
Speaker: Maybe it's a B plus. The point is you're better than this. It's no different than in practice where that freedom to fail is so, is so elemental to becoming a better player. Like if you can't dribble to your left,
Speaker: which means you suck at going to your left, we have to focus on what you suck at. Because if we can get that better, you're going to be a holy terror on the court when the opposing team suddenly realized, when did she learn to go left? And athletes are like, yes, get me better, get me better. It it doesn't always translate into other situations. It can in the classroom though.
Speaker: And when you suddenly realize like, hey, listen, like the point is, is like, this is actually what you can do. I'm not asking you to do something you can't do. I'm not going to put you in in a position to fail.
Speaker: I will only put you in a position to potentially fail. But if you're going to, if you're in a position to potentially fail, it means there's a potential for success. And you have to reframe it because it can be very scary because it's very easy to just allow yourself to fail. It takes no effort, none.
Speaker: So what you're really asking someone when they do something great is potentially to continue to do more work, which just think about that as an adult. That's terrifying.
Speaker: Think about your day where you're like, you want me to do more? Regardless of whether you do a lot, doing more is scary. And success usually equates itself with, I have to consistently work this hard.
Speaker: Like I worked real hard. I ran that fast. Oh my goodness. you Now you're telling me i have to consistently work this hard so I can keep running this fast or i have to continually study like this to get this grade. It's a lot. So you have to you have to build some type of apparatus around the athlete, around the student, around the human being to one, support them with this additional work they're doing.
Speaker: you know Give them opportunities to celebrate the additional work they're doing, regardless of what the outcome is of that work. um And also hopefully enjoy it a little bit more, if not a whole lot. If you can do that, then then it's okay. But it makes total sense to me that people would be potentially scared of being successful.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. And even if you get a modicum of that success, like as you write, and this is very true of writing and just about any vocation, you're like, the better you get, the harder it gets to get better. Yes. Like even as as a skilled runner, a skilled writer too, like I've been writing for a long time and it is not any easier than it was. I feel like it was easier 25 years ago than it is now. And I'm like 10, 20 times the writer I was. It's one of these, one of these elemental truths of ah getting better. It just never gets easier. I i agree. And you know you make ah a really important point there that, and I tell this with new runners, especially early on, because you can be very self-critical at the start of taking on anything. you know It's like when you watch someone try to learn to play the guitar and they can't make like a a bar F and they're like, oh, my can't my finger do this? And it's just...
Speaker: relax. Like the fact that you're even attempting to put your fingers in the right position is such a huge leap from where we were five minutes ago when you didn't even know this cord existed. And now you're trying to figure out where to put your fingers. It's a really big deal. It's the same thing with running. I haven't run in 10 years. Okay. We're going to run for five minutes. The first thing people usually say is well, five minutes, it's not even a real run. And you're like, dude, yeah you have not run in a decade.
Speaker: And now you're saying five minutes isn't enough? Like, let's just do five minutes because I'll tell you what, you will not have a jump this big for the rest of our time working together.
Speaker: You're going from zero to five. There isn't even a way to measure that from nothing to five. Nothing is a concept. It's not even a number. And we're going from a concept of nothingness to five minutes of running.
Speaker: This is like... the greatest shift we're ever going to have in training. You're never going to grow this much as we are in this first run. So pump the brakes, buddy, and check yourself because this is a really, really big deal. And then you're right. You get to a point where suddenly it's, the gains are really small.
Speaker: They're there. But if you've been doing it for long enough, like you're going to have to measure it by other metrics than you used to. And it's, it's, you know, I think it's a great point with writing. It's, it's one of those things where, you know, early on you realize like putting pen to paper or starting to type early on was a massive achievement and there were huge gains. And now it's, you're still grinding to figure out like, I don't know how to end this chapter.
Speaker: How do I not know how to end a chapter? I've been writing for 20 years. What's wrong with me? And you realize like, this is the gig. This is, this is part of the, this is part of the fun though. It's also part of the grind, which is why if you ask a runner, their, their most fun runs, they're usually their hardest runs.
Speaker: And it's the same thing with any other passion, like you said. Yeah. And I love, you know, one ah you write about comparison traps ah in in the book as well. And that's something I like talking about on the show, on the podcast too, because we get into a lot of you looking over your shoulder at other writers who might be getting yeah more accolades reviews here or appearing on a more prominent podcast, this, that, and the other. And social media just has a way of just bombarding you with so many of these highlight reels that it makes you just feel like shit. yourself when you're not experiencing the the same. And in a running is the same. you know i guess I'm not on Strava, but i am many, many people are. And you're comparing yourself in paces and people's weekly mileages and all this. And it can just really start to, you can diminish yourself before you've even set foot out the door or put pen to paper. um So when you're talking about comparison traps, like how do you counsel people to to, use a running term or a running pun, to focus and run your own race as best you can?
Speaker: Yeah, well, I mean, there's two parts to it. One is i think the sport of running is an awesome, awesome sport for so many reasons. One of them is because if you actually focus on yourself, you're going to have a lot of fun.
Speaker: Okay. And it's going to give you an opportunity to learn more about yourself, but there's almost something every single time you go for a run that is going to lead you to believe I improved in some way, shape or form, even during the crappiest runs, there's something you can point to how you handled the crappiest run, the pace of the crappiest run you just did. I, you know, I, I think I mentioned in the book when I was coaching high school, I used to tell the kids that I know you're ready to do something great when your worst runs are getting better.
Speaker: Like if your worst runs are suddenly getting longer and the pace is faster, I mean, you still they believe me, they still suck. And you're like, that was terrible. I felt awful. It was miserable. And I'm like, yes, but let's go back to a year ago.
Speaker: That run was 25 minutes long and now it's 45 minutes long and we're running 45 seconds mile faster now. That run a year ago would have been the greatest run you had ever had in your life.
Speaker: Now you're saying it's the shittiest run of the week. That's called progress. So like, these are the types of things that if you're not pointing out, sometimes athletes miss that. And that's, that's one element of it, which is really important. The other thing is, if you are a fan of people, this sport is a lot easier.
Speaker: Like if, if you're not looking at it as, Oh, what is she doing? She's faster than me. And you look at it as how bad ass is that run? She just did. Like, your entire life will change.
Speaker: Like stop thinking other people's performances give the wrong impression on your performance. Like it's just, I, that is, i think what happens is, is sometimes we're our own worst enemies in this case that we think that Um, other people are a reflection of us and no, let's just start with the the reflection of you is you start there.
Speaker: You can build it out eventually to the people you hang out with and the people you support are also a reflection of you. But that person on Strava who just cranked a really great 10 K and had an awesome picture on the top of some mountain in Colorado that you didn't know existed and they're decked out in some really cool gear and and you're wearing, you know,
Speaker: a concert t-shirt from 1987, which by the way, I think is badass to run in. So you got my compliment. I'll give you a thumbs up if you show it. um You know, none of this is a reflection on you.
Speaker: None of it. If anything, let it be an inspiration for you. Someone just had a great run. My hope is that when someone has a great run, they're a better version of themselves when they leave.
Speaker: You know, they're not going to honk someone on the highway. They're not going to give somebody the middle finger on the subway there. You know, like to me, that's that's pretty cool. It's just a much better life if you're cheering for people as opposed to cheering against yourself because somebody else did something great.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. You wrote i i in my notes here just from page 96, like celebrating other successes, especially when you're not currently experiencing much much success. That's hard. Yeah. And it speaks to like an abundant mindset versus, a you know, a scarcity mindset. and But it is a subtle thing. If you can learn to just because someone else is experiencing something great,
Speaker: it It doesn't mean you can't experience that eventually. Yes, totally. and it can be it can be a great motivation for you and can help get you closer to you experiencing success. We self-sabotage so much.
Speaker: And if people actually just broke down it and removed themselves from the situation and imagine they were watching someone else doing it, like your Strava example is a great example. If you were sitting with a really good friend and they were looking at Strava and they're like, oh,
Speaker: look what he did. he's so good. And, you know he, he trains a lot. He has the time to train a lot. Well, I mean, you know, because, you know, the situations in where he lives, the job he has all, and you stop, you go, in what way is what you're doing, getting you closer to your goals?
Speaker: but what What is it? It's not putting you in a good mood to train. it's It's not a healthy mindset. This is all negative stuff that's dragging you down. And it is proven that having a healthy mindset, having positive self-talk, being a good coach and teammate to yourself aids in performance. Nothing you're doing is helping.
Speaker: And yet we allow ourselves to do it as opposed to being like, geez, this sport is getting better and better and better. I mean, I actively moved to the other side of the country to get better, guaranteeing I was probably never, ever, ever, ever going to win a race again for the rest of my life.
Speaker: I went from being like the best miler on the track where I was training to not even the best miler in my apartment from where I lived. I wasn't the best miler at Merrill Lynch. One of the guys who lived there was Jason Lund, who was a 354 miler. I couldn't even be the best miler there at work. So, but I never looked at it as, well, now there's less success for me.
Speaker: it was always the best opportunity for me to achieve the most success I can achieve is to surround myself with people that are just better than me. And it doesn't mean they're gonna be better than me forever.
Speaker: Maybe i will improve so much that I will be better than some of them. But I will never have as good an opportunity to be as great as I can be unless I surround myself with better people.
Speaker: And I think that's how Strava could be if people looked at it that way. All these people having great runs and getting out the door. Like, yes, guess what? Doesn't that mean that there's more upside for everybody?
Speaker: and That's what I would think. Well, you also write that you know running is not complicated, but runners are complicated. and ah so how and the runners have And complicated runners have myriad ways of complicating the process. Running is so simple on its surface, but my gosh, you're bombarded with any number of things from any number of angles of how to how to complicate things. So how do you counsel people to strip it down, keep it as simple as possible?
Speaker: Well, one, to be honest about themselves. I mean, that's, that's the key. I mean, it's really, it's running is a relationship and it's a relationship between, you know, running and the runner. So that's, that's one thing in order to have a great relationship, any great relationship, you gotta be honest.
Speaker: so the But the first relationship there is between the runner and the runner. It's themselves. And I think you have to simply be honest with yourself. And you know you can give an example of towards the end of the revisions of your book, I'm sure it was getting pretty stressful and you were like, oh my gosh, we have to do another round of revisions or... The deadline is coming up and you're stressed out. You're working weird hours because, you know, the epiphany of how to, you know, fix this is coming at weird times and nothing resembling a normal schedule exists in your life. And now you're trying to go out the door for a run.
Speaker: Now, if you pretend that your life isn't as wild and screwed up as it is, you're not going to have as good a run as you could. So the first thing you need to do is ask yourself like, okay, how am I doing?
Speaker: And well, the answer, Brendan, is you're stressed out and you're really tired. And that means we're going to have to adjust. And you go, okay, let's adjust this run. Let's either go less volume or let's lower the intensity and go the same volume. You know, maybe let's lower the intensity and lower the volume because I'm really overtired. What's going to happen is is you're going to have a better run. And if you can string together enough of those better runs, the right runs, you're going to run better.
Speaker: But a lot of runners think they can leave their entire life at the starting line. And you can't. All it does is get dragged behind you. And if you've ever tried to run dragging something, it ain't fun. And it's an incredible waste of energy. It doesn't mean that, you know, the run's going to fix everything by the finish, but you will have a better run.
Speaker: And when you have a better run, i think you're more likely to, to be able to work on the things that were bothering you at the starting line by the time you get to the finish line. So that's a, that's a line that a lot of people have seized upon because I think it's been like an aha moment for a lot of people like, oh yeah, I am complicated. I've got a lot going on in my life. Running is supposed to help.
Speaker: Okay, well, running can't help if you don't tell it what it needs to help with. So just be open and honest. That's the key. And that comes from just coaching. You can't coach anybody unless they answer that first question of just how are you doing?
Speaker: And they got to answer it honestly. So ask yourself. And I think you're going to end up having better runs and better days. You also write, you know, doubt loves runners because runners create the perfect environment for doubt to exist. And that's true of writers too. Yeah. Just insecure writer brain, writers and runners can be insecure too. So, and ah in in what ways have you found that, you know, running creates the perfect environment for doubt?
Speaker: Well, from, if I'm looking at it from a coaching perspective, ah the runner is usually the last one to know they're ready to do something great. Hmm. And, you know, the amount of conversations I've had with somebody on a starting line, like, hey, i I think you can do this. The weather's good. The training's been good. I think the field's going to be good. You know, you can do this. And the look of just, I don't know what you're talking about. There's no possible way I can do that. As if I'm an idiot and I've never seen this before. And, you know, like I said at the beginning, it's really important for a coach to be honest.
Speaker: Because of situations like this, that moment where say, you're ready to do this. Now, if if I've lied in the past, they may not believe me in that moment. And that's, that's the most important moment of coaching.
Speaker: Like, I believe you can do this. They have to believe you in that moment, which means you have to be honest about everything. So what happens is in that moment, hopefully they trust me. They go in there and I'm sure you've seen this. I'm sure you've experienced it yourself. Once, once you do it,
Speaker: you immediately have this whole new set of expectations. You know, it's like, there's no way I can break three hours in the marathon. And then somebody runs 258.30 and they finish and they're like, yeah, you know, think, you know, if just change a couple of things, I think I can break 250. And you're like, whoa, whoa, where were you 26.2 miles ago saying there's not a chance you're going break three hours. Now suddenly you're like, I think I can run 245. The athlete is always last. And I get it.
Speaker: And most of it comes from just, I i really think it it matters so much that it's a lot easier to think I'm not going to get this because if I don't, it's going to break my heart.
Speaker: And i usually have to tell runners like, you're going to get your heart broken. And that's also one of the best parts about this sport is that it teaches you that you have something in your life that really matters.
Speaker: And if you live this life the right way, you should get your heart broken. over and over again. you know It's a muscle. It'll build itself back up bigger and better, but it's it's going to get broken.
Speaker: But I understand it from that very human moment on the starting line of, I want this so bad that I'm scared that I'm not going to get it. And I don't know how I'm going to feel and handle it when I don't.
Speaker: So I'm just going to say I'm not going to get it. And we do that with everything in our lives. you know And I get that. It's just I think it's okay to also say, i want this so much and I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle it if I don't get it, but I'm going to go after it.
Speaker: And then afterwards, guess what? You'll figure it out. Totally. Yeah. You're, you're speaking to that vulnerability we talked about yeah earlier and yeah. and and people can really, especially if you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself for a particular race, maybe it's ah a marathon and you want to qualify for, for Boston, you need a certain time and you can, people can really, you can get really psyched up about that and put so much pressure on yourself and forget, ah forget the journey, forget about having fun with it. and, yeah How do you counsel people who are who might be you know jacking themselves up a bit too much, putting too much pressure on themselves?
Speaker: Well, I mean, i think some of is what you just said. I mean, the giving them just the dose of reality of, guess what? This might not happen. Like, I have no problem telling an athlete beforehand, like, this might not work out, especially with something like the marathon. I mean, 42.2K. So much can go wrong.
Speaker: If the temperature is off by two degrees, your time is is drastically different. you know if the If the wind is in the wrong direction for 10K, it can screw up your entire race. you know there's There's so much that can go on. Someone could have sneezed on you on a plane 10 days earlier, you know three rows up, and now you're at 95% as opposed to You're wondering where the 1.6 seconds per mile, which ends up being 40 seconds, you know, where it went, like, it doesn't take much, which is part of the fun.
Speaker: So I think it's one of those things where it does go back to just being like, look, sports is one of the places where it's safe to be this vulnerable, you know, and you you are free of failing without really terrible consequences.
Speaker: Like, you can go out there and not get the BQ qualifier. and run the most badass race you've ever had. you know And I think it's it's really just giving heavy doses of reality. And part of it was when, again, when I was coaching teenagers, you know like it was it was always, i always shaped it as, the the point was to be this fit on the starting line, to run this time. It doesn't mean you're going to run the time.
Speaker: It just means you're fit enough to do it if the wind dies down. and it gets a little bit cooler and the pacing works out and you feel good.
Speaker: But beyond all of those things happening, I don't know, maybe it's a sit and kick. So like I was, when I, when I started working with adults who, again, you know, the marathon has kind of taken over, I think kind of the mindset of a lot of people, the marathon is more than any other race, the most time focused race, you know, like if you look up, ah you know, any of the top milers in the world and you look at the they're their, their mile times over the course of the season,
Speaker: It's all over the place. And you get to a championship race, it's not the fastest. Do you think Matt Centrowitz cares that he ran 349 in the Olympic Games for 1,500 meters when he ran faster than that in high school? No, because 349 won the Olympic Games.
Speaker: You could make the case that his greatest race he ever ran, tactically savvy, kept out of trouble, never stopped believing, put himself in a position to win at all times, and then won the gold medal in the Olympic 1500, running a time slower than he ran in high school, which he probably ran faster than as a junior in high school. But it wasn't about the time. It was how well can you race?
Speaker: And I think when you convince people like, listen, this is an opportunity for you to race really well, which can mean a lot of different things. And I'll often tell people your first goal in any race should be to race well. And what that means should be a list of things that have nothing to do with numbers.
Speaker: And if you do that and check all those boxes, the cool thing is it also gives you the best chance to reach the time goal. But start with that. How can you do something great that has nothing to do with this clock that you're so concerned about?
Speaker: And then I think that gives people a slightly, you know, broader picture of what they're trying to do. As you mentioned, like enjoy themselves, challenge themselves, push themselves, have a great experience, celebrate the work that they've done as opposed to just How quickly can I cover the distance in the shortest duration possible?
Speaker: Yeah, which is such ah like a soulless, mechanical way to go yeah about it. And I think part of what your book does really injects a lot of life and vitality into the rote repetition of striding and mileage. And I think what it does particularly well as well, and you you said this too, like...
Speaker: trying to get away like nothing to do with numbers like your book has nothing has no numbers in it you know it has no paces it has no times it is it is a more um ah like a life uh vitality injected kind of philosophy take on on running that um that puts it in the eye of the beholder where we can you know take what you're saying and i hate the pun and run with it pardon sorry about the pun but actually i sorry mighttos puns baby Go with it. Go with it. Sometimes it just works. It just feels so good. But that's the point. i love that, you know, there's no pressure involved in it. you You know, like, you know, this age quantified time or whatever the hell the thing is. It's yeah, there are no numbers here. So you can kind of you can you can metabolize it in your own with your own point of view. Make what you will with it.
Speaker: Yeah, and honestly, i I also believe that that's the best way to get to those numbers that you're chasing after. Like, it's just, it was early on um when I was talking about the book with different publishers and, um you know, I had written maybe half the book already. i don't know how many chapters we had shared. And, you know, a couple of people asked, like, so are there going to be like training plans? And I was like, no, yeah nope, not at all.
Speaker: Because it's, i I think you, it doesn't matter how great the training plan is if you don't understand why you're running. And if you don't understand how to look at it as you put it as something other than something utterly mechanical, like today I have to run for 30 minutes at this pace. Like ah ah why, why, why are you doing this? And the bigger picture, why are you doing this? And is this 30 minutes you're going to dedicate to running truly be nothing more than like a couple of numbers in your ledger? Is that, is that really, I just think of like Ebenezer Scrooge, you know, he would, that's that that's, when I see like a training plan with none of the heart and the soul, I just think like that's, that's if Scrooge was a coach. It was just very cold calculating, this is the distance or the duration, this is the pace, move on.
Speaker: not none None of the the other aspects of it. And, you know, the runners that have been good for a really long time, at every level. I'm not just talking about the ones that have been great at, you know, the highest professional ranks, but you know, there are people that get overlooked that are in the back of the pack, so to speak, that are some of the most successful runners of all time that have run 30 straight New York city marathons, which means somehow they've navigated the training 30 years in a row to be healthy and race 26.2 miles year after year, after year, after year, after year, many of them, setting a personal best or running a very good time right around the range of me basically what their training is dictating, saying you're probably ready to do this, which is really hard to do mentally and physically to say like I got within basically that potential range that I had. And if you ask them, like what are some of the keys?
Speaker: Almost across the board, the first thing they're going to say is, oh, I just, I love running. Okay, that's it. we don't and We don't need a follow-up question. And I'm not saying that you have to be a complete, total nerd like me, but if you find the parts of it that you love, um that's going to help.
Speaker: And all of those numbers will get taken care of. You know, that's the key. You performing your best is someone who's at their best. I think everyone would be like, yeah, duh, that makes sense. And it's like, well, let's,
Speaker: break that down. What are you when you're at your best? And most people would be like, oh, well, probably pretty happy um with myself and, you know, probably with my other relationships in my life. And I'm pretty confident. I would say I'm also just satisfied kind of with like where I'm at. Like, you're like okay, keep going, keep going. And and you suddenly realize like, where's this in the training plan?
Speaker: It's not, but all of this affects the training plan. So get your shit right in your life. Take care of the runner and the runner will take care of the running is kind of the mindset. So yeah, i mean, that's, that's kind of the foundation for it.
Speaker: And what is the running the thousands of miles ah over your life? ah yeah How did that help you write your first book?
Speaker: um I think because i i didn't start running, ah ah you know, loving the training. I loved the racing, you know? I loved the racing. I didn't love the training. The training was just...
Speaker: arduous and I was lazy and it took consistency and you're like, Oh, these are all the things that a writer needs. Like you need to be consistent. You know, you, you you need to be honest. Um, you need to keep showing up.
Speaker: Um, you know, it's, you need to be open to kind of the, the, the ebbs and flows of, of how it goes. It's the same thing with like any season. Like there's, periods you're like, why am I so flat? And there's other times you're like, I just need to line up because I can do anything right now. It's like, I've never felt this strong and powerful. And then suddenly you're burnt out out of nowhere, you know, um or you you you get shocked with a really bad result or you get shocked by a really good result. It's the same thing that happens with writing where i I realized that kind of consistency, which I struggled with early on in my running career, helped me dramatically because I would
Speaker: set myself up for success. Like I had a ah routine where I basically just wrote at my kitchen table and i had music on, I made a playlist. I would like add songs to this playlist that ended up having like, i don't know, like maybe 60 songs. I put it on shuffle and I listened to those same songs throughout the entire process, whether I was writing or editing, it was just the whole thing just But it got me into this kind of mood. It's same thing of like, well, when we would have, you know, practice when I was coaching high school, we'd get together, or everyone would change. I'd immediately make them, they'd have to go do a warmup, which was so they could BS with each other and kind of talk and kind of ease out of school and into practice. Then they'd stretch, they'd do some drills. Some days there'd be a little bit more intense. Some days it'd be a little less intense, depending on what we were doing because everything was okay. We're getting ready to do something.
Speaker: And everything was setting up like, are we getting ready to do kind of an easy run? Are we getting ready to do a long run? Are we getting ready to do a hard interval session? Everything was kind of tweaked. So when it was time to do it, their body was kind of like, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready for this. I wasn't ready an hour ago, but I'm ready now. And that was kind of the way I looked into it. I i started by writing the names of like 50 chapters.
Speaker: So I kind of knew like, okay, this is this is the book, but I didn't write it in order. because I knew it was going to be next to impossible to do that. I knew like what I needed to do was kind of get ready. I've got my music on. And now it was like, what do I want to write about right now?
Speaker: I gave myself the best chance for success, which was not saying today we're writing this. It was, I would just look at it and say, what do I want to write about right now? Because my life was changing. The day was changing. The mood was changing. What was on the news was changing my vibe. You know, like yeah If I'm watching some really depressing stuff about the state of the world, you know, I probably am not going to want to write about a certain story of my life at that moment.
Speaker: I might want to write about overcoming, you know, you know, hardship or or what it means to struggle. Suddenly like, okay, well, I'll do that then. I thought I was going to do this, but now I'm going to do that. It was basically going back to that question I say coaches should ask.
Speaker: How are you doing? And then that allowed me to figure out, right, what am I writing about? So, I mean, like to me, it was, um I have such also more respect. I've always had so much respect for creators, people that write especially.
Speaker: But having write written this, I look at books like the front runner and I look at books like fiction and I think, wow, like that's, That's incredible. It's like the equivalent of like writing Strava, like Strava for writers. I see this and I'm like, the amount of diligence you need to do to tell someone's story.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, could I ever do that? It's the same thing of looking and being like, could I ever run an ultra? You know like, oh my God, that seems impossible. Or fiction where I think the best fiction where I'm like, wow, this this person, like i can I can see how they're sweating.
Speaker: Like, this is amazing. I can feel how nervous, I'm nervous. You know, like, that to me, having written what I wrote, realizing, wow, like when I'm reading books, cause always reading two books at a time, a nonfiction and a fiction, it's, it's made me just realize, uh, what I thought were great artists were actually well beyond that. So it's also given me that I i have a much greater, which I didn't think I could have a much greater, uh, respect for the profession of writing and writers.
Speaker: I love hearing you say that you would look at, say, all of those chapters that you could have written from. me be like, you know, what do I feel like writing today? Instead of just going linearly and grinding yourself through this one particular anecdote or chapter that is just like, ugh, I don't want to do this. But one, i you know what? I can write... The confidence chapter. I can write runners are complicated chapter. Like I can do that.
Speaker: Boom. I can probably knock that out in 30 minutes and feel all kinds of good. Yes. Then you're building up that confidence to take on that. The one that's like, ah this one's a slog. I've been putting this one on. Yeah. i like I like the idea of giving yourself permission to write non-linearly and then package it up however you want because sometimes it's just like running miles. Sometimes you just got get certain ones down. and And then that gives yourself a tailwind of some kind.
Speaker: I agree. i mean that's And that's what coaching is. And I mentioned that in the book. you know ah Coaching isn't writing training plans. It's adjusting training plans. And yes, Tuesday may be we're doing intervals.
Speaker: But because of what happened on Monday, we're now moving what's going on Tuesday. So we're just going to do another easy run. And we're going to bump intervals out to Wednesday. Or maybe we're skipping intervals this this week. And we'll do them next week because of what's been going on. So yeah those types of adjustments happen in coaching all the time. And i mapping out kind of the 50 or so chapters, i don't even know how many it was.
Speaker: i had I had the order. It didn't matter the order I wrote them. Well, I feel like I could talk to you for hours and hours, Chris. ah and so um But I know I would need to be mindful of your time. And as I bring these conversations down for a landing, i always love just asking the guests for just a fun recommendation of some kind. And that's just like anything you're excited about that you want to share out there. So I would just pose that to you, coach.
Speaker: Jeez. I mean, this is a loaded question because there's a lot out there that excites me. um Yeah. I mean, it's... Well, tim as I mentioned, I...
Speaker: I basically have a list of things that I know i can go to when I'm struggling. So like I said, whether it's, you know, the world that's beating you down or, you know, you've got something tough going on you know, at home or, you know, you're just flat. i i always tell people like when things are going great,
Speaker: or things are going okay. Put together a list of things that you go to that you love. So for instance, I live pretty close to the ocean. It's super important for me to get near the ocean every single day. And what happens is when things aren't going great, this is when we tend to go into caves and we block everything out, especially the stuff that we need.
Speaker: And you can kind of lose sight. It's like when you, you know, if you're with a friend or a partner, or a spouse and you ask like, you want for dinner? And like, well, what do you want? Like, well, I don't know. What do you want? And then next thing you know, you're I can't think of a food on this planet that I want. There is literally nothing I want. And then you start getting mad at each other because you're like, how is this possible? Like you don't have, like, do you, are you not thinking? Why can't you think of anything? We do that too when we're going through stress.
Speaker: So for me, I know the question was like, what's exciting me? um I just think of the stuff that I know. always will cheer me up. So I'm not a very good guitar player, but I have an acoustic guitar and it's always handy. I have access to the beach. So Mother Ocean is right there. I'm getting older and I know that one of the things I need to do as I get older, is maintain you know good balance. So I'm skateboarding again, ah which is awesome. Yeah. So I'm super excited about that.
Speaker: I live near Asbury Park, which is a great, great diverse town and it's got awesome music. So there's live music. I love live music and I'm always reading, always reading. So right now just about finishing up Ron Chernow's Mark Twain.
Speaker: i think I've got about 60 pages in that tome. And I'm also reading Black River Orchard by Chuck Wigand, which is a ah good kind of Stephen King type book. So right now, those are the types of things that...
Speaker: If I'm feeling like I need a little vitality, you know, um I need something to supercharge me or bring a smile to my face, I'll i'll do any of those things. Well, that's great. You're bringing up Twain. you know one One of your better coaching anecdotes comes from Tom Sawyer. And yeah people who can ah yeah they can read about that in your wonderful book. So just ah it's amazing. I'm so glad I got to talk to you, Chris. And thanks so much for carving out time to do this. This was awesome. No, thank you for having me. Thank you for writing such an extraordinary book.
Speaker: front runner about Prefontaine. For all of us geeks, it was ah it was kind of a a gift that we i don't I don't know if we knew we were going to get something that good about Pre.
Speaker: And it's been really great because it's, it's I think, reestablished um at a such an important time, um this vital person in our sport. and if If you're a runner, if you're not a runner, Pri's one of those people that transcends his sport and his story is something I think everybody should read. And you you did such a great job. So thank you for writing that as as a coach and as a fan. it meant a lot to have that out there. Oh, amazing. Well, thank you that.
Speaker: Yes. Awesome. What nice words about the front runner. Like how cool is that? I think I'm going to like clip that out and listen to it on a loop or something. That could help maybe help my head.
Speaker: Big thanks to coach Bennett for coming on the show. And for you for making it this far, the three of you who do. Lots of things to subscribe to, like the podcast or Pitch Club or the Werewolf Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. Follow the show on Instagram at Creative Nonfiction Podcast and consider leaving ratings and reviews for the show, for the frontrunner, even for Six Weeks Saratoga.
Speaker: They all validate either the books or the show for the wayward reader or the wayward CNF-er the wayward listener. You know, for whatever reason, I started thinking about that classic recommendation newsletter format and how I thought it might have been just played out.
Speaker: yeah It seemed like they started with a surge in the early 2010s, and then people like me around that time kind of copied that form, and then more people copied that form until your entire inbox was full of a thousand people recommending stuff to you, often with affiliate links so they can make a buck off their taste.
Speaker: Okay, I don't use affiliate links, though. I've considered it only of late to perhaps set up micro-scholarships to offset the cost of going to writing conferences for people.
Speaker: In which case, maybe I should set up a bookshop.org affiliate page. You go there, buy books, and whatever commission I get will help people... Or help people defray the cost of fill-in-the-blank writing conference. I don't know. I'm going to chew on that bone for a little bit. A black Kong stuffed with peanut butter.
Speaker: If you will. You know, if you really like the person's newsletter you're subscribing to, pick Rage Against the Algorithm or even Pitch Club. Getting a list of their recommendations is a bit of an entree into their thinking and what makes their brain tick.
Speaker: you know In a way, you get a you get to know them just a little bit better in that weird parasocial way that we actually think we know these people on the other side of the digital divide.
Speaker: yeah The other reason to champion the classic recommendation format is that back in the pre-internet days, your friends or siblings would buy a CD, which is a ah compact disc.
Speaker: for for some of you, ah from The Wall or Sam Goody or Newbury Comics or FYE with $20 worth of allowance. And maybe you'd listen together after school. and and But just as often, your friend or sibling would be like, oh, this is awesome. You got to get it.
Speaker: And you did. And that's one-to-one, that recommendation. yeah Before social media, our friends were the OG algorithm. yeah We hung out with people with similar tastes or maybe even different tastes. That's how you got turned on as something else. That's how the punks maybe learned about heavy metal and heavy metal learned about i'm jazz.
Speaker: i don't know. yeah We'd experiment. We'd swap CDs or borrow CDs or VHSs or DVDs. yeah You'd wait vigilantly beside your tape deck, radio, hoping to catch Will Smith's boom, shake, shake, shake the room on that night's countdown on Fun 107.
Speaker: So you could hit record and tape that song, not speaking from experience at all. Wild times. Better times. Truly. And not in a saccharine way. Not in a it was better in my day kind of way.
Speaker: But because we had agency. And we outsourced our agency for convenience. And we outsourced that convenience to the phone. And we outsourced the phone to social media. we outsourced social media to AI. And now AI has come for our brains. What's left of them.
Speaker: And it's already here. And the oligarchs are jamming it down our throats. As if AI is the new religion. The latest opiate of the masses. I'm not all up on the AI dialogue quite yet, but I'm awfully skeptical since this tech is being forced on us by media investors, tech founders on the hunt for the huge IPO and influencers.
Speaker: yeah know i've all I've long fantasized about a day where a billion people at the same time delete Facebook or Instagram or fill in the blank. I would love to see it crumble.
Speaker: Platforms left with nothing but AI bots talking to each other. So yeah, long live the recommendation newsletter so that we can try out some new stuff that an actual human thought enough to pass along.
Speaker: So stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.
