Cloud259

We got this airplane to fly. Aided by the advice of professional and elite amateurs, Brenn sliced through the three hour barrier with a 2:56:40 at the New York City Marathon. In this podcast interlude Brenn describes the race and Gregg gives us a sneak peak at his next long effort.

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The Big Apple is buzzing over the return of the marathon, and in Episode 16 we get multiple perspectives on the race. Sam Grotewold, who manages the pro field for New York Road Runners, gives us his inside info on the elites and a few sleeper picks. He even tells us who’ll be on “Mary’s Truck” mulling a marathon debut in the years ahead. Local legend Alan Ruben of the Central Park Track Club talks about his amazing string of 25 straight NYC marathons, the last 23 of which were under 3 hours, and offers tips for the course he knows so well. Later on, Brenn discusses Tony Reavis’ blog entry on keeping up with the Kenyans, and Gregg gets on the Soapbox to say enough to all the advice for Ryan Hall.

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It’s fickle, this 26.2. Gregg describes his race at Hartford last weekend, his 32nd marathon and his first with a hard target of 2:59. Brenn then outlines his New York City Marathon prep with two weeks to go before the Cloud’s second shot at sub-3.

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When you are feeling great during a marathon, at what point do you leave your goal pace behind and go for broke? In episode 15, rising marathon star Ryan Vail gives us his in-race strategy as he prepares for the NYC Marathon. Elsewhere in the episode, Gregg shares advice from Jaymee Marty’s blog as he laces up for Saturday’s Hartford Marathon, which will mark Cloud259’s first crack at the three hour barrier. Brenn gets on the soapbox and comments on the anticipation surrounding Ryan Hall’s return to the long race.

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Jason Hartmann, with consecutive fourth place finishes at Boston, is the top American in the World Marathon Majors 2012-13 leaderboard. In episode 14 we interview the modest gent about his career, this fall’s NYC Marathon, his coaching of high school phenom Elise Cranny, and Competitor Group’s decision to eliminate its elite athlete program. We also find out what shoes Hartmann (who is without a shoe sponsor) prefers to train and race in. Elsewhere in the episode, we offer praise and criticism, respectively, for David Epstein’s “The Sports Gene” and Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article on genes and drugs. We climb on the soapbox to add our two cents to the Competitor Group discussion.

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Moscow, here we go! Jeffrey Eggleston, who will be running for the U.S. at the marathon World Championships on August 17, joins us in lucky Episode 13. We dig into Jeffrey’s preparation and goals for Moscow and the 2011 Pittsburgh marathon in which he ran as a pacer for 18 miles and then proceeded to win the race. In the library Brenn visits the photo archives and unearths old snaps of Eggleston and Lopez Lomong, and Gregg climbs the soapbox to flush the Rock ‘n’ Roll Philly Half’s $45 Premium upgrade down the toilet.

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Dot McMahan will be running the marathon at the IAAF Championships in Moscow, and in Episode 12 we learn how the newly minted U.S. 25K champ has continued to sharpen her times through two Olympic Trials and one baby girl. We also get a report from Glen Redpath hot of the heels of his inspiring 12th place and sub-30 hour finish at Badwater (interview transcript). In the library, we highlight articles spawned by Andrew Begley’s survey on elite runners’ (lack of) earnings, and on the soapbox Brenn is moved by an article from Jesse Squire’s tracksuperfan.com site to ramble about drugs, journalism, and public relations.

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As if the Badwater 135 mile ultra wasn’t sufficiently hellish, the mercury for this year’s race may hit the 120s. In episode 11, elite ultrarunner Glen Redpath discusses his preparation for the race (interview transcript), which begins next Monday. Elsewhere in the episode we highlight the odd confluence between the last laps of the 5,000m and 800m races, Gregg takes a Hansons training book out of the library, and Brenn adapts Alan Culpepper’s advice on run/life balance to figure out how to train for a marathon while on vacation.

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Jeannette Faber, owner of 13 consecutive marathon PRs, will be representing the U.S. at the World Championships in Moscow this summer. Faber, our interview guest in Episode 10, describes her progression from a 3:28 marathoner to a member of the US national team. We discuss Jeannette’s races, her training, and her work/run balance, and she offers us a gem of a tip for breaking three hours in the marathon (or for achieving any specific marathon goal). Elsewhere in the episode, we critique the recently completed U.S. Track Championships. Brenn breaks down performances by sponsor, with an eye to Nike’s gender-skewed dominance. We visit the library to unwind an SI article on Leo Manzano that is based on a faulty premise, and Gregg gets on the soapbox to offer an alternative to the arcane system of standards used to select the runners that will represent us at Worlds.

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In episode 9, we interview our fastest subject yet: 2:09 marathon man Alan Culpepper. Culpepper offers a 360 degree view of the sport from the perspective of elite runner turned race organizer and coach. Alan recounts his 2007 cross-country nationals win at Boulder, offers pithy training tips, and aids us in our quest to shed light on the business of track and field and road racing. Elsewhere in the episode, Gregg discusses the sub 2:10 Americans and finds in the mailbox an inspiring letter from a listener with a success story. Brenn takes out Matt Fitzgerald’s “The New Rules of Marathon and Half-Marathon Nutrition” from the library and gets on the soapbox to discuss the Nike Oregon Project silver and black singlets. And as we kick off our own marathon training cycle, we offer listeners a quicker workout alternative to the Yasso 800s – the Cloud259 1000.

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